I read this:-‘I have achieved my long held dream of sleeping till I wake up for nine whole months,’ and realized I could do this even if I had to be somewhere at the crack of dawn, provided of course that I go to bed early enough.

I’m normally an owl, happy to stay up until the wee hours but sluggish and dozy in the mornings even if I have had a good and early night. In these dark winter nights it is easy to want to go to bed early, but it won’t turn me into a lark.

I took my dog out for his final walk last night. Normally we walk at the back of the castle on the marshland and country spreading across to the beach where he can do his business and it does not need clearing up anymore than the sheep poo or cow pats do. But at night we just walk five minutes up the road, often past the pond and on this particular night he decided to do it on the grass verge.

‘Great!’ i thought fishing in my pockets for doggy bag. I hate clearing poo and always feel embarrassed at being seen handling and clearing the stuff. Suddenly I saw a man, just across the street, standing motionless and staring at us. I waited for him to go as I wasn’t about to bend down and get a cosh on the head or something.

We had a strange stand-off as I stood with the Heek, waiting for him to get lost so I could clear up the mess and go, and he stared so that I started getting a prickle of unease rippling up my back as he just continued, standing there .

Then he spoke “I’m waiting to see if you’re going to clear it up.”

“Well would you mind going so I can get on with it?” I asked, thinking ‘officious plonker!’

“I’ll wait,” he said continuing to stare.

“I’m not going to do it with you there. It’s dark, i’m a lone woman albeit with dog,and you are a man just staring at me, so please go.” I asked.

He got into a car a few yards away. This was even more scary as I hadn’t heard him get out of any car so he must have done it quite quietly. Then instead of driving off he sat in the car. It was only a few yards from us. Did I tie H up and clear up, risking the fact he was a nutter and would take advantage of my tethered dog to get out of his car and approach me? Did I try to clear up holding H, risking bending down but knowing H would see him approach (but H is only a little dog so not a great deterrent. He’d bark like crazy but British apathy may not respond to a barking dog and a lone woman’s scream?) Or was I being completely paranoid and was he just a local nerd who fancied himself as the local by-law enforcement officer?

Fortunately he drove off, and I went to tether H and get on with it.

Unfortunately, as I went back with doggy bag the car had done a loop and drove slowly past again, really freaking me out so I rushed over to untether H. As I was panicking it became tangled and much harder than it should have been.

Fortunately the car continued on its way.

Unfortunately by the time I had untethered H, and gone back to where I thought the offending mess was, I couldn’t find it.

Picture strange woman and dog walking along in the dark, peering at grass verge while looking fearfully over shoulder, every few minutes.

So all you guys, please be sensitive to the fact that you may seem to be a threat if you stand and stare, or follow a woman or even walk behind her at night even if you really are just a wierd nerdy plonker.

Wishing you all a very very happy Christmas, with oodles of all you wish for yourself:-

Relatives who like each other and don’t fall out on Christmas Day.

Children who wait until after six, to start shrieking in delight, unwrapping presents and thrusting their new singing dancing bear in bed with you.

A turkey that defrosts and cooks in time.

At least a couple of programmes that you really want to watch, get to watch in peace, and which turn out to be as good as the the TV magazine promised.

No monstrous creations you have to wear on the day such as an outsize knitted patchwork jumper from your ancient gran because it may be the last thing she knits and the last Christmas she has the pleasure of seeing it worn.

Presents you really want; food or booze if relatives can’t run to the latest laptop, a giant flat screen tv or a holiday to the Seychelles.

Being allowed to snooze after the meal rather than being forced join a jolly, embarrasing Christmas walk with all your strange relatives through the streets where everyone knows you.

Nooky at some point (but not when relatives are likely to stagger in shouting ‘let’s play charades!’)

Superstores are heaving with people stocking up for a six month siege. They are only closed for one day.

People who don’t see each other from one year to the next send each other cards telling each other they are thinking of them despite the fact they will then ignore them for another year.

Some people get masses of cards and yet spend Christmas alone.

People who normally don’t come anywhere near you, suddenly want to kiss you.

Everyone gets excited about presents despite knowing that 80% will not be anything they would choose or use.

People secretly enjoy letting their hair down and showing their true colours at office parties, but then they go too far and end up doing something so embarrassing and humiliating it is the talk of the company until next time. But nobody learns from this because somebody does it all over again at the next one.

It is perfectly acceptable to start drinking at breakfast time and carry on all day despite the fact that at any other time anyone doing this would be considered to have a serious alcohol problem.

There is always a tinge of anticipation on pulling a cracker even when you are ninety and have heard every cheesy joke, worn every coloured hat and seen every silly present possible.

Artificial trees exist and people actually buy and decorate them as though they could possibly emulate the real thing.

People who don’t believe in God, go to church and worship Him and feel virtuous about it, even though they may as well be singing and praying to a brick .

A great video which I hope might serve as a gentle reminder to feed the birds in your garden as the temperature plummets, (and maybe as a deterrent to feeding gulls and pigeons!)

After the Funeral, Tea.
Strong tea in served in cups with saucers (matching) alongside understated, embarrassed looking food served in small pieces. This is to ensure that even the hungriest eat absent-mindedly, the morsels finding their way into their mouths accidentally.

Builder’s or Workmen’s Tea.
Type a. Made by the householder, willingly at first and offered with biscuits. As the work progresses into weeks and the breaks seem to match the length of the work achieved daily it is offered more and more grudgingly until it is stopped altogether. What they don’t know is that the workmen place bets on who can get the householder to make another cuppa.
Type b. The flask of strong dark syrupy tea fortified with 25 sugars which workmen bring with them, in case they meet a householder that does not offer any and for the days when their goodwill tea making will expires.

Friends’ Tea
Informal tea served in mugs, over such a good chat you don’t notice that you have polished off a plate of biscuits between you.

Meet the Boyfriend/Girlfriend’s parent’s tea.
Weak tea, served in the best china to ensure that the nervousness is accentuated by fear of smashing something. Large biscuits or cake are offered but you have a tiny side plate so you cannot avoid apologising about crumbs. Questions are always asked when you have just taken a bite.

Committee Meeting Tea.
Whether it is served in mugs or cups and whether there are biscuits (even the type of) is the result of an ealier meeting. Somebody always chokes on biscuit crumbs at a crucial moment, usually to make everyone feel bad if the vote has gone against them. Whoever makes tea always makes a racket with the china so that someone else feels obliged to make an offer of help which is refused with great martyrdom.

Community Tea
Served in churches, community halls, or school buildings at jumble sales, fetes and fairs. This is always served through a hatch on pale yellow or bule china. It is never hot but the price includes a biscuit.

Working Tea
The worst cases are those with drinks dispensing machines slopping out tepid grey liquid. The snack crisps or chocolate is usually spat out of another machine. Tea ladies with trolleys are the best; bringing round a great urn with hot, strong tea and a choice of sandwiches and cakes subsidized by the firm so everyone at work is podgy. Others have a kitchen area with a kettle, teabags that everyone chips in for and everybody’s individual mug, bought from home. One is always being used inadvertently by a visitor or new arrival who doesn’t understand the dark looks they are getting from the owner.

Morning Tea
Whereby one partner always makes the other a cuppa in bed and the one crappy thing about being single is having to make your own.

Solitary Tea
Bleary eyed, on your own at the breakfast table, talking yourself into the day with a large mug of tea and lashings of hot buttered toast.

Comfort Tea
At any time of misery or hunger, with an enormous mug, and further lashings of hot buttered toast or biscuits straight from the packet.

The Government.
Unlimited moan fodder on a daily basis.

Our Partner
Habits, lack of romance, dull sex.

Weather.
We moan about the cold but on warm days worry about global warming. When it rains it’s miserable but when it doesn’t we worry and hose pipe bans are put in place. We are never prepared for radical weather like snow or gales.

Money.
Mortgage rates, pensions, credit cards, debts. Not having enough, or other people having too much.

Health
The reason that the question ‘how are you?’ was invented. ‘Fine’ is the wrong answer. Then there is the state of the National Health Service, hospital superbugs, low paid nurses, highly paid doctors.

Bad Service.
Restaurants, shops, garages, post offices, mail order companies. Is bad service really more common than good service or do we just notice it more?

Reality TV Shows.
We have to watch the shows to get to know the best characters to moan about.

Neighbours
Nosiness, noise, pets or children, they’re bound to be guilty of something.

Kids
They have everything we had nothing. Ungratefulness. Noise.

Mobile Phones
Noise. Noise. Noise.

Saturday Night
Drink so much that you can see two of everyone. Pick anybody, (you’ll fancy them all) (a) of the opposite sex if you are heterosexual; (b) of the same sex if you are homosexual; (c) of either sex if you are bi sexual or so plastered you can no longer tell and really don’t mind either way. Get kicked out of the pub at closing time. Stumble to the place of whoever lives nearest. Go to bed and fall instantly asleep. Wake up and wonder where the heck you are, who the heck you’re with and whether the earth moved. If it did you wish you could at least remember. Check them out now that you can see just one of them and either do what neither of you were capable of last night and arrange another date, or slip away as fast as possible and repeat with someone else the following Saturday night.

Library
Lurk in the I.T. area of your local library and ask attractive nerds to explain how to do things on your computer. Sooner or later they will need to see yours or show you theirs. Or sit near those who are studying, preferably in pairs or threes. Try to see what it is they are studying and get a similar book. Find a hard-to-understand paragraph and sigh a lot. The bravest will ask if you need any help and then they will all vie with each other to be the most helpful. Take your pick.

Easy as Chips
Arm yourself with a bag of freshly cooked salted, vinegary chips from a fish and chips shop. Stand near your quarry, wait until they are almost drooling and then offer them one. They will stay chatting at least until they have helped you to finish the chips, giving you plenty of time to ask for a date.

Shelter from the Storm
Carry an umbrella with you whenever rain threatens and find someone you like the look of. Follow them until the rain starts falling when you can fall into step beside them and put your umbrella over their head. Works every time.

Internet Detective
Join a ‘free’ online dating agency and check out local talent. Find out as much as you can and check out any photographs. Don’t bother paying to join so you can send them an email, but send them a wink. If they send one back, lurk around the area they live in the places you now know they frequent. When you spot them start up a conversation about something that interests them and lead them gently and firmly towards your first date. They will be convinced you are their soul mate because you seem to know and understand so much about them. If they bore you to death, repeat the process with someone else.

Love Hooligans
Start an FHA group (Football Hooligans Anonymous.) ‘My names Dave and I am a football hooligan.’ (Clap clap clap.) Mutual support often leads to love, though this plan will probably work best for girls or gays as the group might be bloke heavy  and you need to make sure they want to change their behaviour  unless you fancy  it really really rough!

Tea for Two
Be the one person in your workplace that knows exactly how to make their perfect cup of tea. Marriage or cohabitation, almost guaranteed!

I watched a couple of teenagers asking questions and trying to be facetious to a man selling poppies.

“What’s the use of a plastic flower?” they asked.

”It’s to remind us of all those that gave their lives in the war,” he replied.

“So how’s a plastic flower going to do that?”

“The poppy is a symbol. The red is the blood they shed and the flower for how fragile life is.”

“And the plastic for what a crappy idea it is’ one of the boys said.

“Some of them were younger than you. They went to war believing that they would fight for their country and come back, but they drowned in ditches, covered in mud or got shot as they ran towards the enemy. They couldn’t back out; those that did were shot as deserters.”

“Well it was a long time ago mate. Move on,” one boy said. But the other put fifty pence in and took a poppy.

”You’re not going to wear a flower? ‘the other asked incredulously.

“Why not? It’s not much to ask really,” the other one replied and put it in his buttonhole.

The poppy seller looked as though he could kiss him while the other boy sighed, shook his head but then put ten pence in the tin.

‘I don’t want one’ he said gruffly when the man offered a poppy.

“Thank you,” the seller said.

“No, it’s thank them really,” the boy said. “But I’m still not wearing a bloody flower.”

A smile is taken as some type of agreement and possibly a commitment.
Try saying no to a child while smiling…they will keep saying ‘Oh pleeeease’ until you get cross (and stop smiling.) Say no to another drink while smiling and its ‘Oh go on.’ Try smiling while saying no to a salesmen. They will not believe that you are seriously refusing their amazing one-day-only offer until you stop smiling. Even then it will take longer to get rid of them because you smiled in the first place.

It invites people to share confidences.
It makes us look caring and approachable so that others start spilling their deepest darkest secrets; and we don’t want them to. People who say ‘people are always confiding in me’ bring it upon themselves by smiling too much.

A smile indicates to others that we are nice people.
Our innate sense of fair play makes us feel that we might be misrepresenting ourselvelves if we are not.

We don’t want to seem cheesy and insincere.
We smile at our friends but why bother with strangers when we may never meet again. We don’t tell everyone to ‘have a nice day either. This is because we don’t actually care what kind of day they have.

Lifting the corners of our mouth and baring our teeth seems a bit primitive.
Well apes and monkeys do it. Surely we have evolved.

Basically we aren’t that keen on other people we prefer our pets.
Pets don’t care if you smile at them or not.

We fear rejection.
If the other person does not smile back, we will feel stupid and as though they somehow have the upper hand. It’s far too big a risk.

Our teeth are too ugly.
Well there is a National shortage of dentists!