Christmas Shenanigans from Footballer's Knees.

I am blatantly stealing cred from my insanely talented sis, Footballer's Knees, again.  A quick recap; she lives in the UK with her husband Big A, and son J.

Here for your delectation is one of her latest fb missives...

Big A and I are playing the traditional game,'What's behind the Advent calendar door?' As usual, we are days behind, so have a week's worth to open.

'Number 5 - what's it going to be?' I ask, expectantly. 

Big A draws in a breath and sucks his teeth, in the manner of a brown coated hardware shopkeeper, thinking about whether he has 3 mil washers in stock. He's an aficionado of this game and takes it seriously. 'Well, it's early days, so we shouldn't be expecting angels or stars. I'm thinking camel, the ship of the desert...'

'....it's a star.'

Big A shakes his head. What is the world coming to, when a star makes such an early appearance in the game? 'OK then, if that's the way it's going to be, the next one will be an angel.'

Pause. 'It's two kittens, playing with a ball of wool.'

He shakes his head again. Time to play tough. 'In that case, it's definitely an angel next...'

'...it's a woman collecting water from a well.'

Big A stands and shouts. 'What the f@ck? What sort of sh*t is that?'

I cover my ears. 'Ssshh, don't swear in front of the Advent calendar. If you can't play nicely, we won't play at all.'

I hang up the calendar and exit the room, leaving him to untangle the Christmas tree lights alone.

Big A's Culinary Adventures

This is another post from my sis on fb.  It just made me spit tea all over the keyboard, so wanting to bask in the reflection of her glory (yet again), I have nicked it for your reading pleasure.

A bit of background: my sister (the former blogger known as Footballer's Knees) lives with her husband Big A, and 18 year old son, J.  Once a week she spends the night away from home on business - no prizes for guessing which day that is...

Big A's food baby is hanging around, despite frequent grym visits, so his personal trainer has suggested that he keeps a Food Diary for a week. Here follows my imagining of that diary:

This is the food what I have eaten this week, by Big A:

Monday
Dear Diary, tonight we had super noodles and potato waffles and crispy pancakes cos it was Boys Teas. Mmmn, lush, brill. J said he wished we could eat that every night and I said yep but we wouldn't be allowed because of the bad fat. And then we were sad until Defiance came on. Style.

Tuesday
Dear Diary, today the grown up was back so I had to eat boring healthy food, yuck. I said that it made me a bit sick in my mouth and she got cross so I had to stay at the table and miss New Girl.

Wednesday
Dear Diary, tonight it was Lamb Tagine and something called Cush Cush which tasted like tiny ants' brains. Diary, I tried to eat it but it was totally disgusting and I had to keep it in my mouth and then go to the toilet and spit it out. J saw me and I had to pay for his petrol so he wouldn't tell.

Thursday
Yuck.

Friday
DD, tea tonight was so lush, we got a curry. And poppadoms. And naan. And beer. And special rice. I was a bit tired afterwards and I fell asleep in front of Suburgatory and then got told off for farting and laughing at it. Tomorrow we're going out for teas, I wonder what we'll eat?

Saturday
[blank]

Sunday
DD, last night I drank a lot of beer. Today I was quite tired. I ate a bacon sandwich, a grab bag of Wotsits, a Ginster's pasty, roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, treacle tart, a ham sandwich, a bag of Maltesers and a bowl of Cheerios. And an apple. Pie.

The End.

A long distance broadcast from Footballer's Knees...

... who you may remember as my sis, and who is much much funnier than I am.  Nowadays she no longer blogs but posts on fb under a different name, and is as entertaining as ever.

Here's one of her recent posts, to which I can only add 'what she said...'.  (And 'why can't I write like this?')


A few things we are not warned about on reaching our forties:

You get angry in a queue just because someone near you has an annoying voice. And the inflection they use at the end of a sentence makes you want to commit murder?

Fat just rushes to join your stomach and triple boobage. You can put on half a stone over Christmas just through eating a few After Eights and a couple of peanuts, despite going to the gym for FIVE days in a row.

Tepe brushes - the instrument of the devil and the invention of a Swedish masochist. It's like a crime scene in your mouth when you've finished.

And speaking of teeth - you need to allow an extra 20 minutes each night for cleaning. By the time we've reached mid forties, we've invested more in our teeth than in our kitchen so need to spend extra time fiddling with brushes, retainers and various solutions whilst staring soullessly into the bathroom mirror and wondering how life got to be this way.

You shout at news reports that quote Tweeted reactions from 'celebs' to validate the stories and add extra interest. Who cares that Harry from One Direction is very sorry to hear about the death of Nelson Mandela? Who cares?

You get angry just because someone is wearing annoying hipster spectacles.

You start to 'invest' more in lottery tickets in a desperate bid to end the relentlessness of a job you certainly didn't discuss as a possibility with your useless Careers Advisor thirty years ago.

You realise that there is no such thing as a cheap holiday now because you refuse to book anywhere less than 4 star and won't use an airline that doesn't reserve seats. Or share a pool - the last holiday with a shared pool resulted in you getting up at 6 every morning to reserve the sun beds so that you could be a far away as possible from that annoying family from Birmingham who turned the whole area into a Grazia, OK and inflatable crocodile strewn family compound and who discussed Fifty Shades in excruciating detail whilst applying Factor 2 Carrot Oil to their husbands' hairy backs.

You look around at your peers and wonder why they can still drink a bottle of wine/wear cheap onesies without embarrassment/go out for 2 nights in a row/enjoy going out for two nights in a row whilst you struggle to stay up past 10.30 at night and won't step foot in Primark.

And then you realise that you need to get a grip, lighten up and embrace the choices and opportunities that life offers you before you turn into a sad old lady who shouts at strangers in the street. Although you will never, ever wear a onesie.

Plagiarism - pure and simple...

My sister, the ex-blogger formerly known as 'Footballer's Knees', posted this on her fb page yesterday.  I thought it worth reproducing here as it's so funny.  And sorry sis for not asking your permission but it is 5am your time and I figured that a) you wouldn't mind my using it and b) bearing in mind we are using the same airline ourselves today - on the newly introduced route to London from Moscow, which frankly is going to be a VERY interesting experience - it was relevant...


"Day trip to Newcastle today. Where to start? To rant or to rave? I could rave about the great Easyjet service, the dulcet tones of Paul McGann's recorded voice used for the flight safety notice (the words, 'Brace! Brace!' have new meaning for me), the way the staff of the exec lounge found my passport and delivered it to me at the gate, the fact that I was first off the plane. Didn't you know that it's a race from the plane steps to the airport arrivals exit? I'm not that fast but I beat the short fat-bottomed man in pin stripes and the woman with leopard print stilettos and bad hair extensions. 

Or, I could rant. Oh about so, so many things. Or rather, people. 

The loud and whey-faced people in the security queues who gave the Departure lounge the air of Appleby Horse Fair. Or the horse faced bint with the Accessory Child who held up the whole queue of passengers behind her whilst she placed her many bags in the overhead locker. Without apologising. And then held up the man who wanted to sit in the seat next to her whilst she searched in the locker again to find her phone, idle through her texts, perhaps check FB before she switched her phone off. And then delayed the actual take-off when she got the flight attendant to pull her bag out again to pass her Accessory Child something (I hoped it was some sort of tranquilliser, but alas, not). 

I was open mouthed with indignation at this point - that someone could so blatantly break the Gentle Passenger's Code of Conduct and I looked around to see if anyone was sharing that indignation but it appears that the Code is in my head as everyone else seemed unaware of the heinous crime being committed in seat 23A.

I'm now home in bed, ready for my 5.45 start tomorrow. Night night all!"


Hmmm.  Today could be very interesting.  And maybe I will break the habit of the last few years, and  actually listen to the safety announcement...