Anne Dickens | The Day After Yesterday

Happy bloody Halloween.

Well here I am, cowering in kitchen at the back of the house - with all the lights turned off at the front - in a feeble attempt to deter all those pesky trick-or-treating kids.

You know what's like. You are sitting there, minding your own business, trying to stop the dog honking by spraying him with Fabreze, when the door knocker sounds. You tentatively open it, only to find a gang of belligerent teenagers staring at you blankly.

"Trick or treat," one of them drawls from under his baseball cap, before resuming slow gum mastication.

I have learnt from bitter experience that in circumstances such as these, you should never say 'trick', because it invariably involves dog shit or a molotov cocktail.

"Treat?" I stammered nervously, proffering them a bag full of sweets.

"Don't do sweets," says the drawly one, "only cash or major credit cards," he said.

Blimey, trick-or-treating had certainly changed from when I was a kid.

I delved into my purse which was on the table next to the front door, and pulled out 50p.

"Here you go," I said hesitantly handing the wonga over.

Drawly one shook his head, and wordlessly pointed to his acne-ridden friend. I turned to face acne boy, and upon closer inspection, noticed that he was holding up a laminated sign saying 'Minimum Spend £5.00'.

Sacre-bloody-bleu. It was bordering on a Halloween protection racket. I begrudingly handed over a fiver, and slammed the door shut, muttering 'gits' under my breath.

Then it slowly dawned on me ........... "IZZY," I shouted.

Izzy emerged from her bedroom where she had been doing a slighty disturbing, thrusting-type dance to a Lady Gaga track; "yep?" she asked.

"How do you fancy doing a bit of trick or treating?" I queried. Oh yeh, where there's money, there's me.

"Yehhhh!" Izzy shouted happily.

Double whammy. Kid enjoys herself ..... and you earn money to boot. Kerrrrrrchinggggggg.

So you will be pleased to hear that I managed to cobble together a witches outfit after an emergency shopping trip to Asda, and the pictures below are the fruits of my (and Steve's) labour. I did the outfit and Steve did the make-up.  





After being turned into a witch, Izzy then headed out with her best friend (and friend's mother) to do some trick-or-treating.

And whilst she is away, I continue to cower in the kitchen, with the lights off at the front of the house, awaiting her return ...... and dreaming about the size of the swag bag - maybe we could use the proceeds to buy a new gadget?

So dahlink, what have you been up to this Halloween?

Update: Izzy returned with no hard cash whatsoever. Her prized possessions were a pack of Cotton Candy Bubble Gum, and a Kinder Egg. [note to self: need to work on negotiation skills and priorities].

Crikey, I have been a bit slow at updating my blog of late.

Apologies about that - or - as an ex-colleague of mine used to say; "I haven't had time to fart." I remember him well. He was called Fat Phil and we worked for the same aerospace company. He operated one of the machines on the shopfloor, and he could multi-task by simultaneously shouting 'DO YOU WANT MY BABIES?' at all the girls who passed by. Awww, he was a wag.

Anyway, I digress ....... I am here to finish the post about my visit to Brighton. In my last post, I showed you some of the town including the amazing Royal Pavilion. But in today's post we (Izzy, Steve and I) are heading for Brighton's seafront dahlink. And because I am kinder than Ghandi (but I've got more hair), I have got some pictures for you.









In the blink of an eye, she dropped to her knees (in front of a crowd of strangers) and implored, "Mama, please may I go on the trampoline? I promise I will be good forever, and never again spit a brussel sprout onto Naughty George's head." So vocal and heartfelt was her plea, that I half expected the crowd of strangers to burst into spontaneous applause. They didn't. But they were all looking at me in silence ...... waiting for an answer.

"Ok, go on then," I said digging out my purse, as the strangers all grinned, nodded and smiled in appreciation of my decision. Bloody £8.00 for ten minutes that trampoline thing cost. At least they taught Izzy to do somersaults.








So there you have it dahlink ..... my trip to Brighton. What a fantabulous place!

What have you been up to this week then?

P.S. I am really sorry if I haven't stopped by your blog recently, I have been a bit swamped ;-)

Last weekend, it was my turn to look after Izzy and I was just wondering what random stuff we could do (I like doing random stuff with Izzy - it stops her getting complacent), when the telephone rang.

Ring, ring ...... ring ring ........ ring ring .......

"What?" I answered (after extricating the handset from a Barbie camper van, where it was sitting on a seat with a seatbelt on). 

"It's me, Steve," said the voice at the other end, "I just wondered if you and Izzy fancied a trip down to Brighton tomorrow?"

I gasped. "Damn right I do," I replied, "when are you picking us up?"

"About 10am?" Steve asked.

"Deal," I replied, hanging up the the phone.

For those of you who don't hail from the UK, let me tell you about Brighton. It is a seaside city located on the south coast, and it is one of my favourite places in the whole of England. In fact, if it wasn't such a rubbish location for my business, I would be living there. 

"So what is it so bloody good about it?" I hear you cry.

Ummmm, how to explain? ......... well it is bohemian, eclectic, relaxed, vibrant, cultured, and the cherry on the cake is that it is by the sea. Oh, and it happens to be the UK's gay / LGBT capital (one in three inhabitants), which probably goes a long way to explaining why it's like it is. There is only one other place that I have visited that has a similar ambience, and that is San Francisco.

I digress ..... back to our day out in Brighton.

Steve was 30 minutes late picking-up Izzy and I. It was because he had been out on the beer the night before.

He stumbled through the back door, with red eyes, complaining that the inside of his mouth was like Ghandi's flip-flop.

"Stop your whining you big girl's blouse," I said to him because I am sympathetic like Mussolini, "Let's get in the car and go."


We were soon on the road. And because I am kind like that nun bird in the Sound of Music (except I have better dress sense), I have got some pictures to show you.

It's carnage round at my house.

As you may remember, a while back I moved house from London to Oxford. But what I omitted to mention was that my London house had an attic FULL of shit dating back years. And because moving house is pretty full-on anyway, I couldn't be bothered sorting it out. So I carted it all up to Oxford and bunged it in the cellar of my new house to sort out later.

And 'later' has been the last week, after I realised I couldn't get down the cellar steps anymore.

Yep, day by day, I have been systematically dragging the shit out of the cellar and dealing with it, i.e., selling it on Fleabay Ebay. [Note: if you are a nosey git, you can see what I am flogging here: Annie's Ebay account].

But it is bloody hard work because everything needs washing, photographing and then uploading onto Ebay. So I decided to stagger it over a number of weeks, hence my house is in a state of carnage - there are literally hundreds of items in various stages of the process.

And because I am kinder than Mother Theresa (but without a following of nuns), I have got some pictures for you.







So wish me luck dahlink - it is going to take ages sorting this bally lot out. Total nightmare, and I might need smelling salts at some point.

Oh, I forgot to ask - how was your weekend by the way?

I am not sure if you remember, but a while ago I wrote some posts about taxidermy gone wrong. Man alive, writing that was such fun, I even guffawed aloud to myself (how weird is that? I hope the neighbours didn't hear).

Anyway, today I was taking Naughty George on his daily drag through a posh Oxfordshire village, when a Bentley pulled up nearby. An old bloke got out one side, and a bleached-blonde woman got out the other.

Initially, I didn't think anything of it (actually, that was a lie, I really thought 'who's the Sugar Daddy?'), until I caught a glimpse of the woman's face. It was all tight like she was continually surprised, and her lips were enormous. You know when Jack Nicholson played the Joker? It was like that, except a surprised Joker.

I recoiled slightly. Woah, that was bad cosmetic surgery. I tried to diffuse my horror by uttering a cheery 'hello', but it didn't work. She had spotted Naughty George pissing on the wheel of the Bentley, and now he was woofing vacuously in their general direction. The bloody bastard.

She pouted at me (not that I think she had a choice), and looked me up and down, before striding off to help her husband with his zimmer frame.

But then it dawned on me - extreme plastic surgery is like taxidermying (is that the correct verb?) yourself in small steps whilst you are still alive.

So I got home and decided to do some research into 'plastic surgery gone wrong'.

And sacre bleu! Just look at the state of this lot ............



















I have to say that virtually nothing shocks me, but after seeing that lot, I was left feeling slightly incredulous.

So dahlink what do you think about these people? (you have two choices but you can add more):

1. Stupid and not worthy of attention

2. Suffering some kind of dismorphic psycological illness


So, do you have any more plastic surgery disasters that you would like me to include? Please send me pictures and I will publish them and include a link to your blog. Mwahhhhhh ..... Just off to my botox appointment ;-)