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Dear Blogosphere,

How are you? It’s been some time since I wrote. Sorry about that. But in my defense I have been thinking about you, which is why I am writing – just wanted to let you know.

You may not have realised that you have singlehandedly become my internal sounding box. While I may not be writing to you much my internal monologue is with you and you alone.

As a Christian this isn’t a good thing, one’s internal dialogue should probably be with God… So maybe I should be adressing this letter to Him. However, as is usally the case he’s likely to be reading over my shoulder anyway…

You may be wondering what we talk about. And so I shall give you a little look into the monologue directed by Deeleea to The Blogosphere… from here on in referred to (if the occasion arises) as TB for short.

Scene 1 – The Kitchen

D: It is a little known fact that when one requires mashed potatoes little else will do… However with this in mind it can be traumatic to find that there is no potato masher in the kitchen (or the rest of the house, for that matter). Which leads one to ask, where is the masher? Has Flick borrowed it for some nefarious purpose or could it be that the masher belonged to Bliss and as such it has made the move Up t’North and has therefore been gone for the best part of 18 months?

This is a conundrum but is not in any way a solution to the problem of a need for mashed potatoes when there is no masher with which to deliver them.

Enter the Tea Strainer. (Image is a reference only… mine is cheap and the wire is loose… this one looks like it wouldn’t admit any potato through it’s holes…)

Just as well mashed potato is only required for one and not a dinner party of 8.

Scene 2 – The Living Room

Do you think the universe is yelling at you when you leave the power pack for the Foogee at work 3 times in one week… Can you hear it yelling something like “STOP SPENDING EVERY WAKING MINUTE AT THE LAPTOP!”?

Yeah, me too… so I’ve asked Fish to order me one for home. Just so the Universe will shut up.

Scene 3 – The Bedroom

Cleanliness is apparently next to godliness… ah well, there’s only one God in my world, and it ain’t me. As demonstrated by the state of my room.

Do you cringe everytime you open the bedroom door too? Sheesh… It can’t be that hard to put the washing away when it’s clean instead of using the dirty washing basket as a top drawer… So much for my little corner of the world at which to work and study… I can’t find the bloody thing under all the paper…

Pretty much as I feared really. I know myself too well

[end]

Watch this space for more internal monologues… They’re pretty much all I have time for at the moment…

Sigh.

I don’t pretend that my wee white Starlet* is actually ‘all that’ to look at. She’s not a get your heart racing sort of vehichle. More a comfortable sturdy sensible single girl’s car.

For a comfortably sturdy sensible single girl.

Her name is Dolly (sad but true) because she struck me upon first meeting, as being reminiscent of a then famous sheep, and as Dolly [the car] could be considered fairly manufactured and not unlike every other Starlet on the road, the nomenclature seemed appropriate….

However, the story of her name is not the essence of the discussion.

The story of her manhandling at the hands of another is.

Last Friday, while loitering outside a local coffee establishment an overbearing 4×4 touched her none too gently on her rear quarters.

‘Ooh-Er Madam’ and ‘Oh How Rude’ spring immediately to mind.

Now getting touched up is none too uncommon in these here parts, there are many a 4 wheeled vehicle on the local roads and close contact is to be expected upon occasion. Actually this is the 3rd time Dolly has been ‘touched up’ since I’ve had her. I’m almost used to it.

However, it is usual for the touch-er to apologise for being so rough and ready and to do what they can to make amends.

Customary yes…

But not everyone behaves according to custom, do they?

The 4×4 driver in question was a ‘soccer mum’ and as she reversed away from the kerb she took a fair bit of Dolly’s paint with her.

How Rude. Actually what’s ruder is that that she didn’t stop, she pulled a face at the man on the kerb who raised his hands in alarm and in question and she put her pedal to the metal and buggered off.

[insert image of Dee jumping up and down on the kerb saying all manner of things under her breath]

[Remove image] ACTUALLY, Dee, in her pre coffee state didn’t even notice and it fell to the witnessing man (I luff him) to tell me what it was he saw and to point out the damage. And to pass me a business card with a string of six numbers and letters and a description of the car and phone number where he can be reached. [insert image of Dee giving man a kiss]

[take image back, he was old and not very attractive – but luffly all the same].

So, in scene two Deeleea is leaning over the counter talking to a very luffly constable, blonde, blue eyes, sigh… uniform. [insert mental image of luffly constable leaning back over the counter and kissing Dee] actually, he is taking her statement and trying to track down the evil soccer mum. With no success.

He was even unable to simply supply a phone number which I could call to give her a piece of my mind…

But, says the luffly copper, if I was patient, he could get on his bike the following week when he was back on shift, and pay the nasty bint a lesson… Would I mind waiting? (By the way, he didn’t actually say the nasty bint part…)

Dee thinks “No sirree Bob I wouldn’t mind if it meant I could leave you my number” … A small sigh, escapes her lips, she bats eyelashes, drops head and looks through them with a shy smile… and spells out number…

So… sigh…

He called me.

And gave me her name and insurance details and an apology and an explanation for the face she pulled to the witness… (it goes something like… “I didn’t think I’d hit her”) and rang off before I could engage him in flirtatious conversation…

Damn that man….

So, the case is closed the insurance dudes are processing my claim and I”m dropping my car off in the morning for some care and attention and the right kind of touching up… but in all of this it hasn’t been mentioned that the damage the soccer mum had done very neatly covered up the damage Dolly’s dizzy owner had done backing out of a parking space a little too closely to the pillar only a few weeks ago.

So, it’s entirely possible that the jumping up and down on the kerb was more of a celebration… in that the dizzy owner is now laughing all the way to the panel beaters…

And she’s wondering if [the] Good Lord could be thanked for setting up so neat a scenario as to save her a $450 dollar excess…

I like to think so…

*Not acutally the wee white starlet in question, but an accurate representation nonetheless…

The the output from Deeleea’s bakery largely depends on availalbe resources.

Take these for example… Queen Cakes. I haven’t made these since I was learning how to cream butter and sugar in mother’s kitchen.

When I was eight . (Sh*t, that’s 30 years ago…)

The reason I made them today was the usual ‘it’s 3pm and I feel a little peckish, peckish for something sweetish’ reason… That and the ‘I can’t be bothered walking up to the shop to buy chocolate’ reason…

Well, actually, more precisely, that’s the reason I baked… the reason I made these little babies in particular was the available resources. I haven’t shopped for a while and all that were in the cupboard in terms of sweetnesses were the sultanas…

You see, if I’m in the mood for sweetness I usually start with the muffin cookbook, at c, c for chocolate. But at the moment we’re out of cocoa.

Last time I made biscotti… but nuts? I’m all out.

So, I got out my Kiwi Baking Bible and researched cake recipes for cooks with limited resources… which brings us back to the Queen Cakes… Simple cupcakes with sultanas in them… they’d be better looking if I’d creamed the butter and sugar for longer I’m sure… but the sweetness fix was a calling and my arm was hurting…

They looked a little naked so I had to call ‘Lil sis to remind me what we did with these babies back in the day (she’s 5 years younger, and only has to remember back 25 years) apparently we used to treat them with pink icing, and probably with coconut sprinkled on the top.

Today I made blue icing. I overdid the vanilla and it tasted feral so it went down the sink… but even naked they tasted pretty good…

And there’s enough left for lunch tomorrow.