With floods come slugs...

Well what a week its been. Our office was flooded.... again... we only went back in March after the last flood destroyed our offices in August 2006.
We were more prepared this time, we saw the water rising and saved pretty much everything, we then escaped just in time before the whole village went under water. So its been a week of relocation and hasseling BT to get us up and running in a new place down the road until we are dried out. We have all our stuff in the new place, but there is not much you can do in this day and age with no phones or internet access. So roll on Thursday when it should (fingers crossed) be ready to roll, ring, and surf.


With these floods also came some pretty huge prehistoric slugs. I can not stand the things and this evening when wandering into my bedroom I was faced with what looked like two eels about to make out on my window. Like we need any more of the poxy things eating my runner beans... which I must inform you I have given up on. If its not the slugs its the wind blowing them over every 5 minutes.

Big Cat Pics

On Thursday I went to a big cat breeding sanctuary in Kent. The day was run by Canon and was especially for photographers to get the opportunity to photograph these lovely animals. I even got to stroke a Tiger.

Photo Shoots...

Strays dog Ruby likes to take herself off around our garden for quite some time. It has been known for her to vanish for up to and possibly over an hour, I can call and search for her but she is often nowhere to be seen.

Stray and I joke that she goes off on photo shoots or into town for a spot of shopping.

So you can imagine how shocked I was today to receive the below advert - not only is Ruby there doing a spot of glamour modelling. (I say glamour - because she is naked, they have removed her collar, tart!)... But then I spot Frank in the advert, it would appear my ginger boy has been recruited as well*

*Obviously these animals are not actually Frank and Ruby, but my goodness they are spitting images. Maybe they really do go for shoots. Hmmmm.

The great Animal bakery...

There has been some excitement at the office this week. Purely due to the fact that the local bakery bake bread in the shape of animals. It has caused joy and also some tears.

Tears because Beverley's 6 year old son loved it so much that he cried when he was so hungry he had to eat it. I liked his approach though. He removed the legs first and then ate it from the inside outward... Sadist. I wonder if he sheds the same tears when he eats a real cow as opposed to bread baked into the 'shape' of a cute animal.

We had to phone the bakery in advance to order the breads as they are in high demand.
We had a rabbit, a hedgehog, a tortoise and a teddy bear. I think they thought we were kidding when we rang with the complete wildlife selection order.

Out of the mouths of drunken fools.....

It never ceases to amaze me what can fall out of a mans drunken mouth. You would think nothing would surprise me by now, having spent enough time in pubs to last a lifetime. I rarely attract attention from men, I put this down to the fact that I don't look dissimilar to a 12 year old boy, and I certainly don't 'flaunt my femininity', if that is the correct way to put it.

I think there are rules and rituals to attracting a partner and I don't understand any of them, which also means I could slip into one of these such rituals without even realising. I never realised that 'talking' was one of them. I must be more careful. How careless of me.

Last weekend it would seem I was taking part in this 'talking mating ritual' without realising the ultimate end would be the requirement of sex. Between the slurred speech I was asked to go back and stay at this mans house (the man in question being of a senior age (50+) to myself).
I could not really understand why he would imagine I would want to do such a thing. He lived quite a trek away, and I barely knew him, so I could not work out why he would think I would want to 'stay over'. When he realised this stance was not working, he came out with the most romantic line of them all. "Look, Badger* just come back to mine for a shag will you, come on" (*of course he did not call me Badger, he called me by the other name I am known... but if he had that would have gained him bonus laughter points).

Funnily enough I declined the offer, but I did ask him to repeat himself in case I had misheard, although I think I already knew I had not. What happened next, really appealed to my sense of humour. I had a little chuckle at his up fronted ness and turned him down after pointing out that he was in fact older than my father and why on earth would I want to “shag” him as he had so politely put it.

I think I may have embarrassed him as he got a little cross at my declining and continued to ask, although getting louder (maybe he thought I had not heard him) and slightly more desperate in his plea to win me round, but still never faltering from the line “come on Badger, come on, come home for a fucking shag” . Ohh swearing, now that really could sway me, he was trying all the best lines tonight. Both really not helping him win me round, but indeed helping me pity the poor fool and laugh at his expense.

I walked away, thanking the beer lords that I was 100x soberer than he. Just to tip the end of the evening off as I was leaving he clung onto me for one last attempt... It was as if he thought by repeating himself and getting cross with me I would suddenly say “Oh my!.. Of course, what a stud you are, silly me, I have made a silly mistake, of course I would love to have a shag with you”.

Stupid boy Pike!

Summer days .... don't waste them.

I have had a jolly summering and social weekend. I feel quite grown up... (Grown up because although I wanted to spend all afternoon in the pub, I did not, I looked at pretty Barge boats instead).

On Saturday I went into my local town to watch the fun and frolics of the annual raft race event. This consists of lots of crazy people with home made rafts somehow propelling themselves upstream 2 miles in a timed race.

There was a wonderful range of rafts. I was most impressed by the Animal Ark. Very lovely indeed. It was spoilt slightly by the prescence of huge fluffy people animals around it. I hate them, I have always hated things like that. Almost as scary as clowns. Ugh. Disney would have been like a nightmare to me as a small child. I thanked my little cuddly toys every night that my parents never took me to Disney.


Dr But Why? was in the race this year, and I somehow picked the perfect position along the route to catch her falling off the raft followed by a series of shots while she attempted to clamber back on. :)


After looking at all the rafts I carried on back down the river to another event which was taking place, this time the annual prize award for the best dressed narrow boat. I must say I enjoyed people watching more. What a mis-match of people there was.




Then home and off to a good friends house for a BBQ and a fly in their Hot Air Balloon. We had to put off the launch however until the morning as the wind had picked up. So we were up at 5.30am bright and breezy and off out into the field with the balloon and basket. Up and away by 7am, and down by 9am. All packed up and then to the local tea room for some breakfast and champagne. Perfect. Hot Air Ballooning is a wonderful experience, I recommend you all do it. Its the safest place my head can be.... I was going to say that it was the safest place that anyone could be. But thats just silly, safety is having two feet on the ground. What i mean is that in Badgers world it feels safe and calm and tranquil. Especially at 6am on a summers day.

Diagnosis...

I have been formerly diagnosed with having Tourette Syndrome from a neurologist, a doctor, a doctor neurologist, in his 50's, he must know what he is talking about. I trust him, he was nice to me.

I am not sure what it feels like. If I was more clued up with my emotions I like to think I would find it easy to tell you. Which is, interestingly, another "Tourettes thing" - emotions and finding them hard to understand. Almost like a different language. Tourettes and Autism are on the same spectrum and are very closely linked, so it would seem that my difficulties with emotions are all part of the same package.

Its a relief, I feel lighter, I feel understood. I don't have to beat myself up anymore. That bit of me, the bit that always wants to make noises and twitch, I can accept it, I can allow that bit of me to be me. It doesn't feel so lonely anymore, to ostracise a part of yourself is a very lonely feeling indeed.

I feel like I have suddenly been given permission to stand up for myself, it feels like I have myself back on my side again.

Beneath the surface of your subconscious...

Apparently I look for things like a boy and I also shop like a boy, both of these things could just mean I am impatient. Which I am, its true. However I had never even noticed how my subconscious behaved when I go shopping in a supermarket, or at least not until Stray pointed it out to me.

She noted that I can not push a trolley by its handle using 2 hands. I can also not carry a shopping basket by both handles. I do not know why this is.
If I am controlling a trolley I find I do so by almost leaning across it and placing my hands on either side, if using a basket I would push it along the floor keeping the essential carrying moments minimum. When the basket is empty I carry it by its side upside down.

I wonder why I do this? Is it because I don't want to look like a bag lady doing her weekly shop? I don't know. Maybe next time I shall wear my Heelys and then I can slide with the trolley and really take off.
I dress like a 14 year old boy, and I have recently come to realise why I may do this, I would suggest that the TS may have something to do with it.

I shall explain why. Imagine walking up a crowded high street surrounded by people. (And we are not talking just people, we are talking middle class judgemental people, those that crowd the Surrey high streets where I live).

Then imagine seeing a well dressed professional women in her late twenties heading toward you with a slight twitch on and either clucking like a chicken about to lay or clicking/whistling with a little squawk thrown in.

Now I would look twice. Wouldn't you? However, imagine seeing a 14 year old lad heading toward you possibly doing the same. Which would seem more strange? Kids can get away with strange behaviour, adults can not.

It is not just this though, I would never choose to look like the lady I described a moment ago. Because that's not me. But my point is that our subconscious plays a big role and its only when you try and look at it that you can try and dig at why you are the way you are, and even then it feels like you can only guess.

Climbing to therapy....

Our house is nestled in an old chalk quarry bank. Sometimes huge lumps of chalk tumble down from the cliff face and land in the drive. One was huge, the size of very a large human head and more. Because the quarry is pretty deep it is also pretty steep and because roads are never direct, to get to where you want to be takes much longer than if you could fly direct. I realised that as the crow flies my new therapists house is pretty much at the back of mine and a little way along a hugely overgrown footpath. I would like to walk to therapy, much nicer than driving. But I don't want to have to walk for 30 minutes in order to get around the houses, and I am not ever going to be able to fly because I tried and tried for months when I was 6, and even with all the practice I put in I never left the ground.

Sooooo, I have got a rope. Or rather Stray gave me her rope. I then took the long walk around the road up to the footpath and along the quarry edge. On finding a suitable route I attached said rope around a strong tree and threw it down.

Its a little slippy at the moment, due to the rain. (had you noticed?). but I managed to absail safely down the rope to my house. Tada! So now I can climb to therapy and absail home. What an adventure it will be.

To give some scale, top to bottom in this picture is 25 metres