Baby blindness

Tip of the week: take small smiley baby shopping with you. Checkout girl will be so busy cooing and talking to the baby that she will completely forget to scan everything in your basket and you'll save a few quid. This did happen by mistake, I didn't plan it in a cunning heist manoeuvre, and I didn't realise till I got home and checked the receipt or I probably would have said something. I felt a bit guilty but it was the cheapest items she missed so I don't feel too bad! I'm off to Harrods next...

Men and chainsaws

Mr Babs and our brother-in-law attacked my garden at the weekend with a chainsaw. True, the trees were in need of severe pruning. But somewhere along the line, they confused "please prune the trees back a bit" to "try and mutilate them beyond all recognition". Or they just got overexcited to be let loose with electric power tools. Thankfully no limbs were severed in the process...

Noise police update

The day after I sent the email to the noise police, one turned up at my front door! Turns out the scout hut was running illegal raves (this is in my head, they claimed they had just had a "one off" party for someone who was leaving when asked which was quite clearly a lie) and this weekend was as peaceful as the grave. I was super impressed by their efficiency, and the man was really nice and said he hadn't told the scouts who it was that had complained. Mr Babs had visions of hoardes of angry scouts beating our door down...

Only problem now is in a few years Baby Babs will join the scouts and come home one day saying that they used to hold discos that were really good until someone complained...

Just stop watching films!

My run of bad luck with terrible films continues. I'm just not going to bother anymore. Last night we watched "The Quiet" - a new "gothic drama" advertised on the film channels - and we paid for the privilege. It was truly truly terrible!! The plot in a nutshell - family adopt deaf/mute girl. Dad is abusing his daughter, deaf/mute girl finds out, mum already knows but dopes herself up on prozac or something to block it out. Eventually deaf/mute girl kills dad when he's attacking his daughter. Mum takes rap, goes to prison. Deaf/mute girl isn't deaf or mute at all. Starts talking. The end.

Why oh why do films like this get funding?! It had that blonde girl who plays Kiefer Sutherland's daughter in 24 in it so we assumed it might be vaguely credible. Pft. I take back everything I said about Miami Vice. I swear the premise we read before deciding to watch it - and indeed the trailer - was about a different film.

Keep the noise down!

Pft, I must be getting old if I'm complaining about the noise to the council! Or not. We have a scout hut at the bottom of our garden, hadn't really noticed it before. Until recently that is - they have started having raves on a Saturday night. Our garden is 100ft long and it still sounds like they're partying in my kitchen. Even without Baby Babs to think about, it's really really loud and louder than the bars in town that pump out that techno crap the kids all love thesedays :-) Anyway, it's peeing me off, especially now I have a littl'un to try and get to sleep, so I have emailed the noise police to investigate for me. It wouldn't surprise me if they know about it already, there's a whole row of houses right next to the hut, they must have bleeding ears. Or it's them partying. But I wish they'd all sod off, if I was inclined to sit out in my garden of an evening with a glass of wine, I'd have to wear industrial ear protectors at the same time. Bloody ravers.