I am a girl. There are many things I do not understand – most of them to do with men, but that’s another story and a lot to do with teaching overseas and a guy named Pablo… – but the chief one I do not get right now is this: why are there so many tree surgeons doing the rounds right now? Seriously, this week four or five different ones came to my door hoping to find trees to slay. Do these people not understand the concept of trees? That trees take some time to grow? From the way they speak to you (all dissapointed when you say “sorry, no, we don’t have any poxy trees we need cutting down, THANKS”) you would think that trees were in instant thing–a pest that appeared overnight!

It’s all to do with money, of course. Because apparently hacking down Mother Nature’s greatest gift is quite a lucrative business, and isn’t there always someone who wants to cash in?

But even worse than the regular tree surgeons, who are a pain enough as it is, are the EMERGENCY tree surgeons! Now let me ask you: have you ever seen a tree have a heart attack and be carried away on a stretcher? Have you ever seen a tree in distress or heard one cry out for emergency help? I arrest my case. Now, if you are the wife or husband or child of one of these pesky people, I suggest you have firm words with them!

That expression “don’t judge a book by its cover”: what a load of rubbish! What else am I supposed to judge a book on? The writing? No, don’t make me laugh! That’s the sad fact of it – we all judge things as we see them and very quickly, it’s just human nature. Make the wrong impression and it doesn’t matter how snazzy your cover is, you’re going to bomb hard.

Big businesses need to learn a thing or two about making impressions. Generally speaking they’re seen as the money-grabbing giants of the commerce world. And as far as energy-saving companies–can you think of a single one which is out there trying to get our attention?

That’s where Enigin come to the rescue; they may not be featured regularly in the newspapers, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t trying hard to get your attention, and for all the right reasons.

Now, when I mention the word “progress” I can guess what you’re thinking in relation to big businesses. You’re thinking of profits, right? Well that’s another area where Enigin excel. They’re constantly progressing, and, while they don’t try to hide that they are doing quite well for themselves, you can’t help but like them. It’s all good and positive stuff.

are a big business with big (and thoroughly decent) ideas about how to go about business. Check out their design blog. This particular post is all about the recent Nemex expo that happened down at the Birmingham NEC.

Just the other day I worked out, once and for all, why life is so very difficult. It’s obvious, really. It’s because, from the moment we are born, we are racking up things that oppose one another. In other words, we become hypocrites as soon as we leave the womb, and almost as soon as we have awareness of self we are trying to remember all the things we like / dislike, so as not to come of looking hypocritical. Take me for example: for years I thought french riviera villas were rubbish, and now my mum owns one, and I’m there every six months…

And it’s quite hard. It’s tough if you have an incredible memory, and if you have a bad memory (like I do, unless it’s for the ISBN number of every chick-lit novel I own) you don’t stand a chance. So that’s it. You go through life and other people pick out all these weird hypocritical opinions / things you do etc. You can’t get away from them. You just have to accept that you are like that and there’s not a thing you can do about it.

Of course, it’s the way it was meant to be. And the fact that I walk in to a shop and don’t like a certain kind of heels one day (swear that I will never buy them) and the next week buy them, isn’t a big deal really, is it? No. I’m going to stop worrying about it now, because that’s another one right there. Last week I promised myself I was not the worrying kind–

This was back in the days before anti wrinkle skin care product ; and I was only two years old, so I don’t really think I can be held accountable. That would suggest that I find my parents accountable, and that suggestion would be correct. I do!

Little Fella had no more than set foot on our house carpet than he was placed in to a large plastic ’fun’ball. From there he was given free reign of the carpet. What a fun first day for Little Fella!

Anyway, so while my parents weren’t paying attention, my devious two year-old self set about a game of football. I don’t remember this, but it’s the conclusion that my folks have come to (from their hearing all of Little Fella’s bizarre shrieking) that I was kicking him about all over. When they found me I was on the floor wrestling the ball about, and apparently Little Fella was blasting all about the inside. And he was blasting. His little body was moving so fast that mum and dad couldn’t make out what the moving thing was. It took them a second to realize it had to be our new hamster Little Fella–

But still, you live and you learn. And you also keep hamsters away from small children, duh.

Marriage is a daunting thing for anyone, isn’t it? It’s as daunting as an orange bum bag is to a German who has only ever worn yellow. All the stresses and strains of modern life, and all that pressure to get along like a house on fire and not shout your heads off. It has to be hard, but still, isn’t that part of the attraction? That and the bond joining together to create real dedication to one another that can not be broken, ever. A bond for life that only two people share. Completely special and unique.

And if breaking-up is more than a bit tricky for the average couple, can you possibly comprehend how tough it must be for a couple who spend all their time in the limelight, with every footstep followed? One such couple have just publicly announced the end of their marriage. It’s the legendary marrying of comedic strongholds Lenny Henry and Dawn French, of course. Read all about it at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8606444.stm

And you have to feel sorry for them, don’t you? OK, they chose to be in front of the cameras, but does anyone truly deserve to be harassed constantly, which is undoubtedly what is going to happen to the both of them, now, and for the next few months.

I suppose we can’t look at the celebrity couples as real, and that’s the whole point. We can’t compare them to us, because there is no comparison. So asking us to view them with sympathy is always going to be something that some people are not capable of doing. After all, from the moment a celebrity couple start their life together, they are a brand, not a couple. Love and the relationship side of things doesn’t even come in to it, and that’s a fact.

Dogs are clever. Clever in ways that seem impossible. Take my dog for example: Jack, like all dogs, knows what a gun is and what it looks like–and he’s never even seen one! (I can’t be sure of that, of course. I got him from a kennel. But I find it hard to believe that the old woman who had him before me had AK47’s up in the loft–)

How I discovered this miraculous fact was this: one day, while Jack and I were watching Rambo, I made my hand in to a gun and pointed it at Jack. Jack had a good sense of humour, so I thought he might find this amusing. But low and behold Jack flinched, stared at my hand as if it were a lethal weapon, and hid under the sofa. It took me twenty-five minutes to coax him out. By that time Rambo had become emotionally unstable and was on the war-path. Jack’s eyes had become wet, and I noticed in the grim light that he really could do with eyebag surgery.

Eventually I regained Jack’s trust. A hard thing to do for a dog that has lived with the constant smell of lavender and wee, and oldness in general. Once he’d come out he stared me in the eyes with the look I knew to mean: Don’t you ever, ever do that again, otherwise this is over. We are over.

That’s how I learned about dogs. I suggest you tread carefully.

In the most common recurring nightmare a Soup spoon—or, as He came to be known to me, Mr Soup Spoon—used to chase me around the house while trying to flash light off his body and direct it in to my eyes. It wasn’t the being chased by him that I minded particularly (I was pretty sure I could fend off a spoon, seeing as I had hands and feet to attack with and all it had was a freakish grin and an attacking nature: plus, it was a dream…), it was more the way he’d try and crawl in to my mouth at any given opportunity, which was something I was prepared to go to great lengths to avoid. For that reason I was forced to scream my head-off with a closed mouth, which, if you’ve ever tried it, you will know is not only very difficult to do at any volume, but extremely weird as feelings go. (As well as the fact that it does actually feel like your head is about to be blown off, which, dream or not, is entirely unpleasant.)

The nightmares eventually subsided when I was twelve, but by then Mr Soup Spoon had exerted a five year reign of terror upon me which saw He and I scaling mountains, floating in outer-space, and generally playing cat and mouse—or spoon and child—as I tirelessly fought to stay away from him.

So do your children a favour: stay clear of the soup spoons…

Right before I log off, I need to relish in a new purchase. I have just bought the greatest newton running shoes that I have ever owned. LA Marathon, here I come!

It was only many years later, during a conversation about skin lesions and the horrors of war, that I understood what my Granddad had been through. That was the moment I got it: I realized why he had needed to talk about these things to me. Speaking about these things in his calm, mature voice was his way of exorcising the demons of the past. By turning them around and around in his mind he was able to be at peace in the here and now. And so I felt terribly sad to know this. I felt guilt, shame and that I’d hurt somebody I loved a great deal. So after that day I made a point of asking as many questions as I could. And I really started to learn things. Things which I was privileged to know.

I can’t handle seeing somebody drinking tea while walking. It’s disgusting. It’s wrong. And passive-tea-watching is, although many are unaware, one of the leading causes of global depression: watching someone walking and drinking tea is exactly the same as trying to read a good book while on a high-speed train. It makes you feel nauseous, disgusted, and bitter to the point that buying a Chris De Burgh greatest-hits album doesn’t seem like a half bad idea.

Why are there no laws to protect us passive tea watchers? Good question. Right up there with ‘why do you never see celebrities fall down the stairs on Big Brother’ or ‘who decided it was a good idea to take the Wispa chocolate bar off the shelves?’ It amazes me that smoking has been banned, yet passive-tea-watching is still not recognized as the massive problem it indeed is. Go to any train station or even resorts in the land and you’ll be able to catch these criminals. It simply must stop for the sake of us and our children and their children and well, I’m getting carried away now.