Things are a little better between me and Tilly The Till. Only one error yesterday. Happy daughter.

A potentially unpleasant hour at the dentist in the afternoon has left me sore today but once the injection was over there was no pain at the time, only the smell of burning tooth and a bit of head-pulling. Wisdom tooth. Difficult to get at because the gum had grown over it... bit of cutting involved and I walked away dribbling blood which must have alarmed the good folk of Nairn (daytime vampires now?) Anyway, the reason I mention it is because I almost fell asleep in the chair - wouldn't have believed it possible. The dentist told me afterwards he has patients who snore so are presumably asleep, but so far no-one has closed their mouth!!

Price of gas in France

A thief in Paris planned to steal some paintings from the Louvre.

After careful planning, he got past security, stole the paintings, and made it safely to his van.

However, he was captured only two blocks away when his van ran out of gas.

When asked how he could mastermind such a crime and then make such an obvious error, he replied, 'Monsieur, that is the reason I stole the paintings.'

I had no Monet

to buy Degas

to make the Van Gogh.'

See if you have De Gaulle to send this on to someone else.

I put it here because I figured I had nothing Toulouse .

Happiness and contentment are preventative medicine is the news today - they lower incidents of heart disease. Well there's a turn-up for the books! Takes the boffins long enough to catch on.

Anxiety is REALLY bad news though and - I'm in a state of permanent tension over THE TILL & SWITCH machines. I haven't had to deal with such advnced technology ever and it's causing me terrible torment. People keep telling me it will become second nature - they don't know my nature. Anything that involves a sequence of necessary button pushing I will muck up. I am, as a daughter memorably remarked, totally impractical and woolly headed and unfocused and I like it that way but - this poor daughter has to 'reconcile' her till at the end of each day and as it & me haven't been reconciled all day it's a headache. I may be fired (oh goodie!) but probably won't be (oh damn!)

I'm not much help at giving advice on what lotion potion or pill is best for the ailmenst that are laid out before me. I've never been in the habit of taking anything mysef and though I may buy a bottle of vitamins I usually forget to take them.

Opening Day

Nothing is in order but amongst these pics are: Sandy sharing Iain's not-so-healthy fag and beer at 9.55am just before the invited ones started to arrive (I jest I jest. Of course sandy doesn't smoke or drink beer - yet.) Sandy caught stealing a sushi. The wonderfully well organised shop (my obsessive-compulsive daughter will have to learn about customers. She keeps lining things up neatly... ) The beautiful felt-work of Diva Designs. Cakes and wine and sushi. All the food was eaten and all the drink was drunk. About 50 people came and saw and declared it good.

Now I want to lie down and do nothing.

3D world.

I enjoyed Avatar. The 3D specs are very cool! It took a while to get used to the effects and joining a group of jogging, gun-toting marines made me feel slightly sick to begin with, but I got used to it quickly and enjoyed the occasionally heart-lifting beauty. I didn't think the story was any thinner than most Hollywood blockbusters. At least the greedy mining company and the violence-loving military were the baddies for a change. The message was good - oneness with all life and the ultimate sense of holding it sacred because when it rises against you.. look out! It's just a pity the Amazon rain forests don't have some of those bulldozer-headed critturs to defeat the logging companies.

I just hope they never develop smellyvision. '1984' had people strapped into chairs that enabled them to feel the physical sensations the characters were feeling including the hairs on a bear-skin rug I seem to remember. Interesting. Now there are so many porno movies it might make actual sex with a real person quite redundant!

Well, that's my last day-time excursion for a while. Shame. It's all systems go now for writing copy for the local rag (I can't believe how bad they are at feature writing themselves) and pricing, pricing, pricing. The cooking is still to come.

I'm off now t book my trip down to Cornwall, which unfortunately will be a few weeks after the shop opens and leave dughter in a bit of a hole, but she says she can cope. No-one is indispensible!

Last free Monday...

I'm counting the days of my freedom and plan to make good use of them this week by lunching with friends, seeing 'Avatar' and having my hair highlighted. Most afternoons will be spent helping daughter price all the stock - a rather daunting prospect for both of us. The shop is progressing nicely with a couple of local suppliers (hand made creams and lotions; beautiful bread) interested in coming on board. We're having an opening party on Sunday for invited folk so I'm going to be making poppyseed cake, carrot cake, sun-dried tomato and feta scones, and sushi all on Saturday. Busy programme. Hope I stay the course!!

Last week saw our family (g'dad, me, daughter and daughter's partner) trouping in to see g'sons psychiatrist, a nice young woman who looks about 12 to me. It's the first time she's formally met us and I was impressed at her handling of the gathering. I don't think she told us much we didn't know but did underline some needful specific attention to him which prompted me to take him for a sit-down fish and chip lunch then a visit to the toy shop for another model to make over his leave-out weekend. I would probably have done that anyway as I like an excuse to go to a particular f'n'c restaurant but it made me feel I was also helping his healing which was nice. She, in exchange, heard details about the early problems with his dad that she hadn't heard, noteably the time when Dad's girlfriend cut up all photos of his mum (presumably in front of him or left the bits lying around) and those not cut up were put on a board to have darts thrown at them. That upset the poor boy badly.

Not much other news. My book supplier, Tom, on his tour of the charity shops, found me another Swedish crime writer, 'Never End' by Ake Edwardson which I can recommend for pace, tension and believable characters. Then it was back to the inestimable Reginald Hill who never disappoints me, provides lots of chuckles (snorts in my case.. I have this terrible habit..) along the way and puts it all in prose to relish.

It's fun unpacking stuff!

Well that's my larder filled for the next couple of weeks!