Innocent Fun

Pricey they may be, but I am slowly falling in love with Innocent smoothies & thickies - although I'm not exactly enthralled with the one with beetroot in it, that one is more akin to snogging some ancient mid-life crisis angst ridden sales rep because you feel sorry for him - the rest however I could cheerfully sup up.

But it's not just the taste, no the love affair with Innocent goes beyond pure refreshment - it's done to the fact that the labels make me laugh. Go on, browse at one the next time you are out and see whether you can find the mystery ingredient, like a rubber duck or uplifting message. I was almost on the point of lauching into a photo frenzy in the supermarket to flickrise the label series (this still may happen) when it occurred to me to check the website first. Oh mash me a banana and Jack Daniels smoothie this instant - they have a label museum, Happy? I'm close to tears of exaltation here.

Personal favourites: "Thou Shalt Not", "Dial 9", "Crafty Nap" and of course "free radicals".

And Innocent will lend you books as well.......Do you think that a Valentine's Smoochie Smoothie is on the cards.

Parental Responsibility

Chronic pain had driven me back to the dentist after a spell that is well let's just say beyond the recommended interval for check ups and because I still go to the dental practice that I went to when I was a child (although the actual dentist has changed of course, the original one probably giving the pearly gates a nice scale and polish right now), this meant I had the opportunity to visit my parents.

I get on fine with my parents, I just rarely see them despite them living relatively nearby and it never seems to be the case that I'm "just popping by" and end up usually talking to them when I actually need a favour doing. And this feels wrong. Very wrong.

It was a serious time trip going back home to chat to Dad & Mum on my own on a Saturday morning, I haven't done it for yonks and it was like the years fell away and I was back to being 16 again with Dad rattling on with some highly convoluted annecdote that I'd then get replayed via my Mum half an hour later. Merrily scattering their newspaper over the table and resting my coffee mug on the property section, safe in the knowledge it wouldn't be opened, whilst scanning through the quick crossword was as relaxing now as it had been when this was part of my routine as a teenager.

For a small time on that Saturday morning, everything was all right again and I was secure in the knowledge despite all the things I'm worried about, that they'd look after me. The emotional grazed knee that others had tenderly sponged down was now well and truly bandaged up.

Whether it was that sort of dawning realisation you get with the approach of parental birthdays - Dad is 73 in a few weeks, Mum turns 70 later in the year - in that they aren't going to be around for all of my life, whereas of course they have been there for all of my life and did, I believe, have a purpose for being that existed before I did or whether it was more a reflection on the cyclone of changes that are occuring in my own life meaning that I'm questioning more and more things that I always believed to be unassailable truths about myself, well I'm not sure.

It was just an ordinary morning, no special events happening but for once I wasn't irritated by the complexity of being offered a drink:

"tea or coffee lovey"
[I hate tea, I've never drunk it at home and only tolerated it out of politeness elsewhere]

"Sugar and milk in your coffee?"
[Not had sugar in coffee regulary since I was about ten and never have milk at home]

"or would you like juice"
[Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

or even the Spanish Inquisition about the wellbeing of the animals:

"how's the dog - is his allergy cleared up"
"what about the birds, did they like the millett"
"have you still got the yellow catfish"

and they wonder why I don't have children.

but all this just added to the feeling of belonging, these were my somewhat odd parents, with the same idiosyncracies they've always had and they were just looking after me. God knows I've needed that over the years. I don't want to be wishing I felt it was ok to spend time with them, I want to spend time with them. Blimey, I might even hug them the next time I see them.

I think I'm being possessed by the spirit of a normal person.

*oh and the dentist? One tooth to come out and a couple of fillings. And I want to get a copy of my mouth x-ray - it is brilliant!