My life flashed before my Vacuum cleaner

I like my house to be clean and tidy, doesn't always work like that with two messy kids and an even messier husband, but I like it that way all the same.

 For Christmas, my Mum bought me a new vacuum cleaner. My old one, a trusty Dyson, had decided to refuse to suck to the required standard of my mother, who had very kindly decided to hoover my house one day. The old hoover used to get clogged up with a combination of my hair and that of my daughters. It used to amaze me how much hair we used to shed between the two of us. I would estimate that on a regular basis there was probably enough hair to provide a fur coat for a rat or similar sized fluffy animal. Over a year, I could probably stuff a mattress.I'm actually surprised that I'm not bald !

I read somewhere once that on average you're meant to lose 100 hairs a day, perhaps I don't actually vacuum that often then or maybe I'm above average in the hair loss department!

So, I felt fairly excited to have been bought a new toy . I opened the box and took out all of the parts of the shiny new Panasonic Eco max with automatic bar stop and even closer to the edge suction claim.It came with a variety of handy, easily adaptable gadgets. You know the type, a small brush for the stairs, a handy extention pipe for reaching those tricky corners and it even has two settings for floors and carpets.

 As I plugged in the new dream machine, and flicked on the switch, the roar of the motor hummed. The new electric smell wafted across my kitchen as I tested it on a pile of toast crumbs lovingly dropped by the boy earlier that morning. With one push the speckled burned bread deposits had gone into the vortex.I felt pleasantly pleased to see a ribbon of fluff and crumbs swirling around the special lime green chamber, like a dancing fairy.

I next tested how close it would suck to the edge of the skirting board.It squashed itself tight and vibrated against the wood strutting its stuff where ever I pushed it. Fab, I thought. Let's see how it handles the stair carpet. Like a quick draw cow boy, I assembled the handy small brush attachment to the hose to test the beast on the stairs. It lifted the carpet pile by the scruff of the neck and threw it back down again,devouring a few more discarded strands of moult in blonde and brunette with a flick of silver.

By now, I was getting cocky. Flicking the switch back down to floor and dismantling the brush in the twinkling of an eye, I went in for the hose. The 4ft extendable python in black shiny eco fr iendly plastic was curled asleep into the arched down pipe.I connected the two firm plastic inner tubes to extend it by a further foot waking it with my demands.

Grasped in my hand, I reached up for the offending silken cob web above the front door. It teased me, gently swaying in the breeze of the up draught, abandoned by the Christmas tinsel which had shielded it from sight for nearly a month. I looked upwards with it firmly in my sights, my hand raised with the rainforest friendly tube in my grip.Adopting the stance of an assasin about to strike, I pointed my weapon, callously intending to make a spider homeless, when it happened. My Eco friendly, power mad, panasonic now called Judas struck....

I felt my self being pulled downwards by the neck in a sudden forceful movement.My hoover was trying to kill me... My super, soft ,cream with a hint of beige woollen hooded jumper, complete with strings and baby soft pompoms around the collar had been sucked down the now exposed suction pipe. As my aggressor sucked down my pom poms to warp factor 10, it screamed a blood thirsty roar. As my head was now lower than my thighs and veering nearer to my knees, drastic action was in order. My poms poms had disappeared, their attached woollen string had also gone into the ether, but not yet appeared into the eco interior spinning tea cup ride.

Just then, the postman called at the front door- great ! I got onto my knees, still behind the front door on display behind the nice, clear shiny visible glass on full view to the Royal Mail servant. My first instinct was to pull my pom poms back up the hoover pipe, in a tug of war- me against Judas. This wasn't working..

"Ding dong" went the door bell..

 "Roarrrrrrrrrrrr " went Judas

"Coming" I whispered, whilst still being throttled.

Then I released, I had to take positive action and set Judas to carpet mode and then off. My hands trembled as I grappled to slide the super smooth,control button back. Now lying behind the front door and with a final bid for freedom,Judas slowly went silently.

The next challenge was to extract my now 3ft long pom pom complete with carpet fluff from the final grip of Judas, in a fatal attraction clinch. As I pulled poor pom pom out of the vortex and back into the day light, I gradually opened the door to the post man. I slowly stood up, slightly out of breathe and reddened from my romp on the carpet experience.I arose, adjusting my clothes, with one normal perfectly formed pom pom and the other sucked within an inch of its life, stretched down to my belly button.

"Morning !" I said as I casually signed for the package in postie's held out hand, with my lop sided appendages. My silent witness, nodded briefly and purposefully walked off down the driveway. For his crime,Judas was sent to solitary confinement, his coil wrapped tightly around his evil centre and banished to the cupboard.

The cobweb, I can report, lives on to fight another day but the rats will be cold this winter.......

Well Ok I'm once in a blue moon blogger !

Well, I can't keep promises to blog, quite frankly I'm really not reliable on this front- I can't even blame face book, farmville or even mafia wars as I haven't been on there either.

I'm not actually sure where I've been! I wasn't abducted by aliens, or ship wrecked on a desert island or sadly whisked away by Johnny Depp(!) Regretably, I seemed to have aged by two years since my last bout of blogging, and my laughter lines have all of a sudden decided to grin at me like a cheshire cat coupled with the fact I now own several strands of silver, but not in the jewellery department sense of the word.

Life has bumbled on carrying me along on the crest of the wave, sometimes gently swishing me to a good place and other times dropping me in a land which has challenges, annoyances and sheer frustrations.But on the whole I have enjoyed the last year and a half being busy with other things.

I no longer have any children at primary school, my babies having grown and now walk themselves to "Big school". Health wise we have been very lucky apart from one tonsillectomy which was fairly traumatic and unpleasant.Weirdly I seem to have shrunk some what in the height department, with my boy now towering above me- the pencil marks that I lovingly have etched on the kitchen door have started to fade indicating how quickly the kids have grown in what seems such a short space of time.

My chickens "Scarlett and Tallulah" have kept me busy and rather entertained, despite the fact that my garden is no more... I had my first double yolker egg a few weeks ago, which was very exciting !! The poo mounds have not decreased in mass or velocity.

On the work front, I have been very occupied.My good friend Lyzzy and I have a plan on how to make our first million in a future proposed creative empire outside of work. We are practising a variety of different crafts at this time until we are proficient in one or bankrupt from all of the stuff we seem to be buying..

Christmas came and went having crept up silently behind me and now in a New Year I have made my annual list of resolutions and plans of things to do.This includes such goals like eat healthily and get fitter ( may be I'll start this after I've finished off the remaining 5kg tin of chocolates and boxes of biscuits that seem to have reproduced in my cupboard over night.

So this may be my unique 2012 blog entry, although I do hope not, once again I have been shamed into blogging by dear Lyzzy who seems to make the most out of every mili second -may be I need to adopt this stance... but pass me another choccy first !!

I'm looking forward to catching up with blogging friends old and making friends new and hoping that you haven't been as lazy as I have.

Happy New Year Everyone !
xx