15 reasons I’d hate to be Queen

Well done to her Maj, QE2, for becoming the longest reigning monarch ever. What an achievement! Do you reckon she put her dancing shoes and some 50s music on last night and had a rollocking good night at the palace? Busted out some moves in the kitchen and maybe drank some Kopparberg cider and a couple of flaming sambucas?

No, me either. And that’s just one of the reasons I’d hate to be Queen!

Queen clipart image

Here are 14 more:

1) You have to be really clean and tidy. Have you ever seen the Queen with dinner down her front after a posh international dinner? No. Have I ever been seen with dinner down my front? Regularly.

Food spillage2) How does she sneeze? Like seriously – when I sneeze it’s like there’s a small earthquake happening inside my nose. I have a dust allergy so I’m quite often really snotty (attractive!) and my sneezes can be massively wet and icky (I’m not flirting with you, don’t get the wrong idea). Has she had the lining of her nose removed? What if she has hayfever or gets pepper up her nose? How does she avoid sneezing?

3) She can’t really experiment with appearance, can she? I mean, I know she’s a bit older now so her Queen uniform probably suits her, but what about when she was younger? What if she saw Twiggy in the M&S adverts looking like a fox in her 60s and thought “one fancies trying a pair of skinny jeans”? Or wanted a tattoo or nose piercing?

4) She probably never gets to veg out on the sofa in a pair of baggy joggers eating cheese on toast. There’s probably only foie gras and truffles in the cupboards. And she couldn’t just nip down to Sainsbury’s to grab a loaf and some cheddar.

Cheese on toast

5) You wouldn’t be able to use social media. Queenie never gets the joy of sharing her thoughts in a blog or on Twitter (although there is a Queen Twitter account which is pretty funny, and worth a look here). She never gets to post drunken photos of her and Philip on Facebook, or check her Timehop to see what she was doing this time 5 years ago.

6) Her eldest son is waiting for her to die and she knows it. Has been for years. How can you give your son love and affection when you know he wants you out of the way?

7) She can’t pick her nose in public. Or scratch her bum. Or rearrange a wedgie which started while she was sitting in the car. Come on, we all do it when we think no-one’s looking. But in the Queen’s case, EVERYONE’s looking!

Keep calm and scratch your bum

8) No sandals. That’s actual Royal protocol – members of the Royal family don’t wear sandals. What a travesty. You wouldn’t get that new season excitement of painting your toenails red and busting out your new ASOS gladiators.

9) Lack of anonymity. Never being able to jump fully clothed into a swimming pool in Greece because you’re drunk (me). Never doing Halloween backing vocals for a friend’s band dressed as a witch (me again). Never getting your face painted, or going to a festival or the Christmas market.

10) Having to be nice to people you might not like. The bloke from the middle East who’s a bit of a dictator? Can’t call him a knob because we need their oil. The leader of China who smells funny? Can’t sit at the opposite end of the table to him when he’s your guest of honour.

11) Boring hair. Seriously, she’s had the same hair for 63 years. What if she fancied doing a Helen Mirren and going pink? Or getting some extensions? Imagine knowing that you couldn’t change your barnet.

Helen Mirren pink hair

12) Not being able to go on a beach holiday. Never lying in the sun with sweat trickling between your boobs, your hair sticking to your head and holding your tummy in so you don’t bulge over your bikini. Not worth thinking about.

13) Having to stay with the silly old duffer Prince Philip. She might have fallen out of love with him yonks ago. She might never have been in love with him. She might have her eye on one of her aides at the palace. But she’s not free to follow her heart.

14) NEVER WEARING LEOPARD PRINT!!! This could be the worst one of all!

Leopard print

In spite of all her wealth and travelling and power I think it would be a pretty rotten job. I won’t be applying.

Restaurant review – Sabai Sabai, Moseley

On Monday evening, keen to stretch out the weekend that little bit further, I suggested an impromptu date night. We had pre-dinner drinks and then went for a meal at Sabai Sabai.

Sabai Sabai

One of the things I love about where we live is the range of restaurants and bars; different cuisines and flavours. We haven’t been to SabaI Sabai for ages, probably about 4 years, and I’m really not sure why?

The restaurant is fairly small, probably seats around 40 people, and it’s long and narrow with opulent decoration in purple and gold.

Sabai Sabai Moseley

Sabai Sabai purple and gold

We chose a window seat to watch the world go by and ordered some drinks and prawn crackers (which were so spicy and tasty, with sweet chilli dipping sauce) while we perused the menu.

Sabai Sabai window seat

Deciding on food turned out to be something of a problem. There’s a lot of stuff on the menu and it all sounds really good. As usual I got “the fear” in case I didn’t choose wisely!

I decided to go for something I’ve been wanting to try for a while but haven’t been brave enough – softshell crab. Part of the reason I haven’t tried it is because the husband keeps weirding me out about it! But it sounded delish; covered in breadcrumbs and fried, served with thai salad and sweet chilli sauce.

Husband had the mixed platter which is a selection of different items – great for when you just can’t decide. It included golden bags, chicken satay, prawns tempura, sweet corn cakes and fish cakes.

Sabai Sabai soft shell crab

Golden bags (Toong Tong) always makes me giggle childishly!

Sabai Sabai golden bags

The crab was really good. Quite heavy on breadcrumbs meant that the first couple of bites didn’t yield much meat, but once past the claws there was loads!.

Sabai Sabai soft shell crab 2

Delicate and tasty, perfectly paired with the chilli dipping sauce it was very filling – perhaps slightly too big for a starter (it hurts me to say that!)

For main course I had Ped Makam Jarn Ron, which was duck breast cooked with palm sugar and tamarind to create a really sticky gooey sauce, served on a sizzling platter of onions and topped with dried shallots.

Sabai Sabai duck platter 2

I also had a side order of egg fried rice (to be honest we could have shared,one portion is quite large!)

Sabai Sabai duck platter

Husband had Prawn Geng Massaman which was sweet with coconut milk and peanut sauce, full of big juicy prawns and chunks of potato.

Sabai Sabai Geng Massaman

The bill came to £75, but having worked it out £25 of that was drinks! (two glasses of wine for me, a beer and a double spirit and mixer for husband). So the food itself is very reasonable, with most mains being around the £10 mark.

As I said, I have no idea why we haven’t been for so long, but we won’t make the same mistake again! (if only because I want soft shell crab!)

 

Moseley Folk Festival

Once again this weekend our beloved village was home to a 3 day festival; bringing bands, bars and brightness to the park.

You may recall I blogged about the previous one – Jazz, Funk and Soul, back in July.

This time it was the turn of the Folk Festival which, over the years, has become less about just folk. Gaz Coombes of SuperGrass played and Sunday night was headlined by The Monkees!

I honestly can’t comment on the music, as it was just a backdrop to a wonderful couple of days in magical surroundings. We were blessed with gorgeous weather on Sunday and it totally made it; chilling out on picnic blankets with friends drinking lots of pink wine and soaking up the late summer sun.

Here it is in pictures – we didn’t head down until early evening on Saturday.

 

Moseley Folk Festival 2

Moseley folk festival bar

Beer barrels

Festival merch

Remember I said on my Hat-urday post that I barely wear my 70s floppy hat? I put that right!

70s floppy hat

Lots of face painting and people looking pretty (I did ask these people if I could share their photographs!)

Face painting menu

Face painted Dad and Daughter

Face painted man

Sunday was nice enough for me to bust out another hat I haven’t worn yet – the straw cowboy one.

Straw cowboy hat selfie

The entrance to the park is so green and secluded; you’d never know it was just off the main road.

Entrace to Moseley Park

Entry to Moseley Park

I drank a lot of wine.

Rose wine

Accosted a Morris Dancer for photographs (and swapped hats with him!)

Morris dancer 2

Morris dancer

Morris dancer and me

Had to have a little lie down on the blanket (I blame the wine)

Mirror shades selfie

Look at the weather – just gorgeous!

Moseley Park trees

Got my face painted.

Me facepaint

What a fabulous time we had!

Moseley Folk Festival

September Sadness

Try as I might, I can’t but help let my mood be affected by the time of year. And even though it’s just another date in the calendar, I always find myself feeling pretty sad at the beginning of September. It signals the beginning of the end of summer, darker mornings and nights, cooler weather, leaves falling off the trees, summer flowers dying, and the onset of winter.

September

I’m such a summer person. I’m truly at my best in summer. I love being outdoors, not wearing a coat, wearing sandals, days out.

I’ve seen a few blog posts over the past few days with people getting excited about the fact it’s September, because it means autumn and a change of season and Halloween and Christmas. Don’t get me wrong, I do like Halloween and Christmas. I think it’s just the transitional period when summer is on it’s way out and you’re still craving warm days and outdoor nights. I just can’t get excited about descending into coldness and darkness.

Its difficult to say goodbye to summer, especially when it hasn’t been so good this year.

Even worse, September so far seems to have struck with a vengeance this year – it’s not even a gentle decline into autumn so much as going to bed in August and walking up in November! Rain, clouds, temperature drops. I mean, come on!

On the plus side, I still have lots of nice summery stuff planned before I totally give in to autumn and it’s cold, damp, miserable clutches. Including a local festival this weekend, a long weekend in Cornwall, a road trip to a gig in Leeds, a wedding and a week in Italy.

On the negative side, when all that’s over AND it’s autumn proper I’ll probably be really miserable.

What’s your favourite time of year?

The refugee crisis

Such an emotive and upsetting topic. Highly political, which is terrible when we’re talking about real people with real emotions and real issues. This is not a vote winner or loser. This is real life.

Migrants and refugeesWhen did we become so desensitised at pictures of dead people who have drowned in a desperate bid to get to safety?

When did we lose our compassion?

When did we become so inhuman?

I saw a post on Facebook today which resonated with me and would, I’m sure, with a lot of people. The crux from the person posting was that she had her life’s necessities and some life luxuries and that she wanted to donate the “spare” money that she had to help those in need. She also acknowledged that these thoughts will pass, as they do, because we’re not living and breathing the situation.

How many of us look at a photograph and it pulls our heartstrings, but 5 minutes later we’re bemoaning how long it is until lunchtime or that it’s raining outside? I know I’m guilty.

We’ve been indoctrinated for so long against immigrants and their loose morals and their job stealing, benefit scrounging ways that we no longer see people as people. They’re just an enemy who will be a drain on our resources. They’re just pictures in the press. They’re just statistics that increase in numbers and displease the government because they’ve missed a target.

They’re none of those things. They’re human beings.

If you would like to help, Dawn O’Porter is raising money and accepting donations via an Amazon wishlist which she is helping to co-ordinate and send to the refugee camps in Calais. You can read more about it and find links to donate here

As Dawn says: “We don’t believe that any human beings should have to live that way, so we want to help them. No matter where you sit politically, we believe that we have an obligation to at least keep other people dry and fed.”