As you can imagine, the Mansion of Doom is not the warmest of places. It is surprisingly not as cold as say, granny’s house, in my opinion. This may have to do with the thickness of the walls, or the fact that I am trying to be positive towards it, in the hope that it won’t fall down and kill me.
Now we have our unique curtains up we are hoping it will not be so nippy, and next week when the chimneys have been swept I am looking forward to indulging my pyromaniac tendencies to the max. In the meantime we are wrapping up warm. I have my second best, emergency vest on, and am wearing Uggs at all times.
I have to say that I still think that the word Uggs is short for ugly, but I am totally impressed by their toastiness. I have miserable circulation and always get numb fingers and toes through the winter. Back in the bad old days I used to get chilblains on my toes, my circulation was that rubbish. My grandad used to recommend that I thrash ‘em with holly leaves and then pee on them (the thrashed chilblains, not the holly leaves). I never did, although at times I was tempted to give it a go.
Since I have had my Uggs my feet have been as warm as toast, and I really haven’t suffered with cold feet at all. I love them, I truly do, and when this pair inevitably go to meet their maker, I am going to bite the bullet and cough up the exorbitant amount required for a new pair without the slightest hesitation.
Yes, dear readers. It is a genuine recommendation from me to you as a gift for all the frozen footed members of your tribe.
Jason is suffering the most. The rest of us are used to piling on layers of clothing at this time of year, feeling the cold as we do. He does not usually succumb until we are cracking the ice off the pipes, as he is of the hairy persuasion, and has a natural layer of insulation denied to the rest of us. He normally swans about in a t-shirt and shorts in all weathers, blithely disregarding my bobble hat and coat made entirely of hot water bottles.
Yesterday he gave in to the demands of the MOD. While we were in Tesco he bought himself what is quite amusingly described as a ‘Men’s Lounge Pant’. This may not be so amusing for Americans, who are used to calling trousers pants, but in this country pants are undercrackers and trousers are trousers, and in this case, the manly lounge pant is actually a pair of pyjama bottoms.
I love marketing.
Anyway, this particular pair of lounge pants had garish comic strip print of Spiderman on, and were thus irresistible to 35 year old small boys everywhere. He purchased them.
After we had finished dangling from the curtain hooks in Fleurs de Leurs he went to spruce up for the arrival of our guests.
He sashayed downstairs wearing his spider man pants, his summer flip flops made cunningly into winter slippers by the addition of a pair of stripey socks (mmm, one of my favourite sartorial looks for men, socks and sandals), a frayed t-shirt and his dressing gown.
I nearly choked on my tea.
Our guests, luckily for us, have known us for a very long time, and are not at all surprised by his sartorial choices, or indeed anything else he does or says. I liked the fact that when he took our friend P out to see his new car and to buy a pint of milk from across the road, he only altered his appearance by adding a woolly hat.
We are already getting quite a reputation in the neighbourhood. He has done nothing to allay people’s fears. We will be news for years to come.
As we were sitting, eating our dinner he suddenly gave an outraged squawk. After he had emptied his mouth of Shepherd’s pie it transpired that what he had said was:
‘They’ve missed the ‘S”
‘???’ came the reply.
It turns out that all the bits of comic strip on the feted lounge pants say ‘piderman’ instead of ‘Spiderman’.
He is outraged of MOD.
I said that perhaps they had saved all the ‘S’s’ to use on the Superman trousers.
This did not go down well.
In our house Superman is a wet and an uter wede.
We have decided that Piderman has amazing super powers of his own that involve him being able to widdle over tall buildings with ease. He can also piddle in streams which he can then freeze and climb over, much in manner of shooting webs, but more unsanitary.
Jason is not impressed.
A splutter warning should have been put at the top of that post Katyboo. The 20-somethings currently fueling up for their return to the metropolis were somewhat alarmed by the unseemly loud gales of laughter emanating from my little hideaway! I do however have a wonderful mental image of Jason in his finery and insist that at some stage you visit so we can see it for real
FYI We were told when we arrived in OZ that the Ugg Boot was an Ozzie invention (despite the Americans’ attempt to hijack and trademark the name) and did indeed stand for Ugly Boots!
Sharon
I am so pleased they really are Ugly boots. It has made my day.x