Did it in fact bother us or was it just something we as people did…like talking about the weather or storing carrier bags in other bags. Was 90% of all language conversation banal  and if so why didn’t we just stop talking? When it came to Cassandra’s pigeon it was more like 90% of its conversation was idiomatic…and she pondered what it would be like if everyone communicated in idioms.  This thought was interrupted by the invasion of their neighbour, a little old lady who lived on the floor below but little only in terms of being vertically challenged not in any other sense of the word. If the Trojan horse had been filled with such ladies of her calibre the opposing army would have run from their posts clutching their teddy bears screaming ‘save me from the yayas’ (Greek grandmothers).  Hindsight revealing yet another school boy error in military strategy.  She purposefully entered the flat and was halfway down the corridor which separated the living area from the bedrooms, surveying the place as she went, pointing and giggling at little curios and paintings that intrigued her.  Cassandra usually retreated when the invasion took place, either in the apartment or on the balcony where she had often been cornered by this seemingly harmless woman.  The woman could never even remember her name and was determined she was called Catherine.  There she would be on the balcony when the little old lady would pop out to collect a bucket or feed her imprisoned bird 

when she would start shouting out ‘Catherine’.  As Cassandra was indeed named Cassandra and at no point had ever been Catherine, she politely ignored her to carry on with what she presumed was her calling somebody else on another balcony, naturally called ‘Catherine’.  She would also worryingly presume somebody had died every time Cassandra wore black, which led to no end of miscommunications. This time though her brother, the doctor, also accompanied her.  He always reminded Cassandra of the Greek doctor from Murder on the Orient Express apart from his chain smoking of course.  He had acquired that great skill, no doubt from years of cafenio smoking, of balancing a lit cigarette with a precariously laden heavy burnt ash end pursed between his lips.  It swung around the apartment hovering over unsuspecting surfaces: sofas, cushions, wooden tables, himself. To which end Cassandra’s mother monkey crept around the apartment following the bundle of ash with an ashtray in a vain effort to protect her soft furnishings. 

So if we’re visiting people over the holiday period this year we should really make a concerted effort to say something meaningful don’t you think? (and don’t forget to use an ashtray).

and so i feel i look like this…or…. this

but it’s not too late if you haven’t got one yet, you can always order a printable one like the vintage style DIY calendar from noisttex or catch up on the days you’ve missed when the others arrive like opening more of the Moomins. These are some of my other favourites…

For some it could even make the eating of salad and other varieties of the ‘green’ family appealing….Thoughts from short story Spaghetti Fate:

Cassandra’s father was less than impressed by the prospect of salad being served for dinner and even less so by the fact that it was going to be salad accompanied by something else, suggesting that it was in fact the salad that was going to be the main part of the dish rather than the other way round.  When asked what he would like with the salad the monosyllabic ‘meat’ was his only reply…what was he going to do with a salad, was he a rabbit? Accepting that, whilst indeed he did have the teeth for a rabbit, he certainly did not have their appetite for it.  So salad was served, thankfully along with other things as Cassandra had to admit following her father’s voracious appetite.  Except, eating dinner turned into more of a scene from a war film in which the tanks and ships are moved around a map with little sticks, but instead of model tanks and ships there were the serving bowls and demarcation lines of who was allowed to eat what and from which bowl.  Some would even attempt the great escape, with Steve McCucumber leaping from the salad bowl and diving under the table to avoid his own spaghetti fate of being eaten alive by the salad monster.  Cassandra witnessed another amusing parental episode of domestic life.

A teacher and her primary school students were in a lesson.  The teacher asks one of the students, ‘Maria’ to go over to the map and find America.

Maria goes over to the map and dutifully finds America and points at it.

‘Very good, Maria.’  The teacher then asks the class ‘And who discovered America class?’

To which they all reply ‘Maria did! Miss!’

And there you have it Initiate Question- wait for Response- Fail!