Bum Shot

Why yes, that is a red satin heart I sewed to my French knickers, thank you for asking.

Showing My Bum To The Entire Village

Dearest Ms. Mac,

Sorry to be so uncommunicative since our hot Madonna date. But I have an important engagement today and tomorrow, namely showing my bum (along with twelve other dancers) while dancing the Cancan at the Festival 1900 in my Quaint Village.



Bum shots coming tomorrow!

Naughty love and saucy kisses,

Antipo

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Your Pain au Chocolat was Delicious!

Dearest Breakfast-less Babe,

I know when I sexted you to tell you that I had stolen forgotten to give you your pain au chocolat back, I said I stick it in my good mood book along with my Madonna ticket, but I got hungry and greedily gobbled your half-gnawed pain au chocolat somewhere between Strasbourg and Basel. My train-neighbour didn't know that it wasn't me who put the bite marks in it earlier in the day so I thought it was fair game.

It was delicious. Your saliva glands produce sweet bodily fluids!

I don't know about any of your other bodily fluids because you spurned my amorous advance in bed last night so cruelly. I was dreaming- your hairy legs made me think you were one of Madonna's gypsy mates who was serenading me in my slumber.

You might want to watch out for that.

S
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ps. It's not snoring, it's a rhythmical deep breathing.

You Broke My Heart and Stole My Breakfast

Dearest Ms. Mac,

Little did I know when I got you onto the Suisse-bound train with only three minutes to spare at 8:20 this morning, that my pain au chocolat was still nestled comfortably in your handbag!

Ah well, I must be philosophical. 'Tis but a small price to pay. I was a Madonna concert virgin. You nursed me through my deflowering. We even shared a bed for the first time! Only wish I had shaved my legs recently... Was that your snoring that rattled the rafters, or mine?

I sloped into work extremely late on this sunny morning with sore but happy feet, and the strains of Madonna's heavy metal version of Hung Up still ringing in my ears. I think I nearly pogoed myself into oblivion last night. I wanna be a Rock Chick now.

How can real life possibly compete after the magic of Sunday?

No time for debriefing now. Let's RDV later Babe.

Stunned love & kisses,

Antipo
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I Wasn't Kidding About That Red Feather Boa!

AND PIGS ACTUALLY FLEW

Dearest Darls,

Pinch me, Babe! Can’t quite believe the good news. I am so relieved to have the tix in my hot little hand this morning, that I literally feel sick. Am like a survivor of post traumatic stress syndrome.

Tossed and turned all last night, thinking of Plan A, Plan B and Plan C, ad infinitum. Got to work very early, looked up tracking code of parcel on La Poste website: “Erroneous code”. Heart sank even further, which physically should not have been possible.

Rang the girl I know at the sorting office, started wittering at her at top speed my plans A, B and C, and she cut me short with “HELEN SHUT UP! I’VE GOT THEM!”

Wiped a grateful tear from my eye, jumped in car and burned rubber to get to post office. Signed for them with trembling hand. Am too afraid to be parted from them now. Have them down the back of my jeans, pressed against my skin. Will sleep with them inside my pyjamas tonight. How will I be able to shower tomorrow? The tix may be quite smelly by Sunday. Never mind…

:-D

I've Got A Baaaaaad Feeling

Dearest Bitten, Bloody Stumps,

I feel absolutely sick Darls. No news from La Poste. The Lovely Maureen rang the ticket vendors and they said they can't issue new tickets, as ours were standing places and had no seat numbers.

La Poste at my end said IF the packet has gone missing, they will reimburse 458 euros (the tix were worth 170). So that will be an incredibly tiny consolation (and no doubt weeks of paperwork and wrangling). At least I will be able to buy us all a good meal out in a swanky Parisian resto.

I just wanted to do something nice. I just wanted to bring some happiness to someone, in these war-torn, environmentally compromised, financially corrupt modern times of ours. I just wanted to sprinkle some of my magic fairy dust onto your sad face and make you smile again. You got a cute way of talkin'. You've got the better of me. Just snap your fingers and I'm walking, like a dog, hanging on your lead.

I've crawled into a small black hole, am curled into a ball and am sucking my thumb. Please wake me when the nightmare is over.

Sadface kisses,

Antipo

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The Lovely Maureen...

...should be able to contact the ticket people and have the tix replaced. Remember when Kiwifruit Fi lost her U2 tix in the move from the Big Smoke to Cold Comfort Farm?

Maybe it's time to get in touch with the ticket people. Maureen should have her receipt from payment for the tix, no?

Bloody hell. Post offices are the devil's work!

S
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More Bad Language

The Lovely Maureen will go and see her Post Office again this afternoon and challenge them with:

"What are you going to to about it?"

If she gets no joy I will ring them up every hour on the hour until I can speak to the manager and calmly, but angrily explain the heart-ache and peptic ulcers that are now being created at this very minute.

The parcel is insured, so I will get some money back if it is lost completely, but I don't know if I can claim anything if, for example, it is delivered in two weeks time, or at Christmas, or in 2011.

Mother-fucking Post Office cunts. I am livid. Cannot relax, cannot concentrate on work. What I really hate is that

(a) I wanted to bring you a tiny drop of golden pleasure into your sordid, wretched, despondent little life

and

(b) an almost complete stranger, i.e. The Lovely Maureen, is having to run around on a work day, using up her precious time, for us. She doesn't even know if we are worth it! I will be buying her a MASSIVE drink or three this weekend when we meet her, what ever the outcome.

So, three people's stress levels are being crurrently hammered by one fucking idiot who didn't use his bastarding bugger bar-code scannie-thingie correctly.

You know the bitter irony is that if I had asked her to post them in a normal envelope with a normal stamp I probably would have rec'd the tix two days ago.

Shit. Arse. Bum.

Antipo

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Fuckity Fuck

Dearest Darls,

The Lovely Maureen gave me the registered code number for the parcel containing our Madge tix and I looked it up online. "NO INFORMATION CAN BE GIVEN ABOUT THIS ITEM".

Great. I ring the local sorting centre (I know a girl there!). She looked up the code for me and confirmed nothing arrived here, and they can't even track the movements of the parcel because somebody at the Post Office in Maureen's village must have forgotten to "flash" the parcel, i.e. scan it with his bar-code scannie-thingie.

I will beat the crap out of somebody at La Poste today if they still haven't come... What pisses me off so greatly is that one pays extra for registered & insured letters, precisely in order not to be sweating with nerves and worrying about the fucking document arriving on time. Fuckers.

Antipo

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Red Feather Boa on Standby Anyway

Anything yet?

Am biting my nails down to bloody stumps waiting.

Still, I'm going to pack my red feather boa come hell or high water!

S
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You Might Want To Re-Book Your Toenail Cutting Appointment After All

Dearest Darls,

The Lovely Maureen and I are in a joint wee tizzy. She posted me the Madonna tix last Monday (insured, registered, with computer surveillance, tracker dogs and requiring my signature upon receipt).

La Poste in my village has confirmed this morning that nothing has come to them yet, so Maureen is checking with La Poste in her village to see if they have actually left the vicinity yet, or if their postie sat down for a coffee break sometime and hasn't got up again.

I am working tomorrow so can be here in the office for the postie if he comes, but if the tix don't arrive until Saturday morning I will likely miss the postie. He will then leave a coupon in the office letter box to say "Hello motherfucker! I called with your Madonna tix, but you weren't here! Sorreee, but you can pick them up on Monday...."


Of course I could spend my Saturday morning hanging out in an empty office, waiting for the postie, instead of cooking up a storm of tempting delicacies for you in my kitchen as planned.

At least Darls, if the tix really do go missing for ever, we can still have fun in Paris on Saturday night, sitting in the gutter outside the Stade de France and swiggin' vodka from a bottle in a brown paper bag, right?

At the very least, we'll get a good blog post out of it, right?

Chewed-fingernail love and stressed-out kisses,

Antipo

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Sweating Bullets

Dear La Poste,

I HATE YOU.

I HATE YOU.

I LOATHE AND DESPISE YOU.


You have taken years off my life.

Yours in cold, stony, black, putrefaction and hatred, with absolutely NO love and definitely NO kisses,

Antipo

P.S. I will never post a single letter ever again, as long as I live.

Did You Say Tallest and Strongest Friend?

Dearest Ms. Mac,

Actually, Sébastien Chabal is my tallest and strongest (not to mention hairiest) friend, so I invited him first.

But he said he's busy next weekend. He's really heartbroken that he couldn't go with me. I think his little wifie wants to go and pick out furniture at Ikea, or somewhere equally glam.

Short love and tiny kisses,

Antipo

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Dearest Ray of Light,

SwissPost/TNT have been and gone. And I missed them. I know. By about 4 Minutes. Really, You Must Love Me. I just Hung Up the phone from them. They will return zwischen 1400 und 1600 heute nachmittag. Note to Self: Must remember to pack my bloody passport on Sat morning. Paris is Miles Away. In another country, even.

Rain required an emergency change of footwear this morning. Had to wear trainers to walk in. Now I have blisters on my heels. My wet-tissue paper feet haved foiled me again. The cloven hooves of old have returned. I do hope blisters are in Vogue.

Is the proofreading going well? The months just fly past, don't they? I hope I didn't make your brain explode with my few words of German earlier in addition to the proofreading. I'm sure it hasn't killed you and you'll live to Die Another Day.

Will write more later. Must go and do some shopping for Patrick's b'day cake(s!!!) for tomorrow. I'm Borderline beside myself with urgency.

Give it 2 Me, baby and write soon,

Sticky love and sweet kisses,

MM
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*Yawnzzz* Sorry, what was that?

Dearest Little Star,

I shall check my diary. I think my Mr Mac's cooking a roast beef on Sunday. It was either his roast beef or washing my hair, I'm not quite sure what I was supposed to be doing this weekend but I suppose if it's so very important to you, then I could, theoretically, drop everything and come to Paris and hold your hand at your first Madonna concert.

Of course, being an old hand at Madonna, I won't be spend any time at all looking forward to it or dreaming about being there in front of a Goddess between now and then and I'll probably just spend the whole two hours just, like, yawning and stuff while you sit on my shoulders, whooping and flashing your tits at the cameras. (Don't think I haven't realised that I'm your tallest and strongest friend, darling!) There certainly won't be any jumping up and down in antici........... pation or wringing my hands with glee at the first bars of Like a Prayer. No, sirree!

OK, book me in.

With hard candy love and sticky & sweet quisses,

MM
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ps. Give it to me, yeah! No one's gonna stop me- now!

Pre-Emptive Strike

Dearest Ms. Mac,

I don't suppose you would squeal with delight if I told you The Lovely American K-Sam had organised with The Lovely Scottish Maureen to get me two tickets to Madonna in Paris next weekend, and that you would be my Number One Hot Date to go with, and that The Lovely Mr. Mac has already given his spousal permission?

Nah, didn't think so.

Oh well. I'll sell them to the highest bidder, I guess.

Love and kisses,

Antipo

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Warning: This Post Contains Many Calories And May Be Hazardous To Your Health

Dearest Ms. Mac, Soulie and Fellow Foodie,

I am delighted, naturally, that you so willingly responded to Dana and Kay’s vegetarian meme, but I am also slightly miffed that I will not be able to do it myself, as you have written almost exactly the same creative and witty answers that I was planning to use myself.

Except of course that I am sophisticated enough to enjoy such delicacies as quinoa, okra and spiced tofu, and not make spiteful and immature jokes about them.

It was a very timely meme, as it reminded me that I was too tired at the beginning of the week to tell you of the gastronomic splendours which came into being in my kitchen last weekend. After a rather long creative drought, I got my cooking mojo back and whipped up the following:

- chicken in tomatoes, capers and white balsamic
- grilled spiced tofu with Vietanamese coleslaw
- grilled salmon steaks with sorrel & sour cream sauce
- endives, red grapes and gorgonzola salad, dressed with white balsamic and walnut oil (droolsome)
- Australian choc & macadamia cookies (made with vast quantities of brown sugar)

Today my colleagues are having a wee office party with drinkies and nibbles, so I baked some savoury mini-muffins:

- a very moist, bacon, celery & grainy mustard filling, topped with sesame seeds
- and an even moister cheese muffin filled with chopped grilled red peppers and sprinkled with paprika.

And I roasted some pecans in butter, maple syrup and cayenne pepper (Nigella). They are so very good, I might have to make you some and put them in a pretty jar for your Christmas present!

I have just made myself extremely hungry, so must bid you adieu for the noo.

Love and Calorific Kisses,

Antipo

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P.S. Do you have any idea as to why I dreamed last night that your lovely husband and The Lovely Gomad were disco-dancing in short, tight, silver hotpants at an office party at Christmas time? I am baffled. Analyse away, my Dear!

Love Your Buns!

Dearest Darls,

Am slowly working through my blahs. Yesterday I had bad news from a good friend of the ‘My hub has left me and shacked up with my former best friend’ type, and this morning I had wonderful news from another friend of the ‘We are finally pregnant after many years of trying!’ type. So the good cancels out the bad, but my wee emotions are all over the place, like scurrying, stoned rats on the cosmic roller coaster of life, man.

I just started Kate Atkinson’s Emotionally Weird , last night and she made me laugh right from the first paragraph. I’m currently in Dundee where the main character went to university, but I will soon find masel back on the dreich wee isle off the west coast of Scotland, whence she is narrating the tale.

My favourite review of her book states: 'Sends jolts of pleasure off the page…' , which is the downright truth. I so thoroughly enjoyed her first novel Behind the Scenes at the Museum, that I had to go back and re-read it immediately upon finishing it. Ditto for Human Croquet. Kate Atkinson is a dazzling novelist with a wicked sense of humour and she throws in gobbets of black humour all over the show. I wince even as I’m laughing, when I read her. I am saving all these books for you and will lug them over in my suitcase next November.

My God, but your buns sound amazing! Book me and my stomach into Chateau Mac for November, and programme the oven too. I would love to sniff your buttery, yeasty-smelling fingers right now though.

Lunch is a micro-waved, cheaty, bought meal of pasta, salmon & green sparrowgrass tips, which I have customised with masochistic lashings (ouch!) of black pepper, and it’s reet tasty.

Wish you were here!

Love and TGIF kisses,

Antipo

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P.S. But won't the Swiss Culinary Police arrest you for having made Sunday bread on a Froiday? I am rather afraid for your physical safety now. Please phone me if you need bail money.

One to Perk You Up

Hello darling!

I know you've been having a blah morning due to your internal alarm clock beating the electronic one and waking you up by 4am. I hate waking up too early. Hate it, I tells ya! So I empathise, baby! Hoping your blahs have worn into an all round better mood by now.

I am rather excited about the whole idea of these Kate Atkinson novels you keep harping on about you're rather enjoying these days. Is the new one set nearer to Edinburgh (south of Fife) or Dundee (north of Fife)? Please do start slipping little Scottishisms into our correspondence, I shall be beside masel.

When next you come to our humble abode, I shall be able to astound you with my newly learned skill- Zopf making! A dear Swiss friend very kindly came over and gave me a master class in Swiss Sunday Breakfast Bread this morning. I am over the moon with my efforts; not only did I use fresh yeast for the very first time, my dough rose above and beyond the rim of the bowl which was so bloody exciting I can't begin to express it in words (except I just did). I felt like a mother who just gave birth. But without the swollen genitals and leaky boobs. Although, other parts of me were slightly leaky but I'm not willing to elaborate. Only minutes until my new buns come out of the oven. I hope to be able to take a fabby picture of them for that other blog.

Ooooh, my hands smell of butter and other, lovely, bready aromas. Did you know this is the first time I have ever baked bread?

Sorry to carry on like a pork chop about the Zopf, lovey. I'm just ever so slightly excited by the whole idea of me not being completely useless.

Tra la la la la.....

Bready hugs and buttery kisses,

S
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The Blahs

Dearest Ms. Mac,

Am having a grey pubes sort of day.

Bear with me.

Antipo


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Wot I Had For Lunch Today

Dearest Exotic Ella-Ella-Ella,

I can't possibly compete with your taste-bud-tingling and sophistimacated luncheon. I hastily scrabbled round in the fridge this morning and threw some left-over and decidedly ancient - but I shall call it 'aged' - rice in a Tupperware pot, added left-over fried courgettes, chopped up a tomato - sorry, pomodoro - and an avocado and flung them in, drizzled over some bottled vinaigrette and called it A Salad.

Bof!

It was rather bland after last night's exquisitely flavoursome dinner.

So tell me more about the gorgeous Portuguese singer's cleavage. I do think it’s a shame that the allure of a lovely bevvy like Spumante is somewhat tarnished by the connotations of the “spew” sound. Mind you, we can get around that problem by pronouncing it correctly, I suppose, Spoo-manté, can’t we? Ooh, hark at me! I love being a know-it-all.

And have you any new and hilarious jokes, while you are at it? I don't pay you to sit around and entertain other people you know!

Tired love and boring kisses,

Antipo

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Dearest Hangover Helen

Oh my stars! You know you should never indulge in more than half a babycham & lemonade on a school night! What were you thinking, you party animal!

I too spent the last evening imbibing immorally. Mr Mac and I were invited to a Portuguese wine tasting where we met some lovely people and listened to a Portuguese guitar band accompanied by a fabulous female singer with long, blonde curls and a gorgeous cleavage. When she wasn't singing, we were treated to the crooning of an older, white-haired gent who sang with one hand in his white trousers pocket while he used the other to express his passion and love for the music.- But not in a rude way, you understand. The wines on show were mostly of a fruity, summery, light variety and were perfect for seafood. Lucky us, there was also food- the most garlicky garlic bread spread with a divine tapénade, deep friend crumbed prawns, roulade of smoked salmon and, Mr Mac's favourite, chicken satay skewers to name just a few of the finger food dishes. Needless to say, Mr Mac and I enjoyed the evening immensely, even the bit where I got told off for not speaking more German by a friend of a friend. I must admit, my favourite wine of the evening was an Espumante. I loves me some bubbles.

To continue on with today's culinary theme, I have not yet opened my bottle of white balsamico but your recipe for chicken with a tomato & caper sauce sounds exactly the right occasion to uncork that baby. One of our readers, Sylv in Biel, suggested a while ago that white balsamico is perfect to use when you want the flavour of balsamic vinegar but not the dark colour.

What did you have for lunch today? I'm just about to tuck into a plate of oven warmed baguette, lightly buttered and topped with vine-ripened pomodori seasoned with mediterranean seasalt and cracked black pepper. You might know it by its other name- tomato on toast.

With amor e beijos,

MM
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Hungover Thursday

Dearest Darls,

I do hope your life doesn't seem suddenly all flat and boring after the Madonna excitement you knowingly inflicted up on yourself. You will keep indulging in these thrilling episodes, won't you? And then have to suffer the anti-climactic consequences....

I am somewhat of a self-harmer too today. My lovely American neighbour was due to pick up his kids' pet rabbit from my house last night, and I - quite by chance - prepared Nigella's fabulous soy, mirin & brown sugar-glazed salmon , with basmati rice, bok choi salad and individual banoffee pies around dinner time. Two glasses of chilled rosé, lots of laughs and one very late night later, and I found myself up at the bumcrack of dawn this morning, attempting to sew buttons, with shaking hands and pounding head, onto daughter's Back to School For Real outfit.

That will teach me!

Or maybe not....

Fragile love & kisses,

Antipo

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She's Not You!*

Dearest Love,

I always leave your house feeling all mushy and quivery. I simply never wish to cheapen our love by exploiting it so crudely on the blog. Madge will come and go but you are for ever. (Dear Madonna, this is all just to massage Antipo's fragile ego. Please forgive me, you've been in my life since 1983, don't leave me now or I shall simply expire from a crashed & crumbled cardiac organ. Sxxx)

NMTR from this end either, unless you count the fact that James left me in a red haze of anger yesterday morning when he went to catch the bus to school. His birthday is in October. He may not reach it. Honestly, Mr Mac and I are ready to cut him loose. Perhaps we should send him to your house for some short sharp shock treatment. Or maybe I'll just send him to the Bastille and leave him to rot. (Dear James, I would never do that. But you don't know that so shape up or ship out! Mumxxx)

Today I have gone out for a walk in the deliciously warm sunshine and been and done a spot of shopping in Aldi. My God, the glamour is never-ending. Still, could have been Lidl. How would I have handled that? Anyway, I now have the entire afternoon free (if I ignore the ironing). I intend to make a salami sanga and either sit back and watch some trashy tv or sit on the balcony or both. Decisions, decisions! Couldn't you come and join me?

With mucho love and molto besos,

MM
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*This title only really works if you know Madonna's Hard Candy album. Nick it off Mr Grumpy-but-Handsome. He's bought a copy, hasn't he?

Danger! My Life Is All Sex & Rock 'n' Roll (NOT)!

Dearest Your Madgesty Ms. Mac,

Wot a life-enhancing experience that concert obviously was for you! I wish I'd been there to see you go all mushy and quivering! Am a tad jealous that you don't wax quite so lyrical after a visit to my house. Must try harder, obviously!

NTR from my boring, miniscule life. Am reading lots and lots of porn on the innernet to stave off the boredom of my "job" and gigantic yawns. Just for the record, my new favourite expression is ‘writhing in a haze of sexual pleasure…’

Will seriously have to look for a job worthy of my cunning linguistic talents when the kids are just a little bit older. I hope I don't find myself saying that every year.

Daughter was adorably excited about going back to school today and last night carefully chose her clothes and accessories, and enlisted me to do her nail polish. This morning I had to straighten her hair with her new ceramic hot thingie and I had a go on my locks too, just for fun. I like (short and) curlies best though.

Write soon and save me from myself.

Antipo

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