Cheap and Nasty...

I appear to come from a long line of bargain-hunters. It must be in the blood; a twist in my DNA which was created when first I was just a twinkle in a boiler-house fitter's eye. My mother is the most repugnant bargain-hunter: belligerent; rude; arrogant and embarrassing. I mean to say, one simply doesn't haggle the undies down in a charity shop, does one?

However, I am a watered-down version of her when it comes to bargains and the 'reduced' aisle in our local supermarkets. Only today, I informed Mr P that I was going to the Co-op for milk and prawns. I returned with a bag filled with miniature cheeses - those ones which are very poncey, look great on the dinner table and make you bankrupt (reduced from £2.19 to 40p); a lemon cheesecake (reduced from £3.29 to 60p); six organic, free-range eggs (reduced from £1.75 to 75p) and Scotch eggs (reduced from £1.99 to 99p).

I forgot to get the prawns.

I am always seduced by the reduced...

I shop at charity shops and second hand shops most of the time - eBay is my best friend. I don't mind wearing other people's cast-offs in the slightest. I have even been known to make 45 minute drives over to Wilmslow, home of the Manchester United players, whose wives and girlfriends (WAGs) donate their Armani, Gucci, Versace and D&G to the local Oxfam, British Heart Foundation and Cancer Research shops. It's the place to pick up a designer bargain most of the time. 

On one of my trips, I got chatting to a fellow bargain hunter who told me only that morning he had purchased a Hugo Boss suit, pure wool, still with tags for £25.00. It had been donated literally minutes ago by footballer, Roy Keane. Colleen Rooney (Wayne Rooney's new wife, little Scouse bundle of fluff and £££s that she is) makes a point of donating all her cast-offs to the charity shops in Wilmslow. And women fall on them like ravening wolves. Particularly as she doesn't fit the usual WAG stereotype of being rake thin and shapeless. She is 'all vumman'! And therefore, half of Unposh Cheshire, those of us filled with Pies and Prejudice [apologies, Stuart Maconie] (that's where I live) cannot wait for her to have a jolly good clear-out. And I don't mean on the toilet...

Now, my bargain hunting doesn't always turn out for the best, I have to be honest. I have risked 'sell-by dates', forgotten about them, having stored said items in the fridge, and returned to find a green, furry mass of seething cures for the diseases of the Third World. I have also bought items of clothing from eBay, claiming to be such and such a size, got them for £3.50 plus P&P and the discovered that they are size 8, but only if you are a midget with anorexia. I even, much to my utter dismay, bought the most fantastic Karen Millen dress the other month from eBay for £40 when it should have been £200. It was on the kinky side, I must admit - all black, fitted satin; bondage style zips and just quite dirty, really. I bust the side zip, trying to pour myself into it in a very ungainly manner. I had to actually be cut out of the damned thing. Mr P got his pliers and broke the zip so I could breathe again. I decided to take it to a seamstress to have it let out slightly and have the zip mended, but I left it on a pile of books designated for donation to Oxfam before doing so. 

And the dress went with the books...

I was extremely, very, awfully, very, exceptionally upset...

Now, we are attempting to tighten our belts at the moment and save money where necessary as we are in a rather precarious financial situation, waiting for Mr P's house down south to sell. So, I have been bargain hunting in ways which I know would make #1's and #2's stomachs turn were they to ever read their mother's blog...which they refuse to, because IT'S BORING!!! 

So, they will never, ever know that last night, their 'chicken casserole' was actually 'bunny brew'...A whole bunny for three quid! I can't even buy one decent sized chicken breast for that amount! It was a pretty grotesque thing to behold, I must admit. It was vacuum-sealed in plastic from our local Master Butcher and had this bit of absorbent 'paper' upon which it lay, and which appeared to be speckled with the detritus from a hairy man's razor blades. It turned my stomach and I had to ask Mr P to take it from the plastic, give it a wash and make it slightly more presentable before I could attack it.

Although my best intentions were to carve the uncooked meat first and then casserole it, I simply couldn't do it. Outside, gambolling in their run, were Lambert and Butler, our two Netherland Dwarf rabbits. I felt evil; a turncoat; a pariah of virtue.

Then I snapped its spine and popped it in with the leeks, carrots, garlic, shallots, cider and stock...

Mr P reckoned the smell emanating from the oven was fantastic. It did smell pretty good, I must admit, but I was starting to sweat profusely. It was six hours before the girls returned from school. Would they suss? Would there be a row? How could I blag my way through this one? I have never, ever managed to pass fish off as chicken, but an esteemed cookery website informed me that 'young rabbit tastes just like chicken'. I just hoped my rabbit hadn't been drawing its pension...

'What's for tea?' said #1.

'Chicken casserole,' I replied.

'Oh Yum! Great!...What's this? Is this fish?'

No. It's not fish. What I did was, I didn't have any chicken breasts, so I bunged a whole chicken into the casserole pot, cooked it up, then pulled the meat off. That's why it looks like your meat from a Sunday Roast.'

'It's fish, isn't it?'

'No, I swear to you. It isn't fish.'

'It's not fish, Rosie' [from #2] 'Look at it, fish doesn't look like that. You've never eaten fish like I have, so you wouldn't know.'

'OK. I want to see the bones'

*thinks* Oh Gawd. They are in the outhouse. The cat has cleaned them dry. They don't look chicken-like any more. At all...

'I didn't know chickens had such prominent spines...'

'Yeah. That's because we clean up after the Roast Dinners.'

They both ate their Bunny Brew. Even complimented it. You will never, ever understand the sigh of relief I released when I washed up later on.

Trouble is, my conscience is pricking me dreadfully. I cooked Thumper. I may as well have killed Bambi's Mum. I feel sick to my stomach. £3.00 or not, to feed three people.

I have bought a kilo of tomatoes to make tomato and roast pepper soup. Nobody cares when a tomato screams...

Second Time Lucky?

As our two readers are aware, Mr Parsnip proposed to me on 5 November 2007. As none of you are aware, we have set our wedding date for 19 April 2008. To this end, most evenings and weekends are a social whirl of meeting photographers, wedding planners at hotels, registrars, florists, chauffeurs and hairdressers. It’s all a bit alien to me, to be honest, and I have taken a bit of a back seat, really, allowing Mr P to take command and be masterful, as he is My Hero. Don’t puke…it is what I say to him when I am being sarcastic…

I was married once before, as you both know – hence, Hex My Ex. That wedding was totally organised by me under the strict monetary guidance of Anal, the ex. As I couldn’t organise a Piss Up In A Brewery, you can imagine that it was a bit of a Mickey Mouse affair. Everything was done on the cheap – marrying a staunch Yorkshireman with his eye on the purse strings and having an interfering mother who demanded that I bought a pink nylon lace wedding dress from Albert’s Stall on the Market and marry over the anvil at the Blacksmith's in her village made me feel as though I had to save as much money as possible – even my underwear was bought from Oxfam…(that’s a fib, to be perfectly honest!).

Our wedding rings were the first saving: he had been jilted the year before and had kept the bands and engagement ring which was returned when she declared that she couldn’t marry the most selfish man she had ever met. I also had a wedding band passed down to me from a deceased relative. So, into the melting pot they all went and two new bands were created. Were they already hexed? I was even offered the former fiancées engagement ring until the ex realised that he could get a better deal by pulling an insurance scam, obtaining a new ring and flogging it to raise funds. As a bit of a nube, I concurred to his initial suggestion and wore aforesaid ring until his bright idea pinged into life.

I worked as a personal tax consultant at the time and two of my clients were in the bridal industry. So off I went to see them, offering to get them as much of a tax rebate as was possible if they could do me a deal on my dress and flowers. I ended up with a dress, which wasn’t my first choice due to costs, looked like a meringue with a dash of squirty cream, and the tackiest silk flower bouquet known to man. The ex deemed fresh flowers a waste of money, and at least the silk ones ‘would keep’.

Next up, the wedding breakfast…we went to a local pub, Harewood House, which is quite a pretty place and booked the cheapest set menu offered. I think the menu consisted of Heinz tomato soup, Bernard Matthews roast chicken and Chivers jelly…maybe not, but you get the picture. The ex refused to shell out for champagne so we went to Food Giant, bought their cheapest Asti Spumante and then got charged £7 per bottle, corkage. He saved £10 per bottle by doing that.

Our wedding vehicle was a Mercedes. It was actually quite nice and one of the few things for which we paid full price, in effect. But as it was only driving us for approximately six miles round trip, they discounted that for us, too.

The photographer was an old buddy of his grandfather and smelt dreadfully, but gave a discount. Many of my photographic proofs show me wincing in distaste at his BO. Thankfully, the distant shots were OK and we just about managed to garner an album’s worth. Ever frugal, the ex ‘hired’ his mate to video the whole shebang. Phil, who had never used a video camera in his life thought that if the camera was turned on its side, a ‘portrait’ view would be seen. For the first 20 minutes, we are all horizontal. We have a scene of me sneaking a cigarette from Phil’s wife horizontally, attempting to keep it secret as my parents didn’t know I smoked at the time, and thus expostulating to Phil to clear off in case the evidence was filmed; we have the ex sneaking horizontally behind the graves at the back of the church to urinate which caused me so much embarrassment I cannot tell you how much I remonstrated with him afterwards; we have the most excruciating Best Man’s speech, vertically, which bangs on about aforesaid ex visiting prostitutes in Paris, of which I was not aware until that point in time; and we have me permanently holding my hand in front of my dress, both horizontally and vertically, as, when I got into the car, the hoop caused the skirt to hit my mouth and a smeary pink stain can be seen with the naked eye from space.

THIS WILL NOT HAPPEN AGAIN…

Mr P wants this wedding to be special. He claims I am ‘special’ because I went to a special school and thus, we deserve it. I think he is right, actually. It has been a bit of an effort not to suggest traipsing off to the Charity Shops for a second hand wedding gown, and to go to the local pub for our ‘do’, but I am reigning in my pennywise attitude to a greater degree.

So, I have the gown of my dreams; the bridesmaids, #1 and #2 are kitted out in ‘cappuccino’ coloured dresses, despite #2 wanting to wear combats and camouflage teamed with wellies; we have a fantastic venue which is palatial, yet elegant and discreet; we have matching wedding bands which are unique to us; and we have Sir Matt Chingduvé as my giving away chappy as my parents no longer talk to me because I decided to live my own life instead of theirs.

One of my main concerns is not to fluff the first dance. Mr P has booked us some private dancing lessons. I can only hope and pray that my two left feet don’t let me down…

My other concern is whether Mr P wants to become Mr Charles Mildew…!

Dame Tess Tickle's 50th Birthday

Sir Matt Chinguvé and I, Ms Agnes Mildew, should like to wish Dame Tess Tickle a fantastic 50th birthday.

The half-century celebrations commenced at 7pm at the Strachan Hall, Aberdeen on 26th June 2007. Hundreds arrived to participate in lots of balloon-blowing events, pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey and Postman's Knock, which resulted in Dame Tess taking a number of underage boys back to her hotel bedroom...


The Dame's husband, Sir Drew P. Cock sent thousands of invitations out to everybody from his work's email address, and many wanted to come but couldn't quite make it into the Hall due to Fire Regulations. However, we had the chance to interview such celebs as Jonny Depp and George Clooney who were quoted as saying, "That Tess is a sight for sore eyes. She is such a hip-swinging chick, we couldn't get here fast enough. What a fantastic party this is!". Their only complaint was that Matt & I couldn't be there in person...

A sumptuous buffet was laid on for all, a live band and Tess danced her laddered tights off, as is her wont - you should see her performing her shag! Sir Drew P. Cock's funky chicken goes down in the annals of history, believe you me!

Dame Tess patronises the halls of the overstated Robert Gordon University, lecturing on whether butter is more healthful than margarine, if it is wise to flush the toilet in a drought, and should she buy a dress from Oxfam or British Heart Foundation, such is her humanitarian nature. Her work colleagues (shallow pigs that they are, none of whom had the decency to say if they were coming to the party or not and will shortly be receiving 'flaming pasties' through the post from HexMyEx) are obviously in awe of her capabilities and from now on, as befits her Superior Status, she is no longer buying cakes for the parasitic little gimps.

We want to wish Dame Tess the bestest birthday in the whole wide world as she is one of the most wonderful people you could ever hope to meet, even if she can't pronounce 'curry' or 'Durham' properly. She looks after her 'Mam', she looks after her three boys, she even looks after the great unwashed of Scotland, and that in itself is a major task...

Happy Birthday, Dame Tess (JT) Tickle!! You deserve it!