The last six weeks of swings and roundabouts.

Things you don't want to hear:

Two days before Christmas from Jason the Chinese Mechanic:

'KATE! (capitals because he shouts)YOUR REAR BACK WINDOW MECHANISM REALLY BROKEN. IT'S GOING TO COST $500 TO FIX, PARTS ALONE. WHAT YOU WANT ME TO DO?'

On Christmas Eve, from your tenants:

'...and so we'll be moving out in three weeks.'

From your doctor.

'Sorry to tell you but your rib is cracked, you're about six weeks away from no pain.'

Things you do want to hear:

From the guy in the Vodafone shop after your Iphone is performing more like a heater than a phone:

'We can send it away, it won't cost you if you're within your warranty...let's check out when you bought it.....(inserts details into computer).....and you're within your warranty - by a day!'

From the guy in the Vodafone store three days later:

'Hi, just ringing to let you know your phone is back and fixed....oh no..... replaced.'

Sometimes the universe takes away, and then it gives it back. (Or, sometimes I am unlucky and sometimes I am a jammy bastard).

Awkward Family Photo makes me Happy.

And here we go with the first installment for 2011 from the glorious people at Awkward Family Photo.

Stop the bus, check out the denim. And the logic behind it has got me stumped. Maybe they just didn't have matching tops ? They're launching a new clothing line called 'Nude' and its catch phrase is 'The whole family can wear it'.

As for this one, all I can think of is, 'Flowers in the Attic called, they want their characters back'.
*Backs gently out of the room*.

It's the simple pleasures...

...like the perfect avocado.

When I play my 'What three foods would you take to a deserted island?' game, these are always in the first four on my list (see? I already can't play the game).

I played this game with a friend of mine recently and I was expecting a good few minutes of him torturing himself over what foods would or wouldn't make his list.

Without missing a beat he came right back with:

'Beer and nuts.'

Conversation with my Mother.

My mother (The Fruitcake):

'I was going to go to Iran this year but I'm off them because they won't return my emails. So I think I will buy a sculpture instead.'

When I lay my eyes on that sculpture I am going to give it a great big hug.

Another burning question from a rather small mind.

Remembering stuff. Some people have a head for numbers (not me), faces AND names (I'll generally always be able to retrieve the face but the name tends to run in the other direction), stuff from their childhood, school years, university (me, me, me. I am good at that game. To the exasperation of my friends, 'How can you remember that shit?')

I have a friend who is a production manager who can remember other people's credit card and air points numbers, which I find remarkable - I consider it a good day when I can find my credit card.

And then there's birthdays.

This is where my brain really perplexes me. I am generally pretty good at remembering birthdays from August through to April but, if your birthday falls anywhere in May, June or July, you can be confident I will forget it.

(Having said that, I did miss my godson in London's birthday in December but, in my defence your honour, I put that down to working seven days a week and simply not having enough room in my head. I emailed him and told him he was just going to have two birthdays this year. His new birthday is February 21st).

But I cannot think of one birthday in either May, June or July.

So that's a wee sample of things I forget, (I won't unleash the whole Pandora's Box on you).

Now, over to you lot. What things are you really good at remembering, or not ?

I think I will call this 'The Summer Series'.

More from my Christmas book (two posts ago).

Heather Locklear on marriage:

'The less jewellery the better the marriage.'

Robert De Niro's son on September 11:

'It was like watching the moon fall.'

And I like what Rodney Dangerfield has to say here about women:

'I can't figure women out. They put on makeup for three hours. They wear things that make them look smaller. Things that make them look bigger. Then they meet a man and want the truth.'

I also like this from him:

'When you walk up five flights of stairs at four in the morning, there's definitely a hooker involved.'

Serendipity...

Finding your earring before you even realised that you'd lost it.It's kind of like the universe giving you a wee hug.

Ten bucks says Clint doesn't pad his playground.

For Christmas I got an amazing book called 'The Meaning of Life'. It's a compilation of Esquire Magazine's 'What I've Learned' column. It's where (and I'm virtually plagarising here) people celebrated in their field sit down and share their life's wisdom.

So there's nuggets of advice about life from the likes of Robert de Niro, to John Malkovich to Gore Vidal, to a pioneering heart surgeon right through to Joan Rivers. I just love it. I've been doing my best not to hoover it up in one session, instead trying to (act like an adult and not a child in a lolly shop) and treat it more like a degustation menu.

I shall share a series of the best quotes I find.

First up Clint Eastwood. He was actually quoting Jerry Fielding (an American radio, record, film and television composer, conductor and musical director-no, neither did I), 'We've come this far, let's not ruin it by thinking'.

I think that is just gold.

Another piece of thinking of Clint's that I'm partial to, 'I remember going to a huge waterfall on a glacier in Iceland. People were there on a rock-platform overlook to see it. They had their kids. There was a place that wasn't sealed off, but it had a cable that stopped anybody from going past a certain point. I said to myself, "You know, in the States they'd have that hurricane-fenced off," because they're afraid somebody's gunna fall and some lawyer's going to appear. The mentality was like it was in America the old days:if you fall you're stupid.'

Clint made my day.

Burning Question to Kick off the Year.

Why hello! And happy new year and all of those things. Even though I'm possibly a tad late to the 'Happy New Year!' greeting party, cause isn't it practically February and shouldn't it be more like, 'Why are you late?'

I hope you've all had lovely holidays and all of those things. I'm back on the tools and mourning the end of holidays. It's a struggle, however as a friend who emailed today pointed out, 'Put it this way, you'd be feeling a lot worse if you weren't sitting in that office.' She had a point.

So I've given myself an upper cut and told myself to be thankful.

It's not quite working just yet.

Anyway, to kick us into the new year I shall share with you some Ronnie Corbett.

So did the technology make the fruit cool or, did the fruit make the technology cool?