And on multiple occasions, too. It happens every time I go into town, which would be every weekday on my way to and from my day job. Sometimes it happens more than once a day. And sometimes on weekends, too. I can’t go anywhere these days without being chugged, it seems! Sigh.

But Michelle, I hear you all cry, What on earth are you talking about? Isn’t chugging something to do with drinking copious amounts of warm beer on university campuses or in pubs? Is it students stopping you on the street and making you chug beer with them?

Sadly, no. I have no problem with that kind of chugging (as long as it is not frequent and is done responsibly). I may have partaken of that kind of chugging myself, in my younger years. I may even have quaffed a bit, too.

Here in the UK a chugger is a CHarity mUGGER. Usually they are people who work for a for-profit company hired by a charity to raise donations. They are usually young people, often students just trying to make a few quid to put themselves through college. They take to the streets, usually in packs of about five or six,  wearing the emblem of the charity on a T-shirt, or similar. And they all carry scary-looking, official clip boards!

Their mission: to accost innocent passers-by with a friendly manner, to try to get said innocent passers-by to feel so guilty about worthwhile, needy children’s charities, or worthwhile, needy animal charities, or other equally worthwhile and needy charities, that the passers-by feel compelled to hand over their bank details, sign the dotted line, and commit to  the charity deducting a monthly donation from the person’s bank account. Ad infinitum.

Here is something they don’t really tell you, though: for about the first year or so the for-profit keeps that donation as its fee, and thereafter transfers the money to the charity. I should add, as a disclaimer, that not all chuggers are working for a for-profit organization, some work for the charities directly.

Now, I have no problem with this. There are many worthy charities in this world, and they do have to raise funds however they can in this austere day and age. And I have no problem with these young chuggers benefitting from a bit of hard work and using their charm for a good cause. But there are just so many of them, it gets so tiring! Especially the ones who make you feel ultra guilty.

My recent experience of chugging was exactly that. A very personable young man asking a question that is a non-question, a non-question to which there is only one reasonable answer.

This is what happened:

There I was, innocently walking through the center of town, shopping bags in hand (and heavy ones, because I’d just been to the supermarket) when this young whippersnapper appeared out of nowhere and flashed his teeth and his scary-looking, official clip board at me.

“Are you an animal lover, madam?” he asked, with a cheery manner and a jaunty smile. Apart from feeling rather ancient because he called me “madam,” I was a bit irritated, because, apart from the fact that my heavy shopping bags were making my arms feel like they were in imminent danger of falling off, how many people are not going to say “yes” to such a loaded question? “Are you an animal lover, madam.” Bah, humbug. As it turns out, that person not saying “yes” in answer to the question would be yours truly.

“Of course not,” I replied with a completely straight face. “I can’t STAND the little critters.” He realized I was just joking. I think. It was a bit hard to tell, since he was speechless. . .

Michelle, who has just inherited a kitty, and who is most definitely not an animal hater!

PS. I am also a charity lover. My new contest (details to come soon) will involve prizes that include donations to charity from me on behalf of the contest winner. But directly to the charity, no middle-person chuggers allowed!

One of the reasons I adore Oh Patient One is that he can be very whimsical, and even the smallest, teeniest memory he treasures dearly.

So, this summer we made a couple of trips to Wales because a) it is a beautiful country, b) Oh Patient One is from there originally, c) he wanted to revisit places from his childhood, d) he wanted to re-connect with family members from his Dad’s side after quite a long time, and e) meet a lot of family members for the first time.

One thing I can tell you is that the Welsh language, beautiful as it is, doesn’t come easily to me. It either has too many vowels, or none at all, so I struggled with place names like Llangollen (literally klangocklen) and Betws-y-coed (literally betsy coyed). The place we stayed is called Rhostyllen. The nearest pronunciation I can offer is “Roast Duckling.”

Let me also say that, apart from being a lovely, welcoming, warm group of people, it was the first time ever in my life that I have been in the company of so many who share our last name of Cunnah. When we lived in London several years ago there were only three Cunnahs in the entire phone book, amidst a population of about seven million, so this was quite exciting for us.

Anyway, while we were in Wales we visited every conceivable place Oh Patient One’s family, both current, long-time dead and recently passed away, has ever lived. We looked at the nursing home where Oh Patient One was born (it’s the first time he’s been back there since birth), we ooohed and aaaahed at the small house where he spent about 2 years of his young life, we marveled at the farm where he used to visit his bff aged 4. We particularly admired the house where his deceased uncle lived about 30 years ago (the deceased uncle only died last year and lived in a lot of other places in the last 30 years, too).

On one of our expeditions we visited a pub that had “family significance.” It was a lovely country pub on the river Dee, it was totally picturesque, really, with hanging baskets of flowers, and we even had sunshine which made it look extra pretty. And I must be honest, the sunshine was unusual, because Wales isn’t green and lush because it gets a lot of that particular commodity.

Anyway. Oh Patient One wanted a picture of him and Teenager No #2 sitting on the bridge over the river because 20 plus years ago Oh Patient One and his dad had their picture taken on this same bit of wall, so it was “for posterity.” Being interested in Oh Patient One’s family background, Teenager No #2 asked, “This pub clearly means a lot to you and your memories of your Dad. You must have come here a lot.” Oh Patient One said, without missing a beat, “Oh no, we only came here the once.”

See what I mean about the whimsy?

The last morning  of our trip was pretty exciting. We visited the grave of Oh Patient One’s great-great-great- Uncle Samuel Cunnah, who went to Patagonia, ended up being rich, was childless, came back to Wales and left all his money to his four great-nieces (I’ve seen a copy of the will) and not to his niece (mother of the four great nieces and who lived with Samuel Cunnah in his later years) so clearly there is a family tale we will never know about. But whatever the secret, Samuel Cunnah has an ornate tombstone, with a huge angel on it and everything. It’s the largest tombstone in the graveyard in Coedpoeth (I can’t tell you how to pronounce that, since I can’t manage it myself).

For the first time ever, I decided that this was the year for me to swell the writerly ranks at NaNoWriMo.org. It’s been such a hectic time, I really felt I needed a kick start on several book proposals I’m working on.

National Novel Writing Month is a yearly challenge organized by Chris Baty. Commencing on November 1, the aim is to write a complete (or nearly a complete) book of 50,000 words by midnight on 30 November.  No editing required, just write your heart out and worry about tidying it up later.

Why not come jump in? The water’s fine.

Michelle, with 2,000 words from day one, and aiming for the same today.

I am so so late announcing this, forgive me! Things have been rather hectic over the past few months and I can be a bit of a scatter brain (every day when I wake up I have that moment of confusion, and wonder, “Where the hell am I?).

Anyway, without further deliberation, I am happy to announce that the winners for my July and August contests are (drum roll. . . more drum roll. . .) Rita W of Hisperia, CA, USA, and Kirsten S of Urmond, the Netherlands. They corretly answered that the gift Joe bought for Fiona was a silver trilobite necklace.

Congratulations/gefeliciteerd Rita and Kirsten! Copies of Almost Fabulous will shortly be in the mail to you both.

Meanwhile, I have a new contest question and more books to give away, details right here.

Michelle, currently somewhere in England. At least I think I am. . .

Unfortunately, I have a habit of forgetting dates. Especially our wedding anniversary.  Fortunately, Oh Patient One (who is pretty good at remembering dates) also has a habit of forgetting the date of our wedding anniversary.

Not that we hated our wedding, or anything, because it was absolutely great. It was a lot of fun. We got married at Marylebone Town Hall in London (which used to be very popular with pop stars), then back to St. John’s Wood to my sister-in-law’s apartment for a party with family and friends, then off to Amsterdam for our honeymoon (was it at that point in time we decided that we loved the Netherlands and wanted to move there?) and that was fab, too.

No, we just decided early in our relationship that we would celebrate our anniversaries privately and quietly, and only make a fuss of the big ones. So from time-to-time we forget and remember a couple of days later. It’s no biggie, we always laugh about it, then use it as an excuse to go out for a nice dinner.

Well, this year it was a bit different. On Saturday night as we sat chatting and sipping wine on our balcony in the Rotterdam apartment Oh Patient One reminded me that we had an anniversary coming up on August 25th, so we planned to go out for dinner to de Stoep (the best place in Rotterdam to get spare ribs–if you are ever in Rotterdam it’s well worth a visit).

Anyway, on Tuesday morning we remembered to say “happy anniversary” to each other, and spent a nice, quiet day working on our books (Oh Patient One is a writer, too). The sun was shining and all was right with the world. Until that afternoon when I was instant messaging with No Longer Teenager No: #1. This is the conversation we had:

Me: “Got to abandon you and go get ready, sweetie – it’s our anniversary today and we’re off out to dinner.”

No Longer Teenager No #1: “But today’s the 25th, Mum. Your anniversary is August 23rd.”

Me: “No, it’s definitely today. Even Dad agrees, and you know that he’s usually good with dates.”

No Longer Teenager No: #1 (a bit exasperated, even in cyberspace: I could tell): “Mother, what are you like? It’s definitely the 23rd.”

So I asked Oh Patient One what he thought, and he said that it was definitely the 25th. By now I wasn’t so sure and thought I’d get out our marriage certificate (again) until I realized that it was at the house in England. Not one to be thwarted, I used teh googles to find a calendar for the year we got married, and guess what? No Longer Teenager No: #1 was right.

Me: “You are right. How could we make such a mistake?”

No Longer Teenager No: #1 (along with LOL and smilies): “Mother, that’s just so like you. Do you even remember the birth dates of your offspring?”

Me (a bit huffily, because I never forget their birthdays): “Of course I do. No woman ever forgets the excruciating pain of childbirth, it is etched inexorably on her brain and internal calendar. Even though all that pain was worth it. ”

Anyway, Oh Patient One and I had a good laugh about the dates muddle, and got ourselves ready to go out to dinner. Who cares if we were a couple of days late? But when we got to de Stoep there was a problem. It was fully booked. This is unusual for a Tuesday night. The Dutch universities open this coming week, and there was a big party of students booked in for that evening. But if we wanted to wait two hours then they could squeeze us in.

We got takeout from our favorite Chinese restaurant, instead. We know how to live.

PS. Oh Patient One secretly planned a surprise trip to Paris for our 20th anniversary. How romantic was that?

PPS. We both fell in love with Paris. Maybe that means we’ll live there someday, too. . .