The sex of a lampshade.

You know life is pretty good all in all because no matter how bad things may seem it is possible to grab a laugh most days. All I need to do is walk around and keep my ears open and I'm guaranteed a chuckle or 3.
Down here is Devon there is a distinct accent, not everyone has it but a true devonian will warm the cockles of your heart by the way they speak, it is unchanged through time, this accent, and I would put money on it being pretty hard to understand if you aren't familiar with it. One of my favourite parts of the Devon and Cornwall way of speaking is the way everything has a gender. Not just cars and boats, as we all know they are female but everything...today I learned that a lampshade is male.
I was at one of my favourite haunts and was wandering behind an elderly couple..
"Here, whaddyoo think of un?" Said Mrs elderly.
"well, I don mind 'un but 'ees a bit dark id'n 'ee?" Mr Elderly replied.
If they'd have asked what I thought, I'd have said 'ee was most defnutly ugly but I curd'nt 'ave swored ee was a boy one.
This is also a marvellous place to live if you're not in a hurry. No-one is in a hurry here, not if they belong, if you'm a grockle or an Emmet then mayhaps you'll know all about that finger tapping and clock watching stuff but not if you belong.
You can want to get things done quickly and with the best intentions in the world set yourself a time schedule, but just don't rely on other people joining in on your enthusiasm for punctuality.
Oooh, just going to pop in and get some bread...rush rush, grab, run..great only one person ahead of me in the queue......
"Hello Bar! ( it is almost compulsory to shorten everyones name here to the shortest possibility) I abm seen you in ages, how's father?"
And Barbara ( AKA Bar) will tell all, everything, from birthdays to bowels we'll hear every detail. I have been in a line and shown poetry written by teenage sons ( I kid you not) and this is all by complete and utter strangers....you don't want to hear the conversations I could have with family members!!
Actually, my dear sister Julie came to me in the depths of despair one day when she had found herself telling the lady in the Deli what she had watched on TV the night before. She has said she saw herself in a flash of miserable insight and knew that it was a matter of time before she started talking about feminine dryness on the number 40 bus.
It's all just so cosy, living here. People down here think of London as a foreign country and many older people ( and too many younger people) have never been out of the county They are genuinly baffled as to why anyone would want to go anywhere else, havn't we got it all right here?
It is true heaven as a mother of beautiful children to live here, if you're a germaphobe, don't come here with sweet offspring because hair stroking and cheek pinching is all in a day's parenting.
" Oh now, there, look at un..he's bleddy 'andsome, no getting away from it is there Dor?" Doreen will, of course, agree and both will bend down and put their wrinkly faces right up to said child and begin a conversation that could last a very long time. Don't try to get away before Doreen and friend, who is almost certainly called Marg, have had their fill.
It's a bit difficult being mother to a beautiful autistic child...Isaac takes umbridge at being spoken to and luckily he seems to have a stern enough glare to put off any potential cheek pinchers, he is so impressive in his ability to behave as if either he, or they, are invisible that almost always the poor souls just itching to chat with my big eyed boy seem to shrink and scuttle away, feeling very hard done by I shouldn't wonder.
I love living here, when we went on the moors last week the boys told everyone we had been to Ponyland.....is that a by product of having lived so close to Disneyland for the first part of their lives? Everything that is fun must be a 'land'
Right, that's me done for the day, I'm off to sofaland to relax before retiring for the night, ahhhhh bleddy well perfick.