Doc Barbara and the lonesome frog.

Although Doc Barbara's heart goes out (not literally of course - although you never know with her) to invertebrates for the most part, she has the welfare of lowly, spiny creatures very much at the centre of her core ethics, which are, let us remind ourselves: free speech, democracy, pure living and thick tights. She noticed that my frog was lonely and gave her acumen and mental stamina towards fixing the problem. What kind of chum would be therapeutic? 

He is doing his best.

At first, she provided a tortoise, thinking that slow, agreeable and undemanding company would buck him up, but he still looked very lonely.           

                               

A light bulb moment happened to her: diet. An epiphany. Flies are, perhaps, insufficient for a frog and bananas might be better. She recalled the saying:

Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.

It seemed to her fraught with undecipherable meaning and so she provided a bunch. Doc Barbara is accustomed to the world's seeming impervious to rational decoding. 

He does look a tad more cheerful.

Still she was not satisfied and wandered around the local ponds in her thick tights looking for more ranine companions. For the frog, not herself. Finally, she encountered a few chatting amicably together and, with Ciceronian rhetoric undiminished by her epic struggles, she persuaded them to move camp. Here is ours, rejuvenated and un-depressed with his new friends.

•                                    A merry group of frogs, with two babies for him to sing to.

Doc Barbara: my alter-ego or doppelganger

 Doc Barbara has grown older since her last major exploit but her mind is as active as ever and her key beliefs are untarnished: free speech, compassion for worms and thick tights. She is often to be seen in the local park examining fungi or surreptitiously having a go on the swings and roundabouts. The latter she holds as an emblem of life: circling and circling but never arriving at anything sensible. 

You all know what a roundabout looks like but have you ever seen a fungus like that? Rhetorical question. 

She has since joined up with me in real life and will insist on helping me create my bog garden or look after my snails. 

I did not invite her and I cannot decide whether she is my alter-ego or my doppelganger. Sometimes she springs up inside me and compels me to go and buy 6 galvanised buckets to grow organic clover for the snails. Her indomitable will always prevails.

Sometimes I seem to meet her appearing externally in order to block my saner enterprises so that she can substitute an off-piste idea of her own. Ignore the imagery: no-one would ever let her within furlongs of a ski-slope.

I cannot shake her off and have grown to be quite fond of her: anyway I can blame all my mistakes, failures and eccentricities on Doc B.

Key shed, shoes.,

Sent from my iPhone

Doc Barbara embraces Tai Chi

Doc Barbara has observed sadly that people tend to back away when she advances to hug them but, undaunted, she has devoted herself to embracing Tai Chi with enthusiasm. Our fervent readers will recall her initiation into Yoga and Pilates and her bewilderment at discovering that she has some things called glutes. Now, after 2 years, the shock has diminished and she still wants to become more bendy. Tai Chi Qi Gong seems the answer and she is learning to perform the movements wearing these nifty shoes which she believes help her Chi rise from the earth and fix itself where it should.

  However, she is now in a state of trauma having been told that she has something else of which she was unaware and which is called a Dan Tien. This is located near her navel and we are printing an exclusive photograph as our Spring scoop.

  It is hard to see the relevant energy storage organ as Doc Barbara is modest and refused to take off her cardigan, dress, copious underwear and thick tights. Readers are therefore required to use their imaginations - but not too much. She is entranced by the names of the poses and likes to practise The Golden Rooster Stands on One Leg wherever she happens to be as it is improving her balance slowly. The customers in the check-out till at Asda wish it would ameliorate more speedily as she has a tendency to wobble perilously near their overloaded trolleys. When reproached, she replies that she has given up Fighting the Tiger in public areas because of the ensuing panic and that is enough sacrifice.


   Now that she is improving she wants to equip herself with some of the fetching silk pyjamas as worn by her favourite exponents of the art: Brett and Fontaine. This peerless couple performs with a background of rampant potted plants behind which they occasionally vanish for prolonged periods. During this interval, Doc Barbara invents some exercises, the best of which she has called: The Cocker Spaniel Raises One Paw a Little which Tesco has allowed her to demonstrate in their wider aisles. Less successful was: The Centipede Lifts All its Legs Simultaneously which resulted in her immediate expulsion from Sainsbury's.

  Where, you may ask, is Belinda Twaddle, her intrepid helper? When asked to accompany Doc Barbara to Waitrose to spread the word and her White Crane's Wings, Belinda decided that she would go in search of some vibrant silk pyjamas instead. Once again we fear she has gone off piste in her enthusiasm. We phoned Doc Barbara to ask her to come to the editor's office for an interview but she declined temporarily, explaining that she had both legs entwined inextricably whilst performing The Snake Creeps Low (she thinks she may have crept a tad too low and also conflated it with another posture - Beautiful Woman Crosses her Ankles Twice) but she promised to work on the issue by our next issue [My word hoard is depleted by mental overload: Ed].
 

Doc Barbara buys a soup maker

  As readers of our newspaper The Monmouthshire Mouthpiece whose motto is: "All the news whether fit to print or not" - [There is not much of either round here: Ed.] are aware, Doc Barbara upholds old-fashioned values such as frugality, integrity and thick tights. At least she tries to uphold her tights but, as habits of frugality prevail, they are rather antiquated and loose and are now succumbing to the forces of gravity.
   However, she has a penchant (she would not call it that, having a tendency to xenophobia) for gadgets and followers will recall her fabulous exploits with her Whatsit - or, more precisely, her Nositwhatnot. Last week she bought a soup maker, reading that you can throw wholesome vegetables and stock into this wondrous machine, press the button and go out to exploit. [I think this word has a different meaning as a verb: Ed.]
   Bob Twaddle, our eternally cub reporter, [Grrrrr - Ed.] came round to photograph [His expensive course with his new camera has done him a fat lot of good: Ed.] and they were to meet Bob's sister, Belinda the trainee, at the bus stop once the machine was switched on.
   Doc Barbara, methodical as always, had assembled all the ingredients, one of which was coconut milk. She was suspicious of this product because of an antipathy to tins and its high price but she ascribed the latter to the costs of paying the farmers for the difficult and lengthy process of milking their coconuts. In went all the healthy vegetables [Did she check they were all healthy? Ed] but here the couple caused a hitch in the proceedings. They became so spellbound and intrigued by the workings of the soup maker and lulled by the soothingly contented sounds it made as it did its fascinating and important tasks that they sat watching it and forgot their arrangement with Belinda.
   Meanwhile, the poor girl had been growing increasingly anxious and had gone looking high and low for her friend and mentor - mostly high because of Doc Barbara's fateful love of climbing up unsuitable and unstable structures.
    You can see from this image how optimistic she remains in the face of insuperable odds [Doc Barbara IS an insuperable odd - Ed.]

Finally she decided to go to Doc Barbara's humble abode to use her telephone to warn the police [Belinda constantly forgets to charge her mobile as her mind is on higher (!) things - Ed] . She was somewhat taken aback to find her brother and heroine fixated on the soup maker and discussing the various episodes in the drama of creating their pumpkin concoction, agreeing that the penultimate pulse had them on the edge of their seats. All were reunited in harmony as they consumed it, issuing unrestrained grunts of pleasure and satisfaction. [Yet again, complaints from the neighbours - Ed.] Doc Barbara will now be influenced solely by the colours of the ingredients (she believes that red and orange peppers followed by green would give a startling traffic light effect at one point if she watches carefully enough) and their capacity for producing captivating noises off. As she opined: "If you can't stand the heat, buy a pig in a poke".

To read about Doc Barbara's Whatsit click here. Other adventures may be found by using the search button for worms or linguistic mission - not in the same blog post.

Doc Barbara admits error

   Happy New Year to all readers of The Monmouthshire Mouthpiece and particularly to those who follow the fabulous exploits of Doc Barbara so faithfully despite all.
  Doc Barbara is an early riser but she does like to tune in to On The Farm on BBC 4  before getting up to one of her intrepid adventures. Last week she was - somewhat drowsily - listening to this refreshing emission when she heard the farmer say that he was about to clean his cows' teeth and the cheery presenter reply that the mixture had a delightful peppermint smell. Doc Barbara is well aware of modern methods in the countryside but had never realised that bovine dental hygiene was an aim. However, since she is in the middle of a dedicated project of teaching animals to talk, she thought that assisting in this work with neighbouring cows would bond her to the animals and help them chew the cud. [No-one better qualified for that! Ed] She leaped from her bed in mid-programme and set off our young assistant journalist.

 It had to be admitted that the animals seemed to lack enthusiasm for the idea as they presented Doc Barbara with distant but unaesthetic parts of their anatomy. She appealed to Belinda Twaddle for help, quite forgetting that she is a city girl and apt to confuse flora and fauna if over-stretched in her capacities.

    Rarely are our two heroines stumped in their endeavours but, on this occasion, it seemed a good idea to return home and listen again to the programme to see if there were any tips they could follow. Reluctantly packing away the electric toothbrushes, floss, paste for sensitive teeth and interdental tapes, they trudged back consoling each other with epic tales about past successes much as ancient warriors were prone to do in the Anglo-Saxon beer hall but at greater length with less alliteration and more exaggeration.
   Sitting down to iPlayer with mugs of tea and large slices of ginger cake to restore morale, they were somewhat abashed when the farmer stated that his treatment helped to prevent mastitis. Doc Barbara has invested in an ear trumpet which Belinda has agreed to carry on all their next outings.

Doc Barbara loses her new whatsit

Happy Christmas to the followers of The Monmouthshire Mouthpiece
   Some time ago - our dedicated readers will recall - Doc Barbara invented a nositwhatsit, a ribbon that fixed a pin to the wearer's posterior and induced she or he to keep walking rather than lounging and therefore perform the daily number of steps required to maintain a healthy heart.
   Since Doc Barbara has a weakness for Christmas cake and pudding with immense helpings of brandy butter (the size of the photo indicates her appetite for these delicacies and the figurine is agog in admiration) ..

He does need a trip to the optician however

she invested in a more sophisticated device which clips inside the bra or on a waistband and counts the number of steps taken - she is not prepared to show it because of her dislike of advertising. She attached this gadget inside her substantial underwear and went for a ten-mile walk. On her return the new whatsit was missing. With a heavy heart (though a healthy one) she retraced her steps gazing at the ground as she did so and apologising distractedly to the many pedestrians she knocked down and dog owners over whose leads she tripped. She was so engrossed that she said "Sorry" to 5 lampposts, one with a dog ... [Censored: Ed}.

   To no avail.  She asked Belinda Twaddle to go in search as she was expiring with exhaustion and perspiring with [We don't wish to know that: Ed.] ...  and this obliging girl did find a small and unusual object. The two of them decided it was not the original whatsit although they confused the issue by discussing what that whatsit was if not THE whatsit. To their astonishment the app on Doc Barbara's phone showed the extra mileage and the 2 of them deduced with Holmes-like rapidity that the true whatsit was still on Doc Barbara's ample person.

  

Thumbs up for Belinda's finding something. On this newspaper we reward endeavour not achievement. [It shows: Ed.]

  Together they decided that Doc Barbara first take off her jacket, do 100 steps and check. Hurrah - they were recorded.  She then removed her skirt: ditto. Her cardigan: the same; Her jumper: similar. Now the underskirt: phenomenon repeated.  Tights; result once again. Identical with thermal body layer. As Doc Barbara stood in her scarlet vest and interlock knickers Belinda fainted from the endeavour and - in putting her into the recovery position - [Can one ever recover from that? Ed.] - Doc Barbara's whatsit fell out of her capacious camisole.
   The pair decided to desist from further walking and refresh themselves but the ferocious and disapproving squint on the face of Father Christmas was more than they could face after their ordeal and so ...

... toodle-pip to another whatsit.