Katyboo1’s Weblog

It’s the end of another weary day, I am thankful to say.  We have been out for the day visiting friends, and it was great to see them at last, after several abortive efforts thanks to various children being ill.  Kate is one of my oldest friends, and having three children of her own it’s great to visit her because I don’t have to explain anything.  It’s taken for granted that everything will be twelve feet off the floor, all the felt tip pens will be securely kept in a vault and we will spell the names of all the biscuits in the presence of the under fives.

But the day has been very long and tiring, and in the cold and fog it feels like we have been travelling for weeks.  The gritters are out creeping about the motorways spraying muck and salt everywhere,and the sun set at about eight o’clock this morning.  It’s that kind of cold that creeps into your bones and stays there, and although everyone is now safely tucked up in bed and we have the thermostat up to frying levels, I am only just beginning to warm up. 

Last night wasn’t too eventful by our standards, although a peaceful state of slumber cannot be said to have been achieved for the entire duration of the darker reaches of the night.  I had a series of very complicated dreams which revolved around finding out that I was Joe Strummer’s illegitimate daughter.  This was most perturbing, particularly given that I have never been that big a fan of The Clash, seminal punksters though they undoubtedly were.  I always thought Joe Strummer was a bit shouty, and quite a bit dead for my liking.

I seem to be going through a phase of dreaming about musicians at the moment, which makes a welcome change from my usual serial killers, but is still a bit unnerving.  I can’t think why Joe Strummer featured so heavily.  It’s probably deeply Freudian and a bit worrying.  I might look him up on Google later to see if I can work it out.  I don’t so much keep a dream diary as a copy of Who’s Who by the bed.  In fact I could probably make a few bob collating a dreamer’s who’s who with all the symbolic references covered.  I shall work on it in my spare time.

In the midst of all this rock ‘n’ roll chaos I could vaguely hear crying.  In my dream it seemed to be coming from the back of an old broom cupboard in the dressing rooms of the Hammersmith Palais.  As the dream faded, and the crying got louder my slowly waking brain decided that it was more likely to be coming from Oscar’s room and in real life than from a distraught groupie in a fictional setting.  I’ve always been blessed with a superabundance of cleverness, and it’s at times like these that it really shines through. 

I had just swung my legs over the side of the bed and was half-heartedly groping for my glasses when a murky figure appeared in the bedroom doorway.  Although it was only four foot high and said the words; ‘Mum. Tallulah’s crying,’ in a distinctly girlish voice, my dazed and confused brainial cells immediately screamed: ‘BURGLAR!’ (more frighteningly, midget burglar who thinks we are related and knows the name of my middle child) and then added: ‘WE WILL ALL BE MURDERED IN OUR BEDS!’ at which point I screamed the house down. 

This made Tilly, who it was in fact standing in the doorway and not actually a crazed midget psychopath scream too.  It was at this point that Jason woke up and shouted: ‘What? What’s up? What? Whassamatter? Oh God!’ and bedlam ensued, while Tallulah continued to wail like a tiny banshee downstairs. 

When we had all recovered from our palpitations Jason went to see to Tallulah while I went to check on Oscar.  He had been suspiciously quiet throughout, so we wanted to make sure he was still the right way up and breathing, as this was most unusual.  He usually likes to join in with a good bit of family drama.  Thankfully he was fine, and I crept out on my eyebrows to make sure that I didn’t wake him.  If I had it would have been game over for the rest of the night. 

Tallulah in the meantime, was complaining of having sore hips.  Jason jogged her gently round the bedroom to make sure that her limbs were functioning and told her it was growing pains.  This seemed to satisfy her enough to send her back to sleep and we all attempted to regain our sanity, vocal chords and beds for the rest of the night.  What with that and Joe Strummer I was absolutely exhausted when I woke up. 

Tallulah and I were chatting over breakfast this morning.  Oscar doesn’t really do breakfast chats as he usual has his cheeks so full of banana he can’t speak and just emits a series of muffled squeaks, like a bat trapped in a night dress. Mind you, only for about thirty seconds, which is the average time it takes him to masticate an entire banana.

Tallulah:  ‘Mama?’ 

Katy: ‘Yes Tallulah.’ 

Tallulah: ‘You are very, very old you know.’ 

Katy: ‘I know Tallulah.  You’re very keen on telling me that at the moment.  Is there anything new to say about my aged appearance?’ 

Tallulah: ‘Yes.  Dada isn’t as old as you is he?’ 

Katy: ‘No Tallulah he isn’t.  Is that a problem?’ 

Tallulah: ‘Not really mama, but you are lucky that he decided to marry you because you are so very old.’ 

Katy: ‘Yes I am aren’t I (to say nothing of the two charming children he inherited along with his crone of a wife)?  Do you think he married me because he felt sorry for me?’ 

Tallulah: ‘Yes.  Probably.  And because he is very, very famous and he wanted you to be famous too.’ 

Katy: ‘I didn’t know that.  Why is daddy very famous?’ 

Tallulah: ‘Because he does very, very good poohs and trumps and people are very impressed of him.  Because you are married to him, they will be very impressed of you too.’ 

Katy: ‘Even though my poohs and trumps are just ordinary ones?’ 

Tallulah: ‘Even though.  Aren’t you lucky?’ 

Katy: ‘Yes, I suppose I am, although I’ve never thought of it quite like that before.’ 

We must count our blessings every day.  This is indeed proof that God works in mysterious ways.  I am not sure that this is the correct way to measure fame, and whether indeed his fame is spreading for these feats.  I haven’t noticed him featuring in Heat magazine recently, but he could be in some specialist magazine like: ‘Pooh modeller’s Monthly,’ or ‘Farts First - First for Farts’.

It is interesting that Tallulah has had this epiphany about Jason and his bowel movements.  I’m not quite sure what brought about this change of heart, and I don’t really feel that I want to pry too deeply into the workings of her mind.  Who knows where it could lead?  I’m sure I have a fairly good idea, which is why I am so reluctant to pursue it.

This is a complete change of heart from a few weeks ago when we went down (across, round, up, I don’t know.  I’m rubbish at geography) to Norfolk to visit Jason’s mum and Tallulah got quite agitated with him on the very same subject: 

Tallulah: ‘Dada! I am very absolutely cross with you, because sometimes you just burp and fart, and I am not, not, not happy about it at all.  It is inskustin’!’ 

Jason: ‘Well Tallulah, you have made your point very well, but these things do have to happen you know.  (as my mother says: ‘Even the Queen goes to the toilet!’)  Even you do it!’

Tallulah: Absolutely adamant: ‘No I don’t!’

Jason: ‘Clearly you do Tallulah, or you would explode into a thousand bits and die.’

Tallulah: ’Well.  We’re not talking about me are we dada?  We are talking about your inskustin’ farts and burps, and I’m just inskusted by them.’

Jason: ’Well Tallulah, what are you going to do about it?’ 

Tallulah: Thinks very fiercely for a moment with whole face screwed up to the point where her eyes almost swap sides: ‘Well! I am just about going to smash your house down, right into bits and stamp all over it.  Then there will be nothing left but lots and lots of broken up bits all smashed and broken. So there!’ 

Jason: Very calmly: ‘If you do that Tallulah, you won’t have anywhere left to live will you?  We live in the same house don’t we?’ 

Tallulah: Totally nonplussed for a few seconds.  Then the lightbulb moment, and she triumphantly announces: ‘Well.  Alright then.  If you don’t stop all that inskustin’ stuff I will just have to smash someone else’s house down into teeny, tiny little bits instead!’ 

She sat back, arms folded, with a satisfied look on her face.  Case closed!  She just couldn’t understand why Jason was not in the slightest bit cowed by her magnificent threat. Although the neighbours should be quaking in their moon boots, and the way I feel about them at the moment, I might just let her have a crack at it if she’s still in the mood.

She really is going through the whole wee and pooh thing at the minute and has been for weeks.  I am getting pretty bored of it now, although there are still moments of high comic genius to be had, and it is infinitely preferably to the pink and girly phase which is no doubt to follow swiftly on its heels and which Tilly is only just beginning to leave behind. 

I loathe girly girls with a passion.  I do understand that every girl has to go through that phase at some time in her life, and that it is better to do it at the age of five than at the age of eighty five.  You only have to look at Dame Barbara Cartland for incontrovertible proof of that.  She looked like a pug dog wrapped in a lamp shade for the most part.  Nevertheless it is very irritating.

I went through a pink and girly phase myself, and wasn’t too keen on it.  It lasted about six months.  My mother was persuaded to paint my bedroom hint of pink and I wore a lot of frills.  I got tired of it pretty quickly because it was difficult to climb trees, build igloos and damn streams in four hundred yards of taffetta without getting oil from your bike chain all over it, and as it tore you left a lot of evidence for those you had wronged to track you down with.

My mum went through her pink phase when she was first married to my dad.  She decided that she wanted the marital bedroom painted pink.  My dad, as an honest and upstanding man of the hairy chested persuasion refused point blank.  My mum waited until he had gone away for a male bonding weekend and painted the entire bedroom a shade of hot pink known on the tin as ‘pompadour pink’.  She was very impressed of herself and the bedroom. 

When night fell she swathed herself in a peignoir, some feathered mules and grabbed a Georgette Heyer whilst reclining on her sprung divan with plush headboard.  After forty five minutes she had a migraine due to the lurid strobing effect of the pompadourness of the pink, and had to sleep in the spare room.  She spent the entire next day painting it white, and nothing more was said.

So I guess I should embrace the pooh phase for as long as it lasts. I particularly like Tallulah’s latest version of ‘Old Macdonald’ where we have Mr. Macdonald himself performing various scatological functions instead of shepherding his usual dreary collection of farm animals.  She does all the sound effects, which are most gratifying, and it’s even more funny when Tilly tries to correct her (she does like everything in its place and a place for everything that girl) and Tallulah refuses to listen, just singing louder and louder to drown out Tilly’s valiant efforts at pig snorts and cow moo’s!  Having said that, after three verses they usual descend into fisticuffs and have to be sent to various parts of the house to calm down and reflect on their evil ways, but it is worth it! 

I have maimed myself twice today.  It is usually a sign of tiredness catching up on me.  I managed to give myself a spectacular nose bleed and chop a largeish hole in my finger this morning.  Once my nose had sorted itself out I was left with the finger to deal with.  It bled all over the place, which was quite annoying, as I was trying to make toast and had to stop half way through and look for a plaster because I leaked all over the bread. 

The only plaster I could find was a Disney one someone gave the girls, so I now have a very mature looking Aerial the Mermaid wrapped around my digit.  This annoyed me even more because I hate The Little Mermaid, (I hate the original Hans Christian Andersen story because it’s so sad and I hate the Disney story because it’s so teeth gratingly happy.  You can’t please some folks) although the kids now think I’m quite cool, even though I am so very old. 

Come to think of it, the only Disney films I really like are Cinderella and The Rescuers and we don’t have any of those plasters.  I hate all the others, and Mary Poppins in particular.  I just want to shoot those bloody penguins and stab Julie Andrews with a spoonful of sugar.  Another childhood classic ruined by people who think that children live on rainbows and kisses.  They should spend five minutes at our house at eight o’clock in the morning.  It brings a whole new meaning to the word horror.

I find adults who are obsessed with Disney a little bit frightening. It makes me think that they were probably locked in cupboards and beaten with sticks when they were children, and are having to claw back their childhood now.  I remember meeting a couple of my mum and dad’s friends at some party they had, and them telling me how they’d just got back from Disneyland and how I really must go, because it was fantastic and so magical.  I hid from them behind a plate of profiteroles for the rest of the night (admittedly with waning effect as the profiteroles mysteriously disappeared one by one).

I did once have the misfortune to go to Euro Disney with Tilly and my ex, Jamie.  We took Tilly when I was six months pregnant with Tallulah, as a kind of apology to Tilly that the rest of her life was about to be spectacularly ruined by the arrival of a small and highly demanding sibling.  It was one of the worst weeks of my life, and I’ve lived through some interesting times. The other galling thing was that it was my idea.  I decided that every child should have an experience of Disney when they were still young enough to find it magical.  I spent my whole childhood lusting after a trip to Disneyland.  My paternal grandparents went, and sent me a postcard to tell me what a nice time they’d had, and that was as close as I got.  Bastards!

Now, as you may know, I don’t do pregnancy very well at all, but we had all assumed that by the time I was six months pregnant I’d be o.k. apart from the need to eat the entire of France and some back ache.  Turns out that I was violently ill throughout most of my pregnancy with Tallulah, and this included an entire week in Euro Disney, vomiting, fainting and coming over all funny.

Now, they tell you that Euro Disney is in Paris, but if Euro Disney is in Paris, Glenfield is in Knightsbridge.  It is actually in some desolate, windswept cabbage fields in the middle of bloody nowhere, is where it is.  You probably can’t even find it using satnav.  Not only that, but once you’re there thereis no escape.  In Euro Disney nobody can hear you scream.  And if they do, they assume you’re having a lovely time on a roller coaster and ignore you.

Everything is made of plastic and it’s a desolate hell hole of commercial tat from which if you have any brain cells at all, and are over the age of twelve you are desperate to escape from at the first opportunity.  A friend of ours was employed there on his gap year.  He had to plant bamboo in the jungly bits, which he duly did.  The park managers came round and decided that the real bamboo didn’t look enough like bamboo (UH?), so his next job was to dig it all up, replace it with plastic rods, and paint them to look like bamboo.  That’s the magic of Disney for you.

Having been there, if I was asked to go again the answer would most categorically be: ’I’d rather spend a week in a recreation of the Battle of The Somme, if it’s all the same to you.’  The food would probably be better, it would be quieter (bloody fire works), and I’d rather get trench foot than go on the revolving teacups again thanks.

The only reasons I went were a misplaced sense of parental guilt (Tilly now has no memory whatsoever of going there, despite the fact that she was four and a half.  Hopeless child.), and the mistaken belief I might be able to sneak in a trip to the Louvre and a very nice steak restaurant in the Marais.  You can probably see Paris with a telescope from a hot air balloon, but don’t think you’ll be able to hop off the Dumbo ride and sashay down the Champs Elysee for a bit of culture and a spot of shopping, cos it aint happening. 

The only things available in the entire of Euro Disney are things made by Disney, and if it hasn’t got Mickey’s head on it, you can’t have it.  I had to mug fourteen people just to get a paracetamol and a decent cup of tea, and paid forty quid in taxi fairs just to get far enough away from the benighted place so that I didn’t have to hear ‘It’s A Small World After All’ (it is if you’re stuck in a god forsaken theme park with nine thousand people who you hate with a passion, that’s for sure) for the nine hundredth time. 

To be fair to Disney, I’m sure it all works beautifully in Florida, where the temperature is in the balmy nineties, they’ve heard of customer service and they understand the concept of forming a queue.This all falls apart in France where they would batter you to death with their own granny rather than queue for anything (a woman nearly pushed me to my death on the Snow White ride rather than wait her turn, and she was only two spaces behind me), they hate the whole idea of fast food (forty minutes for an ice cream, and I was third in what passed for the queue for that) and the temperature is colder than a polar bear’s arse after it’s been sitting on an ice floe. 

The staff hate everyone and are surlily Parisian about everything.  They forcibly turn your sheets down even if you are actively involved in sleeping in the bed at the time, and never read the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign.  Maybe they do, maybe they just see it as some kind of challenge.  The room service is dreadful and costs £30 for a burger and a coffee which arrive an hour late and in someone else’s room.  The concierge delights in giving you the wrong times, prices and directions everywhere and you’d be better off with sandwiches and a crystal ball.

There are no fast track systems for any of the little childrens’ rides.  It is beyond galling to queue for forty five minutes with armed guards to get on the Aladdin ride, to go round in a circle for two whole minutes before you are shoved off the other side and your child demands to go on again because it wasn’t long enough.  There are no covered indoor play areas anywhere, and the wind whips through the fields like a scythe.  I was an interesting shade of navy blue for the entire duration of the trip and if Tilly hadn’t had so much hair she’d have frozen to death.

The food is execrable.  It makes a McDonalds Happy Meal look like Heston Blumenthal’s ideal birthday feast. If you add to that the phenomenal cost of absolutely everything and the fact that whenever the Disney ‘characters’ come out to sign autographs (they can’t speak, they’re animals and they have paws, but who’s counting?), they are so mobbed by middle aged people shouting and sticking cameras in their faces that anyone under three foot tall gets trampled underfoot, and the only way you get to see the Disney parade is if you camp on the pavement for two days beforehand, or climb a lamp post, you will understand just a tiny bit of the total crapness and unmagicality of the whole experience.  I’ve felt more magic watching a balding Paul Daniels doing a card trick on a black and white television with a hangover, and I hate him as well.

Jason has been to Disney in Florida, which he tells me is brilliant.  I am very suspicious because he went with no kids (thinks, must ask him about child cupboard experiences later), and got thrown out of an audience with Mickey Mouse for getting feisty and challenging Mickey to a fight!  He wasn’t drunk, just a bit tired and emotional, and most definitely showing off.  I have to say, deplorable though his behaviour was, it is quite a cool claim to fame, and I applaud him for it, secretly and under cover of darkness naturally.

If we ever get to go back, given my delight in the idea, and Jason’s mouse induced criminal record, I will let you know how we get on!