For all of those readers who have been waiting in suspense to see if I actually pulled off the great pie tin event of the new millenium the answer is a resounding Yay Team! It’s amazing what you can do with only minutes to spare, the bottom of a springform cake tin, some tin foil, a random tub of play doh and a lot of leaves. I am a Blue Peter genius and I demand my badge immediately. Actually I don’t really deserve it because I merely came up with the cunning plan and the ingredients and set Matilda to work whilst I cooked spaghetti and supervised from afar. I would have gone for a more naturalistic look myself, but she preferred to leave acres of aquamarine coloured play doh poking out, as she said it looked more magical that way. I also think it was considerably less work, but perhaps that’s me being hyper critical (moi?!!) I also desperately wanted to make a duck to go on the pond, as by this late stage I’d got quite into the whole thing and was feeling rather competitive in case some other parents turned up with a Charlie Dimmock style water feature complete with Koi carp. Matilda refused and went for a yellow rainbow with the word ‘Brownies’ on it. It was her pool, so I subsided and went to stir my spaghetti sauce resentfully instead.
It turns out that the other kid who was being given a new vest had a margarine tub covered with second hand tin foil and a rock in the bottom, so I was able to relax knowing that ours was the superior magical pond anyway! Not that it’s at all competitive or anything. I would love, absolutely love to tell you about the ceremony as I had to bite my cheeks very, very hard to stop myself from laughing until chips came down my nose, but it is not fair or ethical and these people may well be pushing my bath chair and removing kippers from my handbag when I am old, so I shall draw a veil over the whole proceedings. I will say however, that Matilda performed marvellously. She remembered her Brownie promise and the other thing she had to remember and spoke nice and clearly. Tallulah came with me to watch the vesting, and was incredibly impressed. Probably more by the fact that she got a fairy cake with pink icing and sprinkles to be honest, but she remained quiet and wide eyed for the whole thing. She is now badgering me every five minutes to know when she is getting her invitation to Rainbows. If Brown Owl is smart she’ll leave it as long as humanly possible.
Weird things the children have done today:
Tilly has developed a fetish for sniffing the inside of the tumble drier. She says it smells delicious. I know what she means. There is something very comforting about the smell of warm clothes, but it is still weird to walk into the kitchen and find a headless child crouched on the floor with her face in a hole, sniffing contentedly away. I just hope Oscar doesn’t try to close the door on her head or we will be in for it. I’ll never be able to explain that one away to the social services.
Tallulah has named the next door but one’s children ‘Doo Wops’. She doesn’t like them very much. When my kids bounce on the trampolene, their children stand on their decking and shout rude things at the girls. This does not impress the girls at all, particularly because Tallulah can’t get at them to give them a swift left hook. She merely has to bounce on and let their insults wash over her, something which displeases her vengeful nature mightily. She has decided that ‘Doo Wops’ is a terrible, terrible insult and therefore has been muttering dire imprecations about them all day. I asked her what made them Doo Wops. She told me it was because they smell and they are all ‘doo woppish’. Fair enough.
The girls have a new game that they like to play in the car. This involves them choosing some poor, unfortunate stranger who we pass by and branding this person as the boyfriend of whichever girl hasn’t chosen said person. They create a horrible name for this person and then a list of disgusting personal attributes which they then list in graphic detail. This affords them both endless entertainment and by the time they’ve finished they can’t speak for laughing. Today Tallulah said that Matilda’s boyfriend is called ‘Ginger Thug’. Apparently ‘Ginger Thug’ has a big fat belly and is covered in pooh, ‘not dried pooh, but really sticky pooh that’s all fresh and lovely, just the way you like it Tilly.’ He also has pointy legs (this left them both speechless with laughter. I’m not sure why), and a bald head, apart from the gingery bits. Oh! And he doesn’t wear trousers either. Nice one.
Looking back at my own exceedingly patchy track record with boyfriends when I was a teenager, I think my parents would have positively welcomed someone like Ginger Thug with open arms! He would have made a refreshing change. I may well feel the same way when Tilly drags her first victim home to break bread with us. Please God, let it be in many years time.
On the domestic front, we have been very busy today. Jason mowed the lawn and strimmed things that needed strimming. He WD40′d all the doors so they don’t creak and then spent minutes at a time lovingly showing me how manly he’d been. I dealt with the front drive and the weird bit of non-garden outside our kitchen window. This involved picking up lots of leaves and bits of rubbish and cursing dandelion roots. We cleared out the garage and went to the tip. We dug out my old toy box and donated it to Oscar, as his toys are now creeping about the lounge getting underfoot everywhere and driving us mad. We also found one of the girl’s chairs from when they were tiny, and when we’d dusted it down Oscar sat on it in state looking very important. No doubt he will fall off it spectacularly tomorrow and smash his little face in.
We bought Oscar some reins so that we can take him places without having to run forty marathons to stop him leaving shops, disappearing into hedge rows and plummeting under oncoming cars. He is distinctly unimpressed about being tethered. When he gets cross that we’re hampering his style he sidles up against the nearest wall and flattens himself against it like spiderman. This means that we can’t actually do anything until he chooses to go forward. It’s the horse equivalent of taking your rider to a nice bristly hedge and then squashing them against it until they give in or fall off. I knew reins wouldn’t be popular, but I didn’t realise he’d have sussed them within five minutes of getting them on. Toddlerhood will be a long and wearisome trek I fear.
The other thing I have done today is chart the random wanderings of my brain for your delight and delectation. Here are a few of the strange things I found myself thinking about apropos of nothing at all during the course of the day:
Wouldn’t it be great if there were animals crossed with things? Not sure why, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. I came up with three examples which made me laugh. I know you’re not supposed to laugh at yourself, but I really couldn’t help it. I don’t get out much:
- The Arselope – A deer shaped like a bum
- The Weaselator – An escalator which is very sinuous and which bites you briskly on the toe if you don’t get off in time.
- The Skone – A cross between a scone and a skunk. When you spread it with jam it emits a terrible stink. It’s for dieters, to put them off their nosh.
I also spent some time pondering words which I think should exist but don’t. Anyone who can come up with Meaning of Liff definitions wins a prize:
- Mingus
- Plib
- Scunch
- Bilb
- Fundle
Then I got on to a list of words I really don’t like at all:
- Nostril
- Scrotum
- Phlegm
- Prehensile
- Scalene
- Filch
- Fleshy
- Scut
- Mildew
- Flange (it is quite funny though)
After that I thought of some things that amuse me no matter what else is going on and which will always bring a smile to my face:
- Banjos and the gratuitous use of the word banjo, particularly in a non banjo related context.
- Animals with human names such as Dave, Ethel or Phil.
- Kids under five solemnly using words like ‘actually’ and ‘however’
- The concept of a wolverine, and all wolverine related ephemera
- Elephantitis
So there you have it. Several good reasons why I am not in charge of the country, and why, no matter how much I wish it, I will never be made world dictator. helas!
