We’ll Always Have Norway

Saj is going to be so pleased with me today. I have blogitis.  I cannot stop blogging.  I am doing other things believe it or not.  Luckily for my children, my life and my husband I am a very efficient touch typist and a speed thinker.  I do not edit. I just sit down, type a load of rubbish that tumbles out of my brain and then go off to do other stuff.  Today that has included:

• buying a cape
• eating many biscuits with my son
• Going out for tea and buns
• reading Mr Pusskins and Knuffle Bunny more times than any woman should have to bear.
• Witnessing the frog incident
• doing laundry
• doing two lots of homework with the girls
• Sorting out school provisions etc for tomorrow
• supervising bathtime twice (Oscar had an early bath)
• cooking two meals
• Watching Cbeebies because I was commanded to ’sit down’ and ‘huggle’ by my son.
• playing offices
• bouncing on the bed because it was too wet to bounce on the trampolene
• Drawing pictures of hats.  Oscar has developed a need to watch me draw many pictures of hats, hats with ladies under them, hats with babies under them, hats with frogs under them, solo hats.  Many, many hats.  He has exacting standards.  He hates pictures of hats with feathers in them, so let’s just not go there.
• reading a weird book about Norway that my mother said I might enjoy. 

When I spoke to her today and said; ‘I’m reading that book about Norway you said I might enjoy.’ she said: ‘How is it?’ I said: ‘Weird’.  She said: ‘Hmm! That’s what I thought too!’  This is what drives me bonkers about my parents.  They will often lend me books that they’re not sure about just to see what I think!!! My dad once lent me a book whose name now escapes me.  He insisted I read it.  It was the biggest pile of rubbish I had read for a long time.  I told him so.  He said: ‘Yes! That’s exactly what I thought about it too! Wasn’t it crap?’  I believe I may be the only person in the world whose friends and relatives lend her books that are rubbish.  Why? Why would you do that to someone?  So, anyway, now I’m in Norway and I’m committed.  Because once I read a book, I have to finish it.  This is very annoying.  I can probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of books that I have read and not been able to finish.  It is a rare thing.

I am about to go downstairs and watch some television before heading back to Norway.  I am trying to convince myself that I don’t have the same anally obsessive compulsive need to finish watching films as I do with reading books.  As you may know, I am trying to catch up with lots of the films I didn’t get to see at the cinema at the moment.  Last night we tried Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, and There Will Be Blood with Daniel Day Lewis.

Now, I like Tim Burton, Big Fish is one of my favourite films.  I love Johnny Depp and I think HBC is very strange, but rather compelling and has come a long way since the days of E.M. Forster and heaving bodices.  I had high hopes for Sweeney, but was dubious because of the musical element.  I rented it in the end thinking that if it was a combo of music and speech, roughly equivalent to Grease for example, that I could probably live with that.  It turns out that it is about 98% music and 2% speech and I CAN’T live with that.  I endured half an hour before reaching for the off button.  It drove me round the bend.  It’s supposed to be menacing, it’s supposed to be tragic and tortured and dark.  It isn’t any of the above when they’re all frisking about singing in falsetto’s about the worst meat pies in London and other such drivel.  It just didn’t work.  It was like billing The Sound of Music as a grim look at life in pre war Austria.  Bollocks to it.

Then we tried, There Will Be Blood. I’ve got a lot of time for Daniel Day Lewis.  My Beautiful Laundrette was one of the first ‘art house’ movies I ever saw and between him and the writing of Hanif Kureishi it was a revelation to me.  He’s not always in films I like (Gangs of New York anyone) but he’s always good.  Unfortunately I lasted an hour and a half into this one before giving up.  It may be beautifully filmed, it may be powerful, it may be dark and disturbing, but by God it’s long.  There’s an hour left to go.  Apparently the action cranks up, but up to now, with one bad thing happening approximately every twenty minutes and nobody saying a word for the first twenty five minutes, except the orchestra, who follow them around relentlessy with a bassoon and some cymbals, which you think they’d have noticed in that bleak landscape, I just don’t think I’ve got the will to go on.

So, two films which I feel I should like.  Which I paid to rent and which I feel I should finish, but if I do, I know will be like sitting through my algebra homework rather than a delightful relaxing evening in front of the television screen.  And then there’s Norway.  I think I deserve a break.  I will be naughty.  No film endings for me.  It’s a special treat.  I might even wear my new cloak while I’m not watching them.

The Silence of the Frogs

There is a house about four doors down from mine which is kind of ramshackle and falling apart.  The paint is flaking at the windows, there are weeds everywhere and a mostly dead car occasionally in the drive.  It is an end terrace and has rather a large garden at the back, wild and unkempt.  Through this garden roams a band of cats in varying states of feline decay.

There is a black and white, a kind of dark tortoiseshell and a big hairy beast which looks very moth eaten.  I believe there are others perambulating about, but in that wilderness it’s hard to be sure.  The beast of Bodmin could be taking his holidays in there for all I know.

The people we bought our house from used to like to pretend that the cats were theirs and would take them in and feed them treats and let them gambol about on the sofas and deposit mice on the draining board.  If I lived alone I would probably do the same thing, although if I lived alone I would have several cats of my own on the go, so actually I don’t know whether that would be true, or whether I would just sit on the decking at night filming cat wars and sending it to satellite tv stations for free money.

Anyway, as we have children and as Jason is allergic to cat hair, he has placed an embargo on feline enticing.  Every now and again, a stupid animal frisks across the garden, but usually the combined cooings of three small children usually makes them frisk off again fairly quickly.  In the last few days however, the black and white has been getting increasingly confident, and dare I say it, blase about the world of small children and has been seen fraternising with the enemy, lolloping about under the trampolene and generally making free with my garden and my kids.

I don’t mind except that the children are not satisfied with feline amusements outside and spend much time trying to lead the cat up to the French windows and into the cat paradise that awaits it within.  As this cat paradise would involve being dressed in baby clothes by the children before Jason chased it round three floors with a broom I can only thank the Lord that the cat has been slightly too wary to believe them up to now.

It has however, caused havoc by showing off its remarkable flexibility in climbing under the gap in the decking steps and into the main body of the decking itself.  On Friday this resulted in three woeful, tear stained children who were absolutely convinced that the cat would now be trapped in there forever and would starve to death under their feet.  I pointed out that as it had gotten in there with more than enough room to spare, unless it had stashed a supply of cream cakes under there and suddenly expanded like Pooh on visiting Rabbit’s house, it was unlikely to get stuck on its way back out of the rabbit hole.  As Tallulah is the only one who likes Winnie The Pooh this didn’t make much sense to them at all.

I refused to call Rolf Harris on my speed dial, emergency animal phone.  They joined in a trio of hate towards me, turned to offer the cat succour through the slats in the decking floor and were amazed to see it wiggle gaily out of the steps and zoom off into next door’s garden where it tried unsuccessfully to stalk birds before giving up and going home.

Today it made another grand entrance, prancing around the courgettes and being deliciously cattish.  The kids were thrilled to see it, until it once more disappeared under the decking.  Jason was out there with them, so I let him deal with the whole, the cat will be fine, no I’m not ringing Wendy Turner Webster just in case Anthea comes instead, malarkey and got on with whatever tedious household chore I was involved in at the time.

Then Jason came bounding in saying that the kids were hysterical because it sounded like the cat had caught a mouse under the decking.  I said; ‘how do you know it sounded like a mouse?’  He said; ‘it was screaming’.  I said; ‘In my vast experience of the carniverous world of cat versus mouse, mice don’t scream.’  I said: ‘If it’s making a lot of noise it might be a rat, so I think you shouldn’t leave the children out there trying to help, because if a cornered, pissed off rat shoots out of the woodwork whoever gets in the way first is going to be very sorry.’  He headed back outside pronto, looking stoic and clutching the broom.  I made a mental note to find the number for the rat man, and carried on choring, thinking that I would go and administer once we got to the aftermath.

After a few minutes Jason came in to announce that the cat had emerged clutching its victim, which had turned out to be a frog.  He said: ‘I never knew frogs could scream like that.’  Now he does.  Tilly apparently released it into the wild and sent the cat away with a stern telling off and a lecture on the brotherhood of man.  Oscar has been practicing screaming like a frog, and now refuses to believe that frogs actually go ribbit at all.  Nice.  Mama Mirabelle this evening was all about how animals communicate with each other.  Unfortunately there was nothing on distressed frogs caught under the decking. How disappointing.

Newsflash – Uproar with Aunty Mabel

As a devotee of Cbeebies and their bizarre choice of programming over the last nine years I must just share with you my amazement, nay total astonishment about recent events in the somnambulent televisual feast that is known as Come Outside.

Now for those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of this extravaganza I will explain.  You may recall, those of you who have the great good fortune to have parents who enjoyed classic British comedy programmes, a jewel in the crown of light entertainment known as Open All Hours.  It starred Ronnie Barker as a skinflint corner shop owner, David Jason as his errand boy and a lady whose name escapes me who was red haired and extremely buxom and who was the love interest, known as Nurse Gladys Emmanuel.

Now, Nurse Gladys has in recent years metamorphosed from buxom nymphette and top totty to being Aunty Mabel, star of the ravishing childrens’ programme Come Outside.  Aunty Mabel is as mad as a hat, wears very sensible shoes and lives in a small bungalow with a dog called Pippin.  In her spare time, despite the comfort of her footwear and her unassumingly beige life we are led to believe, and indeed to see that in her spare time she is the pilot of a small, spotty plane which she and Pippin fly round the country.  Aunty Mabel has all sorts of fascinating adventures with Pippin in her plane.  Sometimes she finds out how to make teapots.  Sometimes she finds out how to make crisps.  Today, when Oscar was watching it, she was doing something unspeakable with petunias, hanging baskets and vast acres of snails.  She often sings songs to the crisps and the tea pots, and today was no exception as she clutched a snail in her paw and crooned at it, before setting it down, stunned and upset, amongst its snail relatives.

As she was heading back across the lawn to her cottage, she spied another dog gambolling up the front path to check out Pippin’s new kennel.  Apparently, and this is where I was reeling, positively reeling I tell you, Pippin has a boyfriend and this is he/it.  I was so stunned I nearly dropped my Tuc biscuit, and I totally forgot to pay attention to the name of Pippin’s boyfriend.

I am shocked because a) I have spent the last nine years thinking that Pippin was a boy (which in these days of Queer as Folk, he may well be and never let it be said that I am homophobic against gay dog love.  I am not, I just default to heterosexuality in the main) b) Pippin must be extremely old by now and far too sensible for this type of malarkey unless statistics about dog sexuality are currently running true to statistics about human sexuality and the reasons why the twenty somethings are having such a shocking time is because the sixty somethings are having all the hot sex; and c) Aunty Mabel was flirting with him outrageously.  She winked at him as he came up the path, and she turned gaily on her heel in a frankly risque manner as she minced off to mind her petunias.

My world has been turned upside down.  You potter along for nine years safe in the knowledge that some things, such as Aunty Mabel and her doings are somehow sacrosanct, much like taking comfort in the fact that no matter how bad your hair is, you can always stand next to Amy Winehouse and be confident in the wedding photos, and then something like this happens. 

And on that bombshell…

Hairy Chests

P.S.

I know I may have sounded militant in my last post.  In fact, I did sound militant in my last post.

I am fully aware that I am over reacting due to the fact that I had a miserable time at school, and I also know that my daughter is not, and never will be (luckily for her) me.

I am however, a woman full of rage.  If I get to articulate that rage I become a woman less likely to march about the countryside shouting at shrews and scything the heads off of random nine year olds.  This seems like a good thing.

I now feel a lot calmer.  I feel that I can approach my daughter’s future welfare at school in a more tranquil manner, without alienating the whole school and blowing it up leaving only a gaping dust bowl in its place.

This is also a good thing.

Blogging, for the record, is marvellous therapy.  If you cannot afford a therapist, or cannot wait for six months for the NHS to provide you with free therapy for a few weeks until they run out of funding again, I highly recommend starting a blog.  It’s free and can be very liberating.

I’m off now to do some zen yoga and stare at a picture of polar bears relaxing in the mist.

We fight

We are two days into a new term and my oldest daughter is already a victim of bullying.  Great isn’t it?

I thought about whether to write about this here, but I think I need to, for myself if not for anyone else.

We have always brought our children up to be independent thinkers, to ask questions and to think outside the box.  We applaud them for being themselves, for being creative, imaginative and playful.  We love the fact that they don’t dress like tiny hookers, watch X-factor like it’s a new religion or rely on technology for their entertainment.  We are biased, obviously, but have always thought that despite all the difficulties, we are doing quite a good job of raising kids, who, should they be blessed to live so long, will grow up to be intellligent, humane and kind members of the human race.

It seems that this is quite challenging and possibly even an affront to those people who prefer not to think, not to feel and to have their entire life plans mapped out for them from the age of six so that there are no nasty surprises along the way.

Tilly came home from school on Thursday upset because the children in her class are teasing her about the fact that she calls us mummy and daddy or mama and daddy, when apparently every child knows that the proper thing to call your parents is mum and dad.  They had teased her all day about it.  Which is nice.

It seems stupid doesn’t it, that I should be furious about this, something so trivial?  Probably the teacher has filed it away as something irrelevant, or a ‘nice’ kind of teasing that is acceptable and not bullying at all.  I don’t care.  I am still furious.  I spent many miserable school years being bullied because my parents were unorthodox and it took me right back.  Some of the things I used to get picked on for were the fact that:

• my parents didn’t have a fitted kitchen (heaven forfend)
• That I was a non-Catholic in a Catholic school and would, naturally go straight to hell, because not only was I non-Catholic, but my parents hadn’t had me christened, because they decided that I should decide such a momentous thing for myself when I got old enough to understand what choices I was actually making.  This was so terrible that I actually begged my parents to Christen me and thought about running away to join a nunnery.  I’m glad I didn’t now, but then their refusal didn’t offer me much comfort.
• The fact that I dressed oddly.  My parents let us wear pretty much whatever we wanted.  I often wanted to wear things that weren’t what the other kids considered o.k. in their infinite wisdom.  I note that none of them have since grown up to become Trinny and Susannah.
• The fact that I was clever.
• The fact that I read books for pleasure.
• The fact that I wore glasses.
• The fact that we didn’t go abroad on holiday.

The list goes on, interminably and depressingly.  I never got bullied about the fact that I called my mum and dad by different names, because luckily for me, I didn’t.  I’m sure that if I had, they would have found a way to make my life hellish about that too.

Kids can be such fascists of conformity.  It is totally depressing to me that a school, a school where they educate children, has not yet had the wit to educate nine year olds that the people who invented ipods and Nintendo DS’s and aeroplanes and trainers with wheels, probably didn’t call their parents mum and dad either, and were probably just the sort of people that given half a chance, the rest of their class would have lynched and stuck up a flag pole whilst jeering, because they were a bit different.  And if they had succeeded the world would have been a much greyer, more miserable and intolerable place to live than it is now.  If you can imagine such a thing.

I explained this to Tilly along with the fact that she could call us what she bloody well wanted, and that if she wanted to lie at school and refer to us as mum and dad that was fine with me, because let’s face it, whatever gets you through the day without having your head kicked in is worth a lie about your parents names.  I also explained to her that she was brilliant, creative, clever and lovely and I would happily cherish one of her for twenty ignorant little bastards like that any day of the week.  She seemed somewhat cheered.  Plus the fact that if it continues I intend to go in with an intensity that makes the upcoming tornado in New Orleans look like a mere bagatelle, and heads will roll.

Friday she came home worried about the fact that all the other kids know which schools they are going to when they are eleven and where is she going because the other kids think she’s weird because she doesn’t know.  What the fuck is going on with these kids?  Do they really have such dull and tedious lives that the best thing they can think to talk about is what school they may or may not be going to in two years time?  It defies belief it really does.

I explained that the reason I haven’t told her which school she’s going to in two years is because I have no idea and I don’t want to have any idea.  I explained about the fact that in two years time the choice of schools may well have altered due to changes in staffing and exam results.  That she will have changed, and what suits her now may not suit her in two years.  I explained that we may not be living here in two years.  If Jason turns out to be the Sausage King of Chicago when it comes to poker we could be living in Las Vegas with an en suite hot tub and what will the point be then of having chosen a school in Glenfield?  I explained that only narrow minded, pig ignorant, stupid people who do not have the wit to imagine a life beyond a ten mile radius of Glenfield, or the fact that they might actually get to experience it, will be the sort of people who make those decisions now.  As she didn’t fall into this category I hoped she wouldn’t mind if we put off our choice of schools for a little bit longer.  She said that that was fair, and could we have a swimming pool as well if we moved to Vegas.  I said yes.

She has had a hard couple of days.  She has a new teacher.  The new teacher, unlike her last, lovely teacher, seems to be a stickler for rules.  The kids are allowed to take water into school.  I bought them new flasks for their water supply.  Apparently Tilly’s is illegal, because it is not see through, therefore she could be harbouring anarchistic elements such as juice in her flask.  We are not allowed to send it to school again.  I explained to Tilly that I was going to send it to school every day, and that if the teacher had a problem with it, she could see me.  If she thinks that Tilly is harbouring illicit Sunny D supplies in it, I suggest she either has a swig or takes the lid off.  Her university education should help her if she gets stuck.  I am not buying or supplying a see through bottle.  Hell will freeze over first.

On Friday Tilly was fifteen minutes late out of school.  By the time she arrived nearly every parent had left and I was standing around, sick with worry in case I’d missed her, she’d lost me, she’d been pod snatched by aliens and/or paedofiddlers or she’d had an accident.  She came running up just as I was about to march into the office and demand a search party.  Turns out that she had been kept behind to finish a piece of work.  I asked if it was a punishment.  Apparently not.  The teacher, in her infinite wisdom, had forgotten to print out enough worksheets for the whole class (counting not her strong point, obviously).  She had given Tilly some reading to do until she could go and print some more worksheets.  Then, because Tilly was late starting her worksheet, she was held back to finish it, because the work had to be done that day.

It was at this point that you could colour me livid.  It is the teacher’s fault that Tilly can’t do the work on time, but we have to pay for it.  There is no thought for the fact that I might have other children to see to or collect (Oscar was waiting for us at nursery) or other things to do now that school is officially over for the day.  I don’t mind her making Tilly finish the work, but there are break times and lunch times, school times that these things can be done.  And I just cannot imagine what piece of work a nine year old child has to do on the second day back in school on a Friday afternoon that just simply cannot wait until the following week.  It’s not as if she’s doing mending holes in the space time continuum this term.

So.  It is war.  War already, two days in.  We fight.  We fight because if we don’t make a stand against narrow minded bigotry in nine year olds, when it may just about be tolerable, we get narrow minded bigotry in voting forty year olds, which somehow isn’t so cute.  We fight, because my child is bright, sunny, polite and eager to learn and she doesn’t deserve to be treated like a leper or a criminal just because she is different and she has an anal, twitching teacher who cannot organise herself and think the world begins and ends with whether you have a clear plastic water bottle or not.  We fight because my child is not going to dread going to school every morning until she gets into sixth form like her mother did.  So we fight.

Sunday 31st August – Every Girl Needs a Cape

A weird blogging moment occurred today.  I got an e-mail about a blog entry I wrote in April.  It simply said: ‘I do not believe this’.  I looked at the message, assuming it was just one of those random ones I was talking about the other day when the person types something like: ‘Hi, love the blog, your posts are fascinating to me.’ merely so that you will approve their comment and provide others with a handy link to their porn/poker combo website.  But no, it wasn’t that.  This person didn’t have a website, just a private e-mail address.  This person had simply found my blog entry and then mailed me just to tell me that they didn’t believe it.

I was slightly baffled.  I had no recollection of what I had written.  April was a very long time ago and I can’t even remember what happened yesterday very clearly, one of the reasons I actually started writing a blog in the first place.  Now I have a place to retrieve memories I can bore my grandchildren with as I descend into senility.  After all, it’s not like I can reminisce about the war.

It turns out that this entry was from when we were in Canada.  It deals with such exciting things as the fact that Tilly’s hair was falling out in clumps; Jason had taken the kids swimming; I had had a visit from a relative; the landlord came over; the children had fought and that the children had made fairy hotels in the garden out of old twigs and deer droppings.  Not one of my more surreal posts you have to admit.  More of a factual, listy type blog entry, hardly the stuff to make someone’s jaw drop in utter disbelief.  Now if this person had e-mailed me about the entry where I explain how to make Ray Mears out of a napkin I would understand it.

After some thought I am forced to the conclusion that whoever this person is, they must live in either a convent, a cellar or a box, and must never come out at all.  This would explain the narrow bandwidth they are exhibiting over the difference between credible and incredible.  Bizarre.  It’s kind of cool that they were so utterly disbelieving that just thinking about it wouldn’t do.  No, they were actually motivated to dust off their e-mail account and tell me about it.  Outraged of somewhere or other.  Fair play to you sir/madam.

Anyway, talking of incredible things, I forgot to tell you that I got 77% for my last Leonardo essay and have actually passed the course!  How amazing is that?  Specially because they sent me a message about it weeks ago and I totally forgot to blog about it, despite whinging about writing the damn thing for at least six weeks beforehand.  I will totally understand if you now write to me and say: ‘I don’t believe this!’ because frankly, I found it rather a leap myself.  I think that’s the best mark for any assignment so far in my checkered OU career.  My next course starts in a month, so let’s see if I can keep up the winning streak.  Unlikely I feel.

Not much occuring today.  Jamie has taken the girls out for the day, so it’s very quiet.  We took Oscar out for tea and cakes this morning.  He sat in a big boy’s chair eating biscuits and trying to flick snot at his father.  A very relaxing way to spend a Sunday morning I think you’ll agree.

We went into TK Maxx because Jason and Oscar wanted trousers.  We bought trousers.  We also bought Oscar a fantastic hoodie covered in stegasauruses (stegasaurii?) and a Dennis the Menace t-shirt, because we couldn’t resist them, and every boy should have a dinosaur infested cardigan at some point in his life.  Now seems infinitely preferable to his mid thirties.  I also got treated to the most fabulous cape by Jason. It’s gorgeous.  I’ve always wanted a cape, not a batman style cape you understand, although I’ve always had a yen to be either a superhero or an evil genius,  but a proper coat style cape.

Capes are rarely in fashion, which I’ve never understood as they are utterly cool.  Mostly people think of them as something old fashioned nurses, Barbara Windsor in Carry on Nurse, and the Phantom of the Opera wear, but me, I’ve yearned for a cape.  I’ve whimpered longingly for a cape.  Once, my friend Kate and I were in a charity shop in Brick Lane before it became trendy and she bought an ex-nurse’s cape because she saw it first.  I’ve often thought about that day with regret.  Even now I realise it’s not the done thing to try and beat your friend to death with a Doc Marten just because she has the cape you want.  I’m glad I didn’t succumb to momentary cape rage.  Particularly now, now I am capetacular.  I am capetriumphant.  This is a beautiful grey wool Elizabeth Emanuel cape with a mandarin collar, big black jet buttons and a foxy vibe.  I love it. It was only thirty quid, which in terms of capes is an absolute steal.  I tried it on in the shop and swished about in it feeling fabulous and like I was just about to get on my private jet and swish away somewhere capey.  Cape Horn, or probably the Cape of Good Hope, where everyone is jolly and optimistic and wears floor to ceiling capes all day long.

Within three weeks it will be covered in jam stains, soya milk and unidentified blobs of awfulness, but for now I am enjoying myself immensely.  I may even wear it to bed it’s that good.

Saturday August 30th – Household Tips No. 3

When we were looking for a new house last year, our watchwords were light and airy.  Light and airy is ‘the’ thing people usually want when looking for houses.  I expect it is the phrase that Kirsty and Phil dread the most, especially when the people also want to live in a period cottage with lots of features.  The two generally don’t go together.

Nevertheless, we plodded on in our search for the light and airy house, and we found it.  Surprisingly our house is a new build.  We generally hate new builds.  We understand that for some people, the sight of a breakfast bar and some leaded lights leading through to a conservatory replete with Austrian blinds is a thing of beauty and a joy forever, but not for us.  For us, faux Jacobean twists on our built in china cabinets and a handy niche for the tea trays we don’t own is the forty eighth circle of Dantean hell.

This house is different.  It was built by a man who wanted to try building a house.  Lucky for us he stuck to one and he kept it simple.  We have large rooms with no twiddly bits and lots of high ceilings.  There is also light, and lucky for us O2 addicts, a fair amount of air.  Brilliant!  It also has three floors.  I always wanted a house with three floors.  Now I’ve crossed it off the list I’m never doing it again unless we can afford a mansion and the servants to carry me about.  My hips are just not up to it.  Still, we have done it, just as I have also lived in a house with a kitchen big enough for a huge kitchen table and a sofa and fire place, and a house with a spiral staircase.  Now all I have to do is live in a house with a basement and have a ride on a stannah stairlift and all my dreams will have been Jim’ll’d.

Now, you think I would be happy with my light and airy house.  I am, most of the time, but as you know, I am a moanin’ ole’ git, and things just wouldn’t be the same if I didn’t have some cautionary tale of woe to share with you.  Here it comes.

Light and airy is all very well unless you happen to inhabit said house with three small children and you want to keep it in a state of light and airiness instead of a state of sticky, hairy, funky smelling blobbiness.  Today was cleaning day.  It took ‘all’ day.  I have just finished, fully aware that there are definitely a few areas I merely skimmed as we were coming up to the end of my stamina, and some bits I ignored altogether.  I definitely wouldn’t pass the Anthea Turner test, let’s put it that way.  Not that I’d let that spawn of Beelzebub and her weird, alien smile within ten feet of my front door without clutching my Grandma Clampitt shotgun to my bosom and telling her to get the hell off my land, but you know what I mean.

So, my pearls of wisdom for today are that if you want to raise small children and not spend your whole life chained to the cleaning aisle in Sainsbury’s or with your head down a toilet wielding squeegees and marigolds I suggest that you go for a rustic hovel with low ceilings, small windows and lots of natural, aged features to cover up all the muck.  That way you could logically argue that the layers your children adding are giving it more charm and a certain authentic patina and are actually adding value to your property rather than jammy hand prints all over your magnolia walls and sparkly nail varnish stains all over your white sink.

Update on the tooth fairy ruse.  It worked a charm.  Tilly is now converted to worshipping the tooth fairy and I stayed awake last night watching Spiderman 3 and The Other Boleyn Girl on DVD until she had finally dropped off and I could creep about on my eyebrows in the dark, swearing quietly in a tooth fairy who has stubbed their toe kind of way. 

The films were alright. Two more I missed because it is impossible to take midgets to the cinema satisfactorily until you can plug their tiny mouths with enough popcorn to baffle the wailing.  Having said that, I am not bitter about having missed these two and would have been gutted to have paid full price for either.  They were entertaining, but not exactly life changing.  Our library is doing a three for two offer on their DVDs at the moment and I am steadily working my way through everything I’ve missed.  I managed to watch No Country for Old Men last week, just in time to be up to date enough to miss the next Coen brothers film that’s due out any day now.  I love the Coen brothers films, except for Millers Crossing, which just didn’t do it for me.  Jason isn’t keen, so if I do actually get to see it, I will have to bribe Andrea into coming with me.  She’s fairly bribeable, so I’m not too worried.

Right.  Off to do homework with the kids and watch them undo all the hard graft of the last eight hours, as they find new and unpredictable ways to smear indelible stuff over everything they pass.  It’s a skill apparently.

By the way, household tip number one was; ‘Never have children’.  Household tip number two was; ‘Never boil eggs in your kettle.’

Back to my normal self

After a day of feeling unusually frisksome and perky I am back to my normal miserable old gittish ways.  You knew it wouldn’t last.  I am like the British summer when it comes to being in a good mood, fitful and prone to sullen ponderings.

There are some brilliant bloggers out there, people who are thoughtful, kind, funny, literate or even enraged but entertaining.  They work really hard on their blogs and building up friendships within the blogging community.  It’s a great thing.  It makes me happy when my blogging friends check in with me when I’ve had a week from hell and offer me empathy, sympathy and other things ending in thy.  I am touched that they put up with my gittishness and my fuckwittage and have embraced me to their literary bosoms.

Then there are the other lot.  The ones who clog up my spam filter every day.  This post is for them.

So.

For all those total waste of space bloggers who either create fictitious blogs just to market their diet pills/ultra rich lifestyle tips and other such crap.  You can piss off.

For all those stupid people who just ping back lumps of my own blog at me and think I won’t notice and will just blithely allow links to their weight loss/life loss/gain bollocks web sites.  You can piss off.

For all those stupid people who decide that they might be a bit more clever than the ping back brigade and who write chirpy little messages like: ‘Thanks for that fascinating post. I will definately (ARGHH! Spelling) read more!’ when either the blog post is over six months old, or I have just written: ‘Arrrghhh! I want to slit my wrists with a courgette.’ to which their response is somewhat inappropriate.  You can piss off.

To all those people who hope I will allow them to link to their auto insurance sites, poker sites, naked grandmother’s peeing on middle aged men dressed as smurfs sites, despite the fact that I neither drive, play poker or indulge in wee based fantasies.  You can piss off.

To all those people who merely write in to tell me how much they hate me, just because they can.  You can piss off too.

If you all piss off the lovely imaginary man who works so hard beavering away at the spam filter can go home, put his feet up and have a lovely cream tea and watch Neighbours.  Wouldn’t that be nice?

Question Time – The Return of…

I lost the will to answer questions there for a few weeks, but now that Friday afternoons are mine again we are all systems go.

Just to recap on the rules:

• You punch random questions/sentences/symbols into Google.
• Sometimes Google directs you to my blog.
• You are amazed and astounded.
• You may or may not come back again.
• My blog makes a list of all of your visits using your phrases or questions.
• I read them every week because I am anal like that.
• I pick out the ones I like and attempt to answer/randomly gibber about them.

I stole the idea from Anna Pickard at Little Red Boat, whose blog is on my blog roll or here.

Bevchen who is also a blogger at Confuzzledom, sometimes indulges in it too.  You can find her here, doing that very thing.

So (cracks fingers like ace world war one pianist about to begin mission), here goes.  Bear with me.  It might be a bit rusty this week.

Are scrofles itchy?

To be honest, when I talked to you about scrofles (here) I thought I had made up the word scrofles all by my rown.  I was incredibly proud of myself.  I thought, in between thinking about how much my fucking head itched, that I might write a nice letter to those jolly people at the OED and suggest that they put the word scrofles in their next tome, entitled S to T (Scrofles to Trombones) and put a small picture of me, smiling in tights, right next to it.  Now I find that either I have invented it at the same time as someone else who is clearly suffering from something similar, or that the word already exists and I have merely appropriated it.  I am quite sad about this.

Because I potentially invented the word, I have no idea if there are indeed, non-imaginary scrofles, whether they are in fact itchy.  All I can say is, my scrofles were very, very itchy indeed.  They are no longer itchy.  I am, it seems, scrofle free.  I suggest ringing the editor of ‘Scrofulous Weekly: First for Scrofles’ and having a chat with him.

How can I make myself go into labour?

Your best bet is to really not want to go into labour.  That would work.  Try booking a slot climbing Everest and doing it whilst wearing stout support tights, some kind of body stocking and an inconvenient harness.  I bet you a fiver you’ll be hanging off an escarpment in minus forty when your water’s break, miles from the nearest hospital.  Other options include:

Starting a new job in which it is crucial you attend this training course or the job might as well be in Swahili without subtitles. You will be in labour as soon as the squeaky pen hits the whiteboard to write the facilitator’s name.

Having your house redecorated and having to live out of a suitcase on bare boards with only a futon and a can opener for company.  As soon as the workmen have severed a water pipe, turned off the gas and gone away for a bank holiday weekend, you will go into labour.

Taping all the episodes of your favourite programme and waiting to watch them all in the same day.  Just when the cliff hanger starts in the very last programme is also an excellent time to be rushed to hospital.  You will have to be prized from the sofa, screaming blue murder.  As you exit for the labour ward, someone will then tape over the last episode.

How to have a good sleepover.

• Free valium for the under tens and over thirties.
• Poking your eyes out with a stick, whilst simultaneously bursting both ear drums with bent coathangers.
• Only having sleepovers for new mothers, without children in tow.
• Having them at other people’s houses.
• Free bottle of gin for every child.
• Making sure you play, let’s all be mummies using masking tape just before bedtime.

Shouting at shrews.

This seems rather unfair.  Shrews are generally fairly harmless creatures that bimble about fainting of shock every time a bumble bee farts.  They have weak hearts, chronic anxiety and probably flatulence.  They have really, really pointy noses, and no access to NHS plastic surgeons.  Shrews have a bum deal all things considered.  What do you want to shout at them for?  Why don’t you pick on someone your own size? Unless of course you are a highly intelligent shrew octogenarian who wishes to shout abuse at the feckless shrew youths of today, hanging out by dandelions, spitting and kicking daisies whilst being rude to their mothers’.  In which case, more power to your shrew elbow and invest in a tiny shrew megaphone.  You can order them online from www.shoutyshrews.com or make one out of a hollowed out conker shell.

What do you feed a wounded pigeon?

Oxtail soup on a small, silver salt spoon.  All wounded creatures, large or small, need soup.  Just ask our resident experts Trude ‘I love shrews’ Mostue and Bill ‘I fart on your scoma vole’ Oddie.  Bill in fact, has his own range of soups for the wounded animal in your life.  They come in twenty handy flavours and three ranges, for the carnivore, the herbivore and the omnivore.  He makes the ones for the carnivore and omnivore out of the remains of the wounded animals which no soup on earth could save.  He feels that this is a boon to environmentalism and is what the animals would have wanted.  The most popular soup in the range is ‘Shrew and watermelon’ a cold, summer soup, similar to Gazpacho, served with toasted shrews heads as croutons.  Badgers in particular go mad for this variety.  Pigeons have shown a preference for ‘Sunflower with a hint of ready salted crisp and essence of pavement’.

Constipated and out of breath.

That’s probably all the trapped pooh in you pushing its way to the surface. It has nowhere else to go and is eventually going to burst out of your oesophagus like a tape worm chasing a bit of bacon sandwich on a string.  What you need is a sink plunger and a trusty friend.  I suggest hazmat clothing as a precaution and a confidentiality agreement.  This comes under the classification: ‘Things that shall never be mentioned between us again.’

Side effects of eating asparagus.

• You start singing; ‘Bette Davis Eyes’ by Kim Carnes but with the line: ‘She’s got some asparagus thighs’ over and over and over again until you are driven insane and have to be carted off to a mental hospital, howling and clawing at the moon.
• You develop a fondness for pachyderms and insist on swapping your family car for a camel.  You ride it to work every morning and change your mobile ring tone to; ‘Alice the Camel has two humps’.
• Your feet swell to three times their regular size and smell of watermelon and digestive biscuits.
• You rush out and buy a sheepdog called Stan who you train to herd together all the staff at your local post office and keep them in the sorting office while you rifle through the mail looking for birthday cards with fivers in, so that you can flee the country and go and live in Sri Lanka.  You will go native and join the Tamil Tigers in their fight for freedom.  Stan will pine away without you and the RSPCA will put a warrant out for your arrest should you ever decide to re-enter the country.

Hazardous occupation, eating asparagus.

Furniture eating cats

I shouldn’t worry too much about this.  The only breed of cat left in the world which enjoys eating furniture habitually is the purebred Persian.  It’s why they always look slightly constipated and a bit evil.  Burmese have been known to have a nibble on a pouffe every now and again, but this can easily be avoided by using footstools.  Persians are very fussy.  They loathe Ikea furniture because they despise the taste of the fjords.  Their preference is for early Chippendale or Louis Quinze.  They will tolerate Jacobean, although not if it has been touched by Mr. Sheen.  They detest knotty pine and will only eat sideboards if all the occasional tables are gone.

In which I twiddle my moustache

Mwahahahhahahaaaaa etc; cough, cough, erk,  Mwahhahahahahahaaaaa

I have had an evil genius lightbulb moment.

In order to back up my terrible fib of this morning that the tooth fairy was too overworked and/or possibly ill to take Tilly’s tooth away I have come up with a genius plan.  Well, actually it was Andrea’s, but I have appropriated it and taken all the credit.  Mwahahahaaaaahhhhaaa etc.

I rang Andrea to confess, and to see if she still wanted to have lunch with such a terrible mother as me.  She said yes, because a) I’m not her mother, b) it’s an excuse to eat cake and get away from the dusty confines of work (she would even consider lunch with Pol Pot if it meant cake.  And fair play to her.  That’s what I say.  What is genocide and mental instability compared to free cake when you think about it?) and c) she only has cows as her children and as far as I’m aware there is not a cow tooth fairy, so it’s not such a big deal.

She suggested that I stick with the ‘Cough Cough, I was too ill’ theory of tooth fairy trickery, and that a grovelling fairy note might do the trick.

I however, cannot write the note, because my hand writing is clearly mummy hand writing and not poorly tooth fairy handwriting, which will of course, once detected blow the gaffe wide open.

Frankly, I ain’t doin’ no bird, for the sake of teeth and their magical ways.

So.  I have decided that as it was Andrea’s idea, that she will collude with me.  I have forced her into conspiring with me in my evil web of lies and deceit.

Here is the plan so far:

• We scope out the area, using Ordnance Survey maps, pen lights and compasses.  Andrea is in charge of compasses because I can’t read them.  Andrea is in charge of maps because I read them upside down.  I am in charge of pen lights.  I am good at torches.
• We dress in appropriate attire.  In this case, full dental face masks, gowns and surgical gloves with bicycle lights attached to our heads.  Andrea is in charge of costumes, because she works in a lab and can get hold of such things.  I supply bicycle lights.  I know where the bike shop is.  I have plastic.  I am good at lights AND torches.
• We creep about aimlessly, giggling like a pair of loons, pretending that we are fourteen again, and are cutting up a bull’s eyeball with a blunt scalpel and no surgical skills whatsoever.  We howl when the lens from the eye pops out and skids under the benches and is retrieved covered in bits of fluff.  We are suitably chastised by the biology teacher.  That is the end of our careers as biologists.  We come out of our sepia reverie and get on with being evil tooth fairy geniuses.
• We creep into a card shop and frisk the shelves furtively for suitably tooth fairy like notelets, stationery, cards etc.  I am in charge of this because it is my fault we are here in the first place, and I have plastic.
• We retire to the restaurant of our choice where we abandon all pretence at being spies and turn into gluttons, flicking food around and mucking about in a busy manner, fitting as much lunch into our faces as we can.
• When we are finished we wipe our greasy mitts and Andrea grasps the pen that I have provided (not a black biro, because I am allergic to those as my friend Bev knows)  She writes.  I dictate.  She is in charge of handwriting because she writes much more like a fairy than me.  Plus, I have promised that if she ever needs a magical note writing for one of her cows, I will be first in line.  I am in charge of dictation because it was my fault in the first place, and because if there is one thing I am good at other than food, it is words.
• We try not to get butter on the envelope.  We part company at the bus stop and vow never to speak of these things again. You ain’t seen me right?!
• I go home and try not to a) lose the envelope b) spend the fairy funds and c) fall asleep before the witching hour.
• Job’s a good’un

As long as Tilly doesn’t read this blog before she is a grown up.  Thank the lord for parental controls.