The Things We Do For Love

Another post in a long series subtitled: ‘Why childless people should count their blessings.’

We went away for one night.  One whole night of our lives.

The last time we went away for one whole night of our lives was last summer.

On a good year we manage maybe two weekends a year when we are alone together, bound only by the chains of holy matrimony and not with snot and stickle bricks.  I’m not talking long weekends here folks.  I’m talking leaving Saturday morning, coming back Sunday night.  Although to be scrupulously fair I do vaguely recall one time when we might have done two nights away.

So, we are not exactly international jet setters.  The last time we went away we went to Birmingham.  We live forty five minutes away.  Last night we went to the Cotswolds.  It was an hour away.

My friend asked me if I wanted to go to the Pudding Club last August.  Blithely I said yes.  In hindsight I should have run for the hills, but hey, nothing ventured right? It could have been pudding paradise.

So, here’s the thing.

It has taken months, and I kid you not, months of planning to sort this out.

I have three children.  People want to look after other people’s three children like Superman wants to look after Lex Luther’s private stash of kryptonite.  It just ain’t happening.  Particularly when there is such a large gap in ages. 

Speaking from bitter experience I will vouch for the fact that it is fairly impossible to find something that a nine year old, a five year old and a two year old can do safely and happily together for more than a nanosecond unless it involves sweets.  Sweets and bribery work best.

People manage two children reasonably well.  Particularly two children who are potty trained and house trained and sociable.  When Jason and I were first courting and there were just the girls, my mother had them for ten days while we went to Las Vegas.  If that happens again in my life time I will eat my shoes.

Three is too many for most people.  It boils down to people you can pay and people who love you to much to refuse you.  People who you pay will keep them on an indefinite basis.  Unfortunately it costs more to have them looked after than it does for you to go away.  Kennels are cheaper.  Kennels with televisions and hot and cold running Chum are cheaper.  Then there’s the whole thing of making sure that the ’professionals’ you hire are not ‘professional baby killers’ or ‘professional alcoholics’.  This means that if, like us, you are a little paranoid about such things, you need to road test these people first, over a period of time, at vast expense, before you settle in to the whole, we’re taking our toothbrushes and heading for the hills thing. 

So. In these cash strapped times you go for people who love you.  Unfortunately they generally don’t love you enough to want to take your children off your hands for more than two days.  This is the rule of thumb.  As a relative of unsuitable exe’s used to say; ‘Guests are like fish.  After three days in your house they start to go off.’  With kids you can imagine unrefrigerated kippers and draw your own conclusions.

In September I asked my mother if she would have the children for the night.  She said yes.  She said she would write it down.  She is somewhat unreliable over things like dates.  I checked several times that this was o.k.  She assured me that I had asked her well enough in advance that it would be fine. 

After Christmas I was chatting about our night away when my dad said: ‘But you can’t go away then.  We’re at an antique fair.’  I looked at my mum.  She looked at me.  I tried not to scream and wail and shriek.  He said: ‘Can’t you do it on another weekend?’ Like this was the most reasonable thing in the world.  I explained it had been booked since September.  I explained that there were nine of us going.  I explained that Jason was working most weekends and this weekend had been specially written into his project plan.  My dad said: ‘Well. You just can’t go.’

My mum, who felt hideously guilty, decided on Plan B.  Plan B involved my dad driving my mum from the depths of Staffordshire to my house on Friday afternoon and dropping her off.  She would look after the children for the night.  My dad would go home and get up at the crack of dawn to drive to the fair on Saturday morning.   When we got back from our time away, we would bundle everyone into the car, drive to Staffordshire, drop my mum off and then turn around and drive home.

It was not ideal.  They reckoned the earliest they could get to us would be five in the evening.  We had elderflower presse waiting by seven thirty and potential traffic jams on the Longbridge Bypass.  We had planned to spend the day meandering about the Cotswolds on Saturday, possibly moseying into Oxford.  Now we would have to hurtle back after breakfast and spend the day driving around the potteries.

I called our old nanny.  I begged her.  I offered her huge sums of money to help us out.  She couldn’t do it.  She already had work commitments.

The girls dad was no help.  He would be sunning himself in California.

We had no choice but to go with plan b.

It’s what we did.

It’s what we did so that we could spend twelve hours of our lives alone together with a suet pudding.

We’d do it all again, without the suet pudding, given half the chance.

We must love each other.  Nobody would do all that if they didn’t.

On a brighter note, we did go home via the Emma Bridgewater Factory Shop this afternoon and Jason let me indulge myself to cheer me up. 

He really does love me.  Even if I do look a bit like Yvette Fielding.

My Friend Yvette

You may recall that about a week and a half ago I took the plunge sartorially speaking and had a fringe cut into my hair.  This is the most significant and radical change I have made to my hair since I had a very bad hair month after Tallulah was born.  I was extraordinarily fat after Tallulah arrived, mainly due to the fact that I ate three whole rhubarb crumbles a week for about six months during her gestation, and the fact that I was too sick to do anything other than eat rhubarb crumbles.

The main problem I was having at the time I decided to go for the radical do was that six weeks after she was born we had to fly to Canada.  Unsuitable ex husband’s brother was getting married.  We had to go.  I knew I was never going to lose the weight.  I thought I would distract attention by having something ‘interesting’ done with my hair.  I went for lots of colour.  I went for volume, I went for layers.  I went for everything I could lay my hands on.  I ended up looking like this:

Crossed with this:

But fatter and more mullety.

It was not a good look.  It did detract from the increased girth but I didn’t like the look of shock and open mouths that came with it.

I have played safe ever since until the fringe.

So you can see how the fringe was a bit of a sensitive issue.  An emotional hot spot if you will.

My dad, who is a singularly unobservant man, only noticed it today.  I have seen him at least three times since I had it cut in. 

Today he saw fit to comment on it.  He said:

‘You look like Yvette Fielding.’

For those of you who are not au fait with Yvette.  Here she is:

Now, there are worse people to look like in the world.  Zsa Zsa Gabour, Charles Aznavour, Justin from CBeebies, but we’re not talking Kate Moss are we?  I mean bless Yvette.  She is a lovely, albeit squeaky woman.  When she looks like a bush baby crapping her pants via the power of night vision cameras on her ghost hunting show, I am the first to sympathise.  It doesn’t mean I am looking for people to chase down the street with their autograph books asking if I can channel Aunt Edna.

I even know that yes, possibly, a bit, I have been known to resemble La Fielding at times.  Particularly the times I went for a fierce perm and she was doing dreadful things on Blue Peter.  I had hoped I had moved away from all that.  I am o.k. with secretly admitting that I may have a passing resemblance to the woman, but I don’t want it broadcast around by the people who are supposed to love me the most.  It’s a bit like saying very loudly; ‘Hmm! That extra roll of fat really suits you.’  or; ‘It’s not everyone who can pull of Hawaiian print with a bosom like that.  Well done.’ 

You might think it.

You would never say it.

Not to the people you love the most.

Unless you’re my dad, apparently.

Dreaming of Rubbish

Last night, in between being crushed by a furry husband, crucified by an unforgiving mattress, rendered osteopathically challenged by my pillows and learning how to climb a mountain, I also had some dreams.

I am amazed I had time.  I don’t know how I managed to pack them in, being as how I distinctly remember being awake, pisssed off and icicle clad for large parts of the night.

Nevertheless, my weird geographical hoppings continue in my rich and troubling dream life.

Last night I spent quite some time trying to get back from Uni.  I went on the bus to Aberystwyth from where I was due to catch the train.  I arrived at what is most definitely Aberystwyth train station (in both real and dreaming life).  I went to purchase my ticket.  The ticket booth woman said that I had to pay extra for a guaranteed ticket that would take me home via Aberystwtyth because it would be ‘safer’ for me.  I pointed out that I was already in Aberystwyth, so I would not need to go via there at all.  She looked at me like I was a total dullard and repeated herself until I gave in and bought a ticket.

I hopped on the train and we set off. The next station up from Aberystwyth is Borth.  Borth is a hell hole.  Nobody in their right mind would visit it.  I remember thinking this as we sped past it.  I turned to get something out of my bag, only to find that I was on a school coach trip in Paris.

We were just passing the Eiffel tower which someone had kindly clad in cream coloured metal roses and black netting, to liven it up, when I got a text message. It was from my cousin Tom.  It said: ‘You had better get home quickly.  They’re knocking down one of the council houses in Byron Street and if we’re fast we can go and salvage all the architecture.’  It never occured to me to question why the council wouldn’t do this themselves, why there would be anything worth salvaging from a nineteen fifties council house, and what we were going to do with this stuff when we had it.’  I just mentioned it to everyone else on the bus and the driver picked up speed.

He picked up speed so quickly that in the blink of an eye we were travelling round a ring road that looked remarkably like the hideous system just outside Swindon, and were staring up at a brewery that is just outside Burton on Trent.  Apparently this was ‘home’.  I was very pleased we were so near, because Tom had just sent me a photo of him and his girlfriend sitting on a pile of rubble holding a fire surround and looking very pleased with themselves.

It was at this point that I woke up, pinioned under Jason for the eighteenth time.  It was seven thirty and I decided that after such a busy night I might as well get up and have breakfast.  I was never going to get that vintage front door after all.

Hmmm…

Saturday January 31st – The First Rule of Pudding Club

You know that I am a glass half empty kind of girl.  You know this.

I will attempt however, to start with some of the positive things about our brief foray with freedom.

• We managed about twelve hours without any children around.  By this I mean any at all, not just not ours.  There were no children of any description in our immediate environs during the whole of our sojourn.
• The hotel, rather than being an hour and a half away, and then add a lot for travelling through the Cotswolds in Friday night rush hour traffic, was actually an hour away and the roads were clear.  I have no idea why.  I just thank Cheezus for small blessings.
• We got an upgrade from a room to a suite for twenty extra of your English pounds.  The suite was WAAY nicer than the room had been.
• We spent a convivial evening with our friends, all of whom were nice, and despite indulging heavily in gin, did not fall out with each other, or us.
• We were back in our suite by ten thirty so that we could be entirely alone, alone without friends OR children.
• We had a clear run back home this morning.
• I got a lovely copy of The Times, and unlike in other hotels what I have known, nobody had stolen the supplements, which to my  mind are the best bit of a weekend newspaper.
• There was no mobile phone reception at all in the hotel.  Nobody could contact us.

So.  You see.  I am not always a miserable cow.  Oh no.

Just most of the time.

Here are my miserable cow moments.  You knew things were going too well didn’t you?

• My parents were a bit late getting to us.  This meant quite a lot of anxiety on the way there, although it luckily turned out to be nearer than we thought.
• The hotel, like Tallulah and her friend Linus, cared more about what you thought of them when you came in, than it did about what you thought of them when you were trapped inside it.  The outside was gorgeous.  The vestibule was a delight.  Things got rather ropier from there on in.
• We upgraded because our double room put a Travelodge to shame.  Although it was clean and reasonably neat, the bed was the size of a pocket handkerchief, the bathroom was a symphony in beige plastic and we faced the carpark and one of the main roads through the village.  I tried to be brave.  I was brave.  I was very impressed it was Jason who cracked first, shortly after he found a copy of the Gideons Bible in a melamine drawer.  And there was no Corby trouser press.  Heavens.
• Our suite was very nice, although I am not a fan of wall to wall pale blue Toile de Jouy with matching scatter cushions.  It was large and had a fabulous bathroom and a Bose stereo.  Unfortunately it had a bed that seemed to be made of  the hardest material in the world, but which was strangely giving at the same time.  Thus I woke up numerous times in the night finding that I had not only rolled underneath Jason, but that I was aching like mad and felt like I had been battered with a baseball bat.  I spent the rest of the night trying to climb back up to my side of the  bed.
• The pillows were rather odd, albeit feather.  One was enormously over stuffed, one was limp and pathetic.  The large one was too large, unless one has a neck like a swan, which I don’t.  The limp one was too limp.  I ended up rolling my cardigan up and using it as a kind of cashmere neck brace.  Which I really don’t think is going to catch on either as a practical aid or fashion accessory.
• The beds were made with sheets and blankets.  Some people like this and find it to be the height of sophistication and olde worlde charm.  I am not one of those people.  I hate the way you have to wrench the covers from under the mattress unless you want to resemble Flat Stanley.  I hate the way you spend all night long wrestling over bits of the blanket that slither off between the sheet sandwich.  I pine for duvets.  I know. I know.  I am a peasant.  I cannot help it.
• The room was in the loft space.  It was rather chilly.  There was an air conditioning unit.  It was supposed to provide heat in winter as well as coolth in summer.  Jason tried it, and after half an hour of blowing icy gusts down my neck no matter which button he pressed, we gave up.  There was also an electric storage heater.  It was the size of a small attache case.  It pinged and banged until we turned it off in desperation.  I spent all night being crushed and frozen, which was nice.
• The breakfast was mediocre unless you have a thing about stewed apricots. The croissants were solid. There was no strawberry jam and they didn’t give you a choice with toast. You just got toast.

So.  That’s the rooms.  Now you know I have saved the best till last.  But what of the famous puddings I hear you cry.  You have not mentioned the puddings yet. 

Oh no.

It must be bad.

It was.

It is.

Get ready.

The puddings were, in a word, shit.  It was one of the most anticlimactic, piss poor dining experiences of my life.  I was gutted. Gutted I tell you.

Here’s the thing.  In fact, here are several things.  You may want to have a wee and make some tea first.

You assemble in the lounge at 7.30 p.m. to dine at 8.00 p.m.  You are told there will be drinks and a short talk on The Pudding Club.  You think that this will be o.k.  It is not.

First, the drinks are Elderflower Presse.  Served in champagne glasses to fool the unwary.  Who the hell except teetotal maniacs drinks Elderflower presse at a time like this?  I hardly drink and I wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole.  I was hoping for champagne.  Even if they aren’t doing alcohol surely you should offer water, or orange juice.  No. No. No. Elderflower presse.  Take it or leave it.

While I am reeling from the evil taste of elderflowers, a man dressed as a waiter plonks a wine list into my hands and demands that I tell him what our party will be drinking.  I explain that there are nine of us.  Only two of us are present.  One of us doesn’t drink at all, and one of us hardly drinks.  I feel it would be presumptuous of me to make choices for the other seven, all of whom are drinking gin upstairs.

He sniffs, gives me a withering look and stalks off.

I sit down to peruse the wine list.  I think I might have some champagne.  I like champagne.  I see they have Yellow Label Veuve Cliquot.  I like this one very much.  I think I will have a glass.  You cannot order it by the glass.  You must have a bottle.  A bottle is £49.  I know they have a mark up, but I also know how much this costs in the shop as I have a bottle under the sink at home for emergencies.  They are making over 100% mark up.  Fuck that noise.  You cannot order any champagne by the glass.  I decide I will have a glass of a rather nice looking Australian Cabernet Sauvignon instead.

The others come down and start looking at the wine list.  They do not drink red.  I do not drink white or pink.  I particularly do not do pink.  They decide on a bottle of pink.  I stick with my ideals.

The wine waiter comes over to take our order.  He is unbelievably rude about the fact that the rest of our party only want one bottle of Zinfandel.  They explain that they may want something different afterwards and they don’t want to make their choices now, partly because they have no idea what there is going to be for dinner.  He turns his back on them.  He goes to walk off.  I call him back.  He returns very grudgingly.  I say: ‘Could I also order a glass of the Cabernet Sauvignon please?’  He looks at me blankly and then snarls: ‘They have numbers on them.  You will have to tell me the number of the thing you want.  I don’t know what the wines are.’  I oblige, thunderstruck.  He stalks away once more.  I feel like I am trapped in a hellish wine version of a Chinese takeaway.

He has not asked if we want aperitifs.  Apparently elderflower must suffice.  I remind myself not to make him my sommelier when I start my boutique hotel.  I may not drink often, but I do know how it is supposed to go.  I did have years of practice under my belt at one stage.

We are still reeling from this when their version of the Maitre D’ or Master of Ceremonies of the Grand High Pooh Bar of the Pudding Club arrives.  He is clutching a rolling pin.  My heart sinks.

He bangs his rolling pin on the table.  He starts to talk about the wonders of his establishment, the wonders of him, the wonders of puddings, the wonders of being on television and being a pudding superstar.  Every time someone breathes loudly he bangs his rolling pin on the table.

We are in the naughty corner.  We are going to hell.  At the very least we are in detention for the rest of our lives.  We get evil looks.  We get told off.  If we keep this up we will be eating puddings in the car park.  My friend Nicky has that look in her eye.  That look that says: ‘I have drunk the best part of a bottle of gin, and if you don’t stop banging that fucking rolling pin, I am going to stick it so far up your anal hole you will be able to pull it out your ear.  Now give me dinner and shut the fuck up.’

He stops talking about what a burden it is to be being constantly on the television and what a nice man Chris Kelly was back in the day, and how Gary Rhodes was only saying to him the other day, how much nicer their sticky toffee pudding is to his sticky toffee pudding.  I am glad.

He then tells us about our dinner.  Apparently we do not get a choice of breads.  We do not get a choice of starters.  This is because there will be no bread or starters at all.  We will be grudgingly allowed a choice of three main courses.  He indicates that these will be:

1. Beef stroganoff
2. Chicken with caraway seeds and peppers.
3. Fusili with tomato sauce

Apparently we will be given miniscule portions of these because too much would interfere with our puddings.  He then makes us put our hands in the air to let him know who wants what.

I look around. There isn’t a person in the place under thirty years old.  Surely we are old enough to know if we can manage starters and puddings, or be able to say no to a bread roll?  Apparently not.  It seems we are all eight, and at some kind of hellish private boarding school.  I wait for him to announce that after our tea Matron is going to give us a dose of cod liver oil and rub our chests with goose grease.  I contemplate killing myself with one of the curtain swags before it is too late.

We then get on to the puddings, for which he has a blackboard.  A blackboard for Nathan’s sake?!  Soon we will be doing long division.  I am desperate to eat.  I cannot get the vile taste of elderflower out of my mouth, and it is freezing.  I am too depressed to think of suicide now.

There will be seven puddings.  He announces the names of each with great fanfare.  Apparently there are rules about puddings too, but we are too stupid to know them know.  He is going to tell us about the pudding rules later.  I weep gently into a potted palm.

He brandishes his rolling pin and throws open the doors of the room in which we are to dine.  I would say ‘the dining room’, except that it is more like Church hall circa 1953.  The tables are long and uniform.  The chairs have been borrowed from the local hospital.  They look positively orthoepaedic.  It is, if possible, even colder in here than it was outside. 

I finally get my drink after another interminable wait.  It turns out when he asked us to stick our hand up for our choice of dinner it was just some kind of bonding exercise.  He didn’t actually write it down.  They have to take the order again.  Jason asks for Coca Cola.  He is dying of thirst.  They are horrified.  They loot about in the back cupboard and someone finds the smallest bottle of Coca Cola in the world.  They do not ask him if he wants a glass or ice and lemon.  They take the top off the bottle and put it in front of him.  He would have been better off pouring it into a thimble.  I expect Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca to scuttle out of the skirting boards and steal it.  We all stare at it in rapt amazement.  It is a miniature work of art.

The dinner comes out.  I have ordered beef stroganoff.  I like beef stroganoff.  It has mushrooms and exotic Eastern European flavours.  It has caramelised onions.  If you are lucky you might  get toasted caraway seeds and sour cream.  I dream of this.

They plonk the plate in front of me.  I have four cubes of beef which look like they have been lifted directly from a Fray Bentos Steak and Kidney Pie.  It is surrounded by thin, orange gravy.  This is my dinner.  We are allowed swede, cauliflower, green beans, baby carrots and potatoes with it.  The dishes are the size of kidney dishes.  All the veg is piled into them.  Between nine of us we have two dishes.  Even the pasta comes with potatoes and swede.

They slap two glass jugs of finest Cotswold tap water in front of us.  No ice.  No frills.  It tastes like that pink water you get at the dentists.

The best I can say about the actual taste of my dinner was that the veg wasn’t over cooked and the meat wasn’t too bouncy.  It tasted like no stroganoff I have ever had.  Nor would I care to have it again.  I am so hungry I lick the plate clean.  I think this is what the management are banking on.  I wonder if they have taken tips on running a hotel from Mein Kampf. 

Before we are allowed to get at the puddings we have to listen to the rolling pin wallah droning on about the rules.  I want to shout:

‘The first rule of the Pudding Club is, There is no Pudding Club!’

and smash this man’s face into the giant bowl of custard which is slowly solidifying at his elbow.  I absolutely will if he mentions fucking Gary Rhodes one more time.

First things first.  The custard is Birds custard.  It is not home made custard! It is tinned custard.  Tinned custard. Tinned. Custard.

Apparently this is because people like this better.  Not because they are too tight to make it properly then? No.  Gary Rhodes loves it.

Secondly we have to come up to the serving hatch for our pudding, in single file, table by table.  Yes headmaster. Yes.  Shall I wear my cardigan as well?

Thirdly. We only have one bowl and one spoon each.  We must hang on to it for grim death.  We cannot have another one.  God forbid they should actually have to do any work on our behalf.  I wait for him to say we must come back to the kitchen afterwards and wash it up.

Fourthly.  We are not allowed to have another pudding until we have finished all of the pudding currently in our possession.  This is where the red mist starts to descend for me.  What if I don’t like his bloody puddings?  I spy a handy wine cooler into which I have plans to deposit my leftovers.

This is all.

Thank fuck for that.

We go first.  We have choices.  We can have; sticky toffee stick it up your arse Gary pudding; jam roly poly; chocolate steamed pudding; golden syrup pudding; bread and butter pudding; Lord Randall’s pudding (steamed pudding with apricot, nuts and marmalade) or banana, walnut and maple syrup pudding (this is also steamed).  To go with this we can have shop bought custard, chocolate sauce or sticky toffee sauce.

I choose chocolate pudding as the best of a bad bunch.  I am really depressed.  I wanted a little bit more variety.  The serving hatch has been reinforced due to the sheer weight of suet on display.  I like a good steamed pudding, but apart from jam roly poly and bread and butter pudding, everything else is steaming away, sagging at the seams.  It would have been nice to have something a teeny bit lighter.  I worry that if I eat them I may well fall through one of the stair treads on the way back to the suite.

The chocolate pudding is utterly blah.  It has no sweetness.  It tastes earthy and dark and spongy.  The chocolate sauce is nice.  It redeems it.  I expect this too is shop bought.  Jason has jam roly poly.  He loves jam roly poly.  It is his favourite.  He is so disappointed in this one I think he might cry.  It is dry.  There is not much jam.  He tells me that Aunt Bessies 99p from Tesco is way better. 

Next I have golden syrup sponge.  I love syrup sponge.  It is one of my ultimate comfort foods.  This one is vile.  The pudding is top heavy.  The syrup has caught slightly and tastes bitter.  The top of the pudding is soaked. The bottom of the pudding tastes like a dried out sea sponge.  Custard does not help.  Jason has bread and butter pudding.  There is no cinnamon or all spice.  There are no sultanas.  It is bland.  It is dreary. 

I try one more.  I go for the banana, maple syrup and walnut.  I love banana bread.  I adore maple syrup.  I expect this to be rich and moist and full of flavour.  It is as dry as the driest bone.  You cannot taste the banana or the syrup.  It tastes of walnuts and the earth of the grave that I want to open up in front of me and take me away.

By this point I am absolutely parched.  There has been no waiter near nor by for hours.  There is nothing left to drink.  Even the dentist water has gone.  My friend sitting next to me suggests coffee.   I think this is a brilliant idea.  We have both given up on the desserts completely.

We hunt someone down for coffee.  He says: ‘No!’  No! He says: ‘You cannot have coffee until after dinner.  Those are the rules.’ Luckily my friend steps in before I punch his teeth out.  She says: ‘We are paying for this.  If we want coffee you should be able to provide it.’  She has that glint in her eye.  He goes off to investigate and comes back with a cafetiere and two cups.  He slaps them down, says not a word, and departs.  We fall on it gratefully.  It has not been laced with cyanide.

The consensus from our party was that the sticky toffee pudding was the best of a bad bunch, but no better than you could get almost anywhere.  We wonder if the rolling pin wallah was talking about a Gary Rhodes impersonator.  We cannot believe he liked these puddings.  We particularly hated the banana walnut pudding.  The Lord Randall pudding which mostly tasted of suet and hot marmalade came a close second for our scorn.   We will not be coming back.

I say to Jason that I think this evening is so popular because it appeals to rich people who went to public schools and expect to pay a lot of money for freezing cold rooms, terrible service, punishing lectures and dreadful food.  It reminds them of the good old days.  I expect for an extra fee you can ask to be spanked with a cane in your room afterwards.  We decide to forgo this pleasure.

Remember kids.  I go there so you don’t have to.

It’s not that I’m a snob.  Although I freely admit I am.  I don’t mind doing things on the cheap.  When Andrea and I went to London we stayed in Southwark Travelodge.  It was clean, it was functional.  It did what it said on the tin and it was worth the money. I was satisfied. What I hate are these places that are all fur coat and no knickers.  You pay a fortune.  You get treated like shit.  It is like they’re doing you a favour and they expect you to smile while they shaft you with that rolling pin.  No thanks.  I’m waiting for the revolution.  They’ll be first against the wall.

Real Days of Grace

A few days ago I wrote a miserable blog entry about my failure to be grateful for what my day had given me.  It was entitled Days of Arse.  A weak and rubbish parody of the very beautiful idea Days of Grace in which for 365 days you write down five things every day that you feel grateful for.  Small things, although I imagine if you have big things, such as Christian Louboutin inviting you have free shoes once a month because he likes the cut of your jib, you are welcome to put those in as well.

It is a blog thing.  It is a good thing. I mentioned this at the time, even when I was being mean and feeling wretched, hair shirted and generally at ‘Pah!’ with the world.

I am still not doing it myself, but am taking great pleasure in reading other peoples’ choices.  Particularly it has to be said, those of Red Shoes whose blog Mme Guillotine is a delight.  I urge you to go and pay her a visit and have a mosey through her days of grace.  They are delicious, delightful and delectable.

She truly has a feel for those small pleasures that make all the difference to a day.  She writes about them in a way that makes me love them too, even the things I’m not so keen on.  Her description of the honey she puts on her breakfast for example, actually made my mouth water. 

I hate honey.  I think it tastes like medicine mixed with beeswax, no matter what sort you get.  I want to like it.  I terribly, passionately want to like it, which is why I keep trying it.  I even buy it as gifts for other people because it is so pretty and you can get such delicious sounding kinds, and the bits with honeycomb in are so beautiful.  I still fucking hate it though.  She has convinced me though, that were I ever passing through New Orleans and happened to go to her particular honey provider, it would taste like the nectar of the gods.

If I were doing 365 days of grace in small things.  Her lists would be on my list, probably every day.  They are such elegant and joyous things. 

So what are you still doing here, eh?

Bugger off.

Check them out.

Photo Meme

I have been tagged by Homeofficemum to do a photo meme.  You have to take the fourth folder of photos on your pc, take the fourth picture from those photos and post it.  I was a bit nervous about this, as like Homeofficemum I have an extraordinary amount of pictures of my children and I am not allowed to post them.  This ban has been put in place by other members of my family who are convinced that some deranged child killer is going to take the time to wade through the acres of totally random bilge that I write to put together profiles of the children and then come round to the house, specifically to murder us in our beds.  This is what I have now termed, the Midgley school of thought on blogging, after this frankly bizarre and apocalyptic piece appeared in the Times this week.  I was going to write a post about it, but to save me the effort, and much more elegantly than I could, Jaywalker has done it first.

Luckily when I actually took the time to look in the fourth folder of pictures it turns out that the fourth picture is not of my children, and therefore all that worry could have been avoided if I had just done the practical thing half an hour earlier (a salutory life lesson for you there Mrs Katyboo, she says giving her a quick clip round the ear and pulling a ‘specialler’ face).  No. It is not of my children.  It is much more disturbing than that.  It is of my father.

I debated with myself on whether a deranged father killer would then wade through the piles of dross I write, just to put together a psychological profile of my dad before hunting him down and killing him like a dog.  I decided that this was unlikely.  Plus, my dad is in his sixties.  He should know how to take care of himself by now.

I debated whether my dad would mind if I posted a picture of him on my blog.  My dad is an exhibitionist (clothes on type, unless caught chasing moths across the landing in the wee small hours).  He likes to be in on everything.  He can frequently be seen stalking across the back of shots in shows like Bargain Hunt and Car Boot Challenge.  He has hob nobbed with Angela Rippon for goodness sake (my mother sniffed; ‘A woman of her age should be careful of wearing trousers that tight. Especially white ones’. Case closed.)  He has been on the Midlands News and Radio Leicester (be still my beating heart), not as a criminal, but as an ‘expert’ (taxi cabs wot I have known).  He will not mind me putting his picture on my blog.

Furthermore. He did complain that I always wrote nice things about my mum, but that my basic summary of his character whenever I blog about him is; ‘Mad as ninepence.’  He wants a puff piece.  He wants adoration.  So here he is in all his glory.

This photo was taken when we went for a family holiday to Wales when Oscar was just a baby.  I rented a big house in a tiny village near the sea.  It was supposed to be lovely.  Bits of it were lovely.  Bits of it were our usual brand of chaos including:

• Jason having to go to Aberystwyth hospital with an asthma attack.  We were thirty miles away via the power of the country lane. It was the middle of the night.  My dad had to drive him there.  They did a round trip, including waiting time in just over three hours.
• Oscar having a chest infection and not sleeping for the entire week, thus necessitating me sleeping downstairs with him to try and give everyone else a break.
• Tallulah getting a blister on her finger from driving too viciously on a computer game in the amusement arcade and screaming for an hour. Not even being pacified by ice cream.
• The house having no sound proofing at all, and nobody getting any real sleep.
• Brutal weather, despite having to go down to the beach every single day because that’s what we were there for.

This is my dad taking it all in, just prior to falling asleep on the amazing retro, Eighties sofa.  It was a nightmare due to being sectional.  You would sit on it and then it would gradually unsection, thus depositing you on the floor in a neat heap.  Needless to say, we haven’t been back.

So. I think I’ll give Jaywalker a break on this one.  I tag the poor woman for everything.  I nominate Bevchen over at Confuzzledom and Hails over at Coffee Helps.

Friday 30th January – Dreaming of Corby Trouser Presses

My sinuses are still killing me, but luckily I was so utterly exhausted last night I managed to pass out at about half twelve, which was nice.  I had frenzied dreams in which I ran about from location to location in that horrible disjointed way that dreams do.  You know, one minute you’re in Oxford walking down a street, and the next minute you’re at an airport terminal in Luton, that kind of thing.  In this dream I had to do lots of collecting people and meeting people and then just as I was about to collect/meet them, the location would change and I would be worrying that I had let someone down or that they would go off with strangers and be killed and it would all be my fault.

At one point in the dream I was in Oxford.  I was in Jericho, wandering down a street (which eventually morphed into Greggs the bakers in a shopping centre in a town eighty miles away for some reason), going to pick one of the girls up from nursery.  The weird thing was that it definitely wasn’t Oxford.  My rational brain knew that, but my dream brain insisted that it was.  What was most weird was the fact that when I woke up I realised I have dreamed about this Oxford before, lots of times. It seems that I have a dream Oxford and a real Oxford, and they both remain the same but different.

During the very dull assembly I had to attend this morning to watch Tallulah picking up another certificate for being fabulous at school (to go with her complementary certificates of being evil at home), I was mulling this over.  I have discovered that I also have a dream university and a real university.  I often dream about going back to university and the place is always the same in the dreams and is called Lampeter, although it clearly isn’t the ‘real’ Lampeter.

It fascinates me that my brain has constructed these places, and that they are obviously ‘important’ or significant enough to recur in the same way on a regular basis.  Sadly, my waking brain is too fried to know what the hell it all means.

Getting back to the physical reality of my exciting life, I am pleased I managed to get to the assembly, no matter how dull it was.  I am trying very hard to give Tallulah positive affirmations and reassurance at the minute.  She spends so much time in dire deep water that I feel I need to redress the balance so that she, and we, can get some kind of perspective, and remember that underneath all that fierceness is a rather lovely person. 

Going to assembly is a big sacrifice on my part.  I have a hate/hate relationship with the headmistress and her fixation that sensible cardigans are going to be the saviours of the Western world.  She usually drags out assemblies interminably and makes all the children give examples of their work.  I was particularly dreading it today because some of the children had gotten certificates for their part in a ‘windy weather’ dance.  I cannot cope with five and six year olds being windy weather at nine in the morning without some kind of class A drug, and we have none to hand.  I seriously thought about feigning illness, but rallied at the last moment. 

Luckily the head teacher is away.  This means the head of year took over.  She is much more the thing.  She wanted to get on with actually teaching the children, which I think is novel, but might catch on.  She whipped through about forty five certificates in under twenty minutes to the collective appreciation of the mass of wild eyed, caffiene starved parents at the back of the hall.  This brevity, and the fact that for a few moments I thought one of the children she had called up was called ‘Lemon’ (until I realised he was much more realistically called Lennon) were the highlights of the morning.

I am hoping that the head teacher is out all day, as I have to go to another assembly at 2.45 this afternoon because Tilly is also being given a certificate.  This is her third one in three weeks.  I avoided the other two assemblies but have to redress the balance by going to this one.

In the meantime I have to tidy up a bit, just make some kind of general track through the debris, and make sure we have enough bread and milk.  Mum is coming over to sit for the children tonight, as Jason and I are going to The Pudding Club for a night of jam roly poly, rampant sex and Corby trouser presses.  I have a feeling that if we eat too much jam roly poly, the rampant sex may have to wait, but no matter how full one is, there is always room for a Corby trouser press.  I am packing my most forgiving dress and a large spoon.

I also need to scrub the girls bedroom floor free of blood stains before I go.  Tilly and Tallulah had a bit of a set to last night.  Tallulah jumped on Tilly’s back.  Tilly tilted her head back and Tallulah brought her head down at the same moment.  Tallulah’s nose met Tilly’s skull and much nose bleeding and screaming occurred.  What was most annoying was the fact that they had only just come out of the shower, and then I had to scrub them down to get all the blood off of heads, faces and pyjamas.  It was very visually spectacular.  Thankfully after a lot of cold flannels, pinching noses and distribution of arnica to the needy all was well.  I was so impressed about getting the blood out of the pyjamas I forgot to check the floor until this morning.  Still it would be boring if I didn’t have something to occupy my time.

Thursday January 29th – I need sleep

Am. So. Tired. Cannot. Compute.

Bad night last night.

Evil night last night.

Even the soothing voice of Simon Schama doing The History of Art on Sky Arts could not lull me into peace and sleep like he usually does (I am thinking of seeing if he reads his own book tapes and getting them).

I was up until three this morning and still hideously panicky and miserable by the time I crawled into bed.

Just the usual stuff.  Major anxieties about minor things that I could not shuck off and which decided to come and visit me in the dark gloom of a January evening.

Good things did happen though:

We took Tilly for a second opinion re: the orthodontic work she needs.  The man we chose to see, it fortuitously turns out, has the NHS contract for orthodontics. He considers her case will definitely fall into the NHS-worthy category.  This means it will be free.  Free. FREE.  The first quote we got was for four grand.  Four thousand pounds.  Eeek! Free is so much nicer.  He also doesn’t think he needs to start the work for at least another six months until more of her adult teeth have come through. Tilly loved him.  I loved him.  Jason nearly divorced me and married him.  All is good.

I finished Alan Measles.  For those who aren’t in the Alan Measle’s loop I will explain.  Alan Measles is a teddy bear, immortalised by the fabulous potter and bon viveur Grayson Perry.  Grayson Perry is also a transvestite who dresses as a small child in the most amazing party frocks imaginable.  Jaywalker over at Belgian Waffle, was discussing a dress she had that was rather Grayson Perry-esque.  I said that I would make her an Alan Measles handbag to go with it. This was in exchange for a Pear Shrew that she made me previously.  Our relationship is a wonderful thing.  We are like bizarrely gifted cats, dragging weird dead things to each other’s doorsteps with nervous pride.

This was all very well, but I did have a sudden rush of blood to the head, not as severe as Homeofficemum’s, but nevertheless quite epic for me.  I am useless at sewing.  I am good at glueing, sticking, making models of things out of cardboard.  I am not good at all at needlework. I hadn’t got a clue where to start.  It has taken me ages. It is the size of a dwarf’s purse, and is so frightening that I am quite rightly expecting Jaywalker to exhibit it immediately on Craftastrophe and possibly win some sort of prize.  I am quite proud of it.  A bit like when you know your baby is ugly and looks like a bull dog, but you can’t help loving it anyway.

Anyway, he is finished, and on Monday, when I make the marathon trek to the un-burned down post office he will be winging his way to Belgium, unless customs officers confiscate him and use him as an example of what will happen to you if you take too many drugs.

So you see, I didn’t spend my evening just idly panicking, oh no!

This morning the kids were fine, which was nice.  Oscar calmly fixed a power cut before the school run and went to nursery with the minimum of sulking.  The girls were both rather nice, albeit vague.  I don’t mind vague.  I can do vague.  I AM vague.

I have spent most of the day snuggled on the sofa, dozing.  I could not go to bed and lie down properly because my sinuses have decided to rebel today and half my face feels like what it really needs is a gentle smack with a ball peen hammer.  Much better when I sit up.

I have idled the day away.  Apart from the pain, it was rather nice.  I may deliberately choose to idle another day away when I don’t have any pain.  I imagine that this would be a lot nicer.  I shall hold on to that thought.

These Childish Things

Hails remarked in a comment to one of my last blog entries that we often dismiss as childish things which could and did give us great pleasure when we were less bothered about being serious and ‘grown up’.  She was commenting on the fact that Oscar wanted to don his wellies and splash in puddles this morning on the way to school.

I agree with her.  One of the nicer aspects of having children is your ability and indeed the necessity of connecting with things you had forgotten from childhood.  Some are excellent, some are not so excellent.  Here are my lists of pros and cons regarding the resumption of childish things.

Pros:

• Splashing in puddles in the rain.  Oscar and I went out one afternoon while the girls were away with their dad and splashed around in the rain for about an hour.  We were soaked to the skin when we got home, but it was very invigorating indeed.
• Skidding on patches of ice, and generally sliding about.  I prefer sliding in my socks on parquet flooring.  It is much warmer.
• Mucking about in the snow.  Although I would say that for me, the joy wears off after about ten minutes.  Then I have the joy of going inside and drinking coffee.  It’s a win/win situation really.
• Playing with sand.  I find this enormously therapeutic.  I love the feel of sun warmed sand running through my fingers.  I prefer it to be outside as I am not keen on the hours of cleaning sand out of all the crevices of your house that come with indoor sand play.
• Painting, glueing and sticking.  Atlhough I have always done this, so it’s more of a ramping up of a hobby than a resumption of something forgotten.  I do get mardy still if I go out the lines though.  You think I’d have learned to be more accepting by now.
• Flying kites. I love kite flying.  Again, something I never really gave up.
• Playing with balloons.  I have found I still love rubbing them on my hair and sticking them to the wall with static.  Who knew it would be just as satisfying thirty years after the initial thrill?
• Digging in the dirt.  I love this.  I don’t do it often enough, but I like a good dig.  Digging a bloody big hole and thinking of putting the kids in is especially therapeutic.
• Shopping for toys.  I love this, but only if it is a good toyshop.  I hate Toys R Us with a passion.
• Playing on the swings.  This is excellent fun.
• Making towns out of bricks.  We have been doing a lot of this recently.  I am thinking of studying town planning when Oscar goes to school, but only if I can build towns with pink towers and purple shopping centres covered in stars.  I am going to the Gaudi school of town planning.
• Trampolining.  It’s the best.
• Running a stick or your fingers along a brick wall.  Its hypnotic and calming, and if you use your fingers you get that lovely burning smell of brick dust and flesh.  Nice.

Cons:

• I can no longer do roundabouts in playgrounds.  They make me green within minutes.
• Playing with Play Doh.  It still smells great but I am not good at creating masterpieces.  I make incessant sausages, peas and pancakes, then get bored very quickly.  Oscar demands three dimensional sports cars and is always disappointed.  Plus I hate the way it gets under your nails.
• Bike riding.  I used to ride my bike everywhere.  Once I even rode it into the path of an oncoming car I was that keen.  Now I find it boring, repetitive and sweaty.
• Running about like a maniac.  Why? What is the purpose of this? There is none.  It is crap.
• Getting up at the crack of dawn.  This has to be the most over rated thing in the history of ever.  Who gets up at dawn? Birds and milkmen that’s who.  Rubbish.
• Handstands.  Couldn’t do them then.  Can’t do them now.  Let’s not even go down the whole cartwheel road.
• Showing people your pants.  Nope. No thanks.  Not even my Snoopy ones with the days of the week on.
• Eating chips for breakfast, lunch and tea.  I like a bag of chips with lashings of salt as much as the next man, but not incessantly, all the time.  I no longer think that having my tongue permanently coated with lard is a good thing.
• Eating snot.  This is something I’m not even prepared to try, but the kids assure me it is all the thing.
• Falling out with your best friends every sixty seconds, and using a rating system with which to score the ones still in the running for best friend hood.  I am not interested in having a third best friend any more.
• Playing with Barbie/Sindies, dolls in general.  They are so lame.  They seem to be more difficult to dress than when I was a kid. 
• Staying up late.  It’s crap.  Even with over 100 channels of television.  A delight I couldn’t possibly imagine would be available to me in my life time when I looked into the future at the ripe old age of eight.
• Ribena moustaches.  They’re just not as fun as they used to be.

Anything I’ve missed?

The Nicer Bits

My son is very amusing at the moment, which is, if you read the last blog entry, why I have a large, egg shaped bump over my left eyebrow.  He made me laugh so much I hit my head on a kitchen chair (yes! I know that only I could do something this stupid, but hey. It was my turn to make him laugh.)

I cannot remember now what it was that made me laugh like that, unfortunately, but he has been rather lovely, in between being rather horrible, and I need to jot these things down so that I can re-read them next time I want to kill him. 

If only Tallulah would intersperse her horror freak show times with being lovely, things would be a lot easier.  With her it seems to come in waves, or tsunamis.  She will be fine (and by this I mean, normally vile for a five year old) for ages and then suddenly turn into a monster for about a week until she gets it all out of her system.  We’re about half way through one of those monstrous weeks and it is very wearing on the nerves.  As Homeofficemum says, the only solution may lie in the bottom of a gin bottle, for me and for her.  I don’t usually drink much, but I have to admit to having succumbed to the lure of a large glass of red last night after a particularly trying evening.  I never thought I’d say this, but my child has driven me to drink.  I feel Oscar is going to be way more  challenging than Tallulah when he gets into his stride.  By then I will probably be drinking paraffin straight from the drum and living on a park bench muttering about snakes.

The glass of wine was wonderful, but unfortunately made me rather sleepy during my viewing of Slum Dog Millionaire.  I would like to go and see it again when I am less prone to nodding off.  The bits I saw were fab.

In between throwing spoons at the wall, chucking two new toys in the bin, just to see what would happen (they stayed there much to his disgust) and redecorating the floors with mud, Oscar has been quite splendid.   He has been bustling about this morning asking for a hammer and some nails and a ‘Bobabuilder’ hat, because we are having a power cut and it is too dark and dangerous and he needs to fix it.  This necessitates banging all the doors with a small metal frying pan that is making do as a hammer.  He only has an imaginary Bob hat, but occasionally he takes it off, scratches his head and then puts it on again at a jaunty angle.  It is a busy time in the world of power cuts.  He tells me not to worry.  Apparently we are just having ‘A dark adventure’, and he is going to look after me.  Looking after me seems to involve staring deeply into my eyes while he licks snot trails off his top lip, and the occasional absent minded pat to my bosom, before he goes off to hit something else.  I am hoping that this care plan evolves quite dramatically as I head into my twilight years or I will be indeed doomed to a ‘dark adventure.’

He has not forsaken his birdlike activities.  He made a nest in some towels after bath time and is still doing a fair amount of tweeting.  He wasn’t dirty. I just discovered a brilliant thing.  He wanted to play with some bubbles (bubbles that you blow out of a pot with a plastic wand).  This is usually hideously messy.  He always tips the tub and dribbles bubble juice all over the floors.  He then skids in it.  He also forgets how to blow the bubbles every now and again.  When this happens he ponders by eating the wand and then hacks and spits the bubble juice all over the floor whilst pulling vile faces.  He always has to have a bath afterwards.  This time I had the brainwave of putting him in the bath and letting him play with the bubbles simultaneously.  He had a wonderful time blowing bubbles at me and laughing when they burst on my face.  Nice.  I had to wash my face, but it was a small price to pay compared to the usual carnage.  I was more relaxed and he was very happy.  Winner.

After he had made his bird’s nest he hatched some eggs.  We talked about baby birds being inside the eggs and how they have to bang with their beaks to get out.  He was crouching over his ‘eggs’, tweeting and flapping away.  Every now and again he would knock on the side of the bath to make the noise for the baby bird and then shout in his best ‘mummy bird’ voice; ‘Come on out baby bird. I hab got some juicy worms for ‘oo.’  It was very charming.  It may not seem charming if you are not a parent, but if you compare it to licking snot, it suddenly becomes a lot more magical and life affirming.

At lunch timeI had smoked mackerel salad.  He was very interested in my lunch and after trying and rejecting the mackerel (which was peppered, and rather too spicy for a mummy bird) he wanted some of my salad leaves.  I offered him chard.  I offered him rocket.  I offered him lamb’s lettuce.  They were all rejected on the grounds that they were ‘too leafy mama’.  I explained that this was the nature of lettuce in general.  He wanted the non leafy lettuce.  We didn’t have any. 

He decided he would try a silverskin pickled onion instead.  I was unsure, but he insisted.  I gave him a tiny sliver.  He put it in his mouth and his eyes opened wide in shock.  He took it out of his mouth and stared at it suspiciously for a while.  I asked him if he liked it.  He said: ‘No! Um. Yes!’ and popped it back in his mouth and chewed it ferociously.  He then told me it was a ‘lubly onion mama’.  He then looked horrified, took it out of his mouth again and decided he didn’t like it and would put it in the bin.  He got to the bin.  Decided he was unsure, and gave it another crafty chew before deciding he really didn’t like it, and lobbed it in.  Then he licked his palms clean (nice. I hear this is what the Queen does after a particularly juicy meal) and said: ‘I fink pickled onions are not lubly, but I like ‘em.’  The jury is still out.