Stand Up, Sit Down, Keep Moving

After my rant of yesterday let us move on and focus on more pressing matters, like writing down all the things that my children will be wildly embarrassed by in later years.  A much more worthwhile use of my blogging time, I think you’ll agree.

Those of you who are regular readers will know that over the last few months Oscar has potty trained himself while I have looked on helplessly, prey to his toilet related whims.  I confess that I had it easier than most people and after a few weeks of the classic anal retentive behaviour he is now going to the toilet with aplomb, panache and dare I say it, verve.

He has mostly abandoned the potty in favour of the toilet and is now thinking about the fact that while he sits down to wee, his father stands up.  This puzzles him greatly, and we have many philosophical discussions on the subject, particularly as I am a slatternly mother and when they are in the garden I sometimes allow him (Oscar, not Jason, although I am not stopping him should he so desire) to piddle on the grass, rather than trek sand and water etc into the house.  He loves this.  He is also an expert at piddling down guttering, behind parked cars and once behind a tree in the school playground because it was urgent and I didn’t have time to find someone who knows the right codes to crack to get us into the infant toilets.  He loves to pee standing up.

Last week I took him to the toilet in our house for a wee.  He was sitting there dangling his deliciously plump legs and getting on with the job of weeing into the bowl rather than in the gap between the seat and the porcelain when he said to me; ‘I’ve got a sit down willy.’  To which I replied. ‘Yes’.

He then looked very thoughtful and announced;’Daddy has a stand up willy.’

I choked.

I recovered.

I said: ‘Kind of. But not really.’

He looked at me fiercely as he clambered down to wash his hands and said: ‘Yes he has. Daddy has a stand up willy.  When can I have a stand up willy?’

I assured him his time would come, and changed the subject.

On Saturday afternoon we were round at my mum’s house decorating cakes and trashing the place as usual.  We had cleaned everything up and were sitting on the verandah while the kids played in the garden.  Oscar went inside.  A couple of minutes later I followed him.  He had dragged the potty into the kitchen and was straddling it like the Colossus of Rhodes.  He was piddling away and looked towards me with great pride saying: ‘Now I’ve got a stand up willy.’

I watched as the lake of wee spread far and wide across the kitchen thanks to his aim and enthusiasm. 

His time really had come.

My time for mopping the kitchen floor came shortly afterwards.

Fire With Fire

To the person who posted a message to a blog post that was eighteen months old, telling me that I am a‘twat’, for saying that Sainsbury’s Café is a terrible place because:

 

a)     the service is despicably slow

b)     the quality of the food is very poor

c)      the choices of food for children is frankly baffling

d)     the equipment, particularly the coffee machines invariably breaks down, which in a place that is as you say a ‘café’ is also baffling

and most unforgivably of all

e)     they are based inside a supermarket packed to the rafters with food but always, and I mean always, fail to stock their café with enough of the food they advertise as available to provide it for the customers they know they will be serving.  Then when the customer asks for something which they claim to have, they say: ‘I’m sorry. We’ve run out!’ In a supermarket. Full of food.

 

I would just like to say that:

 

You point out that it is a café and not a restaurant.  My answer to this would be, so? Café’s are allowed to provide acceptable levels of food and service too. It is not the quality of the food and service that makes a café different from a restaurant.

 

You say that it is very hard work working in a café. My answer here would be, really? It’s not that hard to make cups of coffee from a machine where all you have to do is press the appropriate button.  Nor is it hard to sell pre packed food from a chiller cabinet, or take orders for food that someone else is cooking and serving.  I worked in one for three years and I managed (mostly).  I also serve people cups of coffee all day, and cook food for multiple people on a regular basis, and I don’t have ten other people to help me and an entire acre of groceries at my disposal. Nor do I get trained or paid to do it. As you say my dear, it’s not a restaurant and you’re not a commis chef.  My brother trained as a chef.  Ask him about hard work.

 

You say that I didn’t have to take my children to eat there.  If you had actually read the post, you would see that on that particular day it seemed the lesser of two evils, and my previous experience had been positive. I don’t think it’s odd to take your children to eat in a café and expect it to be good.  I don’t think I’m in the minority either? It is hard to judge whether somewhere is good to take your children unless you actually eat there at least once.

 

You also point out that I can’t care what I feed my children if I take them there in the first place. After your staunch defence of such an establishment I find this argument frankly baffling.  Plus the fact that I fed them salmon sandwiches with brown bread when I could have fed them chicken nuggets and chips. No. I still don’t get it.  Your point exactly?

 

Oh yes! I am a twat because when my children were poorly and desperately hungry I took them to eat in the nearest café I could find that had previously had a good selection of healthy food for children to eat.  When I found that they no longer offered that selection I fed them something else healthy instead because it was better than letting them starve. And because they didn’t finish their healthy food I didn’t let them have any dessert.  Yes. You are so right. I am a terrible mother who doesn’t care one bit what she feeds her children. I see you argument now.  Oh no! Wait a moment! I don’t.

 

What I see is someone who resents a customer complaining about bad food and bad service, and instead of thinking about how they could improve on that so that more customers would be happy, whines about the customer.  That’s good isn’t it?

 

What I also see is someone who sent their frankly offensive message anonymously.  Which is very brave.

 

Now the thing is, I occasionally get offensive e-mails with regard to my blogging.  I can be a little bit controversial at times.  It comes with the territory. You write a blog, you’re in the public domain.  Usually I ignore them.  Sometimes I don’t.  Today I guess you got lucky.  The thing is, I can delete your mails.  I can even have you blocked.  I can report you for being offensive, should I so desire.

 

And me? I can write whatever I like. It’s my blog.

 

And that may seem petty.  And it is.  But at least I’m not hiding.

 

I don’t mind you disagreeing with me.  That’s fine.  Disagree away.

 

I do mind you being illogical, offensive and just plain wrong.

 

Congratulations.

I rest on my laurels

My partying days are over.

Thank God.

At least until October when Oscar turns three, and is still implacable about the fact that he wants a drum.

I am not thinking about this until September.

In the meantime I have been hostess with the leastest today.

I have just sat down after an hour of fettling the kitchen, ploughing the floor and thinking dementedly that if we had chickens I could have released them to peck up all the crumbs and save myself the effort of sweeping the floor, AGAIN.

It was a successful party.  My friend B and her husband Dally bought round home made samosas and freshly cooked spicy chicken wings, which were absolutely gorgeous, and there was so much party food it spilled off the table and onto the kitchen counters.  That is a good party.  I think I might bastardize the John Lewis motto ‘Never Knowingly Undersold’ for my party motto: ‘Never knowingly under catered.’

Tallulah, it has to be said for the record, was impeccably behaved. Gracious, pleasant and nice to all her guests.  She had a slight altercation with one small child, but it was difficult to say who started it, and both were nice to each other when confronted with stern mother’s and grandmother’s.  The only disaster was Oscar spraining his ankle being trampled on the trampoline.  A hazard of the occupation I think.  He is much better now and will be sprinting about like a loon by breakfast.  Oh, and Tilly and her friend had a water drinking competition and Tilly was sick after trying to down a pint of water in less than a minute, against strenuous advice from adults.  It was what you might call a learning experience.  Better water than brown ale I feel.

Granny did face painting with great success.  It also helped that we allowed multiple versions of ‘faces’ when children got bored, and that the older ones got to decorate themselves and each other. It was a little sticky, but very fun.  Oscar was a brown cat, and when he got trampled, my bosom also became a brown cat.  But it washes off.

I had a nice time and ate far too much cake, far too many samosas and managed to quaff two glasses of Veuve Cliquot which I had also remembered to chill.  That was good.

I have been taking notes on what seems to make a good party for kids.  Here are my theories:

• You need a far larger ratio of adults to children.  This is for two reasons.  It makes the adults less insane because they have the company of their peers and have to spend less time talking to people who only come up to their knee.  It also means that the children fight less because they are being overseen more carefully, and because they get more attention.  By adults I mean inviting people you as the adult running the party actually want to spend time with.  Not just the parents of small children who you don’t know and have to spend lots of time being polite too.  That is too stressful.  My children are allowed to invite only two guest of their own choosing to their party.  Everyone else is vetted and invited at my discretion.  It might sound awful, but it works.  Two children as friends is more than enough, and kids of family and friends also come, so they are not alone.
• You must always provide at least a third more food than is necessary.  It is very hard for people to get tetchy when there is a never ending supply of goodies to tempt them with, and the possibility that they may be able to take home some illicit foodie contraband.
• As far as drinks go, I bend my rules and allow the evil Fruit Shoots for the kids.  This is because a) I have never met a kid who didn’t like them yet, b) they are dirt cheap and come in multipacks which are invariably on sale and c) because they come in squeezy bottles I don’t have to spend my time endlessly making drinks and worrying about spillages.  The empties go in the recycling box.  As far as drinks go for grown ups, I always throw parties in the day.  There is usually a bottle of wine around if someone wants some. Most people I know don’t.  I have the kettle on a continual rolling boil and we brew up more times than a builder’s convention.
• Never provide goody bags.  No child at a party I have thrown has ever complained about the lack of goodie bags. I always provide cake and sweeties to go home with.  They are all perfectly happy.  We do not even do balloons.
• We do not organise games.  We sometimes have activities if the weather is bad or if the children start to fight, but in the main they like to be allowed to surge about and do their own thing.  When we do ‘games’ or activities, the adults join in and the kids get to have more responsibility than normal, as with the face paints.  They love it.  In the past we have had water fights, boules competitions, impromptu treasure hunts and chasing children round and round in circles until they are sick.  We had paddling pool nirvana one year. That was good.
• The other thing which I have observed is that although I always over provide cakes and sweets, I make sure that there are always large bowls of fresh fruit, strawberries, raspberries, pineapple etc, and cream.  These are, without fail, the bowls that always empty first, and which the children are most sad about when they are gone.  I bought twice as many strawberries and raspberries for Tallulah’s party and they still disappeared within about twenty minutes.
• At my parties everyone is allowed to eat everything in whatever order they like.  If they want doughnuts with horseradish sauce and chicken wings, so be it.  It adds a certain frisson of danger to the table and some interesting taste combinations are created.

So. Those are the tips that work for me.  Just for me mind you.  I’ve never catered for anyone else, so if you do it my way and your party ends in screaming disaster, please don’t come and kill me.  I is only saying.

Mrs. Jones

Mrs. Jones is a sparkling star of gem like goodness.

She is my second shout out of the week.  This is for two reasons.

The first being that Tallulah, as predicted also wanted glorious birthday earrings.  Mrs Jones was kind enough to convert two blinging pairs from her wonderful site The Venerable Bead into clip ons for us, which have delighted her heart.  She also even more kindly, sent Tallulah a matching necklace for one of the pairs, made with superbly glittery Swarovski crystal, for her very own birthday treat.  She is in fact wearing that set today, and looking more than a little Duchess like.  She has even ordered that I put her hair up so that everyone can see her sparkliness.

So. Mrs. Jones. For making my prickly little daughter happy, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

The second thing I have to thank you for is for also making me very happy.

I do not do jewellry.  I usually only wear my wedding ring, and that is all.  I occasionally wear other things, but I am a girl of very simple tastes and also very expensive tastes. It is usually hard to marry up the two so that the bank balance does not plunge recessionwards.

I do however have a thing about green jewels.  My wedding ring is an Emerald, which I dearly love.  I also love stones which are mossy green, soft and deep and gorgeous.

Mrs Jones had a necklace on her website which I had been eyeing up for weeks.  It was a piece of the most beautiful milky green Serpentine.  It was on a necklace made of seed pearls and beautiful blue stones.

My problem was that the necklace bit, although Icould appreciate it aesthetically, was too fussy for me.  I knew that if I bought it, much as I would get it out of its box and fondle it, would never be worn by me.  Which seemed a shame.

I approached Mrs. Jones with my dilemma.  She solved it instantly by simply making me my own necklace, complete with glorious piece of serpentine and a simple leather thong with a silver clasp.  It is subtle, it is understated. It is very me, and I will actually wear it.

She was thoughtful, detailed and kept me informed throughout the whole process of making it, including tens of questions as to how exactly I wanted it to be.  She even sent me photographs of the work in progress so that she could check that everything was exactly right.

I am more than impressed.

I am in awe.

It came today.  It is perfect and I love it.

And. It did not break the bank.  Not even a tiny crack in the bank’s walls.

I am happy.  Jason is happy, and the kids are stunned because I’m actually wearing jewellery.  My own, bespoke jewellery.  Oh yes!

I will take photos eventually.  I will publish them.

You may share my bling.

But you cannot touch.

Turning Points

I have a couple of shout outs to do this week.  Here is my first.

For the first one, I am indebted to my friend Razia, who runs the wonderful house we went to stay in in France a few months ago.  She has been kind enough to take me under her wing and keep in touch with me while I drool lovingly over her beautiful house and cook up endless schemes for finding our way back there on a budget of five pence.

Last week she sent me a book.  It was written by her sister in law’s sister.  A lady called Julia Ogilvy who is not only a formidable and impressive business woman who manages to juggle her family and a frankly blinding career, but who also created and runs a very worthy charity called ProjectScotland which aims to help 16-25 year olds in difficult circumstances all over Scotland.

As part of her fund raising activities and in order to raise general awareness, she has also managed to find the time to write this book.  It is called ‘Turning Points’

The book consists of her own story and interviews with ten different people about watershed moments in their lives when they changed their entire being from one path to another, more positive one.  This belief that all people have it within them to change and become something better, or happier or more at peace within themselves is what drives Julia’s vision for the charity work that she does. 

The stories are incredibly varied, as she interviews people like Bob Geldof and Gordon Brown through to a girl whose mother’s illness meant that she was forced into the role of primary carer at such a young age that she consequently went off the rails and had to work hard to find herself.  There is an interview with a young woman who lost her whole family in the Rwandan genocide and a lawyer who moved to America to dedicate his career to helping prisoners on death row.  It’s a real mixed bag, in a good way.

What I liked about the book was the fact that the interview format meant that you got to hear people’s stories in their own words.  Yes, Julia has a consistent message, and yes the people in the book all shared a similar moment of ‘enlightenment’ or will to change, but they all did it in wildly different circumstances and in their own unique way.  She has picked people from all backgrounds and creeds, and it is really inspirational.

I also liked the fact that there is a whole section at the back of the book where you can find more details of all the different charities, businesses and endeavours that these individuals are working with and for.  It is not just all about Julia and her charity.  She seems generous spirited enough to believe that there is more than enough to go around.  It is not at all preachy. 

She lets the stories tell themselves and the overarching message of the book, that each one of you has it in you to change too, is subtle and implied rather than overt and in your face preachy.

I liked it.

Maybe you will too.

Give it a try.

Fascinating Rhythm

I should be cleaning bathrooms, as those of you who have read the previous post will know.

Oddly, although most of the time I am absolutely chomping at the bit to clean bathrooms, today I cannot work up the requisite enthusiasm.  Especially because I know I ought to, and that thanks to my stupidity (see here) it is reasonably urgent to do it soon.  Instead I am doing the; ‘la, la, la, I can’t hear you,’ dance, complete with fingers in my ears and have decided to catch up on a few blogging notes I left myself.

Yesterday I went for lunch at Carluccios with my mum and aunt, as you may remember.  It was very civilised.  I ate bread and olives and moutains of linguine alle fruite de mare, along with the most heavenly mascarpone and raspberry tart.  For those of you who have never been and who are devotees of hot chocolate, they also do the most amazing cioccolata Fiorentina, which is basically hot chocolate which is just melted chocolate with some cream in an espresso cup, and which you need to eat with a spoon. I had one of those as well. It was most satisfactory.

Anyway. You may imagine that I had my head down in the trough so much that I was not able to keep my beady eye on my fellow diners, but ever alert to the call of duty I found that I could keep one eye on the food, and one eye on my fellow gustatory guests, just in case something wonderful happened.

Now, if you are not a fan of people watching, or being slightly catty I think you should probably avert your eyes, or go and read another blog because I’m about to unleash my inner (very close to the surface) fashion bee yatch.

I will insert a disclaimer here. I am all for people of every different shape, size, hue and persuasion.  I embrace difference.  I am of indifferent size and stature myself and fully aware of my fashion shortcomings.  Nevertheless I reserve the right to comment on people who do not dress ‘right’ for their shape or size.  People who need the hand of Gok (much like the hand of God, but more bosom obsessed) to guide them.  I have great faith in dressing to suit a person’s shape and that good clothing choices can do amazing things for those of us who are not blessed with the attributes of Naomi Campbell.

I continue…

There was a lady.  She was a rather stout lady.  Not fat you understand.  Solid.  She was sort of rectangular in her solidity.  She did not embrace curves at all.  She also had very long, very straight hair, which did not help with the issue of angularity.  And she was tall.  Tall and hefty.

She had clearly dressed with great care.  She was wearing a skirt and matching jacket in a kind of dull maroon coloured silk.  The jacket was long and boxy.  The skirt was long, straight and shapeless, skimming the ankles.  Underneath was a severe looking top which sort of severed the head from the neck and which did nothing to disguise the fact that her considerable acreage of bosom had not been guided by the safe hands of Messrs. Rigby and Peller. Pendulous was the word that sprang to mind. 

Let’s be clear. It was not a great outfit.  It did not do anything to flatter her.  But it was not an offensively terrible outfit.  It was rather ho hum, and probably would have passed muster were it not for the accessories. 

Ay, there’s the rub.

She had clearly read that accessories make the outfit.  Which can be true, of course.  What’s equally true is that accessories can break the outfit.  It’s no good for example, teaming an Armani tuxedo with a pair of Mickey Mouse ears and some hand knitted Mongolian yak’s hair gloves.  No. It is not.

She had gone for hot pink sparkly flat pumps, which merely drew attention to her somewhat problematic ankles and did nothing to give her any shape or grace.  In addition to this was the matching Fascinator which she wore pinned into the back of her straight as pump water hair.

For those of you who do not know what a fascinator is,  I will elaborate:

A Fascinator is in that difficult no man’s land between a hat and a headband.  They are often worn at weddings and generally involve gallons of net, feathers and possibly sparkly things.  Here is one I made earlier out of a turkey and an old petticoat:

This is quite a tasteful one.

They can be fabulous.  But they are rarely your every day kind of wear. 

The lady in Carluccios had one which was hot pink and black with lots of feathers and quills and offshoots of lacy frou frou.  It was quite large and visible from all points of the restaurant.  It perched at the back of her head and sort of bristled out at the top and sides.  It was meant to be elegant and graceful and make a fashion statement. 

It kept catching my eye and making me jump.

Even though it didn’t look like it, it kept making me think that she had some strange, alien creature probing her brain in a none too subtle fashion.  Rather like this:

I have decided that there must be another word for this.  A word for what happens when Fascinators go bad.  They should be called ‘Ghastlinators’.

Oops Inside My Head

I have done a bad thing. A wrong thing. A ghastly mistake for which I am currently paying penance by kneeling on pencils and singing the entire High School Musical oeuvre is a thin, wailing voice much like the heroines of 1940′s films who say: ‘Oh! Rafe darling! Don’t leave me! Johnny meant nothing to me. Nothing at all.’

I have cocked up the delivery of all the goodies for Tallulah’s birthday party.

Instead of ordering them for this morning, which would have been both useful and entirely sensible, I have ordered them for next Saturday.  I only found this out when time was ticking by this morning and no van laden with birthday cake and mini sausages hoved into view.

I wept dear reader.  I wept tears of hoummus and Hellman’s mayonnaise.

It is my own stupid fault. Unfortunately.

I put the order in about three days ago.  I was sitting at the kitchen table with my trusty laptop, motoring nicely, keeping one eye on Oscar who was intermittently watching Roary the Racing Car and trying to climb up the chimney, when my friend came round for a cup of tea.  I foolishly thought; ‘I shall continue with my order. I am a clever girl.  There is no need to stop. It is easy to make tea and chat and order forty assorted cup cakes.  It’s like falling off a log.’

It may be that easy for the rest of the population, but clearly I must have fallen over the log and tripped and given myself a nasty concussion, because it meant that I utterly ballsed it up.  I am patently unable to chat about day to day trivia, drink hot liquids and remember what date is what.  It confirms that I am on the downward spiral and that the Shady Pines Guestorama beckons ever closer.  The inside of my head is a dustbowl wilderness of random and unconnected facts.

Today was going to be relaxing.  I was going to get up, inhale caffeine through every pore, read a chapter or two of my book and then take delivery of our groceries.  After that I was going to clean the bathrooms in preparation for tomorrow’s celebrations, and spend the afternoon decorating fairy cakes with granny and the kids while Jason and my dad went to look at shiny motorcars.  I had congratulated myself on the ease of my preparations and my relaxed mental state, given that in the next twenty four hours the house will be awash with guests and cocktail sticks.  As it is, terror reigns and instead of facing it head on I have come here to chat to you and regroup.

I should have known it would not go smoothly.  Things started going awry last night.

We had a hideously interrupted night where Tallulah woke screaming in terror at about two thanks to the fact that Tilly had left Stephen Fry sonorously reading Harry Potter and when it got to the end of the CD it had skipped repeatedly instead of just stopping.  She woke in the dark to hear him going; ‘HHHHH….DDDDDD…..HHHHHH….DDDDDD’ and thought there was a stuttering burglar/assassin in the room.  The whole family awakened to her piercing, terrified yells, and we pranced about for twenty minutes soothing everyone before going back to bed.  Oscar woke at six, seven and finally eight this morning.  And then the Ocado man didn’t come thanks to my stupidity.

Jason has gone back to bed for a nap. He does not cope well with broken nights and he got up for Oscar.  I am just about to rush off and clean three bathrooms and fettle the children.  When he wakes up we are doing an emergency dash to Sainsbury’s for party type treats.  Then we are going to granny’s house to ice cakes while Jason goes to look at cars.

I was going to mow the lawn today at some point.  As it is we will have no time, and it is raining.

It does not bode well.

It’s all Black, Johnny

Today is the end of an era and the dawning of a new age.

No wonder I am knackered.

Last day of school.

The holidays begin.

Part of me is grateful. I do not like routine. I do not like having to get children primped and preened and ready for action every week day morning. It irks me.

I particularly loathe the fact that school finishes at three fifteen. It is an absolutely bloody pointless time of day to do anything. It is inconvenience writ large and the fact that I will not have to drop what I’m doing like a hot rock to gallop to the school gates every afternoon is a good thing.

On the other hand I will not have to drop what I am doing, because I will not be doing anything that requires dropping will I?

No. No. No.

I will be sticking and glueing and painting and hoovering sequins out of the grouting.  I will be sewing and mowing and planting and colouring.

It sounds like fun doesn’t it?

It is.

If you’re doing it alone and uninterrupted.

If you’re doing it with people who don’t get bored after a nanosecond.

If you’re doing it with people who don’t expect to be doing ALL those things, ALL at once.

It is lovely.

With small children it is purgatory writ large.

Take colouring for example.

I quite like colouring.  I find it soothing.  When I eventually crack up completely and the dried frog pills no longer work, I will be in the Shady Pines Guestorama for the Mentally Challenged, and rather than doing the usual basket weaving, for which I have no aptitude whatsoever and which merely makes me tetchy, I will be colouring.  I will have lots and lots of lovely pens, all with the right lids on, in the right order of shades, with uncrushed nibs and no spit on them.  I will have an entire box of Crayola crayons. You know, the ones that even had silver and gold crayons in, and which came with a pencil sharpener cleverly concealed in the side of the box. Oh yes.  It will be mine.  I may even push the boat right out and have a whole rainbow spectrum of Lakeland watercolour pencils.  ALL. TO. MYSELF.  What’s more. I will take great delight in colouring in the lines and finishing one whole picture before I start another.

I like this scene  It gives me pleasure just to think about it.

The reality of colouring however, is entirely different. At least in this house.

In this house we have a canvas bag full of a motley assortment of half chewed biros, felt tip pens with no lids, or the wrong lids, or lids but no insides.  We have snapped crayons covered in bits of glitter glue that have leaked out because of some nasty cross fertilisation with a drawing pin.  We have stickiness. We have pencil crayons with no sharpened ends. We have cannibalised sharpeners which are so dangerous they should be condemned by Health and Safety.  We have things which are indescribable, which come out that horrible shade between green and brown, which all colours, particularly paints, eventually revert to.  In our house it is known as the colour Breen, and we believe that it may be the colour of the universe, as speculated in scientific journals over the last few years.

We are never, ever allowed to finish colouring or drawing one picture completely.  If we did this we fear that the fabric of the space time continuum would actually rip apart at the seams and leak out of our ears.  We are also never, ever allowed to do a picture solo.  We always need help.  Many hands make light work is our colouring motto.

We do not approve of using just one media per page when we can use everything under the sun, including Jeyes fluid, snot, sputum and crumbs with which to render our pictures more realistic and to give them ‘density’ and ‘tone’.  It is a very post modern and enlightened way of working which encourages freedom of expression, a healthy sense of creativity and a lack of repression that will benefit our mental health for years to come.

I am a child of the Seventies.  I am supposed to be uptight and repressed.  I cannot handle all this freedom of expression.  It makes my head hurt.  It makes me want to weep.

There was a time when Tilly was very small when she went through an intensive period of creativity using paint.

There were two things she liked to do best of all.

1. She would mix up lots and lots and lots of watery black paint and slosh it over the pages very, very quickly.  She would get through and entire ream of paper in about ten minutes tops.  The house would be awash.  We would be awash.  She would be very, very satisfied.  I would be hysterical.  It always reminded me of Johnny the painter from The Fast Show.
2. She would paint nude, mostly.  I did not argue. Trying to get black paint out of clothing is not easy, no matter what the small print tells you about fabrics and non toxic stuff.  It’s all a lie.  Pour four gallons of black poster paint over an average child’s t-shirt and you will see what I mean.  So. She painted naked.  When she was bored of her ‘black’ phase, she would then start using colour and a fine brush to paint watches all over herself.  Naturally as watches are worn on the wrist she would start at the wrists, but then move up and onwards and then down and downwards until she was absolutely smothered in watches. 

Once she had done this, after about another ten minutes, she would feel that there was nothing more to be expressed and lope off to other parts of the house to express herself in new, funner ways.

I on the other hand, would be left sitting in a small, brackish puddle, weeping and tearing my hair out.

That is all.

The ages of woman

It is only one more day now until the long summer holidays are upon me, rather like a rash, or a virulent case of Swine Flu. I am pessimistic as to whether I will make it through the entire six weeks without going postal in the Co-op and releasing all the haslet from the deli counter shouting: ‘Fly! Be free!’  Still, at least I’ll get on Midlands News, and what could be more exciting than that?

Tomorrow is my last day off without any children.  I am going into town with my mother to eat lunch at Carluccios and sob with joy over one of their perfect lime and raspberry meringue pies.  I may even have a glass of wine.  Or two.

I must remember to stay reasonably upright as I have guests for tea and there is a Brownie based shindig over at the local Hollywood Bowl which Tilly needs escorting to.  I cannot swig red wine out of the bottle whilst sticking grissini in my ears and railing at the world.  It is not the done thing.  It would be quite fun in the short term, but sadly I am now so middle aged I think about things like consequences now.

This is one of the big differences between youth and middle age.  In youth we are so full of joie de vivre we think little of having our ears syringed in A&E for stray crumbs from Italian bakeries.  We laugh with disdain at the idea that eight hours after the last drink is pushed down our unresisting gullet we will be chundering for England, wondering what the hell those funny lumps are and trying to keep the vomit out of our hair.  We know without a shadow of a doubt that dark glasses, a huge greasy fry up and fourteen pints of orange juice will smooth over any residual feelings of hangover that may assail us.  No worries.

When we are middle aged we know that we will probably be hung over three days after the event, that it will be us picking lumps of regurgitated carrot out of the tufted Wilton, and the fact that we have a blinding headache that is literally splitting our skull in two is not going to stop our beloved children re-enacting the Battle of the Somme across the living room floor while we are trying gently to push our eyeballs back into their sockets without weeping.  It is just not worth it.  Not unless some foolish member of the family has agreed to have them on extended loan anyway.

I like to think that when I am old, my previous joie de vivre will come sweeping back with a vengeance and I will be staggering round in my YSL peep toe Tribute shoes, wearing very inappropriate skirts, smoking Cuban cigars rolled on the thighs of dusky maidens and hoofing champagne by the magnum for breakfast, lunch and tea.  After all, what will I have to lose? Senility, incontinence and Age Concern bingo on a Thursday, that’s what.  Bring it on.

Happy Birthday Tallulah

Dear Tallulah

 

Today you are six.  Quite how you have made it this far is a mystery and sometimes a joy, but I am glad you’re here, and as you provide some of my most interesting, as well as my most agonising moments I hope you stick around for a very long time to come.

 

Six years ago today you came into the world scowling and angry. You are currently downstairs wielding scissors and making floral doormats.  I hope you are less angry now that you have weaponry at your disposal, and I am suitably grateful for the doormats.

 

I am still undecided as to whether you will eventually rule the world or blow it up.  Maybe you will do both.  I do know that you will live your life with a bang and nary a wimper, and that it is most certainly a good thing.  I do not ever worry that you will be trodden upon, taken advantage of, or forced into doing something you do not want to do.  I worry that you will put other people in those situations, but then I’m not their mother’s so I’m not losing too much sleep over it.

 

In six years you have grown from a small dwarfish old lady into the most elegant and beautiful of girls who make people stop on the street and stare at you in awe.  You are glorious.  You look like a cross between a dandelion clock and a flower fairy and you fight like a ninja.  What’s not to love?

 

You are such a contradiction. You love cuddly toys and delicate jewellery, old fashioned floral chintz frocks and sparkly shoes.  You delight in prettiness, and yet you evict all your dolls from your doll’s house to fill it full of your collection of plastic, fighting monsters.  You obsess over Daleks and the Slitheen and you hoard money like the goblins at Gringotts. 

 

You are funny and clever and have the most wonderful turns of phrase. I miss the fact that you no longer seek me out just to solemnly tell me that I ‘must not stab a lamb with a fork’ or that you are: ‘absolutely, completely cross with me andI are not listening.’ I look forward to you explaining things to me in your own inimitable and sometimes amazingly poetic way.  The way you see the world is utterly unique and you find just the right words to express yourself perfectly.  I love that sometimes I am allowed a tiny glimpse into your soul.  It gives me hope.

 

You are a prickly girl, a girl who does not like kisses, but gives the most fearsome knee hugs known to man.  A girl who does not like to share, but who can be incredibly kind and generous.  A girl who does not like to empathise, and yet sometimes just cannot help herself.  You are a puzzle, and one which I take great joy in being allowed to solve, a little bit at a time.

 

Thank you for coming into my life.  When I share my time with you I am always that little bit more alive.  I love you baby.