Oscar Moves Out

Oscar, my son, who is four (only just), got his first piece of junk mail yesterday.

It is a cut out of a cunningly constructed tower of packing boxes addressed to Mr. Oscar Wheatley. 

On the back, you will be delighted to know that Morris Homes, purveyors of newly built homes in the delightful and sophisticated environs of St Mary’s Park, Melton Mowbray (between the railway line and the dog food factory), want him to:

‘Come and discover the beautiful St. Mary’s Park.  With 100% part exchange if you buy one of our superior new homes, we’ll buy yours – so you could be planning your move next week.’

Not only that but he can take advantage of either fitted carpets, £2,500 of extras such as curtains and a fridge freezer, or John Lewis vouchers, as an added incentive.

They will even arrange to pack and move his stuff.

All this for only £167,750.

It’s a steal.

I was reading this with great mirth as my mum passed by.  She looked at it and said:

‘You didn’t tell me that Oscar was unhappy at home.’

He is a prodigy that one.  Most children would just ring Childline.

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Pigby, the biggest pig in the world

I have always fancied having a pet pig.  When I was in my teens I read an article about how intelligent pigs are, and how they could be trained, and were in fact much more lovely than dogs.

I am not a huge fan of dogs.  I mean I would never kick one when it was down, and I feel truly sorry for Andrea’s dog Pip, who had an unfortunate run in with a car and received a broken pelvis and six weeks of cage rest for her pains.  In fact, I would say that Pip is my favourite dog, despite her being a Jack Russell.  She is not one of those barrel shaped, sleek little monsters with docked tails.  No. She is wiry and has huge, fox like ears which hear fleas farting over the county boundary.  She has a wonderfully expressive tail, which wags so hard it can flay the skin off your shins.  My favourite thing about her though is that when she wants to show you how excited she is to see you, and explain to you clearly just entirely how much you must love her, she smiles at you.

I have never met a smiling dog before.  It is hugely entertaining. She lifts her lips delicately and shows you the most perfectly gleaming set of sharp, white teeth, usually as a precursor for rolling neatly onto your foot and allowing you the privilege of counting all her nipples.

She is a delight.

But as I say, most dogs, are not.  Well, to me anyway.

I think Andrea is fairly ambivalent at the moment.  She is currently on a regime of feeding Pip meds which have to be dipped in best chocolate before she will even deign to sniff them, and finding things for her to do within the confines of a small metal cage.  I have offered to go over and read A La Recherche du Temps Perdu to her whilst soothing her fevered brow.  But first I must move house.

Anyway, back to the subject of pigs.

The fashion in pig owning circles always used to be the Vietnamese pot bellied pig.  Even George Clooney had one, and what’s good enough for George is good enough for the rest of us, surely?

These days though, it is all change on the pig front.  Now we must have micro pigs.  These are genetically modified pigs who are designed to only grow as big as say the average chihuahua wearing a tutu.  The micro pig is a boon to the generation of women brought up to revel in large handbags.  Room for your iphone, your credit card, a MAC lipgloss and a porcine companion of your choice.

I have never been a fan of the handbag dog, and I loathe the fashion for dressing dogs as Batman or Fifi and the Flowertots.  I entirely see the point of giving dogs extra protection in freezing weather in the form of functional coats which do not cause them to cringe with shame every time they pass another canine in the street, but this whole turning them into cutesy baby substitutes just makes me bring up a little bit of sick in my mouth, frankly.

I have tried not to be swayed therefore, by the cuteness of the micro pig, but I cannot help it.  They are lovely.  If I had money to burn I would probably buy ten of them and teach them to pull a tiny chariot around the house just for shits and giggles (double standards, moi?).

I might even dress them as Batman.

Do admit.

When mum and I were on our way back from the supermarket yesterday we passed a farm advertising the availability of micro pigs.  I was tempted to stop me and buy one.

Then I remembered the story I read in the paper a few weeks ago, where a woman paid an unspecified farmer several hundred pounds for a micro pig, only to find some weeks later that it was in fact just an ordinary piglet, and it was growing at an alarming rate of knots whilst eating her out of house and home.

I was most amused, but it did beg the question of how the hell you know whether what you’ve bought is a micro pig, or in fact the gargantuan Empress of Blandings, prize winning sow?

And nobody has told me yet how you stop them filling your designer handbag with pig pooh.

Answers on a rasher of bacon.

Shake, Rattle and Roll

Oscar returned to the fold of nursery yesterday.  He was quite happy about it, particularly as he got escorted there by daddy, and they went the back way, which involves lots of twisty hedges, and if I know daddy, lots of high speed shenanigins to delight a small boy’s heart.

He was terribly impressed by the fact that nursery is all Halloweened up.  He is very excited by Halloween this year, after years of indifference and absolute refusal to get dressed up.  In previous years he sneered at the idea of dressing up as being something only social inadequates would need to do.  ‘But mama.  I am JUST OSCAR.’

All this has now changed.  He decided that he would be a blue ghost a few weeks ago when we were making costumes.  This week he changed his mind.  He has been pestering me for a skeleton costume.  It isn’t easy to make a skeleton costume at short notice.  I explained this and he was actually quite relaxed about it.  A blue ghost would be an acceptable substitute, if not the ideal Halloween costume.

Yesterday on my way to the supermarket with granny we stopped at a local charity shop, and they miraculously had a skeleton costume just right for a small boy. 

There is a party at nursery today.  It is a fancy dress party.  When Oscar discovered that I had indeed pulled the skeleton costume out of the bag at the last moment, my glory knew no bounds.  He was totally impressed of me.

I was quite impressed of myself.

This morning he was bouncing around the kitchen dressed as a skeleton,telling granny all about it.

‘Granna.  Look at me, look at me.  I am a skeleton.’

‘That’s nice dear.’

‘Yes, I am a people skeleton.  That means that I was a human people once.’

‘Yes. That’s right.’

‘I was a human people and then I died.  I died in a horrible way, because I have blood on me. See.’ (said in a tone of great relish)

‘Hmmm. Lovely.’

‘Yes, and then all my bones came out and that is why I am a people skeleton.  It’s brilliant.’

Then he started practising his skeleton voice.  Apparently skeletons sound all creaky and bony, a bit like this:

‘Scrrrrsssss, Mrrssshhhssss, Krksssssssss’

Suitably skeletal, I’m sure you will agree.

Granny thinks he will have nightmares.  I am not so sure.

I had one about having to present Blue Peter with James May last night, and nobody could have predicted that.

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Book Updates

Good news for any committed Mitfordophiles who live in the U.K.  If you cannot wait for Deborah Devonshire’s autobiography; ‘Wait For Me,’ to come out in paperback, The Book People are selling it for an extraordinary £6.99 plus post and packaging.  If you order over £40 of stuff from them your p&p is also free.  They have some fantastically priced bargains if you are looking for Christmas presents and £40 is easily spent.

I have added another book related side bar to my blog.  It is cunningly titled; ‘The Book I Shall Be Lusting After Most This Week.’  It is going to get a lot of exercise in the run up to Christmas.  This week I am intrigued by the book: ‘The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance,’ by Edmund De Waal.  It looks utterly fascinating and has been getting rave reviews in the broadsheets. 

A work of non fiction, De Waal is a ceramicist by trade, but if the reviews are anything to go by, he can cheerfully give up the day job should he ever tire of it.  He uses the book to trace his family history by exploring a collection of Japanese netsuke which belonged to various members of his family.  He traces their story and that of the netsukes at the same time.  I love netsukes, and I love history and family history in particular. What’s not to love?

I would love a real netsuke.  I have a reproduction one UE bought me from the British Museum shop several hundred years ago when he still loved me and thought I was worth buying beautiful things for.  It is in the shape of an octopus, and although it is only a reproduction, I still love it dearly.  I have never dared  to try to buy a real one.  There are tonnes of fakes out there, and I don’t mind buying a copy if I know it’s a copy, but I would be severely bummed out to buy what I imagined was real, only to have a fake. 

Anyway, to get back to the subject of books.  I am just about to finish Dominic Sandbrook’s epic; ‘State of Emergency’.  I know I have written about it several times here now, but I really do think it is worth shouting to the rooftops about this book.  It is completely and utterly fascinating.

Sandbrook is a superb historian because he makes what he is writing about come alive.  Rather than reading a textbook, this is like having a chat in a pub with an incredibly knowledgeable mate.  I have no idea what Sandbrook is like in real life, but I am kind of picturing him as the historical version of Stephen Fry, or the younger brother of Simon Schama.  He is righteous, and it’s not often you’ll hear me say that about a historian.

The book focuses on the history of Britain between 1970 and 1974, taking Ted Heath’s term of office as its core narrative.  This may sound boring, but trust me, it isn’t at all.  The material is organised in thematic chapters and there tends to be a chapter of political issues followed by a focus on more of the social history side of things.

What I really like is that Sandbrook tries to avoid sweeping generalisations.  He seems to try to be scrupulously fair.  He acknowledges that the media and journalists may have painted the scene a certain way, but presents the material from different angles. He shows you the thinking of the day, he shows you the way material was skewed and then he shows you how it was for the ordinary person in the street.

At this level, his chapters on the troubles in Northern Ireland for example, make for fascinating reading.  His contrast of facts and figures and first person accounts juxtaposes with the understanding of how political decisions were taken and is then contrasted against what the regular British public thought.  He takes a similar approach to feminism, the relaxation of morality laws and the strikes.

He is also fascinated by the seemingly trivial things that other historians leave out.  He frames our perception of the time through the television we watched, quoting extensively from programmes like Dr. Who and The Likely Lads.  In the chapter on feminism he talks quite a lot about On The Buses, which is most entertaining.  He looks at what we were reading and what we were listening to in terms of musical taste as well.

It is a brilliant book, clever, chatty, incisive and compelling.  This is the third of his books (they start in the fifties), and there is another one in the pipeline I am thrilled to say, although I cannot imagine it will be swift in coming.  I have been waiting for this volume for a couple of years, so I must distract myself with the thirty thousand other books all clamouring to be read.  Most of which are piled in a teetering mound by the side of the bed.

Happy, happy, happy

I received an anonymous comment today from someone who told me that I was a ‘moaning women’ (sic) and that life should bite me on the arse so that I knew what real suffering was.

He/she then rounded it off with a smiling emoticon, just so that I didn’t feel bad that they had wished me harm.

Which is nice.

Well, anonymous (possibly of Grimsby).

Get this.

I enjoy moaning.

It’s being so cheerful that keeps me going.

I still have my eye on starting a business as a professional moaner.  I am so good at it I am thinking of volunteering to moan on other people’s behalf so that they don’t have to.

Oh yes.  I am THAT GOOD.

I take pride in my vituperative moaniness.  And the fact that I don’t bottle it up means I will not die of a stress related heart attack, but live to moan on for a bajillion years in my new, underground lair, built with the proceeds of my business.

Giles Coren got a best selling book out of it.  I don’t see why I can’t.

I intend to call my business: ‘Outraged of Glenfield’, even though I no longer live there.  I like the ring of it.

The book will be entitled: ‘From a Well Wisher.’

Mwahahahahahahahahahahahah.

What’s more, the offices of Outraged of Glenfield will not have a complaints department.

That’s irony for you, anonymous.

Oh yes.

And while we’re at it, I can’t be a moaning women.  I can be a moaning woman.

Just getting some practice in.

I told you I was good.

I Commune with Roy

I want a t-shirt printing that says: ‘I did the school runs and I survived!’ 

I am so impressed of myself.  I got two children to two different schools in two completely different areas at the right time, with all the right stuff.  Yay me.  For those of you who live glamorous and sophisticated lives where you go to gallery openings and theatrical and social happenings as a matter of course, you will wonder why I bother to write these things down.  I know they are menial and mediocre.  I bet Samuel Pepys would not have considered it worthy of mention.  No. He was too busy porking servant maids and burying parmesan cheese in the parsnip patch.

We must put these things into perspective though.  When you think that today my entire output of any worth consists in having done several school runs, lit a fire, done some laundry and taken my car to the garage, you will see the heady stuff my life consists of and realise that it is this, or nothing.

As it is my blog I am not listening to the whispering voice in my head that says nothing would have been preferable.  Write I must.  It is an itch that must be scratched.  At least I hope that is what the itch is.  I haven’t checked Tallulah’s head this week.

Hmmm…

Tallulah and I had such a clear run this morning after dropping Tilly off, we had fifteen minutes to sit in the car and sing Glee songs in glorious disharmony before school started.  The dogs in the neighbourhood didn’t know what had hit them.  It was like the Starlight Barking all over again, but with more show tunes.

I doubt the roads will ever be that clear again, but I thank the gods for smiling on me today.  If the gods could arrange for teenage boys not to deliberately walk in the road as a challenge to oncoming motorists to while away the boring minutes spent walking to school and add a frisson of danger to their daily grind I would be even more grateful.  Jumping into the traffic seems to have taken the place of playing chicken on the railways.  I’m sure train drivers are immensely grateful.  As I’m not a train driver I find it quite stressful.  That, and their wobbling all over the road on dwarf BMX bikes whilst failing to take into account the fact that car drivers may not be able to take measures to avoid them.  I aged by about twenty years in twenty minutes this morning.

Here is a question for you.  Why do BMX bikes always seem so tiny in comparison to their riders?  No other bikes are like this.  In fact, if anything, bikes usually dwarf their riders, see:

Whenever I see a teenager on a miniature BMX it reminds me of those shows at the seaside where they used to force birds to ride bicycles, like so:

The home stretch wasn’t completed with such speed, sadly.  We didn’t get to pick Tilly up until nearly quarter to four thanks to traffic, but she was happily reading her book in the library and didn’t have any tyre marks on her, so that was fine.

The MOT also went well.  Jason, bless him, called the VW garage and explained to them that I was mechanically retarded.  He instructed them not to discuss any complex ideas with me and not to start work on anything that needed doing without calling him first.  All I had to do was drive up, give them the keys and wait.

It might seem patronising to those of you who don’t know me, but I was very impressed that he had made it as stress free as possible for me, and that I didn’t have to think about things like head gaskets or big ends.  Much like when faced with mathematical challenges, it just makes me cry.  The only thing I am a whiz at is anti-lock braking systems, the workings of which are seared irrevocably into my brain thanks to my father spending several hours one night when I was a teenager explaining it to me in graphic detail in order to help me get over a bout of depression.

Funnily enough it did not work.  In fact I distinctly remember weeping all the way through the explanation, and feeling infinitely more dour afterwards.  It did come in handy in my A level General Knowledge exam though, so not an entirely wasted evening.  One must always attempt to find the silver lining (ahem).

Roy looked after me, and was niceness itself.  I had an hour to wait while they fiddled about under the bonnet.  Roy offered me a pass so that I could go and roam about if I wanted to.  I declined.  They have a warm lounge area, coffee and magazines, and I had a good book and no children with me.

Roy said he understood perfectly.  He too has three children.  We exchanged commiserating glances and withdrew to our respective chairs.

I sat in the sunshine for an hour, enjoying my book, and the silence.  It was worth every penny of the £40 it cost for me to get a clean bill of car health.

Apparently my car needs a major service soon.  They will be able to give me a courtesy car while this happens.  I was quite sad. I had visions of communing quietly with Roy again for a few hours.  I had planned to take sandwiches.

I might just go and hang out there anyway.  I’m sure he won’t mind.

Knit me an eyepatch, I’ll be back for breakfast

Yesterday was a hugely stressful day, what with school runs and first days and brownie packs to think of, as well as small boys to entertain. 

I did not sleep well, and when I finally got up my head was in a whirl of thoughts and things to remember.  I staggered to the bathroom on autopilot, to do my morning ablutions, only to be rudely brought back to reality when I accidentally smashed one of my contact lenses.

Damnation.

I am really not having the best year optically so far.  I did think it might be the universe telling me to stick to glasses, but after two days of having to constantly demist myself and rub the rain off my specs I have decided this is not the case.  I am starting a fund for eye surgery and will just get roaring drunk beforehand so I don’t have to think about the fact that they’re slicing into my eyeball while I’m still awake.

When I got home from the school run, I rang Vision Express.  Last time I had my eye related crisis I got my new lenses from them.  I also paid for insurance, should something stupid ever happen to me again.  To whit, thinking my lens was in my eye, when in fact it was on my finger, and then in bits on the bathroom countertop.

I rang Vision Express.  I explained to the man on the phone what had happened and that I needed a new left lens.  I asked when I could come and pick one up.

He said:

‘So.  You’ve broken your glasses, right?’

I took a moment.

I explained.

‘Ah! Yes. You have soft lenses. This is no problem madam. You can just come in and buy a new set.’

I took several moments.

I explained again.

‘Ah! Well. I don’t deal with contact lenses, so I will have to call you back.’

I put the phone down quickly.

I said:

‘FSHSHSHSHSHR$W£$£££3j***!!!!!£RAERFASEFDF -ARSE!’

Ten minutes later, he called me back.

‘Madam. You cannot have new lenses without an eye test, and you are due for an eye test.’

I explained I had had an eye test five months ago.

‘Yes madam. You cannot have your lenses because you are due for an eye test. You had one over six months ago.’

I explained again.

‘Well madam. I cannot let you have the lens because you need a test, but I can ask the lady in charge of eye tests if she will help you.  I will call you back.’

I put the phone down.

I said:

‘££££%%%%%CCCCXXXXX***DGSGDFG – ARSE TIT WILLY.’

He called me back.

‘You have to come into the store and have an eye test and a fitting for your lens when it comes.’

I explained again in the strongest terms.  Including the fact that during our first conversation I had asked him if I could have the lens sent to the Hinckley branch of Vision Express, which is now my nearest store, so I wouldn’t have to drive into Leicester to get it while I was trying to move house.

‘But madam. Your address is in Glenfield.’

I explained the whole moving house thing. Again.

‘But I do not think I can send your details to our other store, madam, because you need an eye test.’

I explained in the most Anglo Saxon tones that if he didn’t allow me to speak to the lady who dealt with contact lenses and eye tests immediately I might be forced to castrate him and make him wear his genitals as a hat.

‘I will have to get her to call you back madam.’

I put the phone down.

I said:

‘FSHHSH!!!£$$%%”"£”£”****************!¬XXXXX$$$$!!!* – ARSE TIT WILLY WANK BASTARD KNOB JOCKEY.’

The lady called me back.  I explained.

She said:

‘Your test is due in November.’

I said:

‘It is October.’

She said:

‘Ah. Yes. It is. Can you come into the store and have a lens fitting when it arrives?’

I said:

‘But it is the same lens, from the same company as the one you fitted for me five months ago.’

She said:

‘Ah yes.’

I said:

‘And I want to pick it up from the Hinckley store.’

She said:

‘Let me call you back.’

I put the phone down.

I said:

“FZSHSHSHSHSSSDH!!!”"”"*****&&!!!!!!!£££££***!*!*!*!*!*!* – ARSE TIT WILLY WANK COCK KNOCKER BUMHOLES’

She called me back:

‘Madam. There is a problem.  Even though the Vision Express branch at Hinckley is called Vision Express, it isn’t really Vision Express and therefore your insurance will not be valid.  Therefore, if I fax them your details, or send them your lens, you will have to pay full price for it, and pay a fee for a test.’

I did not say anything.  I was stupefied.

The silence deepened.

She said:

‘I will order it for you here, and someone can come and pick it up for you when it is ready, as long as you book an appointment in November to have your eyes tested.’

I nodded wearily to the phone.

I said:

‘How long will it take for the lens to come in?’

She said:

‘I will have to ring you back.’

I put the phone down.

I said:

‘FUCKING FUCKING FUCK FUCK FUCKITY FUCK KNUCKLE’

She called me back.

‘Madam. It will take three to five working days for your lens to come into the store.’

I shall collect my lens.

I shall collect my prescription.

I will never use Vision Express again as long as I live.

May they rot in the fires of hell and damnation.

p.s.  This process took over two hours, and I have rendered our conversations into a pithy format.  Even then it is hell. You can only imagine what it was like living through it.

Schooliform

You will be delighted, well I am delighted anyway, that the girls both absolutely loved their first day at their respective schools.  I was so stressed on Sunday night I hardly slept a wink. It’s ridiculous really. I never bothered a jot about their very first day at school,  for either of them.  I waved them off and sailed away into my day with glee.

I think this mattered to me so much because everything in our lives is so up in the air at the moment, and I really wanted them to have something wonderful happen that would allow them to believe that we are making the right decisions, and moving in vaguely the right sort of direction.

Even if we aren’t.

Temporary respite is sometimes enough.  Who knows, they may even grow to love school permanently. I never did, but they have enjoyed most of their schooling up to now, so it could happen.

Tallulah got her first commendation mark already, for working and co-operating well in a group.  I nearly choked on my dinner when she told me.  There is precious little evidence of it at home, but if there has to be a home/school split I’d rather have it this way up.  It saves me having to write groveling letters of apology every week.

It was a day of firsts yesterday. Tallulah also went to her first meeting of her new Brownie pack.  One of the Brownie’s was making her promise, and there was cake and sweets, so that was an easy transition.

Karate starts on Thursday, and then all our ducks will be in a row until they start deciding which after school clubs they want to join, and I spend my life driving round in ever decreasing circles chasing bits of equipment and children hither and yon.

Mum and dad have helped me over this first few days by dropping Tallulah off, leaving me to concentrate on Tilly.  In a few weeks she can start using the bus, but until we move there is no point confusing her with pointless bust routes.  We will keep it simple for now.

Well, simple for them.  Tomorrow I attempt to get them both to and from school at the right times, and get my car MOT’d in the middle of it all.

I’m trying not to think about it too much.  Logistics have never been my strong point.