Jeremy Has A Job

Yay! And it only starts in September, so he has the next two months off. Well, he is expecting to do a bit of work here and there, but otherwise . . . Paint! Polyfilla! Chisels! Screwdrivers! More Paint! And yay again - no more orange corridor. Hello bathroom light pull. Hello skirting boards. A TIDY GARAGE!

It's a weight off all our minds.

In the mean time, we are getting ready for out weekend away - we are off to The Lamb in Burford tonight, and back on Sunday afternoon. The children are so self sufficient these days - all I need to do is leave enough cereal for three days worth of meals, and Kit can toast bagels. They will have the telly, and we will call each night at bedtime.






NO OF COURSE NOT! Julia and Ma will be standing in loco parentis, and the children are as excited as all-get-out about spending the night at Aunt Julia's.

And look what passes for weeds here in St Giles! They spring up unbidden everywhere, in all shapes and shades. Papaver Somniferum - a little Golden Triangle all of my very own.

Oh oh and and and and! This is a slightly odd time to be blogging, I know. I really should be shopping (we might be leaving our brood in the hands of minders for the weekend, but the minders are strangely helpless when it comes to thinking what to feed the little darlings. So I have to provide a bag of food) but Jeremy lost my credit cards. Yeah! O know! It's normally me, and I have to find them while J gets Very Antsy Indeed. Oh how he hates it when I can't find my cards, even though I know they are just temporarily mislaid, rather than in the hands of some total deadbeat crim who is, even as J panics, running up large bills at the Jaguar dealership, the big fat gold jewellery shop and the off licence.

LATER - As I really did need to get the shopping done, he gave me his card, and carried on searching (to avail, thank goodness). I confined my shopping to Waitrose rather than the Jaguar dealership, the big fat gold jewellery shop and the off licence.

The Marmalade Cat

Julia had a great big do at her livery yard on Sunday. 64 riders (not all at once!) doing their thing for points and rosettes. It's quite a kerfuffle, with people and horse boxes and horses all hither and yon, and because it's affiliated it is taken VERY seriously. (No, I've no idea what 'affiliated' means here. Go ask Julia if you're that interested.)

Now, Orlando does love himself a bit of kerfuffle, and likes nothing better than to get right in the middle of whatever meleé offers itself, but small cats and large horse hooves do not make a happy combination, so Ma elected to keep him locked in the house for the whole day. Sure, he'd end up seriously cross, but more-or-less sound of body.

Halfway through the day, Julia knocked on Ma's door asking where Orlando was. It seems one of the more anxious contestants (it would be, wouldn't it. This was never going to happen to Miss Super-confident, was it?) was on the verge of tears because, during her performance, having erred twice already, she made her third and most calamitous mistake because a small but vivid streak of ginger zipped across the riding school, dug itself a hole and crapped in the corner.



And we were worried about Orlando?

ps this story isn't nearly as funny as the one about Rose at the end of this post, but it's the best I can do.

Damn and Blast

Isn't this a dinky little camera? (The one on the RIGHT. The other one's my mobile, for scale. Pay attention.) It has lots and lots of megapixels, an startlingly fast reaction time, a very easy PC interface and fits snugly into my hand. It is also a relatively recent model, so the budget may well have yelped a little.

And in exchange? My residence on the moral high ground, and no crowing. Not any more, ever.

What the hell - I was getting altitude sickness all the way up there anyway, and crowing makes my throat sore.

Happy Anniversary.

I dunno - what day is it today?

The big hoot in our family is How Mummy Can Never Remember The Date Of Her Own Wedding Anniversary. Oh how we laugh.

It is true, for the first few years of our marriage July rang a faint bell, but the years go by, new synapse paths become well-trodden, and the expression 'June Bride' takes on a more pertinent significance. And now, many years of married bliss later, actually I can give you the actual date two times out of three.

Ha ha, I thought, I'm going to be that prepared this year! (Well, not to the extent of going to any actual effort, you understand.) I happened to be passing our local Wine and Vinegar emporium, a total necessity for any small village high street, and splurged on a bottle of whiskey. (It's smarter than it sounds. The whiskey comes in casks, and is hand-decanted into the fancy bottle of your choice. So there.) I also arranged for Ma to baby-sit tonight, rather than Saturday. (Pirates of the Karabiner, since you ask. Well, only if you ask Sid.) I was SO set to go into the whole 'Oh no! I forgot! Oh well, maybe you'd better just have this lovely bottle of hand-decanted whiskey I just happen to have lying around! Oh darling, what a lovely present! And so expensive!' routine. I was looking forward to it.

So this morning, in the two seconds we coincided in the hall between him dropping Beri off and me taking Sid out the door, Jeremy, wild, wet, rumpled and aghast, and clearly having only just remembered himself, asks me if I know what day it is. In the remaining 0.75 seconds, I belt upstairs, drag the bottle from its hiding place, shove it into his startled hands and head out the door play-group-wards.

Not even time for a triumphant cackle. That hubris, it'll get you every time.

UPDATE: Later That Same Day. Jeremy at a loss as to what to get me (WHY?) but actually, giving me the moral high ground, and the opportunity to crow about this FOR THE REST OF OUR LIVES, is gift enough.

Saraband

*sigh*

I suppose it had to happen. My adorable daughter rushing in, and presenting me - ME! - with a bouquet of fresh flowers, individually chosen and tastefully arranged. Aah. Until I notice that it contains not only daisies, but Rose Campion. My beautiful Lychnis Coronaria, decimated. Decimated, I tell you. (Decimated. I counted.) How to tell her that
a) it was so thoughtful to give me flowers,
b) some garden flowers are for picking AND SOME ARE NOT and
c) Never Never Pick Anything From The Garden Without Mummy's Express Permission.

_____________________________________________

We seemed to have reached another tipping point in the way our family functions. Last Sunday, after church, it took me a while to realise that I was cooking lunch, Jeremy was off doing something manly, and the three children were - well, amusing themselves. Not bugging us. Playing some game, contentedly, the three of them together. A picture-perfect family. Made you wonder where on earth the 'Hello' photographers were when you needed them.

Kit was a total and utter star yesterday, as I took the three down for their first real visit to the dentist. Both Beri and Sid had expressed the strongest reservations about the whole procedure, but when they saw Kit calmly getting into The Chair, being raised and tipped back, (WOW!) opening his mouth and having his teeth counted, WITHOUT A MURMUR, they both followed suit. Very cheerfully. I could kiss him. He just won't hold still.

Chinese Whispers

We spent the weekend in Essex - friends of Jeremy's celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary with a garden party. A memorable party, in that it was quiet quiet. While there was lots of chatting going on, at least half of the 100-ish guest were deaf, and signed. The children were fascinated, having enough memories of the early signing they did, to see it in action. And they were able to thank our hostess appropriately!

There were quite a number of children too, and their entertainment was spectacular. Ling usually works in much bigger venues, but as she is a friend of the family, found herself strutting her stuff in a back garden. The children were captivated. (And me too.)

And *big sigh* another source of ensorcellment was a blimmin' chocolate fountain. Not that I have anything agin these calorie bombs per se, but not only could we not get the children away from it, they all ended up with long chocolate streaks down their fronts. Which would have been fine if they were naked. As I licked their faces clean (mine children. Not anyone else's.) chests wouldn't have posed a problem, but as it is I have two bucket loads of clothes soaking in some environmentally hideous solution in the hopes that they will wash. Also one of my favourite shirts, because some little beggar wanted a cuddle before I had a chance to appreciate the extent of their chocolateyness. Bah.

I forgot . . .

We also went to the Science Museum on Saturday. We didn't get much past the Space Flight hall, which is new since our last visit. Kit loved the rockets, and Beri and Sid loved running around yelling. My personal favourite were the Astronaut Nappies. I kid you not.

Finally, I found some hard information on how astronauts 'go' in space. Peeing, naturally, is the easy one - hose, airlock, and whoosh, outer space gets a nitrogen boost. If only it were a compost heap. The 'other' involved a recognizably loo-shaped apparatus, with the addition of a bar to fix across the thighs. Without this bar, the poor astronaut would find himself in the middle of a most unfortunate demonstration of Newton's Third Law of Motion - the one that states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite . . . - you get my drift. The 'results' would then be parcelled up, taken back to Earth and analyzed. Eeuw.

Only one more thing to tell you (thank goodness - otherwise I will run out of single quote marks!). What about EVA, I hear you ask? (Extra-Vehicular Activity. Go and read some science fiction THIS MINUTE.) Inadvisable to get caught short in a space-suit, dontcha think? SO, they donned nappies. Big, heavy-duty, man-nappies. Eeuw, and eeuw again. Honestly, they looked like proper washable nappies only in a very manly terracotta colour. I suspect, however, that the astronauts didn't spend their leisure time scraping (and parcelling up) and rinsing and washing and re-using.

In another part of the museum, Jeremy took the boys to see dinosaurs in 3D in the Imax, while Sid and I got to see Bob the Builder. Teresa, where were you when I need you!

Teresa also asked why I never posted pictures of Kit. Here's why: the wretched boy took them into town with him and wore them most of the time. People were pointing. And giggling. But look what he built - isn't it splendid.

Half Term - so last week

Boo hoo, half term is over. And I'm not even the one who has to go back to school! But oy vey, the lunch boxes, the PE kit, the homework (homework! HA!), the yelling - gah.

Oh oh oh HOMEWORK! At the beginning of the week, Kit did his Maths homework like a model student. We were so proud - no pressure for the rest of the hols, an angelically conscientious child - our just reward for being fantastic parents. Then, last night - yeah, Sunday night, 7:30, half an hour before bedtime and the OFFICIAL END OF HALF TERM, I get a call from another mum.

OTHER MUM:     My daughter has just told me about this project homework she has to do, and she says Kit knows what to do.

ME:                         KIT!

(Better than Kit's best friend Toby, who announced that he had this homework to do at 7:30 this morning.)

If only I didn't remember doing the exact same thing to my parents when I was Kit's age.