If it's better to give

than to receive, who on earth do the givers give to? This week, me, that's who. I'll gladly imperil my immortal soul if it means PRESENTS.

First up, some beautiful flowers from Anisa. One of my favourite things in the WHOLE WORLD is watching flowers unfurl, and these were spectacular - a miracle on my mantlepiece. And then, as soon as they reached wide-open perfection, Jeremy asked, sobbing, if we could throw them out.


Hay fever. Bah.

Rachael says to snip the stamens off, and I will try that next time I'm lucky enough to have lilies, but It Will Not Be The Same.

Then my Ma came back from two months in South Africa bearing, among other things, a box of shells, hand-picked by her from a Cape beach. (I don't know why I haven't taken a picture of the box, as it's star-shaped, coloured crackly antique gold, and the lid is BEJEWELLLED.)

Technically speaking, Ma brought the shells for Sid, and to get the shells off her I did have to prise her, finger by finger, from the box, and then tie her up to the oven to stop her retrieving them and then listen to her SCREAMING HER HEAD OFF some nonsense about them being HER shells.

No, not really.


And then Rachael, who is an Autumn, but occasionally by accident buys Spring stuff, and then gives it to me, gave me a bee-yooo-tiful scarf.

I'm dreaming of a white . . .

. . . Easter?

Well, it made a change, I s'pose. And worth it for having to defend the continuing existence of the Easter Bunny, in the face of incontrovertible evidence that he does not.

So, each egg is hidden at the end of a line of large shoe prints? Well, yes, of course the Easter Bunny wears size eleven trainers - his feet would get cold in the snow if he just lolloped about on his big ol' naked furries.

Here's the garden on Easter morning, with two boys and a sled. The walk to church was one long snow-ball fight, and I rather suspect that the majority of the prayers offered up by the junior members of the congregation that Easter morning was for more snow please.

But it was not to be - as a very wise priest once said to me, Of course God answers every prayer. Most of the time, the answer is No.

So, hail and sleet and a visit from Grandma and Grandpa V. took us through to the end of our Easter weekend.

I was amused by two of Elaine's children weeping and wailing and gnashing their teeth at the prospect of eating food that actually tasted of something - Kit's latest thing is Sweet Chilli Sauce. With everything. At least this is instead of, instead of as well as, tomato ketchup. But he did rather go off on one when we suggested that he sould eschew said sauce as Aunt Julia's Easter lamb stew looked quite delicious enough.

This was my contribution to the day (over and above the tantrumming child. Well, you do what you can, don't you? And it was Easter, after all.) and very interesting it was too.

Party party party

. . . apart from Beri who makes it his life's business to turn invitations down. Honestly, that boy - and he gets quite a lot of invitations too. Maybe he just oozes cool, but with my ancient POV I can't see it.

Jeremy and I have been poring over menus for our garden party, on Sunday 31st August, from noon. As well as being our usual pre-new-school-year bash, we will also be celebrating my half-century. If you make a comment, consider yourself invited. Unless you are trying to sell me Portuguese sunglasses, in which case BOG OFF.

It's being catered hooray! By Robert Burdett hooray! So, having eaten his stuff before, poring over menus is actually a complete waste of time. We may as well choose by sticking pins, because its always FAB.

Minor Crisis

Kit was faced with what, in my opinion, was quite a tough call. Two events were scheduled for the same night, both important and enjoyable. In no particular order, they were

1. Music and Arts Evening at school, where he was one of MANY scheduled to play his guitar in the Massed Guitar Event.
2. Presentation of his Orange Belt at Karate.

I left the decision up to him and while he started out favouring the musical event, he eventually decided on Karate. And do you know how he reached his final decision? He asked the opinion of his mates.

Isn't that a bit - you know, well - girly?

Opportunities, missed and otherwise

It's been a week. I could tell you I had actually fallen off the face of the earth, but it would be a LIE. (Blimey. Not swearing for Lent has been hard impossible, but it just occurred to me that not lying . . .




Sorry. Must have blacked out there for a bit. Where was I? Oh yes . . .

It's all been about Kit this week. Jeremy too, and Beri, but mostly Kit. He represented his school twice this week, once at a swimming gala where he acquitted himself honourably, and once at a French Verse speaking competition. Seven schools, and he carried off Third Prize. His french teacher was so excited she rang me to tell me. So that was nice.

And today he and Beri won their Orange belts at their Karate grading. I was worried about Beri - I think he has my abililty to distinguish between left and right, poor thing, and when told to do a oyizuki to the left with a blocking muigeri on the right, is apt to cross his eyes and fall over. Nevertheless, to my relief, he triumphed. (Actually, it's because the Orange belts go into a different class. A small boy sodden with disappointed tears I can cope with, but sitting in a sports hall for ninety minutes every week while first one boy and then the next attends dojo, keeping Sid happy at the same time, would be more than my frame can stand.)

And Jeremy? It was his birthday on Tuesday. I bought rib-eye steaks, mushrooms, new potatoes, green beans and cream. He arrived home that evening, and before I knew what was what, he had dived headfirst into an ENORMOUS bowl of cereal, and was disinclined to eat anything more that evening.

www. . .

A Week Without a Washing machine

Yesterday saw an emergency dash to John Lewis as (did I really just type that? 'Emergency Dash to John Lewis'? How horribly middle-class. ) our washing machine finally collapsed. Our painstakingly-researched (or possibly, 'Here's the first one in the row. WE'LL TAKE IT!) selected model won't be delivered until Friday. In the mean time, as we were due at Jeremy's folks today to celebrate various birthdays, we packed up all the washing, both sopping wet from the busted machine, and fresh (HAH!) from the laundry basket, and ruthlessly exploited the in-lawful, and fully functional, washing machine. Twice.

All worth it to hear his mother muttering, 'Forty six years old and still brings his washing home. . .')

The Cavalry

Since Christmas and Sid's birthday, when a set of fairy wings had been singularly unforthcoming, I had been wondering how on earth to justify the £15 or so I'd need to spend to rectify this significant omission, but more importantly how to justify to the boys such a random present. Or not to justify it, but buy them something too, in which case I am looking at an unnecessary £45 (which would buy a lot of goodies from Amazon. Shh).

Thank goodness for godmothers. True, Rachel missed the birthday date by weeks, and then only found the wings because she was clearing out her entire house, but look - aren't they lovely! I'd say they earn her a promotion to Fairy Godmother.


p.s. Sid is absolutely completely totally recovered. The limp was barely there the next day, and is now a distant memory.