That didn't take long

Jeremy got a job, which is Good Thing. It is going to take him away quite a lot, which is A Rather Horrid Thing. Still and all, there is every indication that he will enjoy it, and that it will Look Good on his CV. And we no longer have to sell the children for experiments. Yay.

So I'll do the experimenting right here at home. I read in an account of Scott's polar expedition that part of his remit was experimenting, on his men. (Not that sort of experimenting. Stop it right now.) But he would set them tasks, in conditions so harsh we cannot imagine, and arrange their diet so that some men would eat naught but protein, and some just carbohydrate. For days. Just to see how they would manage. So when I cut my finger last week, doing carrots or somesuch, and my initial thought wasnt OWWWW, but 'how the heck am I going to practise' (my second though was, trust me, OWWWW) I've decided to feed the kids nothing but pizza, frozen peas and fruit juice. At least until next Wednesday. And if they thrive, well who knows . . . ?

The Milky Bars are on Someone Else

Odd the little things that can derail the most ardently-made resolutions. Like husband parting company with his company and me not blogging for a month. Or so. But it's ok - here in leafy South Bucks it has become a well-established tradition that, at boys' drinkup, the one without a job pays for nada. (Only on the first evening, mind. Some of these blokes have been known to lead a life of unnecessary leisure for rather longer than - well, necessary.) So Jeremy staggered in last week, thinking, I suspect, that he would rather have a job. But it's OK. All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds. All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well. Can't think of any more.

Here's two things about Sid - she has lost eight teeth, and grown back two. She can't eat properly, and whistles slightly when she talks.

Also, and this is TERRIBLE,

I can't even bear to think the word's.

The watering can

I was going to title this post 'Anyone have Liza's address?' but then I thought, Liza never actually does anything, except the verbal equivalent of rolling her eyeballs, and anyway it was a watering can, not a bucket.

This had better be worth it, I hear you think. (But I don't care. It's all I got.)

My favourite recycling thing, favourite because even though you can't really do it in winter, it's one I thought up all by my ownsome, is to shove a watering can under the hot tap while you are waiting for it to get hot enough to do the washing up. And voila - water for watering. At least half a gallon. Genius. So, last bit of washing up before bed time, really had enough of the day, looking forward to a few pages of Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman, because Kit, to my annoyance, has made off with Skulduggery Pleasant: Dark Days, which he has already read and I have only just started, and as I lifted the nearly full watering can out of the sink, I discovered that it had a fu so jolly great split in the bottom.

One clean kitchen floor later (the kids had been screeving all day. Imagine the state of my black slate floor.), and this was no little up-side, and I was hideously wide awake. Luckily for my upcoming exam, scales have a way of calming me down, so those got a work-out, which was another upside. (Unluckily for my upcoming exam, thay are A major, E major, B natural minor, B harmonic minor and B melodic minor. The fingering is a bugger, and I have an awful feeling I am supposed to know them off by heart.)

Maybe I should have called this post 'Call me Pollyanna. Then shoot me.'

I'm too old for this

I think I give up to easily. No, not YOU. YOU are an unbelievably together person, firm in your convictions yet gentle in their application. Your opinions are the result of careful thought, and, while they are mature and balanced, you do not shrink from revising them in the light of an unexpected perspective.

But enough about you.

J and I girded ourselves for the usual scream-fest accompanying every holiday, when we announce a visit to the barber. The weeping, the wailing, the gnashing of teeth, yada yada yada. Same old same old. (They actually walk around with their hands over their hair, holding it on. I ask you. What I want is 'OK', what I get is I Pagliacci.) Kit announced VERY FIRMLY was he was NOT going to get his hair cut.

'OK', we said.

No backbone. None.

We just got back from IKEA, where we got rugs'n'magazine holders'n'glasses'n' paper napkins. We went there to get boxes with lids. There were piles of boxes. Not a lid to be found. Not even for ready money. And fascinating though every small detail of our visit to the Swedish Inferno is, it is the ideal opportunity to share this with you .




And finally, don't you just LOVE how BRILLIANT middle children are? So intelligent, so good-looking, so versatile, so talented. You meet one and you just know you are in for a good time. Some of my VERY BEST FRIENDS are middle children.

Where there's muck

My middle child (in common with middle children everywhere, everywhen, for ever and ever, amen) who would rather chew his own arm off than evince any enthusiasm for anything, has declared he wants to learn to play the trumpet.

Those of you with middle children may grasp the frenziedness of the spin that Jeremy and I promptly went into. Into which we went. YES! CERTAINLY! WHAT A GOOD IDEA! LOVELY BOY! WHEN DO YOU WANT TO START! LET'S GO TO THE SHOP AND BUY EVERYTHING THEY HAVE TO DO WITH TRUMPETS! I kid you not. This was an iron, it was hot, we struck.

Jeremy took Beri off to RoseHill Instruments to have his embouchure inspected, and to get a list of teachers. (Is this an instrument taught at his school, where lessons can be paid for at an EXTREMELY decent rate? Is it heck. We were going to have to go Private. Oh, the blow to our ethical position.) I spent the next few days on the phone, gradually crossing teachers off as they didn't return my calls, or the phone was answered in a wide variety of foreign accents, telling me they had no idea who I was talking about. About whom I was talking, Speaking.

Hooray for Amersham Music Centre, who told me that my first choice, the teacher who was listed as living right here in Chalfont St Giles, was not, in fact, dead, just dilatory about returning phone calls. Turns out he passes our door at a very convenient time on a very convenient day, and if we liked he could pop in and give Beri his lesson right here. Well du-huh.

And then having decided that £200 for a trumpet was going to be money well spent, my ma tells me my own trumpet, which I last played - oh gosh. Thirty-eight years ago. Gosh. . . . is in her attic, and we can pick it up tomorrow.

If Beri isn't a natural brass player, I'm contemplating chapeau en croute. Capello al Forno. With fava beans and a nice chianti.

Sugar and Spice and Puppy-dogs' Tails

First of all, she loses a tooth. Not the tooth we all expected her to lose, the one EVERYONE ELSE loses first, but the one next to it. I'm considering playing with Photoshop, to see whether a gold tooth or one studded with a diamond will look best in that gap. (I didn't The Tooth Fairy didn't have a pound coin handy, so the money went straight into Sid's account, with an explanatory letter under her pillow, all done in Tooth Fairy handwriting with flowers and butterflies and EVERYTHING. Even fairies are getting into BACS and digital financial services these days.) Then, and this photograph I love, she takes a break from her recorder practice to dip into some 20th Century poetry. T.S.Eliot to be precise.

And we finally got examples of all the coins we needed to complete the shield. How cool is that?

Splat! or How to Wreck Your Own Mother's Day Present With an Ill-Timed Tap on the Brakes

My Mothering Sunday present to ME was going to be an hour, on Saturday afternoon, all to myself. (Have I spotted the irony of a Mother's Day present consisting of time AWAY from my children? Yes. I have. But thanks though.)

What could be nicer than a bouquet of cupcakes? Well, three, obv. Splat! was offering an afternoon teaching children between the ages of five and 12 to make these lovelies. (It very nearly didn't happen, because Kit refused to go anywhere near any place called Princess Risborough.) So. Half an hour each way to PRINCES Risborough, meant an hour at home. On my own. Refuelling the car, washing my hair, practising some scales, maybe a spot of light recycling. Seriously self-indulgent stuff.

Turned out that PR is closer to 50 minutes away, so going home was not an option (if I wanted to be on time to collect my children. The thought did occur to me. There. I said it. The Blog That Dares.) but luckily I had brought my book, managed to drown my (risibly negligible) disappointment in a local coffee house, until the time came to pick the little loves up again. I wish I could show you the results of their labours, but Splat! haven't sent the pictures to me yet. But we clearly were going to have to be quite careful getting them home, as 'stability' was verrry far from being their middle name. Having belted each child into their car seat, and settled the precious cargo in between each set of knees, we started on our careful way home.

Until the Satnav told me to make a right turn NOW.

Which I did.

You can see the smeared icing, the loosened cupcakes, and the crumpled and greasy tissue paper, but not, I think, the little black bits of goodness-knows-what from the footwells. And you are missing the soundtrack of two howling children and one extremely outraged and indignant one.

Wow, it's dusty in here.

Hmm - I could play catch-up, or I could pretend I've never been away. Or I could just start, and see how it goes.

The big thing, of course, is that Elaine died on Sunday. Write, type, say the words a hundred times, still don't believe them. Won't. Also can't quite see how we are supposed to carry on without her. All Sid wants to do is to look at photographs of her, and cry. Me too.

Our tickets to Singapore are now booked. It's a bit of a chore really, as we are only doing it to save David and Rachel having to visit here. They found it such hard going last Christmas, what with the shockingly cold weather and all, that we told them we would provide the excuse they needed for not making their next winter visit. Sid is already packed.

And here's somehting I discoverd quite by accident. If you use the jug you mixed the raspberry jelly in to measure the water for the rice, without rinsing it out, your rice will taste of raspberry jelly. Clever, eh?

And guess what? It's nearly soup time again.