My 100th post!!!

Ouch! I ache. No, stop chuckling, I am in serious pain people. I think I pulled something in my back this morning. Funnily enough I was doing some exercise at the time which is supposed to work on my posture and alignment as well as my wobbly bits - it's called T-Tapp, although Nobby derisively calls it 'Clap-Trap' or 'Trip-Trapp' because I got it from a book. Hmm, most of my older clothes are falling off me and the last skirt I bought was a size 8 so who's laughing now, mister?

Anyway, I think I squeezed when I should have released or something technical like that, or else I am so used to being completely out of alignment that my back is screaming in protest at being fixed. Either way I'm somewhat uncomfortable here.

I don't think the two hour walk round Margaret Island with a pair of reluctant kiddies was quite what the doctor ordered for soothing it either. Oh, I tell a lie, we cycled for half an hour of that so it was only an hour and a half of dragging feet and whining 'I want a carry!' like they're still tiny tots. Pickle just turned seven and can't make it from one end of a room to the other without wanting to be picked up. What kind mother am I raising such lazy little blighters?

Just to shut them up, and also to compensate for the fact that the goal of our mission to the island was thwarted by another random act of Hungarian-ness, we rented one of those four-seater bikes so we could go and see the dancing fountains down the other end from where we'd parked. Only trouble was, of course, that the skunks can't reach the pedals and help with the propulsion, although they were each very handy on the bell, once we'd worked out a system of sharing that wouldn't end up with one of them chucking the other one in the river.

They have been getting a little tetchy lately and rather bored with the long holiday so every new experience is way too exciting and prompts bouts of competitiveness to rival Cain and Abel. And I am proving pretty bad at coming up with ideas to get them off the sofa and off each other. Between fights there has been a lot of lumming going on too. I think it's a hangover from all the pre-holiday shopping we've been doing to make sure they have all the necessary items for a fortnight by the sea - jelly shoes, sandals, beach-tent, summer clothes. So now they want more and more. Poppet is constantly begging for more clothes (she's already going to need her own suitcase because she wears at least two outfits per day and can't be seen in anything twice... I'm not sure when it was she turned into Victoria Beckham but I must have missed it.)

And today Pickle announced he wants a pet rabbit. This is not the first time he's asked but he's clearly forgotten all the reasons we said 'no' before and he would not let it drop this morning. Which is why I offered to take them to the petting zoo I've heard about on Margaret Island so he could stroke a rabbit and get it out of his system. So after administering the crowbar and the monkey wrench required to get them away from the computer games and television and into the car, we set off through the obstacle course that has become our route to town this past week.

They are re-surfacing the road. Why they couldn't have waited another week until I was safely on holiday I do not know. And they're doing a proper job this time as well rather than the patch-work sticking plasters we're used to. So they dug up the old road one day, laid new tarmac the next couple, then dug up random holes along the length of the new stuff for reasons best known to themselves, and fiddled with all the manhole covers so they stick up half a metre above the road-surface so all the cars, lorries and buses have to weave in and out between them - it's like a giant game of 'In-and-Out-The-Dusty-Bluebells out there. I'm not sure even the French could surpass the chaos.

Incidentally we're talking about a kilometre stretch of road here, and the main route from our district to anywhere remotely interesting in the rest of Budapest. Plus there's none of this traffic-flow control over here. When Bob was here during the digging-up phase she told us that in the UK now road-works not only have traffic lights but also a bloke on a moped with the words 'Follow Me' on his back to escort you through the contra-flow. (I wonder what happens if he forgets to take his jacket off at the end of the day before he drives home...) But there's no Nanny State over here in the East, just a couple of youths with walkie-talkies and a little red-on-one-side, green-on-the-other lollipop stick each and you have to find your own way through the holes, bumps and kerb-stones littered all over the road.

Anyway, they were just laying the second layer of tarmac as we came home so perhaps there is light at the end of it all. Meanwhile the 'petting zoo' at Margaret Island is also undergoing some timely renovation, in the middle of the school holidays, so most of it was shut. There wasn't a rabbit in sight. We saw a lot of peacocks and pigeons, a couple of ducks, a horse or two, which you were allowed to pet if you had 3 metre long arms because these guys were not coming over to the fence for all the grass in the world, but nothing small and fluffy. This is the second time in a week we have schlepped to so-called 'Paradise Island' to find the main attraction shut. On Pickle's birthday we wanted to go to the swimming complex for all the slides and fountains but that was shut too because of 'water contamination due to the flooding'.

Of course when we rode past it today on our way back from the fountains on our consolation bike-ride the place was open again and only flooded with swimming-costume clad people. Grrr. Oh well, the best laid plans and all that. At least we made it there and back without serious injury to us or any of the passers by - luckily the short leg thing meant that they couldn't steer either which is a blessing as there were a lot of people meandering about in our path and who didn't seem in much of a hurry to move when faced with half a tonne of Mummy-powered metal hurtling towards them. As I got off the bike, my leg muscles now screaming as loudly as my back, and wobbled over to pay the lady, Pickle pipes up with, 'Mummy! you're sweating!' No sh*t Sherlock. It wasn't until we were headed back to the car that I spotted another rental stall where you can hire a little golf-cart vehicle for only a fraction more than the half-tonne bike.

I seriously need to do more homework before we venture anywhere again.

Anyway, that's all academic for the next fortnight as I am expecting full entertainment at the half-board, kids-clubbing, spa-treatment-providing hotel we have booked in Croatia. Fingers crossed. Happy holidays everyone.

Carnival Time! and other announcements

Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to make a few announcements. Are you sitting comfortably?

First, I am honoured and proud that a recent Nobby and Me post has made it onto the Best of the Expat Mums Blogging Carnival . Please drop by for a visit, where you will find out that it's not just me ranting into the ether about this roller coaster life we call expat mothering. Brit In Bosnia is also missing all the Sports coverage (except her hubby prefers the cricket), Nappy Valley Girl is finding there is more to Long Island than nice iced tea, and Expat Mum has been meeting up with fellow 'Brits Abroad' Bloggers for moral support.

Secondly, I heard back from the University of Sunderland that I have been accepted onto the PGCE Teaching course I applied for. I am now a student again! Hurrah to that and let's go down the Student's Union and get plastered! What? Distance Learning doesn't provide cheap beer and pin-ball machines and weekly gigs by rubbish bands to take your mind off the four hours you spent taking copious notes in lectures and the couple more in the library slaving over a hot text book?? Oh. I knew I should have read the small print.

Thirdly, and no less proudly, I can announce that this very day I handed to Nobby not one, not two but three buckets of home-made compost, thereby dispelling years of crushing sarcasm from the unbeliever. We've lived together for over ten years and I have always had a composter in the garden and diligently plonked in my veg peelings, grass cuttings and other garden rubbish, and he has consistently derisively laughed at my efforts as a total waste of time, moaning that I have never produced so much as a crumb of compost.

Well it doesn't help that during those years we have relocated four times and I haven't yet found a removal company that will take your heap of rotting foliage along in the back of the truck. But after a particularly cruel ribbing after he found my latest new compost bin hiding behind the bushes at the end of the garden here in Budapest after strictly forbidding me from buying one (yeah, right) I was determined to do it all right this time and make him eat his words. So I have aerated, stirred and tended this latest pile of rot for over six months and today was the day I extracted the results. Three buckets-worth. Me and my little grubs, worms and maggots are dead proud.

Nobby merely shook his head, smiling. But silent. Now that's all I wanted.

computer trouble

Can I just point out that I can't reply to your comments at the moment due to a technical fault - I am not technical enough to work out what's wrong and it's not my fault.

For some reason this computer has a phobia of pop-ups, even though they are supposed to be allowed according to all my settings. There was a time when I was getting adverts appearing every time I clicked on anything and I think that may have put the poor dear off. These days computer not only says 'no' but regularly adds 'how very dare you!' and spits its little cyber-dummy out. And not just at me - every time Pickle surfs for new and exciting games on it the darned thing crashes and a blue screen appears.

Lately Pickle has been getting up earlier than me in the mornings and his first order of the day is to get on the DS and play the new Indiana Jones game he got for his birthday. After spending several hours on it yesterday and refusing to join us in the real world, even for meals, I hid the DS last night in a high cupboard in the kitchen. When I got up this morning, after my customary 4 snoozes - it is the school holidays after all - his bedroom door was shut and his bed was empty. I looked in all the usual places - in front of the telly, amongst the Lego, under the dog - and didn't find him so I came to switch on the computer.
It was already on.
With a sinister blue screen showing.
And a 'bugger off, I'm not playing' message from the hard drive on the screen.

The sneaky beast.

I resumed my search, following the scent of small boy to the little cubby space under his cabin bed. And there he was, playing Nintendo DS with the sound off.

'How did you get hold of that?' I asked. (We have guests at the moment but they were still in bed.)

'Mummy, you know I'm very good at climbing...' is all he said. Hmph.

Anyway, I am now going to try and coax this computer into behaving for me. I have disabled some driver it claims is causing the problem and now my display is ten times bigger than before; the computer clearly knows I am technically challenged and is now treating me as a decrepid, short sighted old duffer. How kind. I am going to flash it a bit of my sun-burn from our day in the pool yesterday (I am a-glow in a Belisha Beacon stylee and not in a good way) and see what that does for it's sodding screen.

This is cyber war, baby.

Cramming

Would someone please tell me how I can cram eighty megabytes of scanned documents into an email? I am having a go with 'zipping' but it's rather like wrestling with my suitcase when I'm packing for a family skiing holiday - it almost took the entire family sitting on it to get it all in last time. I think I am going to be here half the night sending eight separate emails instead. That should create a marvellous first impression to my would-be examiners. Oh the joy - it's deep.

In case you're wondering what I am wittering about, I am finally getting my application sent off for my teaching course - the deadline is tomorrow. I hope I can squeeze these files a little bit before then without having a full-on meltdown. Ooh, melting. Does that compress documents? I also hope that the university don't take my tardiness as a benchmark for future assignment submissions. Yes, I did pull several all-nighters when I was a student first time round, trying to be hip and cool and run the deadlines to the limit. But those were the days when I could handle a whole packet of Pro-plus in one sitting and no-one was expecting me to get up at 7am and give them breakfast and wipe their bum the next day (at least I think there wasn't...) I would like to think I am somewhat more sensible now. There's just been some fun and games getting all the information about the course and subsequently getting the forms filled by the school which has caused the delay. I think I am in for a roller coaster year.

Anyway, I am happy to report that the Simply Red concert on Saturday was a total success, not one drop of rain all evening. We arrived by taxi at the rear end of a crowd of ten thousand people and managed to bop our way to very near the front - we couldn't quite see the whites of their eyes but still a great view. There were huge screens all around to get the full Mick effect, and he was superb as usual (I know my brother will be shaking his head at that comment..) And did I mention that this was all free? They closed off a whole section of Budapest surrounding Heroes Square for celebrations to mark the 20th anniversary of the end of Communism in Hungary. Even though we are not natives we were very happy to join in with everyone else. We rounded off the evening with dinner al-fresco and a boogie in some student cellar-bar, much to the amusement of the trendy twenty-somethings we were elbowing out of our way so we could give the Macarena the full treatment.

Sadly the rain returned on Sunday but that didn't stop us Brits donning the raincoats and wellies and wading around the Railway Museum. My friend Bob was here with her hubby and son and the three year old is well into trains. His Dad didn't seemed too put out either about climbing all over some of the trans-Siberian monsters they have on display, some of which have wheels two metres in diameter. I have to confess that we chose to dry off in McDonalds, clearly we know how to show our friends a good authentic time when they travel halfway across the continent to see us!

Today was also wet, so the kids opted for swimming. Argh!

OK, while I have been typing this I have put my daughter back in bed three times, talked to my brother for the first time in weeks and found out that my Nectar card with 32000 points on it has been deactivated for my lack of activity, just when I was planning to spend some on tickets to Legoland. Great. See, I can get on with lots of things at once when I want to; coursework will be a breeze - think of all the Blog entries I will be writing mid-sentence. But I have also now pinged off two enormous zip files containing my application. Fingers crossed everyone.

Water, water everywhere

... and not a drop to drink. I finally know what that means: it's all about a week in the life of Nobby and me in Sesame Street, Budapest. (Our road is named after a Hungarian children's TV programme, you should see the looks I get when I'm asked to recite it, I guess anyone who lives in a Ramsay Street or Cockleshell Bay knows what I mean.)

Water, water, water. This week I have either been jumping into it, getting pelted with it, mopping it up or wondering why none of it is coming out of the taps. And there I was imagining I would spend the summer holidays just using it in frozen cuboid form to cool my Pimms and lemonade.

After the fun and games of Pickle's indoor party we were hoping for a better weather result on Tuesday night for the open air Depeche Mode concert at the football stadium. After all, this is Budapest in late June.. durrr, what were we thinking? When we [abandoned] parked the car things were looking OK and there was almost enough blue sky to make a pair of sailors trousers (another old English saying, oh we're on a roll tonight) but being a Mummy for the past eight years has clearly hammered some precautionary sense into me and I tied my raincoat round my middle while Nobby decided to 'risk it'. As David Ghan appeared on stage in all his glory (and Nobby proudly noted that 'he's got more chins than I have') a little light drizzle began to fall, which was all well and good because we were packed in like sardines on the pitch between a goth in her best funeral hat and a bloke wearing black angel wings over his T-shirt. But by 'A Question Of Time' it was pretty much pelting. Lucky me having my raincoat - trouble is the hood acoustics weren't up to much so I couldn't really put it up so I opted for the free hair wash instead with everyone else. Meanwhile Nobby got drenched to the skin. As a consolation, next day I popped out and bought two tickets for their return trip in January, mercifully at the indoor Arena.

One of Pickle's favourite non-Lego presents at his birthday party was a snorkel and flippers set. So that explains why I have been (reluctantly) jumping into water. The little monkeys know that swimming is Mummy's least favourite activity - given the choice between a trip to the local pool or unclogging the toilet, the U-bend wins every time. But it's been raining and they've been driving me mad - when they drag themselves out of the virtual reality world of My Sims and Mario Go-Karting on the Nintendos long enough to take a pop at each other - plus I'm supposed to be a yummy mummy who encourages their kids to do sports, getting them swimming and riding two-wheelers before they're able to walk, so I had to knuckle down and fish out the one-piece. Luckily now they can swim a bit I don't have to supervise quite as much these days, apart from the occasional 'Help!' from Pickle when he gets out of his depth and out of breath. Which is all the time in the outdoor pool at our local sports centre. I just have to ask, who builds a 'children's pool' complete with slides and sprays that is a uniform depth of 1.5 metres? Do they all have their bean-pole growth spurts early here or what? Anyway, I got through several chapters of my book while they pretended to be sharks in the jacuzzi, although I don't think they much amused the old couple in there for a spot of relaxation before their afternoon nap. Pickle declared himself very satisfied with snorkelling, once he'd mastered the art of dipping his face in the water without dunking the whole breathing pipe in as well and trying to respirate chlorinated water. Poppet has declared that she needs some flippers now, having beaten me six times in races down the pool (I was doing my very best front crawl too, can't imagine how she did it...)

Today was actually relatively dry and warm so late afternoon I somehow persuaded them that poor neglected Tiggy might like a walk and we could go somewhere flat so they could ride their bikes at the same time. We had a very pleasant jaunt up in the hills, even Tiggy behaved herself and didn't sniff too many people in inappropriate places (crotches). Then there was an ominous rumble of thunder and we bolted for the car, generously swinging by the office on the way home so Nobby wouldn't get another soaking. There followed the mother of all storms. You know when books say that the clouds were 'boiling'? Well they were, it was absolutely fascinating. And the setting sun turned the sky all different shades of pink and orange and red, wherever it wasn't already a dirty grey. There was a beautiful rainbow at one point, and lots and lots of lightning, followed by an almighty hailstorm which pounded the house for half an hour. I decided the best view of the light-show might be the glassed-in balcony in the kids' rooms. Indeed, it was a lovely view, however the sight of the storm gushing in through the closed windows was far more alarming and I missed the next half an hour as I shifted toys out of the flood, mopped up and manhandled plastic sheeting over the outsides of the windows to stop further leakage. Then I called the landlord, who happily started telling me how he was out inspecting his flowers and fruit-trees after the hail before I interrupted with the news that his windows are knackered, then he shut up and agreed to come over in the morning.

So there you have it, a watery old week. Oh, except for the two days when the water supply was once more cut off without warning, I was only alerted to the fact when I tried to fill the kettle for a well-earned cup of tea after one of the swimming trips. The water company have two enormous holes in the already narrow roads leading up to our place which are daily surrounded by well-fed looking blokes, each one variously sporting wrenches, bum-cleavage and/or man-boobs who happily interrupt their loitering to say hello whenever we pass them. I reckon they might all be a tad muddy tomorrow morning, the torrents of water coming down the hill may even have filled the holes in for them.

So tomorrow one of my best friends is coming for the weekend with her hubby and toddler and we are planning to stop in at the free open-air Simply Red concert up at Heroes Square on Saturday night - weather permitting. I'll let you know.

Why I'm glad I only have two kids

Sshhh! Don't tell the kids you've seen me. I am hiding from them. I reckon while High School Musical is on the TV and the Lego is out in force I should be safe to slip away for a few minutes. It's been the school holidays for a week already and everything was fine until the rain set in. Now they can't bounce away their excess energy on the trampoline they are taking it out on each other and the dog. I've just resuced poor Tiggy from another one of Pickle's strangling assults of affection and banished him to his room. She's taken to hanging out in the downstairs loo where it is a) cool, b) quiet and c) out of sight, until someone gets the urge to pee of course.

Personally I just want a bit of peace to recover from the weekend. It was a mad one.
After some late night bowling and dinner at TGI Fridays on Friday night you'd have thought we'd all get a lie-in on Saturday. But Poppet surpassed herself with the early morning waking, appearing dressed and perky beside my bed at 4am. I'm wondering which to invest in first, a large clock and some lessons on telling the time or a set of black-out curtains.

One game of football and a trip to the Tesco's play centre later they still wouldn't lie down much before 10pm. But by then I had already sloped off out with a friend for an evening at the museums leaving poor Nobby in charge with just a bottle of wine and tub of Haagen Daaz for moral support. On Midsummer's night all the Budapest museums stay open till 1am and lay on entertainment. And my friend had a VIP tickets. So I ended up on the terrace at the National Gallery, overlooking the Danube, sipping champagne and listening to Nobby's new favourite band playing Ska music in Hungarian, daaaahling. Lovely. Then we took in a conjuror and dance display at Millenium Park before rolling home in the wee small hours.

Bad planning really since Sunday is Nobby's day for a lie-in, coupled with it being British Father's Day, so I didn't get the chance to sleep it off next day even though Poppet managed to sleep until 9. Sunday was party day - we held Pickle's birthday party a couple of weeks early because the actual day is in the middle of the school holidays and we didn't want one of those parties where only two kids can make it. Well, the theory was good but it back-fired on me beautifully. Having given out twenty invitations on the last day of term, banking on at least half of them jetting straight off to sunnier climes, fifteen kids turned up yesterday, along with twenty-fours hours of uninterrupted rain. Nice.

And this year they are at that in-between age where they don't want to play Pass The Parcel and Musical Bumps any more - at least the boys don't; Poppet of course couldn't wait to get her hands on something that needed unwrapping after seeing the mountain of presents that Pickle received - but the boys went on the rampage through all the bedrooms, returning to the lounge every ten minutes or so to grab some more sweets and crisps from the snack table before stomping back up the stairs to continue the domestic devastation. By far the favourite toy turned out to be a larger than life-sized but realistic-looking rubber tarantula which they took turns placing on people's shoulders or just beside them and relishing the resultant near-coronaries, several of which were mine since I am extremely skittish (ok, terrified) of spiders and they can get me every time. I bought the stupid thing for the Halloween bash and it added a nice spooky touch to the decorations at the time but that's no reason why I should keep finding it in my sink eight months later.

Having read the forecast and somewhat anticipated the boys' behaviour I invented a brilliant treasure hunt before the party started, one trail for the boys and one for the girls, and cunningly hidden photo clues around the house. However when I called them all to order and announced the game an unexpected hush fell over the boys and they all started looking at the floor and shuffling their feet, until one of them confefssed that they'd already found and followed half the clues, somewhat ruining the prospect of having them all occupied and off the coca-cola for the next half an hour. Poppet's team were quite excited though, since they'd been dutifully Passing the Parcel and Pinning-the-Handbag-on-the-Barbie for the previous hour rather than investigating how many small boys you can fit under a cabin bed, and quickly ran off in search of the first location. The only trouble being that the role of 'team leader' went straight to Poppet's head so she raced from clue to clue, ripping them open and flinging them over her shoulder as she ran to the next one, with six girls trailing woefully behind without so much as a look in and me shouting at her to 'share nicely'.

So the best laid plans and all that. Next time I'm renting a venue and an entertainer. Ooh, and a babysitter and a weekend in the Spa for Nobby and Me. Yes, I think that would be perfect.

And there's more...

So the kids were up at 6.30 am... so early in fact that Nobby wasn't even up for work yet. On the up side it meant that he was able to give them breakfast instead of me but bang went my lie-in; I knew I shouldn't have mentioned them on my Blog yesterday. Would someone mind telling me why the little monsters can't manage to drag themselves out of their pits for all the Lego in China on a school day but they can appear, awake, dressed and on-the-lum by my bedside at sparrow's fart when we really have nothing to get up for except the early showings of Sonic The Hedgehog on Pop? I blame the nutters who set the datelines that made Hungary the same time-zone as France - the sun gets up at 4.30am here at the moment (trust me, I've seen it, and clearly so have the kids) and it's pitch black at 9pm. I also blame the Hungarian house builders who designed this place with triangular windows you can't cover up. Pooey.

I suppose I should be grateful that I was up in time for a shower before the water was turned off. But then Poppet dogged my every footstep thereafter begging me to make her a dress out of a length of a material she'd 'found' in my sewing crate. Let me make this clear: I have never made a dress in my life. Despite my loathing of shopping I would sooner take my chances with two small children and a branch of C&A than dig out my sewing machine. That machine is strictly for cushion cover repairs and the occasional bedsheet for the Barbie dolls. However, I decided to give it a go and I can report that she is very pleased with the results and I am chuffed to bits that I even managed to do a zip! Now, of course, I seriously need to go and hide all other 8-year-old-girl-sized pieces of material lying about before I have to create something else.

So then we heard the familiar brum of the Postman's moped - he was early too, what is going on here? - and I rushed to the mailbox hoping to find this week's English newspaper; it's amazing how much you can miss sensationalist, biased narrative about the goings-on in the world when it's not readily available. To my delight, there it was, alongside an exciting-looking jiffy bag. What a bonus! Care-Parcels from home - my Mum's specialty. Even though it was addressed to Nobby I decided to have a sneaky peek. In hindsight the sellotape came away a little easier than normal - you usually need a crowbar to get into my Mum's offerings - and the bag was strangely thin. And what do you think it was inside? Absolutely nothing. Mum has since confirmed that there was a Steve Berry novel in there for Nobby when it left the UK about ten days ago. Somewhere along its curiously long journey across Europe someone has seen fit to burgle my post and nick a second hand English-language book. Seriously, what is the world coming to?

Anyway, I was going to tell you about Rose's kitten. The one a friend of hers found heading traffic-wards across the footpath outside their school and decided Rose was the one who could help her work out what to do about it. I've known Rose for a few years now and had I been in the loop I would have told her friend to choose someone else; Rose is not a cat person. Rose is a tortoise person. We are both reserving the cats for our dotage when we plan to have matching retirment cottages, zimmer frames and grumpy attitudes, with at least a dozen cats between us to terrorize the Meals On Wheels guys.

Rose texted me for suggestions. I texted back - 'drop it off with a local vet'. Little did I know but by then the kitten had already been to the vet and been declared freshly born but abandoned and in need of hand rearing. You know the drill: feeding with a dropper every half an hour, 24 hours a day for the next 4 weeks, then weaning, then house-training... then the new furniture, carpets and curtains as it starts to systematically wreck the house. Piece of cake really. Not. Even I wouldn't take that on and I am the world's biggest softie. So imagine my surprise the next time I Skyped Rose and found her with a small mewing bundle on her lap and a mini-feeding bottle in her hand...

She's called him Claude and he seems to be doing really well. Rose seems to be coping with the sleep deprivation. She's now fluent in 'mieow' and the proud owner of a homemade 'kitten sling' so she can keep him close by and still get stuff done around the house. Which is good because the house, in her words, is an inch thick in microbes given that Claude now poos every ten minutes and they've been unable to fashion a kitten nappy yet so she normally dashes to the sink at the first whiff.

So today I gladly pass on my World's Biggest Softie crown to my best mate. And the best of British luck to her. At least I can also put away my wet kipper - I suspect she won't be needing any more 'No, you do NOT want another baby!' beatings after all this.