Curve-ball central

I think I have mentioned curve-balls before but this weekend they have been coming thick and fast, as if some vindictive cosmic tennis coach being has trained his super-turbo-powered ball machine at us and turned the power up to maximum.

It all started in Thursday night when we only had one more day of school to get through before the half-term holidays started, with the long anticipated lie-ins and laying about in pjs until lunchtime. I had my final Friday ‘sans enfants’ all planned out; a gentle stroll through the forest with the dog followed by a French lesson in the morning, a little wander round the shops during the afternoon then a night out with the girls. But Pickle developed a cough during Thursday night which meant that I was up until 4am, the dog had to forego her Friday morning walk as he had to stay off school and I was a total zombie during my French lesson and mis-pronounced the word for ‘weigh’ so my tutor thought I’d said ‘shag’.

Then as the coughing got worse and Pickle started to wheeze like an old man I decided to take him to see our lovely doctor in the afternoon. I took the opportunity to leave Tiggy alone in the house for the first time rather than have her throw up in the car again, anticipating that we would only be gone half an hour before returning home with the obligatory bagful of medication. Er, wrong. Lovely Doctor did a quick examination then requested that I calmly proceed straight to Accident and Emergency, do not pass Go, do not collect the shopping. So we ended up spending almost 4 hours at the hospital with Pickle hooked up to a nebuliser whilst I made frantic calls to Nobby and other friends to make sure someone could collect Poppet from school and someone else could get home to the dog before she tore the place apart.

Luckily Nobby was able to get out of work so by the time he got home Tiggy had been alone two-and-a-half hours and the only casualty was the brand new hands-free kit for my mobile phone. Pickle had 4 treatments before they finally let him go, by which time he was perky as anything and giggling uncontrollably at the sock puppets I had created to amuse him when they wouldn’t let him surf the internet on the hospital computer (how rude). I did manage to salvage my evening out with the girls, I am pleased to say. Good thing too as I was the chauffeur and the only one who knew the way to Peony’s new house. I just had time to change my top, slap on some slap and have a quick fight with Nobby about which one of us had been more put-out by proceedings. In the end we agreed to congratulate each other for successfully fielding another crisis and I had a tip-top night at the Chinese with my mates, covering the usual subjects of child-birth, schools, parking, and husbands.

Mercifully, Saturday was relatively uneventful, although I did have to get up early with Pickle, despite him having a good night. We have a fair system for alternating our weekend lie-ins because you can guarantee that the little darlings who you can’t drag out of their pits without a crow-bar and monkey wrench on a school day will be up and bouncy by 7am on a Saturday and Sunday, however ill they may have appeared on Friday night. Nobby doesn’t mind getting up early on a Sunday because he can watch Match of the Day so I do the Saturday stint. Of course Nobby misses out if there’s Saturday school but them’s the breaks, huh. (hee hee!) But the next curve-ball is the dog’s new-found love of chewing things. It’s amazing how quickly she has gone from our beloved Tiggy to ‘that dog’. I knew it might happen but I had imagined the honeymoon would last longer than a week. I should have smelled a rat when she made a play for Poppet’s long-suffering Rosie the Rabbit during my French lesson on Friday. I thought the hands-free kit was just punishment for me leaving her alone for so long the first time, but since then the list of casualties includes a wooden coaster, a doggie finger-puppet, several of the kids drawings, a couple of pens, two sponges, a pair of gloves and two table legs. And her own toys that we so lovingly purchased last week are still in pristine condition. Oh dear.

Now, the refuge insisted that she is three years old but to me this is very puppy behaviour which I just did not expect, especially not after such a good start. We have a friend who bought 3 rabbits a couple of years back and she was told by the pet shop that they were all dwarf variety and wouldn’t grow much. These days it’s pretty clear they were talking total codswallop because I had a real dwarf rabbit once myself and hers are now three times his size, and it now looks possible that the people at the refuge went to the same charm school as the rabbit dealers and just told me what I wanted to hear.

Oh well, I’ve been hot-lining Dog Borstal all week and I reckon we can get through this. Out in the woods she is a wonderful companion, even if her ‘walking to heel’ is still dismal and she has a thing about joggers and cyclists. I don’t really think she’d eat one if she caught it but I don’t take the chance when the shell-suits are approaching and she gets that look in her eye so I quickly slip on the leash. She and I have been making a lot of friend with fellow dog-walkers and she was given the right run-around by a whippet the other day which left her flaked out on the rug for the rest of the day so it’s not all bad.

Today the children decided to join in the game with some antics of their own, never to be out-done by a mere doggy. They got Nobby first, though. Pickle was up at the crack of dawn so Nobby took him downstairs for a spot of football on the telly but couldn’t work out why the program wasn’t on yet. Until he realised that the clocks went back last night and we never cottoned on. Classic! Later on Pickle made beds for the 6 fairy dolls out of a boxful of tissues. Clearly they all have very sensitive little bodies as each bed needed about 30 tissues. Then Poppet designed some lovely signs for the teddy-bear school they created… with a big black marker-pen… on the play-room carpet. I didn’t find the resultant splodges on the cheap non-stain-proof carpet until I cleared away the surreptitiously placed toys later on. I reckon they were banking on me doing the tidying once they were in bed but I got the better of them for once and called them both in for a telling off. Naturally they each blamed the other one which is all very comical because you only have to see who’s not making eye-contact and sidling towards the door to find the culprit. Pickle offered to try and wipe it off with some wet loo-roll but I managed to persuade him to leave it to me. Then I followed them back into his room to see what they’d been up to while I’d been tidying – they were bathing the dollies in a little baby bath in the middle of his bedroom carpet. I let that one go; at least it was only water for once. Pity they're not ones for using a lot of soap or his carpet could have had a free shampoo at the same time.

So I wonder what tonight holds? I’ve done my best to move most of the tempting objects out of the dogs reach but I wouldn’t put anything past her. I’m taking a huge risk leaving the shoe rack out in the hall – I’ve moved my favourites off it of course, I’m not completely barking, yet. My money’s on the remote controls getting a chewing next, or possibly the rental contract I’ve had to leave by the front door so I don’t forget to post it. Hmm. Watch this space.

Aaaaaargh!!

Brace yourself, Sheila, here comes a rant. French people please turn away now as the following spleen-venting may cast aspersions at your culture. I’m extra boiling-mad as I write because I have had time to stew on this for a few hours and dream up what I should have said. Whereas at the time I smiled and nodded and said ‘Er, I see, OK’, I now wish I’d been able to say, ‘Frankly I find your decision illogical and unreasonable so why don’t you grow a scrotum, fill it with some bollox, stick up for common sense for a change and tell the lazy mothers to naff off?’

But I didn’t know the French translation, so I rolled over. Again.

Yes, it’s been another school-run to tell the grandchildren about, how did you guess?
Following on from the run-in with that woman who wanted me to move my pushchair so she could park a bit closer, and her subsequent suggestion that I park in the spaces in front of the school while Poppet can’t walk, you may remember that I took her advice and have been parking right by the gates ever since, in a spot reserved for me with a traffic cone by the policeman and the lollipop man. (The pushchair is now in the garage awaiting a buyer and I’m not sure Tiggy would want to share the boot with it anyway.)

This afternoon the policeman came up to me and told me that he can’t reserve me a spot any longer because there have been complaints from other mothers that it’s not fair. But he could give me permission to park on a wide bit of pavement another 20 yards further away from the school, if there isn’t already someone else parked on it (which there frequently is seeing as how some of these children have such delicate little legs). I politely reminded him that my daughter has a broken leg and another 20 yards is a bit much on crutches. So he said he was ‘desolé’ and that if I get there early enough I can certainly still use my current space but he would have to leave it un-reserved from now on, since the complaints, so if someone else bags it first then they can and I’ll have to go somewhere else.

???!!!** **???!!!!

Can someone please tell me what planet I woke up today? What’s that all about? This is the Municipal Policeman talking, who never turns up in front of the school without his little Thunderbirds-style hat on his head who has happily been stopping traffic to let me back out of my space and replacing the cone behind me for the last 2 weeks. He has also been reserving a parking space for several months for a French mother whose own 6-year-old is suffering from cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy whilst also attending school – I wonder if she has been told she can’t have a spot too? I wonder if these nitpickers who have taken it upon themselves to moan about this have actually devoted even a microsecond to putting themselves in our places. The main reason I spent 6 weeks struggling on with the double buggy was because I knew that this other lady was getting help parking and didn’t feel I had the right to request the same treatment when I know my child is going to get better one day and is only going round with a blue plaster in her leg rather than a post-chemo bald head and an uncertain future.

It has occurred to me in the last couple of hours that this may be some Anglo-phobic thing but can you really believe he’s decided to halt my temporary sanction instead of telling the lazy complainers to park somewhere else and WALK because my daughter CAN’T? Blimey, give me a Gendarme any day. They do undergo a total sense-of-humour bypass when they sign up but at least they have balls.

And I say again, aaaaaaargh! ('scuse me while I clear the screen of all the steam coming out of my ears).

Oh, but he did also say that I could write to the council and ask them to intervene if it’s a big problem. Er, thanks buddy but I’d rather you point out the b**ch who complained and let me argue the toss with her with the aid of one of my daughters crutches. I told a few friends about it this afternoon, after arriving at school at 4pm just to ensure I got my usual place and that Poppet didn’t need to deepen her blisters by hobbling further up the hill. They were also pretty floored by the lack of logic being applied and we are now going to spread the word and try to find out who it was for ourselves. I suspect it was someone with older kids in the upper elementary school who likes to carry out the drive-by drop-off rather than actually parking up and getting their hair mussed up. Maybe such people are actually still in the their pyjamas when they slow their 4x4s to an almost-halt by the school gates and shove their little darlings out before speeding off home for their appointment with an espresso and a Hello magazine…?

I’ll keep you posted on this one. But I have to ask, having never done school-runs anywhere else, would this happen in England?

P.S. quick Tiggy-update, day 3, she stayed downstairs all night, but pee-ed on the Persian rug. She also chundered in the car on the school-run but that travel blanket needed a wash anyway. Oh, and she did a poo for Nobby on their walk this morning! Current score is Nobby: 1, Me: 4

Look What I Got...

My brother recently sent me an email with the exact same title as this entry. The attached picture was of a shiny red car. Don't ask me what make or model it was, I am so dumb when it comes to cars and I am not ashamed to admit it. Much as I love Top Gear and a weekly dose of Jeremy Clarkson humour, I just don't get it. As long as it has four wheels and something to steer with it's just another car to me. But Bruv was clearly very proud so here's a quick congratulations. 'Congratulations, Bruv!' (He's also getting a 40th birthday next month; is there any connection? I'll check with his girlfriend whether he's also had a new haircut and bought a whole new wardrobe in case we're looking at a full-blown mid-life crisis here...)

Well, I am far too young for a mid-life crisis but clearly some mental aberration occurred on the weekend because look what I bought:

OhMyGod.

As if I didn't have enough going on at the moment, what with a daughter with a broken leg and a son with new and emerging allergies, I fell for a dog. It's more true to say, however, that the dog fell for Nobby and him for her... I tell you, it was love in that refuge. So 'Tiggy', as she is now known, is gradually becoming part of the family. She's been here 2 nights so far and stayed downstairs without complaining the first night... then had me up until 2am last night repeatedly having to take her back down to her own bed. Oh dear. I confidently told the woman at the refuge that I have had a dog before. It's now dawning on me that in reality my parents had a dog whilst I was still living with them and I didn't have to take part in any of the settling in or training processes. Rose and I were only last week discussing how we seem to need more and more to raise these children 'The Woodhouse Way' given the way our sons are constantly throwing themselves about the place making us yell 'sit!' at them several times a hour. But for all that practice it seems I still have a lot to learn. And it all looks so straightforward on Dog Borstal! I've only recently adjusted to carrying a handbag to accommodate all the paraphernalia I seem to need for the children these days and now I have added a dog-walking bag with the long lead, reward treats and poo-bags inside. Can I ask, if Tiggy and Nobby are so loved up why is it I have had to pick up all the dog-poos so far and Nobby is getting off scot-free? Surely she wants to offer him a big steaming pile of dung as a sign of affection? Or is she trying to put me in my place, I wonder. Watch this space for updates.

Meanwhile, we've finally had some visitors at the Nobby and Me household - my sister and her husband popped over at the weekend for the France v Argentina rugby match (3rd/4th place play-off). They arrived on Thursday night, just as France was kicking off it's other sporting passion, a public transport strike. Previously our local suburban line has never been affected but I think the powers-that-be have been reading my Blog about my unending run-ins with Sod's Law and so this time not one train arrived at or left our local station for 4 days straight. I had to go to La Defense at 9 o'clock at night to rescue the pair of them on Thursday. That was 'interesting' as it's a concrete jungle surrounded by ring-roads with no escape routes. Nightmare. Getting to the match was much simpler on Friday but what a shame about the result. Still at least I had some voice left for shouting at the TV on Saturday for the England game. I'm not sure why we've descended into rugby frenzy. We spent our 8 year wedding anniversary squished like sardines into the local English pub to watch the semi-final. Hardly the usual romantic night out, although we did go for a meal afterwards - at the local curry house. Still, it's been fun; my family knows how much I love a good shout.

My sister has also been dashing straight from work to the pubs to watch the games. She was meeting her hubby at a pub in Kensington for the semi-final and he sent her a text telling her where to find him when she got to South Kensington tube. When she got there, however, there were no pubs in sight; because he was in West Kensington (and had clearly had too many beers already). When she finally caught up with him she told him loudly and in no uncertain terms what a muppet he was, and let's face it she had written proof, having saved his text. The pub owner overheard and offered her a free pint to make up for it. So the moral of this story is that nagging your husband loud and long in public does occasionally reap benefits so we should all make sure we do it.

One more titbit before I have to sign off and dash out for the next school-run - with Tiggy in tow of course because I'm not confident I can leave her alone in the house yet having watched her start chewing on a table leg right in front of Nobby and me last night! Goodness knows what she'd get up to left all alone. So far, touch wood and whistle, she is ok in the car, which is a blessing since she'll be doing the 7 hour drive to the UK with us every so often, once I have her passport sorted. Mr Sod may have finally missed a trick. Both dogs we had when I was a kid had to be drugged senseless for car journeys unless we wanted to be mopping up sick the whole way. So, the other day I was discussing potential meals with the children when I realised that I didn't have any ketchup left if they wanted chips (as they usually do). Pickle pipes up with

'That's ok Mum, you can use that sauce called Barbara'. I was slightly confused by this and assumed it was something to do with having discovered the previous evening that the sugar here is called 'Daddy's' as he'd been able to read the icing sugar label whilst dowsing his crepes.

'What sauce is that then?' I asked.

'You know, Mummy, the brown one called Barbara that you put on my hot dogs,' he replied.

'Er, do you mean barbeque sauce, Pickle?'

'Yes! That's the one.'

Life is a Roller Coaster, just gotta ride it …

I am not sure I’m in the right mood for blogging but I feel the need to share the roller coaster week I’ve had.
The high was definitely Monday, surprisingly. I am normally rather Boomtown Rats about Mondays but on this particular one I finally admitted defeat in the housework stakes and engaged a cleaner. Admittedly it took me 2 hours to get the upstairs rooms in a fit state to actually dust and vacuum, i.e. being able to see the floor and furniture tops. I would usually have found some distraction or other after half an hour, like some drying paint that needed watching. But the knowledge that someone was sparkling the downstairs and wasn’t going to stop until the whole house was finished spurred me on to get down behind those shelves in the playroom and fetch out all the bits of toys that hadn’t seen the light of day for several months. Rose called me at one point and quickly asked if she’d got me out of the shower or something as I sounded slightly odd when I said hello. Oh no, I reassured her, I was just under Pickle’s bed trying to reach his stash of Thomas books that were piled up under a pile of dust underneath it.

Anyway, long story short I’m glad I’ve got some help and she’s coming again next week and doing the ironing as well! Result! Nobby walked in that evening, took a look around and asked me what had happened. I assumed he meant the clean, tidy house and not the vision of me slumped on the sofa with a glass of wine - that last bit is quite normal at nine o'clock at night. That’s when I knew I was safe to hit him in the wallet to help me keep on tops of things. Of course he’s expecting some gourmet meals from now on as I should have time to spare, but I am happy to indulge in a bit of Nigel Slater-ing if I know the bog has been cleaned within the last 7 days.

Thursday, however, was a definite low. We took Poppet to the hospital to have her cast taken off her leg and we had all been looking forward to the big day when she might finally be able to walk again. However, the surgeon took one look at the x-ray and said, ‘oh, well that’s not quite healed yet, better put her back in plaster for a few weeks.’ And that was that. The poor little might couldn’t face school that afternoon because everyone had been expecting her to walk in with both shoes on. I hadn’t been quite prepared for the muscle wastage on her thigh or the stiffness in her knee so I don’t think there would have been any actual walking happening for some time anyway.

But the new cast only goes to her knee and they have set her foot at a right angle so she can actually put it to the floor if she wants to. And I decided this morning to do away with the double pushchair on the school run and tried out my French on the policeman to reserve a parking space right by the school gates so she can walk in on her crutches instead. Of course she only hobbled as far as the gate this morning before claiming exhaustion so I had to carry her across the rest of the playground, but we’ll get there. I feel some tough-love coming on. My girl will not wimp out any longer!

Naturally, though, left to my own devices after getting back from the hospital, I fell head-long into Guilty Mum Mode, blaming myself for the lack of bone-knitting because I’m not feeding her an adequate diet. Luckily my straight-speaking Dutch friend, I’ll call her Blossom here, you know who you are!, quickly put me in my place when I told her and verbally slapped me about a bit telling me that it’s not my fault. She’s very good at it, like being walloped in the mush with a wet haddock. Its. Not. Your. Fault. Why do we mummies feel so guilty all the time?!! As a result I hit the books instead and tapped into font-of-all-nutritional-knowledge Rose to find out how I can get more calcium into her and it looks like it mostly comes down to cheese.

Poppet doesn’t eat cheese.

But she used to – so I embarked on a quest to the cheese counter in our local shop where I used to be able to get this orange coloured ‘Cheddar’ she once claimed to like and bought some this morning. The little monkey ate loads of it for lunch! And half a packet of corn tortillas which are also apparently a calcium source so I think we are sorted. Phew. Big thanks to Rose and Blossom for sorting me out.

Anyway, we’re off to another clinic tonight to try to find out what else Pickle is allergic to as he’s been having some episodes lately and we’re not sure why, since hay-fever season is over and we’re not aware he’s been in contact with any cats. Luckily it’s not all the way into Paris but I’m still not looking forward to making my way into the outer rim on a Friday night. I think we're probably looking at switching from the roller coaster to the dodgems for the journey. Oh well, the new car needs a few scratches.

What am I like??!!

Someone asked me that very question a couple of days ago when I had sent her another invitation to join me as a friend on Facebook. She’s been my Facebook friend for months already.

So what am I like? I’ll tell you. I’m like a dog who’s been chasing its tail so long it’s in danger of disappearing up its own backside. No, I mean arse of course, dammit, the kids aren’t reading this, not that they haven’t heard the word before, ahem. I’ve been so stressed out and cross that I have let slip quite a few naughty words lately and I just hope they haven’t remembered too many of them. Sadly I happen to know that children learn by virtual osmosis and you only need to whisper a rude word in their general vicinity for them to store it away in their repertoire to be pulled out again sometime soon, usually in front of guests. Although I don’t recall ever saying the phrase in front of her, Poppet came out with something I swear rhymed with ‘clucking bell’ the other day when she was struggling to put some trousers on a Barbie.

Bugger. I am a baaaaad mummy.

It’s true. And I have recent proof. I let rip at another Mummy this morning, in front of both our children, when she politely asked me to move my enormous pushchair off the road so she could park closer to me and allow more room for cars behind her. She was only being nice. But my two were already thumping each other, I had books, crutches and bags galore to cart to school and it was raining as well so the poor woman got both barrels. I was spitting feathers (and expletives) all the way to the classroom, as we walked past all the other cars whose owners hadn’t given a toss and parked several yards behind the one in front. It’s just my luck to get the do-gooder up my bum first thing in the morning.

However, before you decide I am a total monster and switch off my Blog forever, I have to say that by the time I had delivered my payload and chatted with a dozen cute little 6 year olds, who love my strange accent, I had totally calmed down and felt awful about it. So I waited by her car to apologise, and watched her flinch as I approached her; I didn’t realise I was that frightening, I was welling up by the time I got my French in order to say I was sorry. Anyway, she was very nice about and we’re all friends again. After all, there’s a still a week to go with the big buggy and I have to live here a few more months after that so I don’t really need a reputation as a ball-basher at the moment.

Anyway, I am going to spend my first kid-free morning of the week (I kept Pickle off the first few days to let the cough subside, needless to say I needed a crowbar to get him out the door this morning…) calmly dreaming up some gentler alternatives to my favourite swear-words. I like ‘clucking bell’ and Rose has found ‘molluscs’ a handy substitute for one of the ‘b’ words when you drop something on your toe. I just need something starting with ‘sh’ and several others beginning with ‘b’, although I fear it may already be too late where one of them is concerned. Poppet read me a lovely story about Goldilocks once and as she got to the part where they decided the porridge was too hot to eat straight away she said, ‘The three bears decided to go for a walk while the porridge cooled down, so they buggered off into the forest.’ !!!!!

Oh dear. I have corrupted them. What am I like?