Bikini

Nobby and I are hanging out the 15th load of washing following our return from holiday when Nobby pipes up with:
'You should treat yourself to a new bikini.'
'But I've got a perfectly good bikini,' says I. 'Has the washing machine chewed it up or something?'
'No,' says Nobby, 'but you can't wear the same bikini every day for two weeks.'
'But I just did wear the same bikini every day for two weeks.'
'Yes, and that's just a bit of feedback.'

Subtle. As a slap in the face with a wet fish. Thanks Nobby! But hey, I am still proud of myself for braving *the* bikini for the first time in almost ten years. I finally felt the world could handle my jelly belly and its about time I exposed it to some sunshine before it gets any whiter. Not that I can expect a man who turns chocolate brown the minute the sun comes out to understand my English Rose's view of the world. From day one on our holiday the first language anyone tried speaking to Nobby was Italian, convinced that no way could this dark haired, dark skinned Adonis be and Englishman. Pickle has the same complexion and is also brown as a berry now. Fortunate really when the merest glimpse of the Nivea Factor 50 bottle in my hand makes him run away screaming 'I don't want cream!!!' Poppet is pure peaches and cream like me, though, requiring a thick layer of Ambre Solaire just to walk from the hotel door to the car, and thankfully she doesn't mind slapping it on.

My normal tan lines stop three quarters of the way up my arms and legs from the shorts and t-shirt, with a nasty reddish bib round the neckline. So fetching in a strappy top. Not. But not this time. Besides, Croatia was so darned hot for the whole fortnight even a bikini was positively sweltering. And I actually don't have the worst jelly belly on the beach, you know. Seriously.

So confident was I that I blithely agreed to take part on the 'Miss Crystal Hotel' election during the first week. It didn't seem so bad - the 'Mr Crystal' election the night before had 12 blokes pretending to be Tarzan in a bid for the covetted title but I was assured that the ladies competition was 'much easier' by Kristina, the bubbly animator who roped me in.

So I duly turned up backstage at the designated time so they could take down my particulars and translate them into German, Croatian and Italian for the international audience, and I was met by a table-full of sixteen year girls and the question, 'Did you remember to bring your bikini?'

???*&!!?*!!

Yes, the reason that the ladies don't need to act like Tarzan is because there is a swim-suit round, a la Miss World. Not what I wanted to hear on the same day that I slipped and fell down on the rocks and sliced my knee. *I'm sporting the cut-off jeans for a reason here people*, and it's not because I don't have a mini-skirt because I do. So it seemed that I and a fellow Mummy were the token oldies in the group for entertainment value and you could tell by the introductions.

'Petra is sixteen years old and from Italy. She has two sisters and a fluffy kitten called Fluffy. She is studying and wants to be a vet when she grows up. In her spare time she likes swimming, horse-riding, shopping and going out with her friends.'

'Nobby's missus is 39 and from England, but lives in Hungary. She has a husband and two children and a dog called Tiggy. She works in a school and doesn't really know what she wants to be, even though she is all grown up. She likes reading and used to do jujitsu but really she has no spare time or hobbies and going out with friends requires 50 quids-worth of babysitting and taxis so she generally watches DVDs on the sofa with Nobby and a bottle and of wine instead.'

Things did not look good, although they picked up considerably when the animators brought out the free booze and only my fellow Mummy and I were old enough to drink it. We had a lovely natter over a bottle of Merlot about work and travel and child-rearing while the others compared lipstick and exam scores. Then we were paraded round the swimming pool and thrust up into the spotlight for the contest.

Round One was a 'Getting to Know You' round where we each pulled a number out of a hat which corresponded to something we had to perform. The first poor girl had to sing. The second had to mime a man getting up in the morning. It was pure Butlins really. I had to do a ballet. Yup. It could have been worse, Fellow Mummy was given a chair, a hat and Tom Jones blaring 'You Can Leave Your Hat On' and was told to do a caberet.

Next the Swimsuit Round and out came the flat, tanned tummies and belly-button rings while I dug out my one-piece and a long sarong to cover up the band-aids on my knee. While the others wiggled it the most I was prepared to do was show a bit of leg. And do you know what?

I won third prize!

So now when we play Monopoly and the Chance card says you've won a prize in a Beauty Contest I can say 'yes I have'. And the prize was an afternoon for two in the Wellness Centre Spa at the hotel and a bottle of wine, so Nobby got to reap the rewards as well, I think he was a little bit proud.

Although the Spa turned out to be of the mixed, naturist variety - I'll tell you more about that next time...

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.