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.