Feeling all white

My back aches, my arms ache, my legs ache. My Winter workouts have begun.

No, I haven't had an aberration and joined a gym, or given in to temptation, dug my PJs out and joined in with the kids' judo class (that's next week).

It snowed.

And at our house, before we can get all excited about sledging and stuffing snowballs all over Boy-Next-Door, snow can only mean one thing - clearing the driveway. Ouch-a-rooney. Just staying upright is hard enough on the crazy slopes, let alone shovelling 15cm of snow out of the way. It's not so bad if the snow is fresh, but Tiggy and Dog-Next-Door like to come and dance around on it while we're working, compacting it down nicely and making it much harder to shift.

Is that doggy irony? Even though half the drive is snow-free they have to play on the bit we're still trying to clear?

Anyway, its a much quicker job with many hands and the neighbours, despite spending most of their lives in Lisbon and rarely seeing white fluffy stuff except on the head of their beer, are quite the dab hand at snow-ploughing. Nobby, however, was no help, but he did have a sick note.

Earlier in the week he had an invite from that British Father's Group to go out for a bevvie or two and a curry Friday night.
'I'm not sure I'll go this time,' he says, 'not with that football tournament the next day.'
'You could always go for the meal and then clock off and come home early,' says I in all innocence. 'You could do with a night out. Treat yourself!'
'Yeah, I suppose,' he said. So off he went.

I had a call at 10pm asking for the phone number of the taxi firm, which I took as a good sign after the last time (see previous posts) and he called in person at 11pm in reply to my text telling him it was snowing to discuss whether he should make a run for it before the stuff got too deep.
'We're just leaving the curry house and we're off to a bar. I'll just go and have one...'

That was the last I heard until he crept loudly through the front door sometime later and woke me up. I have a rule never to look at the time if I wake up in the night so it wasn't until Saturday morning that he confessed it was 3.30am when he finally rolled in.

Well, I thought, good for him. Bad for the football tournament but at least he had a good time. Why is there a green wristband on his arm? What does it say on it?... Mar___.co.uk??

I approached him with a pair of scissors.
'Let me cut that thing off your wrist,' I said.
He let me, but then snatched it off me and screwed it up in his hand!
'You don't need to know,' he said.
'I've already worked out you must have been clubbing,' says I, 'which one was it? I might like to go there myself.'
'Er, no you wouldn't.'
'Why not?'
'Forget it'
'Come on, what does it say? What's 'Marilyns'?'
'Well, what sort of club do I like the least and where I would definitely not take my wife?'
'I dunno, a rave?'

Yeah, I am dumb first thing on a Saturday morning.

It took me a while but I got there in the end. He meant one of those very warm places where the ladies don't wear very much and they'll let you watch them dance... for the benefit of my more innocent readers it was a flower arranging club.

So off he went to football with a bit of a hangover, and no sympathy from me. And I cleared the way for him to get his car out. Which one of us is the bigger mug?

Little Boys

Our windows have been leaking. Not all the time, I might add, mostly during rainstorms of the horizontal variety to which we are frequently treated up here in the Buda Hills. I may have mentioned one such storm that caught us all unawares last year, with me and Pickle in the my brand new (to me) Ford Focus trying to get through the flood waters that collect in a matter of minutes at the big dip in our road. Yikes that was a doozy. We had to drive up-river to our place and thanked our stars for the automatic gates and garage door.

Until we got inside the house and found the pools of water under the windows and eaves. Some of my least favourite towels have been perched in strategic places ever since.

Then the landlord called on Thursday to say that he was sending the boys round to replace the leakiest windows in the upstairs glass-area between the childrens rooms and could we please clear all the toys out of the way ahead of time?

Yeah, er, OK. Two years of accumulated toys and debris to be cleared in one evening - that particular area has been used mostly for dumping toys the kids don't play with all that often such as the baby-cots, prams and pushcairs, plastic Princess dressing table, 4 million soft animals, that sort of thing.

The quick option was to transfer it all willy-nilly into one of the bedrooms, using prior knowledge and good judgement to choose which child would make the least fuss.

Yup, we bunged it in Pickle's room.

Given Poppet's penchant for drama and anally retentive organising of her earrings and stationery, (despite the fact that she stores her clothes in a heap on the floor,) we figured that what with all the Lego strewn across the floor of Pickle's room, the half completed cardboard villages in the corners, the carpet of Beano comics and the recently re-acquired and reconstructed marble tower he was unlikely to even notice.

But notice he did and he protested as only a little boy can.

He built a camp.

There are blankets pegged to a strategically poised doll cradle, the plastic Princess dressing table and a wooden castle on top of a baby-bath. He's borrowed Poppet's sheepskin rug for carpet and furnished the den with 4 million soft-toy friends and a torch hanging from the blanket ceiling.

Tonight he announced he's sleeping in there. Oh to be a boy.

By the way, the new windows look great and it's raining cats and dogs tonight just to christen them properly. My towels are optimistically still in the cupboard.

Rant alert

It was one of those days when we had to divide and conquer to keep both the kids happy. Pickle had been selected to play in a football tournament a little way out of town and last time we tried to make such an event a family affair all we got was grief and aggro from Her Highness about how boring it was and 'Can we go now?' every 5 minutes.

So instead Nobby took the boy and we girlies settled on the sofa for some Dr Who and a bite to eat, which was great until Tiggy decided she was a girly too and planted her big arse on Poppet's lap and her head in my armpit.

Now, last weekend I ordered some new glasses so I was very excited about going to collect them and Poppet was very excited about going to a shopping centre with Mummy, who doesn't yet have Nobby's gifted mastery of the word 'No' when it comes to all things pretty that she sets her heart on.

Besides, this week we've abandoned sticker charts as bribery tools for good behaviour given that they don't get as excited about colourful bits of gummed paper these days as they do about shiny coins and paper with large numbers on them. I've been getting a lot of coffee made for me this week and I haven't had to nag about homewok as much but it really hit my wallet when I totted it all up this morning; I don't remember them being that good.

Well, I was very disappointed in Vision Express when my gorgeous new glasses, which were supposed to make me look like a proper intellectual teacher at last, had a fault on the lenses and had to be sent back. The bl**dy ridiculous thing is that they called me to tell me they were ready - hello? ever heard of quality control?? Sheesh. Of course I had to sit and wait while the bouncy blonde who bounded over to serve me when I walked in had to go off in search of someone who spoke English, though why she thought I couldn't work out on my own that the glasses had to go back when I couldn't see through them I'm really not sure.

Still a trip to the cobblers with Nobby's shoes pepped me up; the guy spoke wonderful English and did the job nice and quick. I would seriously like to clone that man and have one in every establishment at that particular shopping centre.

Because then, we stupidly went to the supermarket to get some milk and beer (an odd combination but both essential in our house.) I have never seen people more miserable in their work than the women on the checkouts in Match. Perhaps they offer a free sense-of-humour-bypass with every successful application. They certainly train them in customer contempt and utter rudeness.

As if it wasn't bad enough that Poppet announced in the cereal aisle that she's crossed another brand off her list of acceptable foods.

Her: 'Mummy, we need some chocolate Krispies because I was served (!) Cookie Crisp this morning and I don't like it any more.'
Me: 'I see. Well I'm sorry but they don't sell Krispies here. Whatever happened to your daily dose of Weetabix?' (she ate at least three faithfully every morning for YEARS until she discovered how much she liked to turn the milk chocolatey.)
Her: 'OK, fine. (sigh) I'll have Weetabix then.'
Me: '(swearing inwardly) They don't sell Weetabix here either!!'
Her: 'Right, well I'll have Cookie Crisp then.'
Me: 'But you just said you don't eat Cookie Crisp any more!'
Her: 'Can we go now?'
ARRRRRGH!

Once the checkout hag had swiped my purchases across the infra red and chucked them in my general direction, I dared to ask in my broken Hungarian if I could have a ticket for the free parking. Oh My God if she didn't just start swiping the next person's shopping through and spit out a rapid fire reply in monotone Hungarian without even looking at me. Now I know I look younger than I really am (I fool myself!!) but no need to treat me like a pesky child. It's not like I expect anyone to have to speak English in their own country, hence me scraping my vocabulary barrel to address them in their own tongue, but whatever happened to manners in this country?

On top of that, she had watched me take one of the Lego promotional leaflets from the top of the till, she saw me with a child, but she didn't give me the 6 stickers I had earned until I asked for them. And with much sighing and gnashing of teeth thrown in. Gordon Bennet we've come a long way from me getting irate at all the 'Books For Schools' tokens I used to get thrust upon me in Sainsbury's when I didn't have any kids and I never went near a school!

I don't go round with the word 'foreigner' stamped on my forehead; if I didn't have a child in tow that I'm kind of obliged to talk to then no-one would ever know I wasn't local. The crunch came today when we had been queing for ten minutes in a single line in C&A for the two tills that were open, a third one opened up and offered to serve me as I was next in line and some total cow from behind me literally RAN to get there first.

How I wish I'd kept up the Hungarian lessons and taken a crash course in swearing and insults. I would have earned a shiny diploma today with all the things I wanted to say at this point. I was always rather good at ranting in checkout queues in France. The rule there, if the queue jumper refuses to back down, is to keep up a persistant tirade of sarcastic comments peppered with the odd 'insupportable' and a couple of 'mal elever' (badly brought up).

Sadly all I managed here was a very loud, 'What do you think you're doing?' ... and she never even turned and looked at me. Neither did the checkout woman. Shame on both of you.

Innit great to be so welcomed in a different culture? Days like today, to quote the great Mr Billy Connolly, I feel about as welcome as a fart in a space suit.

More Magic

I am trying to work out if Tiggy is the dumbest or the smartest dog in the universe. You be the judge.

Every night, at bedtime, Nobby gets her a biscuit from the cupboard, which is her cue to go and get into her bed so we can shut her in the conservatory for the night. She knows which cupboard it is and no matter where she's flaked out on the floor or how asleep she seems, once that door is opened she'll be in her bed quick as lightning.

On Monday the cleaner did a major wash and polish in the conservatory and decided to pop Tiggy's bed on the coffee table so she could get the mop round. That night Nobby returned from the biscuit cupboard and sure enough the dog had disappeared from the sofa (!) but neither she nor her bed were immediately visible in the conservatory... until we switched on the light and looked at coffee table, on top of which was the dog bed, with the dog in it, ears up and waiting for her treat.

I'm thinking perhaps she's slightly over-trained, if there's such a thing?

Anyway, from disappearing dogs to disappearing Pokewalkers, when the thing hadn't turned up by Thursday night, I decided to step up the search a notch or two. I had the headmaster announce it in assembly on Friday morning and Pickle published his poster in every classroom, featuring a picture of the Pokewalker and a reward of 1500huf (£5) for its safe return. His original offer was 150huf (50p) but I upped it, never really thinking any amount would work.

Halfway through Maths, whilst I was simultaneously fashioning fish out of playdough, wrapping small people in painting aprons, tripping over plastic counting teddies and comforting a distraught little chick-pea with the tiniest paper cut you ever saw, Pickle burst into my classroom and demanded 1500 huf... before proudly producing the Pokewalker from behind his back.

Someone in Poppet's class gave it to her shortly after the posters went up. I promised not to ask any questions but as you can imagine I was dying to know where the thing had been all week until I resorted to bribery to get people to help us look for it. Especially when Pickle told me that all his settings had been changed; someone had clearly played with it.

So a valuable lesson has been learned by both Pickle and me. Don't bring electronic devices to school if you want to hang on to your eardrums should you happen to lose it. And when it comes to rewards and Primary kids, 50p will probably do.

Meanwhile, we all visited a Mamma and Baby exhibition last weekend. No, I don't have anything to announce before you go all squeaky, this thing catered for 'babies' up to the age of twelve. My stock answer for anyone who asks me if I'd consider 'going for Number 3' is 'You first.'

Besides, between you and me and the internet, now I am done with all that, I found the sea of baby bumps being variously patted, stroked or cuddled everywhere I turned actually quite nauseating. Though tinged with a hint of sympathy for the dizzying array of pushchairs, prams, cots, car-seats, cribs, moses baskets, bouncers, hammocks, swings, walkers, slings, nappies, bottles, pacifiers, changing tables, dou-dous and other crap they were trying to get their heads and their wallets round, knowing myself that you don't need half of it and what you do buy will be too small or broken within 6 months and you'll wish you'd borrowed it all off your sister-in-law after all.

Not that my lack of interest in all things baby put off any of the stall holders who happily thrust leaflets on all kinds of essential new-mother devices into my hands at every opportunity. All in Hungarian of course but more importantly, do I look bl**dy pregnant???!**$£%??!!

I still managed to get through every forint in my wallet though; these wily people really know what they're doing. They had table upon table of toys and games and puzzles laid out for the kids to try, which Poppet and Pickle made a bee-line for, once they'd tried the jungle gym and the dry ski-slope. Suddenly I was hit with the realisation that the Big C is only 6 weeks away, though mercifully none of the stalls were draped in tinsel or baubles, so that had me standing out of eye-shot gesturing to the stall holders to wrap up and tot up whatever games they were hooked on. So I came home rather laden.

This week Nobby and I took in another show, this time Joseph and His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. All in Hungarian again of course but this time the subtitles were actually working. Strangely though they seemed to have translated the English score into Hungarian for the cast then translated it back into English for the subtitles as opposedto just using the original, such was the quality of the spelling and grammar. Apparently Jacob thought his son Joseph was 'dayed' rather than 'dead'.

Well, it gave us Brits something to titter about considering we couldn't understand all the ad- libbing that Pharoah was doing; he thoroughly enjoyed playing Elvis and hammed it up big time. In all it was a great show, better than Jesus Christ Superstar even. But once again we were floored by the community clapping. We thought we'd get away with it because they unfolded a huge technicolour flag across the ceiling so they couldn't bring down the Fire Curtain with the 'hidden' encore door in it. Hmm, no such luck, they made their own door out of the set and walked down and bowed about a dozen times while the audience all clapped in time with each other! It is truly weird.

Still, it's only fifteen minutes of my life and we're considering going to see Spamalot - note to self, get seats on the end of the row for a quick getaway.

Magical Holidays

Pickle announced on the way home from school today,

'I'm going to cross my fingers and stick them together with sellotape. My handwriting won't be great but at least I'll have lots of luck.'

Bless his little cotton ones. In case you're wondering why he needs lots of luck, he made the genius decision to take his 'Pokewalker' to school today... and lost it. Naturally I am furious but it's hard to roar at a small boy who's crying his heart out one minute for his rotten luck then determinedly planning how he'll put up posters round the school to try to get everyone to look for it and discussing with his sister how much reward he should offer.

'I think 150 forints will be a good award for anyone who brings it back.' (That's roughly 50p in real money.)

I'll let you know how that one pans out. I am not looking forward to watching him tell Nobby.

So, it was our first day back at school today after the half term break. I went easy on my little ones, at least two of whom were distraught to find out that they had to come back, having thought that the previous nine weeks was all they were expected to do school-wise. Poor lambs. Several piles of playdough and a home-made cave later and they seemed a lot happier though; personally I'll be picking flecks of sticky stuff out from under my fingernails for weeks but whatever keeps them keen.

And thirteen children crammed into a sweaty tent to demonstrate the concept of needing light to see went down a storm. Not sure I should have set them searching for tiddlywinks in the dark to demonstrate how their other senses come into play when they can't see, it was a bit of a scramble. I'm kinda glad we were missing a few regulars.

Anyway, the half term break was nice. We were bitten by the travelling bug for some reason and decided to explore a little - I think Nobby secretly decided 'anything to keep her away from the computer' when he whisked us off to the lake on the first Sunday then booked us three nights in Bratislava. For the record it was a great decision to get away from it all, and I discovered that Pickle and I both have strange, magical powers.

We were looking for a lunch spot at Siofok (pronounced 'She-oh-ferk' - should I be worried that Poppet found the word 'extremely rude'??) an hour's drive away beside lake Balaton, having wandered along by the lake a little way, spotting crabs and snakes (yes, really) and trying to keep Tiggy away from the fishermen. The place was pretty quiet, having closed up most of its businesses for the Winter already. There were a couple of 'gyros' (kebab) and pizza stalls still pumping the alluring smell of hot oil into the atmosphere but Pickle had other ideas.

'I'd like sushi for lunch today please.'

Ha! we all thought, fat blummin' chance even in the summer round here. Somehow sushi just doesn't seem to fit with the Hungarian idea of acceptable cuisine, on account of its lack of stodge factor. Here's a for instance. The last Friday of school we decided to celebrate making it through the first two months of my return to work with (most of) our sanity still intact and we went to a Mongolian Barbecue. We've been to several in the UK, long, long ago of course in the Before-Children years and we thought the idea of creating their own dishes to be cooked on the griddle would really appeal.

However, we found the process has been somewhat localised to fit with the local fare and instead of picking your meat, veg, sauce and spices, they only barbecue your choice of meat - be it marinated veal, paprika chicken, or a spot of goat or horse for the more adventurous - then you can choose your veg from cauliflower cheese, dumplings, chips or pickled cabbage. Yum.

So the chances of finding a sushi bar in the prime holiday location during the off season were super-slim to positively anorexic. We drove along the shoreline with our eyes peeled for signs of life and lo and behold, there was a sushi bar, open and raring for business. Right on Pickle.

It was several days later on the way home from Bratislava, a cute, quaint and rather gorgeous city where we visited the zoo, a children's art gallery and the national museum, where there was a brilliant Maths exhibition that had me reaching for my notepad to scribble down teaching ideas, that I discovered some magical powers of my own. Prepare for another road-rant.

Oh. My. God. Those of us who grew up with 70mph speed limits on the motorways find driving in Europe a very naughty thrill where the limit is 130kmh, equivalent to 80mph. But there's always one who needs to go even faster isn't there. Or in the case of the M7 between Bratislava and Budapest there were dozens. One Mercedes was literally weaving all over the road behind me trying to persuade me to move into some non-existant space to let them past, I've honestly never seen anything like it. Then there was the Renault who came so close up my bumper I couldn't see his headlights but he could probably read the Horrid Henry book Pickle was perusing in the back seat.

I am not normally a malicious person but I really did wish these idiots... ill-will shall we say, for the sake of diplomacy. What I really wanted was an unmarked police car to shoot out of the bushes and chase the buggers down; I found myself trying to keep them in my sights in case my luck was in, right up until the shout went up from the back seat 'I need a wee!!' and I had to turn off.

After a brief pit-stop we were back on the road and you'll never guess what hove into view at a layby further on; one silver Mercedes, one ruby Renault and one lovely shiny police car. Did something mysterious happen to us at Halloween? We'll see - I'm setting Poppet on the job of finding this Pokewalker, maybe she'll levitate it out of its hiding place or something. After last week, anything's possible.