Life in Blighty

I didn't realise how long it's been since I last blogged. Slightly different surroundings today from my last post: I'm in Pickle's old nursery which has now been transformed into a study.

Yup, we are back in Blighty and I hope one day to finally finish the unpacking.

The kids are at their new school; Pickle has his first electric guitar lesson today. He was inspired to take it up after the success of some friends of his in the school Talent Show in Budapest. I have a feeling once he's learned the chords to Seven Nation Army by White Stripes he's gonna give up. I just hope he makes it to the lesson. The school is more than double the size of his old one so no chance of the teacher coming to fetch him (which was always fun to watch when he had recorder lessons in Budapest, the lovely lady would always end up cross and frustrated in my classroom demanding to know where he was each week.) He flatly refused to let me biro it on his hand so I have written a reminder on his locker key which is on a string round his neck and I'm hoping for the best.

Poppet has given up piano now I've shelled out for one, and taken up singing instead, inspired by her obsession with the X Factor (which we can now watch!) She's already lined up Adele's 'Rolling in the Deep' for the Talent Show but she's still not sure what to sing when she enters the X Factor herself :-)

Tiggy and Lucky are back with us. It was a strange couple of months with no animals although the kids did their best to fill in. Tiggy has a new walking routine in lovely English countryside with no risk of deadly tick bites, hurrah! We drop the kids at school then pop over to Windsor Great Park to do her morning dump on the Queen's doorstep, cheers Ma'am. Tiggy loves the place, it is a regular doggy club there each morning with loads of furry butts to sniff. Failing that there is squirrel hunting, which she is rubbish at but loves to try. She just can't understand how the squirrel manages to get into the nearest tree before she reaches it, no matter how fast she runs. Personally I'm hoping she'll switch to pheasant chasing, I'm sure I can make a much more exciting stew out of that than some fluffy tailed, twitchy nosed rodent. The feathers would be handy too. (I am kidding you know.)

Anyway, today I will be mostly doing laundry, cleaning and cooking, like most other days now I am a housewife again (yawn). But I promise if anything exciting happens you'll be the first to know.

Big ones to all the peeps I left behind in Hungary and France. Miss you xx

Babemouth 2

Yesterday I neglected to add Pickle's latest theory on the subject of Haribo sweets. We've had an excess supply of cola bottles since his birthday party and I have been popping a few in my handbag ever since as rewards (or 'sit down and shut up' incentives, depending on the occasion).

After happily munching through a few the other day and expressing bewilderment as to why I don't like them (yuck) he announced,
'I think Haribos are designed to teach children how to chew food. Because they take a LOT of chewing to eat them. And you need to chew your food otherwise you can get fat. So I think that's what Haribos are for. Mentos too.'

I love the way he's kind of half right and half wrong, and that he's taken on board my repeated lecturing about chewing and swallowing rather than shovelling and gulping in order to leave the table quicker. Bless.

He's clearly also picked up on some of my ongoing life goals after asking me,
'Mum, if you could have one thing thats not real come to life, what would it be?'
I ummed and erred for a bit then he said,
'I reckon you'd like it to be the dishwasher, then it could load and unload itself for you while you had a nice cup of tea.'

!!!!

He's been pontificating quite a bit this morning as well while he's played with Lucky Hamper the hamster, who is about to receive his own metal-lined, airline-approved rodent box and be transported back to the UK to live with my parents.

After a short game of Hide and Seek on the sofa - Pickle places Lucky on the sofa, closes his eyes and counts to 12 then cries 'coming ready or not!' as one fluffy rear end disappears under the cushions, technically it's more 'Hunt the Hamster' than Hide and Seek but they seemed to enjoy it - Pickle declares that Lucky is cute and adorable...

'...just like me really, Mum. Like boy, like hamster.'

Now there's no disagreeing with that.

He proceeded to weigh the little mite on my cooking scales just for interest, followed inevitably by every other object on the dining table. Lucky clocked all of 47 grams compared to a litre and a half of iced tea which weighed, funnily enough, a kilo and a half. We're learning maths already and it's not even 9am here.

He then re-wrote the song 'Hey Baby, Ooh, Ah' with the words

'Heeeeeeeeeey-ey-ey Lu-cky, Ooh, Ah,
I wanna know-ow-ow-ow, oh-oh-oh, if you'll be my hamster.'

Lucky responded with one of his Mission Impossible stunts, climbing up the side of his cage bars then swinging paw-over-paw across the top to give Pickles finger a lick.

That hamster is really going to be missed.

Out of the mouths of babes

This morning Pickle grabbed hold of my ipod as we were driving to our pottery class (I have resorted to messy, touchy-feely, arty-farty stuff to try and get him off the screens and its proved quite a hit. There are other lively boys there to chat with and he's discovered a flair for crafting bees from clay.)

'Haven't you go Cover Flow on this thing?' he said.

'What on earth is Cover Flow?' I asked, but I never did find out.

Later he was discussing with his pottery buddies which Pickman is his favourite.

'What are you going on about?' I asked.

'Oh, it's just a Wii game, Mum,' he replied and carried on the discussion. I don't think I am invited into the World of Wii.

Later Poppet regaled a delightful dream she had the other night.

'I was a giant and I picked Pickle up but accidentally dropped him down the plughole. I had to take apart all the plumbing to get him out and then he stank so bad I had to bath him every day for a month. I just held him up under the tap.'

Am I the only one finding their kids' worlds a totally foreign country? Am I supposed to know what a Cover Flow is? Can't I have a favourite Pickman?

I have to say ignorance is bliss compared to hearing my own voice coming out of their mouths. Just yesterday I heard one of them lamment, very loudly,

'Oh for goodness sake!'

And when, somehow, we got onto the subject of me having more babies in McDonalds on Monday (don't ask me how) and I asked Poppet what she would say if I told her I was pregnant she replied, 'I'd probably say Holy s.*.*.t!' (She did spell it by the way but still.)

Following all his recent web surfing Pickle decided to give me the low-down on how you should never keep a deer if you have a dog. I tried to tell him that deer are not usually considered pets but he went on to tell me about how he'd watched footage of a lady feeding a baby deer, who subsequently went back to its Mummy, who then galloped over and attacked the woman's dog. Pickle takes this to mean that deer are protective of their young (probably true and very incisive) and that all baby deer are tattle-tales who like getting dogs into trouble (hmmm).

I never knew Youtube home movies were so informative.

Anyway, the big news in our house is that we are moving back to the UK next month.

Yeah, when I said big I meant BIG.

The kids are taking it really well. Poppet went atraight to her notebook to start planning her bedroom. Pickle wanted to make sure he's taking all his stuff with him, including the hamster.

As for me, I am up to my armpits in lists and plans and tidying. Poor old Nobby keeps discovering things have been put away, chucked out or sold every night. So far I've sold my car and the spare bed and I have half a basement full of other stuff we don't need to schlepp across the continent just to sit in our attic.

My folks are even in on the game. They are taking in Tiggy and Lucky Hamper early next week while the rest of us nip off on holidays (me and kids) and spangly new jobs (Nobby). They were probably looking forward to a nice relaxing summer full of dancing engagements and weekends away. Now they've got to find a hamster cage and a dog bowl and babysit instead. Big thanks to them both for helping us out.

So there you go, the expat dream is coming to an end. I am expecting plenty of bloggable episodes in the coming weeks so stay tuned.

Trolley wars

What's worse than standing in a queue of ten people at your least favourite supermarket on a busy Monday night with only three tills open?(they should rename it the rubbishmarket, there is NOTHING whatsoever that is super about it)

This is the strangely named Kaiser's, which has been taken over by Spar but they are struggling to replace the Kaiser's banner above the door. I may have mentioned it before, the place where you need a sense of humour bypass before they will offer you minimum wage employment.

The place where you can have your cabbage shredded into coleslaw for free by the sheer force by which they ram the goods over the infra red.

The place where the only way to lift your spirits is to join in the unspoken game of 'beat the checkout' by trying to get all your shopping into bags before the assistant clears the conveyor belt and un-tactfully levers the accumulated pile down the ramp at you before sitting back in her chair, arms folded, to watch you catch up.

The worst thing has to be the over-zealous assistant getting so lost in the game that she throws three bottles of beer across the bleeper with such force that one of them explodes and showers you, her and all your remaining shopping with luke-warm Corona.

I had to laugh, or else I'd have cried.

Pickles joke corner

Q: What do you call a sea creature who goes to the loo 8 times a day?
A: An Octopoos!

Q: What do you call a man with a cat on his head?
A: Claude!

Q: What do vampires have for lunch?
A: Just a quick bite.

The boy is on top form lately, whenever he comes up for air from one screen or another. Now that school is out for the summer he is getting up promptly at 7am and heading off into cyberspace on the computer, DS or Wii until I drag myself up at a more civilised hour and start negotiations to get him back into the real world.

The irony is that I had to drag HIM up at 7am every week day for the past year to get to school on time. Little bugger.

The end of school was a complete whirlwind and I can't believe I have completed a whole year's teaching already! I've also now completed a week teaching at summer school - an experience guaranteed to wipe out even the most energetic activities co-ordinator. We had a pirate theme for the week and most of us lost our voices from all the 'ha-haaaaaar!'-ing every day but luckily a bottle of rose on my terrace on friday night when it was all over proved effective medicine.

Today we are off to another summer camp but this time I am a participant and not trying to coerce anyone else into having a good time. We are doing pottery each day along the theme of 'Bugs, Beetles, Birds and Butterflies' so even Pickle may find something he wants to make. He could create a new breed of Pokemon Beetle or a Super Mario Butterfly.

As I type he is too tired for the Wii so he is watching a YouTube video of someone else playing Super Mario on the Wii to learn how to do the game! I can't decide if that's smart or stupid. Does it count as background research? Or should I be booking him into Gamers Anonymous? Given that he keeps giggling out loud it's clearly entertaining. Now is that because Mario is doing backflips or is the crazy American dude providing second-by-second commentary teaching him rude words? (I'd vet it myself but I think I'd rather eat my own spleen.)

I think I'll try to distract him back to reality with a spot of breakfast.

Not evading but drowzing

Eek, a whole month since my last confession.. er, I mean post??

Zoiks, time flies when you're up to your armpits in work all day and falling asleep on the sofa every night. Can I even remember what I've been getting up to for a month?

Of course, first there was Rome. What a lovely trip that was, despite the fun an games getting there and back with sWizz air. Still, you gets what you pays for and, for the record, I ain't paying 4 euro for a can of coke just because we're a mile up in the sky. Call me tight but I wonder if I can get a couple of wet sponges through security?

The great thing about staying with friends abroad is you get the inside story on what the place is really like. Obviously not the juicy goss on what the Pope's been up to in his off hours but little titbits about life in another land. Over here we moan about the state of the roads and how so much business is conducted in cash. In Italy it's how Romans dump their rubbish all over the roadsides.

It's really true, I promise. Every layby, parking area and much of the main roads are adorned with binbags, a most fetching sight for any tourist. And in between there are the massive dumpster bins the local government has placed at regular intervals in a hopeful, but futile, attempt at containing the stuff.

Weird.

I'm afraid my repertoire of Italiano didn't progress much further than 'Chianti por favore' but I did become a dab hand at Guitar Hero, as did Nobby. One night we were up until the wee small hours and about 4 bottles down before we finally ran out of Bon jovi to jam along to. What a great invention I tell you. Something for everyone - Nobby on bass, me on lead and Mrs K herself on vocals, with her kids shaking their heads in bewilderment at the old folk getting busy with the big toys then putting us to shame with their high speed plucking.

Naturally we stopped into wave at the boss down at the Vatican. He's got a great front yard you know. We took the kids on an open top bus around the city, bombing through St Peter's Square, tossing coins in the Trevi Fountain and gaping in awe at the Colisseum.

Pickle was very taken with the architecture and, with help from Nobby, produced a highly informative Rough Guide documentary to the Colisseum, including facts like where to find the cheap seats and how to check if a felled gladiator was really dead(red hot poker apparently. Nice.)

Poppet discovered a love of cycling and had us exploring our friends' gated community using pedal power, dodging Ferraris and Lambourginis all the way whilst straining to glimpse the Italian football stars inside them - it seems Mrs K and family are rubbing shoulders with the well-off and well-known round their way. I wonder how many of them have Guitar Hero?

After Rome we attended The Royal Wedding via satellite link at the British Embassy, daaaarling. You can't argue with a free bar, an English snack shop, a four tier wedding cake and a good old English Street Party. You should have seen the faces of some of the local folks passing by the small car park in front of the Embassy which was adorned with red, white and blue bunting, ballons and awnings while Brits in their finery munched on sausage rolls and cucumber sandwiches.

Pickle and Poppet did well on the tombola, winning a free entry to a local spa, a water pistol and a bottle of bitters. Pickle reckons that since he pulled the winning ticket, he should get to go to the spa and he devised an intricate selection process to decide who he should take along. We're hoping a pair of tickets to the circus might prove a tempting swap so Nobby and Me can go instead.

The English Shop did well out of me, though Nobby was unimpressed by the goregeously cute Union Jack door-stop doggy I had him lugging home. Luckily a couple of cream eggs soon shut him up.

Since then, sadly it has been work, work, work. I have two new students to integrate into my class, taking me to a grand total of eighteen now (yes, I can hear you UK teachers laughing - but how many of your groups of 30 are 90% non-English speaking?!) There has been fun and games chasing the incredible disappearing new-kid, who I eventually tracked down in the upper school toilets because one needs a big loo with a lockable door for one's sit-down business.

I have also banned silly bands - the latest craze here is multi-coloured, multi-shaped elastic bands which cost about £1.50 for a big bag and require close examination and swapping at every hour of the day. I had to draw the line when one child came with only his slightly blue-toned hands visible under the masses of bands round his wrists which made his arm stick to the desk so he couldn't write.

One final confession is the great night out I had with fellow teachers, which was meant to be a civilised dinner and a few drinkies afterwards. The dinner was just perfect - we are operating our own Come Dine With Me syndicate but without the scoring just yet - then somehow we ended up on party island boogie-ing away in a packed out club, fending off a new-to-Budapest party animal who was prowling the throng for new friends. I'm not sure when the signal went up for everyone to leave but we suddenly found ourselves alone on the dancefloor.

'Where shall we go now?!!' I called to B, who was trying, and failing, to give Mr Keen the wrong mobile number.

'Er, look outside,' she said.

I went. I looked.

It was daylight.

Like I said, time flies...

Busy bees

Quick straw poll - How many other working Mums, striving to do their best to keep up with juggling the dream dual lifestyle, have a husband with 15 shirts in the ironing pile??

Is it really just me? Any idea why Nobby should need more than fifteen shirts? And how he manages to get them all into the washing at the same time? Clearly I am spending far too much time enjoying my school holiday than keeping up with my chores.

The kids are being reasonably delightful. When I can drag them away from all the screens they like to glue themselves to, they have been quite creative.

Pickle produced a cute little double-bicycle for his two toy hamsters the other day. (I aim to keep him busy enough so he doesn't try to make one for the real hamster.) He showed it to us at breakfast and proudly announced, 'I've made a few improvements since the last model.'

'Really, darling?' says I, 'What did you do?'

'I've added a machine gun on the back.'

I am not sure I want to know the dangers facing these small, stuffed rodents which warrants the presence of heavy artillery so I just said 'That's nice, dear' and shut up.

Today the pair of them have produced a racing circuit round the garden which also involves jumping off the swingset, clambering up a steep embankment and leaping on the trampoline. Pickle says we are each going to have a sticker book to record our times in so I need to get my printer fixed so he can make them. Personally I am dragging my heels getting the printer fixed so I don't have to run, jump and clamber. Call Miss Lazy but I frankly, am I bovvered?

We had a welcome diversion this afternoon in the form of a free trip to watch the ice hockey world championship qualifiers at the Budapest Arena. It was my first school trip as a responsible officiating teacher and I have to say our crowd behaved themselves really well.

More than can be said for the brats in front of us, whose resulting mess will have taken the Arena staff the best part of an hour to clear up. Clearly they have not broken up from school yet, unlike us, so they'd been up at the grindstone all morning and decided to let off some steam on the school trip. Their teachers stupidly (or rather, having witnessed the chaos, very wisely) sat themselves in front of their group of fifty kids, perhaps thinking that a view of the back of their heads would be suitable warning to behave. How wrong they were.

Still, at least they all had a great time and the team I had chosen to support, the Netherlands, won the match.

Currently I am (supposed to be) wandering through that confusing and hectic world known as holiday packing ahead of our trip to Rome. I am a born procrastinator and I have to say, nothing makes me dither and dally more than the necessity to pack. So far today I have phoned the bank to tell them we are away, cleaned out my handbag, shaved my legs, tested the thermometer and dug out the suncream, but I haven't actually put any clothes in the suitcase yet.

Oh, but did iron a shirt...

School's Out!

The holidays are here! Blimey I never thought we'd make it but finally I have a morning where I can switch off the alarm, wave Nobby off to work from the comfort of my bed and not worry about occupying small people.

That is until Pickle decides he wants breakfast, Poppet needs some particular item of clothing and Tiggy's begging to go outside.

Would someone please invent a cure for little boys' backwards internal clocks? Every day of term I have to drag the little bugger out of bed, usually dressing him in the process to avoid the show-down later, but on weekends and holidays he is up at sparrow's fart wanting to get on my computer. I have a perfectly good alarm, which is OFF, did I mention, so I do not want appreciate waking up to the strains of Fred ranting away on YouTube.

It has been a busy couple of weeks at school, although I did manage to snatch a couple of days off when I caught a cold to go along with my tree allergy and couldn't make it past the bedroom door let alone the school gates. Somehow my class all managed without me thanks to my fabulous Teaching Assistant and colleagues and to make up for it we've been in full-on Blue Peter mode ever since.

I'll spare you the details but my final day at the 'office' saw me and 16 tinies up to our eyeballs in plastic eggs, glue, feathers, melted chocolate, cornflakes, tissue paper... and a live rabbit.

So far the holidays have been about as relaxed as a chimpanzees tea party, with football matches, lunches, parties - all for the kids of course. Today saw me braving the 'other side of the river' to find the Laser Quest establishment. Wow that took me back a lot of years to one certain 'team building' activity at that large company I worked in when we spent a happy evening blasting holes in our colleagues in the name of improving working relationships.

The kids played for about 2 hours and had a ball. Pickle decided after a while that stealthy hiding and creeping up on people was too much like hard work and became Rambo instead, stalking through the darkenss blasting anyone who crossed his path. Poppet was slightly more controlled and surprised herself with how much she enjoyed it.

Personally I naffed off to the local shopping mall for a sneaky burger and a mooch around Mango. We are off to Rome, daaahling, for the Easter weekend, so I wanted to get something new to pack. (Women's logic, don't try and analyse it.) The shopping centre was something of a maze though so I had to suck it up and brave the Customer Service Information point.

Rather a contradiction in terms that, could just be renamed The Point, although there is little point to it either. When faced with half a mile of mall which branches off at various places, 'downstairs on the left' holds very little meaning. Took me fifteen minutes to finally discover the toy shop where I was greeted with a vapid shrug from the assistant when I asked if she had such a thing as a frisbee.

Meanwhile I was fighting off the make-up demo stalkers left and right. Seriously, did I look THAT bad? I wasn't exactly the height of chic in my brown slacks and t-shirt, a fact that was kindly rammed home by a bunch of lads who I thought were checking me out at one point only to clock the high-heeled, tight-jeaned peroxide blonde they were really staring at. Am I bovvered? Really? (OK, a little tiny bit.)

Luckily Rose was at the other end of my texts to reassure me I looked great and translate 'eff off' into passable Hungarian for use on the slap-sellers.

The cruel truth is I should have had company today in the form of Ma and Pa but sadly they had to cancel their trip. After 2 weeks in and out of hospital with nose bleeds my Dad was finally persuaded of the logic of not hurtling through the air in a pressurised tube when just sitting on the sofa can start an episode. Poor lamb is miserable as well as somewhat sore round the nasal passages after all the stuff that's been poked up there lately. Fortunately he was OK when the kids and I Skyped him tonight so Poppet didn't have to wonder if he'd been snorting mice - apparently the weapon of choice for recurrent nosebleeds such as his is a Tampax up the schnozzer. Nice.

Get better soon Dad!

The tooth, the whole tooth and nothing but the tooth

It's a good sign someone's had a rough week when they pick up the intercom for the front gate and try to make a phonecall on it.

The perplexed look on Nobby's face while he tried to work out where the number pad was so he could dial was absolutely priceless.

Bless him, but I am not surprised he's disorientated with trips to both London and Paris this week on top of Vienna and Eger last week. I am expecting to find the car keys in the fridge any day now.

But I needed a bit of a giggle after my own rough week - it looks like Poppet, Pickle and I will be taking up residence at the dentist's from now on. We popped in to get a check up on the infamous capped tooth yesterday evening and ended up embarking on root canal work because the tooth has died.

That poor girl will rue the day she ever tried contortionism within splatting distance of an immovable object.

I have to say, watching her getting pumped full of anaesthetic and the dentist boring a hole all the way up into the root of her tooth then calling me over to have a closer look hurt me just as much as it shook her up. I now have the task of keeping the hole clean by squirting Listerine up it twice a day and inserting a miniscule spring to spruce it up like I was getting the gunk out of the plug hole. SO happy about that.

Luckily, now she's over the shock, there isn't any actual pain and I am continually impressed how kids just take stuff on board and carry on. Following our 2 hour stint in the chair last night it was 8pm and we'd had no dinner having gone straight from school after Poppet's pottery club (she's gonna switch to ceramics and get to work on a new tooth now, hee hee!)

We spotted a MacDos on the way home and stopped in for the easy option and somehow Poppet polished off a McNuggets McMenu and a chocolate McDoughnut still with half her face numbed and a tube sticking out of the borehole in her tooth. I had to have a Big Mac just to get over it (well, that's my excuse.)

So now Poppet is the class celebrity having worked out she can freak out all her friends by showing them her pet borehole. Though she wasn't impressed by the class who played an April Fool on her class by stealing all their clothes while they were in a swimming lesson...

The rest of us guffawed of course, a classic prank, nice one.

I managed to avoid all April Fools and instead my own little brood became April Stars by performing 'The House That Jack Built' and 'The Mouse and the Lion' in assembly. I nearly exploded with pride. We repeated the show for all the mums at the end of the day and I definitely saw some moist eyes amongst the audience (when all the camcorders moved out the way.)

Anyway, at this moment Nobby's just popped out to get beer and there's curry on the way so I think, barring any mishaps, Friday night wind-down should be good. This week can only get better.

Every Cloud

There are words you don't really want to hear when your husband and 10 year old are using your precious laptop which contains all your work, studies and irreplacable family photos.

And which you haven't successfully backed up for two months.

Words like, 'Oh, no! Quick, run and get a cloth!'

Now my little Poppet had the best of intentions, letting her Nana, who was calling on Skype, admire the lovely flower arrangement Daddy brought home for Mummy. She just doesn't realise yet that you don't have to get objects within two centimetres of the camera to be able to see them AND that if you tip up a vase of flowers, water will out.

There are sounds you don't want to hear from your precious laptop after a dowsing with flower water. Sounds like 'beep beep beep beeeeeeeep.... [silence]'

To say I was angry would be a gross understatement but I channelled my passion into flipping off the keys one by one so I could wipe up all the water. I knew that sandwich year placement in technical support would come in handy one day.

Thankfully the machine still works, apart from the left mouse button which I think may still be having a lazy soak before towelling himself off and returning to work.

...and I now have a full backup.

Bookworm

I came downstairs this morning to find Pickle sitting cross legged on the floor reading a dictionary. Not a kid's one either, the full house-brick-sized Oxford one, with Thesaurus, that Nobby and I use to help us with the Telegraph crossword.

'Wow!' said I, very impressed with his thirst for knowledge, 'have you been finding out what words mean?'

'Sort of,' he replied, 'I'm looking up swear words.'

'Oh. Did you find any?' I said, hoping that ours is a concise version without a full compliment of expletives.

'Not many, but did you know that 'crap' is also a game?' he said.

I suspect he meant Craps, but at least he learned something new.

Tales of the Unexpected

I learned early on, after having babies, to lower my expectations considerably. I think it was about day three with Poppet when I finally realised that having a shower and getting dressed were about all I could really expect to get done in a day with a screaming newborn around.

Nobby took a while longer to adjust. I swear he uttered those immortal, marriage limiting words 'What have you been doing all day?' more than once when he came home to wall-to-wall baby toys, nappy sacks, breast pads and no dinner on the table in the early days.

But he too adjusted and soon started to try and praise his poor woolly headed wife for all the things she had done rather than the thousand and one things she hadn't. 'Thanks so much for washing my pants, don't fret, I'll eat tomorrow night, dear.'

The children have seen fit to throw us a curve ball or two over the years. Like Pickle and the 100 foot tree episode. He still likes to tell the story now of how he could only see the top of my head as I wandered beneath a fir tree looking for my four-year-old son who I could hear calling 'Mummy!' but couldn't actually see... until I looked up.

Then there was Poppet on that bouncy castle and the resulting ride in a French ambulance to fix her broken leg.

I should have seen today coming, and indeed with my history and parentage I full expected the diagnosis. I still remember the day I was told by the school to make sure and give a letter to my Mum after one of those 'routine' doctor visits when I was seven years old. Not the nit nurse this time though, a proper doctor.

I did my best for them, marrying a bloke with disgustingly perfect vision. But I was startlingly unprepared for the Hungarian Opthalmologist telling me this evening that both my kids have succumbed to my batfink gene and developed myopia. It was with a heavy heart that I walked them downstairs to the specs shop to pick out frames for their new glasses, which in their own mysterious, chummy little way will be exactly the same prescription.

They, on the other hand were chuffing delighted!! You never saw more excited parading in front of the mirror, weighing up chunky pink versus delicate lilac frames, and Cliff Richards versus John Lennon. I am insulted by the choice they get as well. That miserable day back in 1977 when I was told to pick out some NHS specs my options were pink, blue, clear plastic or tortoiseshell.

I kid you not, Pickle tried on three pairs and looked amazing in every one, the little bugger. Poppet took a while longer but ended up with some gorgeous dark red 'Chippies' with tiny puppy dogs emblazoned on the arms. We are collecting them on Wednesday and they absolutely cannot wait.

I really didn't expect that at all.

Going round in circles

Spring has sprung... off.

To be precise, Spring sprung into Budapest, hit our trampoline, performed a triple salco and a double backflip and sprang back out again. The tulips haven't noticed, there are shoots a-sprouting all around but it's chuffing chilly again since Boy-Next-Door took an optimistic dip in their swimming pool on Bank Holiday Tuesday last week.

Poppet has been moaning that the house is cold - er, that'll be because I confidently turned the heating right down when the sun came out - but it could also be because she will wander round the house dressed in summer tops and cropped trousers. Not because it was sunny on Tuesday; she's been doing it all winter long. I sometimes wonder if she thinks she may be in the Big Brother house, treating every day like a fashion parade.

But the happy mood has remained and I heard some fantastic Yankee-bashing banter at the kids football practice yesterday which I feel the need to share.

Another kids Dad was asking me about the Cricket Club that just started up - and which my kids LOVE. An American friend standing with us started giggling, claiming he can't take the sport seriously.

We thought at first maybe the word 'cricket' must make him think of what is known in proper English as a 'grasshopper' and he was picturing chaps in white leap-frogging all over a grassy field. But no. He went on to say, 'All those grown men running backwards and forwards between two posts in their pyjamas just creases me up.'

Oh dear.

English Dad retorted, 'Well, at least our 'pyjamas' don't look like our Mums shrunk them in the washing so they're skin tight, unlike your beloved baseball gear. And we know how to put our hats on the right way round.'

That got him on the back foot, and he confessed he didn't really know enough about the game to argue further. Which was a red rag to a bull of course.

'See, with cricket we don't need gloves to catch the ball, we use our bare hands like real men.'

'The bloke behind the stumps isn't wrapped up in a duvet and a Hannibal Lecter mask either.'

'And there are no funny hand signals looking like you're scratching away at your nuts on live television.'

(Actually at this point I thought, 'yes, but they do rub the ball on their crotch before everyone goes round handling it with their bare hands...' but I didn't say anything.)

All in all I reckon it was England 3 : USA 0 by the end of the last over. But it still doesn't explain why you can buy baseball bats, balls and gloves a-go-go here in Budapest but after trawling the three biggest sports stores we find there's not a single cricket bat in sight. Maybe Hungarians prefer running in circles as well.

I found out last week that they like to dance in circles, though...

Nobby and I had one of our rare nights out having secured the kids a double sleepover (hurrah!). First we did a wee spot of shopping without the lilting sounds of 'Can we GO now?' 'Do we HAVE to go in here?' and 'I'm HUNGRY!' while we browsed.

Then we popped out to the theatre to watch 'Cats' at the Andrew Lloyd-Webber-obsessed establishment in town. So far we've seen 'Phantom', 'Jesus Christ Superstar' and 'Joseph' so we're working our way up to a full set. I'd never seen Cats before but thanks to the subtitles not working on the night I've now seen it twice because we had to borrow the DVD starring Elaine Paige afterwards to find out what the hell was going on.

In order to recover from the obligatory Community Clapping (I guess that counts as applauding in a circle, no?) we hit Time Warp Central, the bar in town I normally go to with girlie friends and end up leaving in the wee small hours not having noticed the night slipping away. There was a band setting up in the main dancing room so we took a turn around the rest of the place while we waited for them to finish.

Nobby and I love a bit of people watching. This bar has a balcony from where you can watch all kinds of goings on, such as the Stag Party approaching the Hen Party for a bit of joint revellry. Oh deary dear. Miss Blondie McTits-on-Show soon had Mr Speccie McGeek leaning in way too close for comfort - the music wasn't that loud, I reckon he was just trying to get a better view down her top. Her companion Ms Feisty McBallsy clearly didn't appreciate the attention, despite pulling the chief stag and was soon showing him how she could use a rolled up magazine as a lethal weapon.

Anyway, we eventually headed back up to see this band and could not quite understand what had been going on while we'd been absent. The entire room had turned into a long chain of people holding hands, doing some River Dance thing with their feet before swinging their arms up and down and moving on to the strains of some gypsy-cum-Turkish-cum-Greek style music.

Perhaps it was the Hungarian version of the Locomotion?? No idea, but there was definitely not enough rum in my coke to persuade me to join in. And after Nobby got stepped on for the third time and we were gradually being boxed into a corner by the dance we decided to scarper.

Gimme cricket pitches and square dancing any day.

Next day when I went to collect the kids to find they were staying in a circular house...
I am expecting meet myself coming the other way at any moment. I'll let you know.

Boys Behaving Badly

I had a glimpse into the future today.

Nobby somehow persuaded Pickle to accompany him on a long dog walk 'up to the flagpole' this morning. I suspect a bundle of bribery was involved but anything to get the little screen-hopper out into the fresh air. Especially considering today was one of those strange mid-week public holidays which we always reckon we'll use as an opportunity to get in the car and get out of the city but then we always sleep in late while the kids hit the electronics and can't be torn away from them.

And the air has been LOVELY today! Hopefully, touch wood, I can stop moaning about sodding snow and cold weather and finally pack the thermal socks away for a few months. Spring would appear to have sprung over here. I even saw a snowdrop at the weekend. So I did not mind at all shelving the three hours in the car to go visit a castle (which would probably be shut when we arrived anyway from past experience) and instead I got busy with the home-made compost and some long-overdue gardening.

I also collected all the dog poop off the lawn now it's not buried in snow, but that may be over-sharing. Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'what a bag of shite.'

So at lunchtime Nobby invited Pickle tell us girls about the lovely chat they had enjoyed during their walk (having previously informed me that Pickle had almost talked his ears off for forty minutes).

'Oh yeah,' says Pickle, 'we were talking about how Tiggy wags her tail when she's happy.'

'That's nice dear,' says I, 'she wags her tail a lot doesn't she.'

'Yes, well, I told Daddy I was wondering if a boy dog could wag his willy when he was happy instead of his tail!' he continued, gleefully.

'Oh really?' says I.

'Yeah! And then when a girl dog was happy she would waggle her boobies!' he guffawed and then proceeded to model what waggling boobies might look like... ON ME.

What a charming child. Meanwhile Nobby is sitting there grinning away and high-fiving the creative genius.

So now I know what is to come once Pickle reaches beer drinking age. It'll be like having Gary and Tony Behaving Badly on my very own sofa, trying to decide whether they prefer breasts or bottoms.

Can't wait.

My son

We were sitting in TGI Fridays the other day, doodling on the back of the paper place mats while we waited for the servers to finish flirting with each other and come and take our order. Poppet loves a game of Hangman while she waits but she clearly swallowed the thesaurus as an appetiser this time, giving me words like 'jacuzzi' and 'bizarre' to guess instead of her customary 'mummy' and 'rosie'. The cunning cow.

Pickle, on the other hand, got to work on drawing an adventure maze, oddly reminiscent of a Super Mario game, (no idea where he gets his ideas from). He then tore off a corner of the paper and drew a little figure to try his luck in the maze. He moved it all over to me so I could admire his work.

'Lovely!' I exclaimed,' what a cute little teddy bear you've drawn there! Cute little ears and a sweet face. He's got very large claws though, hasn't he?'

'No Mum, those aren't his claws,' says Pickle.

'What are they then, darling?'

'Those are his guns.'

That Friday Feeling

I was going to try for the sympathy vote: 'Oh poor me, Nobby's away for the night leaving me all alone,' but of course I am never really alone with my two little people in tow.

Especially when they interpret 'Time for bed!' as 'Time for a disco in Pickle's room.'

Whose idea was it to buy the Crazy Frog album anyway? I used to love the tune 'Popcorn'; I remember my parents had the original Hot Butter version on vinyl when I was little myself. It's not quite the same with the 'brrrrrrrrrring, bing!'s thrown in by Monsieur Frog.

Though I have to say 'Who Let The Frogs Out?' did raise a titter at the end of a long week at school.

It's been a strange week with almost half the class out with a bug. You'd think that such drastically reduced numbers would be a doddle to teach. Er, WRONG. They reckon since hardly anyone is there then they can just play, otherwise it's 'not fair!' to expect them to work while their contemporaries are at home. 'But all the others are going to miss this; we should wait for them to get better and work next week instead.' (under their breaths saying 'Yeah, we may be 5 but we ain't stupid.') What they don't appreciate is that the others are at home in bed, coughing up a lung and they should count their ruddy blessings.

One boy got so bored he asked his Mummy to turn off the TV, put away the DS and ask his teacher to send him some work from school...

I had the pleasure of teaching my oldest offspring today as her teacher was off sick too. I was not sure how to get her classmates to take me seriously with her wrapped round my leg like a friendly ferret sniping 'Don't be rude to my Mother!' at anyone who shouted out.

Pickle has had an amazing week. He finally sorted out his desk and actually did all his homework. I could speculate as to how long his teacher sat on him to achieve this result but his just reward came this afternoon when he won a competition to invent a blend of tea. Who would have thought he'd take on a challenge like that? we'll make a Jamie Oliver of him yet.

Nobby has asked me not to diss him in my Blog after he hit a rather slippery slope earlier in the week. I just want to record for posterity that I forgive him. But I still think he was a twit.

Now for some staff notices.

- Would the person who has kidnapped Spring please return it as soon as possible because we have all had enough of the chuffing snow. Lovely to see the flowery sentiments and appreciation of how beautiful Budapest looks under a glistening layer of crisp whiteness on Facebook statuses, but these people clearly didn't have to get up at 6am, dig out the ski gloves and shovel the stuff off a steeply sloping driveway.

- Winner of Star of the Week goes to my landlord for a) fixing my kitchen tap without spraying the entire room like I would have done and b) finding me a cleaner who not only makes the house smell clean but actually cleans it as well. In the words of my favourite saying at the moment, Top Banana.

- Please be on the lookout for Tiggy's appetite. She seems to have lost it recently, judging by the barely tickled bowls of biscuits every evening. We've been to the vet; Poppet accompanied me, concerned as she was about the poor mutt, who strangely isn't losing any weight and will accept treats until the cows come home.

This is the same dog who developed bladder trouble when she sussed we were moving house then became perfectly normal once we moved in... Only I could have picked the psycho doggy.

Poppet became less gushing when the vet decided to run a test for microbes and approached Tiggy's rear end wielding a cotton bud and a petri dish... she's decided against vetinary medicine as a career path I think.

The result was negative though, so why-oh-why is the this dog avoiding biscuits yet will pick them up one by one and drop them on the floor to get at any gravy or meat I hide underneath as a crafty reward? And why did it all start on the day I fed some of her food to a mangy stray who'd been hanging round the gate tugging on my heart strings for 3 days?

Well, please think of me tomorrow trying to turn Saturdays into Sports Days for the Nobby household. I remember when I was their age there was only 'boring' Grandstand (sports) on the telly all afternoon but it never occured to me to go outside and run about. Well, my kids are getting the treatment now - wake-up call at 8h30, football at 10 and cricket at 12h30.

Yeah, ok, and McDonalds at 12.

Bribery and corruption before we even start? - I may be 41 but I ain't stupid.

All dressed up and snow-where to go

So, we made it through another skiing holiday without breaking anything, other than the bank. Oh. My. God. How expensive is it to buy a benign-looking lift pass which enables you to be dragged up a hill perched on a t-shaped sliver of plastic, trying to chat casually to your loved one whilst hanging on for grim death, before the inevitable Tom and Jerry style wipeout when you both try to get off at the top and tangle your skis?

200 smackers that's how much.

If you fancy a sit down you can also brave the eight-man chair lifts which either try to take you out at the knees as they whip round and under your butt at the bottom of the ride or narrowly miss decapitation of the entire group if you're too slow off the mark jumping off at the top.

At the resort we went to there was also a wonderful 'scenic train' where you can bundle on with 100 or so of your most distant acquaintances, skis in one hand, poles in the other, elbows in your back and fluffy hats in your face, and all rock in unison up the mountain for the most claustrophobic three minutes of your life, ears popping all the way.

Pickle really didn't like that one but managed to amuse himself by head-butting his sister in the face with his ski helmet to pass the time whilst I entertained the entire passenger list with a loud rendition of 'how many times do you need to be told...'

Anyway, I am painting a grim picture but in actual fact, ski lifts and extortionate prices aside, it was the best ski break we've had yet. The kids enjoyed their ski-school so much they started staying for lunch so Nobby and Me got a whole FIVE HOURS to ourselves!! Of course we used the time wisely, fitting in at least one morning hot chocolate break and an afternoon gluhwein stopover in addition to lunch.

Well, it gets chilly up there zooming down mountain trying to keep up with Speedy Gonzales on skis. I think Nobby forgets I do very little exercise apart from bending over and kneeling down to five-year-old height all day long while he still goes crazy on the footie field once a week.

The hotel was one we've been to before - look back about two years ago and you'll find my Catherine Tate style lamentations about the 'peas in aspic' incident and the fluorescent sour cream debacle. I have a sneaky feeling they've taken on a new chef since then as there was mercifully no jellied veg in sight this time. There was a questionable 'strawberry-pepper sorbet' at one point - literally a strawberry sorbet containing whole peppercorns, served in a whisky tumbler filled with something vaguely alcoholic. ???

On the very first night Pickle had a falling out with the spotty teen running the 'kids club'. We had soooo been looking forward to packing the brats off to a babysitter who promised in the paperwork to feed and entertain them for two hours while we adults relaxed over a candlelit, wine soaked dinner. Especially since the day we arrived, after six hours festering in the car together, was my birthday. (I quite like this new found tradition of travelling to celebrate my advancing years - last year currying it up in Reading, this year whizzing off to the Alps... though I think I might aim for a flight to Tuscany next year if its all the same to Nobby.)

Yet we hadn't even made it past apperitifs in the bar before Pickle came running in wailing loudly and declaring 'I am NOT going back to that club EVER AGAIN!!!' By all accounts it all seemed to come down to a misfire during a pillow fight which resulted in Pickle's head ricocheting off a nearby wall, I'm not sure we'll ever know who really started it, though I did send the hotel manager in for a quiet word with Mr Spotty to remind him which one was supposed to be the responsible adult in the room and to suggest taking a deep breathe when the coca-cola powered eight year olds get a little busy with the furniture instead of returning fire.

Poppet made quite a few friends, particularly several little girls who spent the entire evenings hero-worshipping her. During the day her skiing came on a treat and she has abandoned the 'pizza' position for parallel skiing like a true pro. 17.5 seconds coming down the ski-school slalom race secured her 5th place and a cool medal. We are very proud parents.

So we all came back down to earth with a bump on Saturday after another 6 hour drive back to the laundry and homework. I have washed just about everything we own since then whilst learning some fascinating facts about the Thames for Poppet's river project. Nobby and Pickle decided to raid the cupboards for Pickle's tea project and had a great time sellotaping samples to a piece of A4.

Meanwhile Tiggy and Lucky returned from their pet-sitters, well fed and well exercised. Lucky managed to instigate a full maintenance check of the entire heating system at his sitter's house. No, he didn't escape, thank goodness. He just arrived while the man of the house was out of town then made some very loud noise on his wheel when he came back and was relaxing in front of the TV. Poor bloke thought the boiler was coming apart and spent a good half an hour examining its inner workings in the basement before discovering Lucky and his pneumatic drill-sounding wheel in the laundry room when he popped upstairs for a spanner. The spanner.

Today we were all back to school and work after the lovely break, refreshed and ready to get on with the next eight weeks of term until Easter. I've bundled all the thermals, ski socks and salopettes away in the basement and rounded up all my Easter Bunny and cute little chick stencils and stickers in preparation for this term's arts and crafts frenzies...

... and this morning it snowed.

Ranting and Randoming

I have a few ponderings on this fine, Thursday evening.

Is a bad cleaner really better than nothing when you've a new job and a mucky pair of kids and a big hairy dog?
Until the other week I was happy to answer 'yes.' However I am now ready to remove the word 'MUG' from my forehead after two years of my crap cleaner and say emphatically 'NO.' I fired her on Monday and I can honestly say, no cleaning this week has left my house just as clean as her tickling it with a tissue twice a week and charging me 5 quid an hour for the privelage.

I haven't left it entirely untouched of course; Anthea would never stand for it and she'd be straight round to snaffle my golden loo-brush. And as a result of my efforts I have found places in my house which have spent so long without seeing the business end of a vacuum cleaner, duster or mop they visibly flinched when I came at them with the Dyson. My ornaments and furniture are acclimatising to the new sensation of being lifted, dusted and replaced onto a freshly wiped surface rather than the usual frustration of the duster whizzing past faster than light speed.

I'm still undecided about getting a replacement cleaner in. I actually quite like the break from frantic tidying two nights a week so that there are no obstacles that might impede progress or lead to another shitty note either asking me to tidy up or requesting more money for the inconvenience of having to dodge a stray piece of Lego.

Pickle has offered to help me out for a couple of hours every weekend, having expertly hoovered up a year's worth of dust bunnies and dog hair from underneath the sofa this evening. He's clearly heard me ranting because although he did demand payment, he offered 'not to be greedy and only ask for half what the cleaner got.'

Oooh, can you detect some bitterness coming off me?! Let it go, girl. Nasty text messages accusing me of treating her 'like a criminal' notwithstanding (how on earth can giving her two weeks money as a pay-off be construed as bad treatment?) the deed is done and I can sigh with relief, leaving my possessions wherever I ruddy well choose.

Moving on, how did I come to have such amazing neighbours?
I must have done something good once because the family next door to us are such diamonds. We were all invited to tea on Sunday where they served up Earl Grey and freshly baked scones and a huge chocolate cake. It was like a scene out of the Famous Five, only without the lashings of lettuce and buckets of ginger beer.

One other neighbour rang at our gate the other evening to tell me 'I've rescued your bicycle.' It took me a second or two to work out what she was on about. She was referring to the old, clapped out BMX bicycle I found in the shed last weekend and had left out on the road to be 'recycled'. I don't mean by the recycling lorry, I mean by someone walking past, seeing an abandoned, saleable item and nicking it. It's worked several times before with old shoes, another old bike, piles of wood etc. I thought it was understood that whatever was left unattended in the road was ripe for a swipe.

But I didn't factor in my generous neighbour who walked me down the road to her house to retrieve my precious pile of junk telling me 'it's a miracle it wasn't stolen,' and I didn't have the heart to tell that was exactly why I left it in the road in the first place. That really wouldn't have done after all her trouble but I do wonder where all the thieves have gone to.

So, tell me. When you're knackered after five weeks solid teaching and you've a week-long holiday from your class of little darlings, will six days of throwing yourself down mountains with long planks strapped to your feet really help you unwind?
Yes, we are off skiing. And I am wondering if we shouldn't have traded in the snazzy ski-suits and crazy bobble hats for a bikini and a kiddy club at Center Parcs instead. I know, we'll have a great time; after all I won't have to cook or clean for seven days and the hotel has a pool, jacuzzi and sauna. It's just the packing blues talking.

Despite a very thorough Holiday Packing List which we've used for many years now, removing the kids' obsolete items (nappies, potties, pushchairs) and adding new essentials (i-pods, Nintendos, hair straighteners) as we go, I always manage to forget something and I am a total bear for the first ten minutes of any holiday journey while I run through a mental checklist trying to work out what the hell it is this time. I'll let you know in a couple of weeks, I just hope it's not the hamster.

Also this week: could my kid BE and cooler as Prince Charming in the school production of Cinderella?
His entrance was to saunter on stage in a leather jacket and sunglasses, flick his collar up a la Eric Cantona, pause in front of a girl in the audience and give her a quick 'Hey!' before grabbing Cinders for a tango. What a heart-breaker! He even sang a solo - 'The Smelly Feet Blues' - during the search for the owner of the glass slipper and I swear I heard a wee sniff from Nobby who was watching proudly beside me.

Poppet also had a part to play. Small but essential - she was a door. When Princey-boy goes banging doors across town, rounding up all the totty to try on the shoe, several helpers held up cardboard doors for the full effect. Every so often a little face peeked out from behind door number one - that's my girl. I did a tiny bit: making-up the ugly sisters. Poor lads. I don't think they really knew what they were signing up for when they agreed to play a part in the show. One nearly bolted when he realised he had to wear a dress and seeing me coming at him with a rack of face-paints, lipstick and mascara did not help the stage fright. But I think I made a decent pair of horrors out of them and they totally stole the show.

Finally, are there any better bands out there than The Australian Pink Floyd Show?
Because I think not. Lovely Nobby earned himself a pasting on my Facebook page last week by calling me at 4pm on Thursday telling me to get a babysitter for Friday night. Yeah... OK. Does he not know by now, if it was that simple we'd be out every Friday night.

The babysitter was busy of course, but free on Saturday. 'No, it has to be tomorrow night,' was Nobby's reply.

Luckily I managed to flog the children to friends for a rare 'double sleepover' instead, though it didn't stop me dissing my man big style on my FB profile and getting a lot of agreement from my friends that men always book the romantic night out first and childcare second (or not at all). A whole Blog entry could have been devoted to exploring that one, had he not thrust two tickets to see TAPFS, as they are tongue-twistingly known, at me when he arrived home.

I never made it to a Pink Floyd concert when they were still going strong. My brother was treated to The Wall back when we were younger but I am quite pleased to be able to report I was too young to go too. (There aren't many things I am too young for so I take my kicks where I can, so there.)

I can only imagine it was something like the total frontal assault on the eyes and ears that we experienced at the Budapest Arena on Friday night. What an AMAZING show!! Despite Nobby's heavily barbed comments on the age and dress sense of the crowds pouring through the doors with us when we arrived, he also had a great time. And it wasn't just because they blew up a giant inflatable teacher for 'Another Brick In The Wall' or a giant inflatable red-eyed Pig for 'Run Like Hell'.

It was probably the giant inflatable kangaroo that did it...

In the words of my ten-year-old, whatever. They were totally awesome. Nuff said.
Thanks Nobby x

Wobble

My neighbour just popped round and asked me if the earth moved for me.

Now, although we're pretty friendly I wouldn't say we're close enough for that kind of question actually. Besides, Nobby was nursing a hangover whilst watching Manchester United trying to get a goal back against Southampton so the only thing likely to move from his direction was his hand to his forehead.

Then I remembered the gaggle of girlies enjoying Poppet's 10th birthday party upstairs. I am still struggling to come to terms with having a ten a year old, no wonder I'm going so grey, especially coupled with the 17 five year olds I am looking after all week as well, but that's another story.

I'm pleased to report that birthday parties get less labour intensive as time goes by. I didn't have to fork out a fortune to spend three hours of my life slowly going deaf in the local play centre while hyped up kids perform death defying feats on various inflatable animals. Nor did I have to trawl the shops for party favours, pass-the-parcel prizes, balloons and sweeties then rearrange my house to accomodate a class-load of kiddies.

Poppet was offered a sleepover for three friends, which somehow evolved into a sleepover for six friends, but she took on all the organising and entertaining herself. I just had to provide the pizza and cake, make-up and nail polish, set a nice dinner table and make some 'truth or dare' cards. Just before my neighbour came round Poppet was leading them in a merry game of Murder In The Dark with a LOT of screaming. They proceeded onto a recreation of the X Factor later on, no quieter really.

But no, it was none of this. Pickle couldn't have done anything as he is away on a sleepover himself, the second one this weekend. Seriously he has a better social life than me.

It turns out there was an earthquake measuring 4.2 on the Richter Scale - and whilst the neighbours felt the earth move and watched all the beach balls wobble into the swimming pool from the vibration, Nobby and me missed it.

Clearly too chilled over here. We'll catch the next one.

You don't have to be mad to live here, but it helps

My final comments from my last post were bound to set me up for a fall, weren't they? I am the master of shooting my mouth off and regretting it soon after. I wonder how Nobby lets me out on my own. He must have to brace himself every evening before he walks through the front door, never knowing what acts of madness are waiting for him on the other side.

Actually, thinking back to our Christmas trip home, I can't be left alone for even five minutes. Let me tell you the story.

Our flight to Gatwick was delayed on Boxing Day, but we still had to turn up and check in at the original time - nice logic there slEasyjet, thanks for that. This left us needing to occupy two excited monkeys for three hours without the aid of a play area, Nintendo Wii or DVD player.

At first we set up camp in the cafe by the Arrivals gate as the hour-long queue to get through passport control and security didn't really appeal. We played a few rounds of Uno as a family, a touching scene if ever there was one, until Pickle decided to change all the rules, Poppet got miffed because she didn't win and Nobby and me wondered once more where their competitive streak comes from. (It's definitely him!)

So I took Pickle off to calm down and whoever coined the phrase 'Necessity is the mother of invention' may well, I suspect, have spent time trying to amuse an eight-year-old at an airport. Armed with just a couple of Mars bar wrappers and a smeggy tissue we invented the game of 'Bin Basketball.' The airport kindly provided a back-board by having the bins up against the wall and a convenient oche/ockey line from which to throw. Pickle was as happy as larry having a brand new game to dictate rules for. I persuaded him that requiring Mums to shoot blindfolded was a little unfair but I conceded to having to kneel down, to the amusement of several onlookers.

Nobby was probably quite happy left alone with Poppet, knowing that the 'divide and conquer' method works pretty well with our two. But he didn't count on the 'Missus Factor' and you should have seen his face when I returned from the bins five minutes later carrying a large, sleeping baby.

No, I don't mean Pickle had stopped for a catnap, chance would be a fine thing. In just five minutes unsupervised by a responsible adult I had acquired a stranger's baby. A lady had just arrived from the UK travelling alone with said infant and she needed to put him somewhere while she dug in her bags for her phone charger so she could call her mother. Well, she couldn't very well pop him on the floor so she asked me to help. Then it turned out her phone charger didn't fit the socket she'd found so I offered to let her use my mobile. Which is why we ended up back at the table to fetch it from my handbag.

Nobby relaxed a little when I introduced the Mum but then, after her call, she said she needed to get a taxi, if I wouldn't mind holding the baby a little longer, and she hurried off out of the airport exit. This is the moment when Nobby went white as a sheet and demanded what I was going to do with my new acquisition if she never came back. He had a point I suppose. Total stranger asks you to hold a baby then buggers off out the door... if you're an eternal sceptic that one could send you into overdrive.

Anyway, she DID come back and take her baby but Nobby decided standing in the passport control queue would be good way to keep a better eye on me so sadly we'll never know who won the inaugural game of Bin Basketball. (Think I'll let Pickle have it.)

Well, I've been pretty good since that episode, right up until I decided two guinea pigs were better than one, despite Nobby insisting one was more than enough. I think meeting the little fella softened him up though, and he even managed to satisfy his football fanaticism by changing 'Gary' to 'Gazza.'

But I am sorry to report that little Peppermint didn't make it through his first week with us. I found him acting listless and unhappy on Sunday morning and sadly he died a couple of hours later. Poor Poppet was distraught and given that she was ill all weekend herself and has since been diagnosed with bronchitis and signed off school for the week she's really on a very low ebb.

So since Sunday afternoon I have been back and forth to the vet several times, first taking poor Peppermint for an autopsy, which showed he died from a parastic infection which he already had when we bought him, unbeknown to us. Then Gazza had to go to be checked out and I experienced the fun game of 'Hunt the Poo' - searching for stool samples in his carry box so the vet could check whether he was also infected. Then we did some complex maths trying to work out the proportions of medicine to give him when it's 10ml medicine per 30kg of animal and this one only weighs 250 grams. And finally a quick round of 'Squirt the Medicine in the Guinea-Pig', which went surprisingly well.

Lucky Hamper the hamster has also been in for a checkup and a game of Hunt the Poo and tonight Tiggy needs to get a blood test to confirm her rabies jab was effective.

... I'm not sure Nobby ever wanted to live in a zoo. If I was him I'd install Mummy-cams and revoke my financial priveleges before he gets any more 'surprises'. Poor bloke.

He's probably bitten his nails down to the quick by now, knowing that I am staying home alone with Poppet for the next two days while she guzzles the jungle juice and recouperates. He had no choice but to leave me my computer as I have vowed to use this windfall of time wisely and work on my teaching plans. What he doesn't know is that the vet agrees that guinea pigs should be kept in pairs but that we should buy them from private breeders rather than local pet shops.

Here, let me Google that. What's Hungarian for 'guinea-pig'...

Happy New year

There's nothing like a New Year to set you pondering the big mysteries of the universe. Like, 'how many Hungarian dentists does it take to change a 9-year-old's tooth crown?'

At least I can answer that one, thanks to Poppet and the ongoing tooth saga. You may have read that she snapped off most of one of her front teeth during an acrobatic stunt in December. The first temporary crown lasted a week before it fell off into her hot chocolate. The second one made it all the way to England for our post-Christmas Progress through the Realm... until she spotted something interesting on the floor of the rental car, bent forward to try and reach it and bashed her mouth on her knee.

She had to manage with only one front tooth for the rest of the trip, which wasn't easy when she didn't want people to know how she knocked the other one out yet they could hardly miss the strange hole in her smile. Oh well.

And to answer the original question, it's about four. One to build a new tooth, one to hold her gob out of the way, one to pass the instruments and one to translate to Mummy that they are worried all the wincing from Her Ladyship during the process means that the tooth is dying. It's not a great prospect that she's going to need root canal surgery but I'll keep you posted.

Another deep mystery: Is Gary a good name for a guinea pig?

Nobby thinks that George, Eric or Wayne would be more appropriate since the guinea pig is supposed to be his and he is determined at least one of our pets' names should reflect his football fanaticism. But let me back up a minute, what on earth is Nobby doing with a guinea pig?

Back in August I found a single sheet of A4 on my desk with a simple message:

'Dear Santa, all I want for Christmas is a guinea pig. Love from Poppet.'

Being a total softie when it comes to small furry creatures, and recalling the hilarity of watching my own guinea pigs from my childhood, Whisky and Soda, play follow-the-leader round and round the lounge, depositing a trail of 'chocolate drops' behind them as they went, I duly ensured Santa delivered a guinea pig voucher to Poppet on Christmas Day. She was delighted and as soon as we returned to Hungary we hot-footed it down to the pet shop to choose the perfect animal and all the associated paraphernalia.

And thus Peppermint, a tiny brown and white bundle of fur, joined our happy home. Only, in my softie opinion, he didn't seem very happy, spending his first 24 hours sitting perfectly still under a pile of hay in the corner of his cage. Of course it could have been nerves but I decided it was loneliness, given that until we turned up he was quite happy living with a friend in the pet shop.

Which is why we rushed back to the pet shop and bought his friend as well, passing it off as a New Years present for Nobby to try and soften the blow of finding out his wife had finally gone nuts. Still, the internet is on my side, several sites say these are social animals and ought to be kept in twos. And it has to be said that Peppermint greeted Gary like an old friend with a lot of squeaking and snuffling, which I translated as total delight of course, in my new found role of Dr Doolittle, and they were soon snuggled up together under the hay. Point proved, Nobby.

Okay, here is a real humdinger:
What is the worst place for an over-playful, maniac Vizsla pup to cut himself?

Whilst we were away, Boy-Next-Door and family went home to Portugal and we both left our doggies in the same kennels. Since we came home first we bravely volunteered to take on their mad mutt along with ours for one night only to save the guy from the kennels making two trips.

Ike is permanently happy and wags his tail so hard and fast that if it catches your legs the whip welts can take a couple of days to go down. However, it wasn't until he'd been here about 12 hours and engaged in some very enthusiastic wagging whilst trying to bite Tiggy's face off, that I noticed red splatters all over my kitchen and hall cupboards, doors, walls and floors. With much wrestling I managed to ascertain that he has a little cut on the very tip of his tail and had been blithely spray-painting my house while he mucked about. Bugger.

Luckily the neighbours came and got him soon afterwards and with a bit of spit and polish my house is more spick and span, and less abattoir. I do fear for their white three piece suite though...

More musings next time, very likely about the joys of returning to school after a three week break. I have INSET training tomorrow and Friday, with the kids in tow due to lack of babysitting; I'm sure there'll be loads to tell.

Meanwhile, Happy New Year and here's to an interesting 2011! At least I won't be a) studying, or b) turning 40 this year.