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.