Why?

So many questions, so few answers.

Why am I writing lovely lesson plans for a class of six-year-olds who can only think about Santa Claus at the moment and don't give a flying toss that I'd like them to learn about spelling?

Why are my own children so nuts at bedtime lately that I need to come upstairs six or seven times to hound them back into bed?

Why are BA staff choosing such a crap time of year to strike when some of us haven't seen our Mums and Dads in six months and will cry buckets if their plane is cancelled?

Why are there no bayonet light bulbs in Hungary? And why has this bizarre phenomenon only just come to light (!!) in the Nobby household? I didn't realise we'd had so many spares that we'd never actually shopped for replacements in the last 18months, only now to find that the bayonet bulb does not exist this end of Europe.

Why am I drivelling on on my Blog when I am so tired I could fall asleep over my keyboard, and in fact I was in my PJs by seven o'clock this evening?

Gotta go. Answers on a postcard please. x

What a day

I just overheard Poppet and Pickle engaged in some game or other, during which Pickle piped up with some wild statement and Poppet replied 'That's an opinion.'

'What's an opinion?' asks Pickle.

And Poppet proceeded to tell him, in full teacher stylee. She was absolutely spot-on as well.
'It's like me saying that January is the best month. We don't know if January really is the best month [it has her birthday in it so I guess it probably is for her!] but it's what I think so it's my opinion.'

I am so proud, maybe my new career is rubbing off on her.

How I wish I could be so succinct in the classroom, faced with the fresh-faced little darlings who inevitably have more opinions on the brand new material I am trying to teach them than I have grey hairs on my head.

Some days teaching is like trying to put toothpaste back into the tube.

... such as my beautifully planned Social Studies lesson earlier. We have been looking at Christianity as a lead up to explaining more about Christmas without too much reference to Toys R Us and I have just got round to introducing the Bible. Yesterday we went over how it is a book in two parts, the old and the new testaments, and how Jesus' friends wrote books about his life called the Gospels. Today we started by going back over yesterday's learning.

Me: So how many parts are there to the bible?
Little Boy: [staring at the little girl next to him] Hmmm?
Little Girl: Two!
Me: Well done! And what are they called? Old and ...
Little Boy: [staring out the window] Errrrr...?
Little Girl: New!
Me: Very good! And who wrote the stories about Jesus?
Little Boy: [finally noticing he is still in school] Two!
Little Girl: The Three Wise Men?

Oh dear.
We then proceeded to 'study' the meanings in the parables and how they are like the moralistic stories, such as The Boy Who Cried Wolf, we mothers have been ramming down their throats ever since they were old enough to realise that if you scream like your leg's been chopped off then Mummy will come running and may even fetch you a biscuit if you act suitably cute when she sees there's nothing wrong.

We started with The Prodigal Son, all about forgiveness and saying sorry, which turned out to be pretty relevent given what two of these kids were involved in during playtime which left one of them in tears and the other one in front of the Principal. However, we somehow got bogged down in wondering why the younger son was so hungry when he had spent all his money and was working as a pig farmer.

Little Girl: Why didn't he just eat a pig?
Little Boy: Maybe he didn't eat pork.
Me: The pigs didn't belong to him.
Little Girl: Why didn't he eat the pig food?
Me: The pig food didn't belong to him.
Little Boy: He could wait until the pig owner went away and then eat one.
Me: The pigs didn't belong to him.
Little Girl: Did he die?
Me: No, he decided to go home and say sorry to his father.
Little Boy: Did he take the pigs with him?
Me: The pigs didn't belong to him.
Little Girl: Was his father dead?

Seriously, when someone says to you 'Never work with children and animals' they are NOT talking about showbiz. Trust me.

I rounded off my day with a Science lesson which was observed and evaluated by the school Principal as evidence to help me pass the practical part of my teaching course. It was all going swimmingly, they were all excited about the idea of creating a pop-up Christmas card as an example of forces in action, and I whipped out the lovely prototype I had knocked up during my lunch break so they had something to work towards. Then I made the mistake of mentioning the jingle bells I had drawn on the inside, at which most of the class burst into a rendition of Jingle Bells at full volume. Curse school Christmas production rehearsals! You can't so much as mention 'the jolly fat man in red' without getting three verses of 'Santa Claus Is Coming To Town' and all currency lessons are off the agenda since 'Money, Money', Money' made it into the school play about Scrooge.

It all ended well though, and the Principal seemed suitably convinced that I am doing a good job; luckily the bell went before we got into the sticky backed plastic and glitter as Science met Blue Peter. I'm saving that one for the continuation on Friday.

Anyway, other news: we are all over our germs; touch wood the boys haven't come down with anything to date. Pickle won a silver medal in his chess tournament and the teacher told me she was extremely proud of his performance. She said he was concentrating so hard he almost had steam coming out of his ears. Poppet has the electric keyboard back in her bedroom again in order to practice 'We Wish You A Merry Christmas' for the piano recital next week. Nobby went to Poland for a night, meanwhile I blithely volunteered to take on Boy-Next-Door's puppy for ten days at Christmas... Can't wait to see what Nobby says to that.
But I like to live dangerously - after all, I am a teacher now.

In Praise of Nobby

Now, it wasn't the nicest way to stay up all night - there I was, one o'clock in the morning, holding my daughter's hair back while she vomits into her rubbish bin... Yes, the lurgy has landed chez Nobby and Me and no mistake. I had it last weekend and now Poppet is down with fever, puking and other unmentionables. Yuk.

But of course then we faced the dilemma that has been plaguing other working families for decades - who should take the day off work to look after the sick child? How typical that the one child who so rarely gets sick decides to do it during my first foray back into working life for nine years. Yes, ok, I know the work is voluntary; hang on, let's get this straight a minute, actually I am paying them for the privelege of being taken to pieces and put in my place by a dozen six-year-olds five days a week. (Its clear I need a lot more practice at this teaching malarky after watching several little faces glaze over during my explanation of subtraction yesterday. One little boy took it a step further and crawled away from the whiteboard grumbling 'this is boooooring'. Oh bugger.)

Anyway, long story short, the morning after the mid-night visit from Cardinal Chunder I was due to have my teaching skills observed and assessed by my mentor. And bless him, Nobby, who comes in for some serious stick here from time to time (ok, all the time) got up early, raced to the office and back before school-run time, set up his computer and files on the dining room table and volunteered to work from home and guard the invalid while the missus went to work.

My hero.

Pickle

Everyone should have a little Pickle in their life.

Mine is a constant source of amusement, bemusement, bafflement and amazement.

He is rapidly becoming the king of the anecdote, regularly launching into these descriptions of something that happened in a Pokemon game, of which I know zip, nadda, nuffink, not a Scooby Doo - not that this puts him off. But he tells it in that sing-song lilt, with his voice going up at the end of each sentence like he's asking a question - if you've ever seen American Pie and can remember 'This one time?.. at band camp?..' then you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

Nobby and I exchange secret smirks every time he starts.

'Did you know? I was playing with the Thingmebob? [I can't/don't want to remember what they're really called]

and he uses a rock weapon? [a what?]

and I was versing the Dooda? [I am actually at a loss for coming up with a better term for him to use than 'versing'. It says 'Thingmebob versus Dooda on the screen so he uses versing as a verb... and I'm gonna let him.]

and I only had a grass weapon [?]

and I destroyed his Pokemon? [hurrah]

and is grass really stronger than rock?' [... ooh, that really WAS a question, better switch face from screensaver and attempt an answer.]

We now have a code for when he's going on and on and on and I've had enough of pretending to listen. I just say 'a-ha... h-hm...yup...really?...oh yeah?...a-ha...h-hm' and he usually breaks off and runs at me for a good-natured tussle to show his disapproval that I don't want to take an interest in his life's passion. I suppose he has a point, I am such a bad Mummy.

Last week we had International Day at school. Pickle ended up sitting in the front row of the audience with the rest of his class. And at one point the headmistress was sitting right beside him. I pointed it out to him on a photo yesterday and he told me,

'Yes, that was pretty scary, having the Boss of the whole school next to me.'

Shame I'm not the Boss of the whole school. I had the misfortune to teach his class today because I was substituting for the usual teacher, who has succumbed to the hot-house of germs which is the average primary school and taken to her bed with the flu. Well, they say never work with kids and animals, and I have been happily flouting the first rule till now. Trouble is my own kid is an animal when he has a captive audience and Mummy at the blackboard. What a horror.

To get back in my good books tonight he wrote me out a poem that he borrowed from Horrid Henry:

"Dear Old Wrinkly Mum
Don't be glum
Cause ya got a fat tum
and a even bigger bum
Love from your son
Pickle "

Sweet little thing.

One liners

This one on my email from Rose this evening:

'The cat shat on the mat...

...I shit you not'

Methinks the kitten is cruising for a bruising.

(Can you tell we've been practicing our poems at school this week?! This teaching stuff is addictive...)

Rather busy

It's going to be pretty quiet from me for the near future because I am out from 8 till 5 every day like a real working person with a real job.

The main difference from my former working life is that most of my current job involves general crowd control of a group of a dozen six-year-olds and trying to crow-bar knowledge into them; much to their surprise and dismay that I am no longer sitting quietly up a corner of their classroom taking notes but am expecting them to do as I tell them now.

It's risky too - so far this term I have been exposed to:
-chicken pox (already had it, phew),
-flu (avoided it),
-colds (caught one),
-headlice (caught several, she says scratching at the memory).

And I thought refereeing at home was hard - add another few dozen children in a small hall on a rainy lunchtime and see how many take a dive off the stage, try to climb out the windows, turn somersaults onto the crash mats and chuck toys and assorted foodstuffs around.

I'm exagerating of course, but only because I am thanking my stars for choosing a small school where the children are not running too wild. I am on my knees by two-thirty, which is official throwing out time, but then I have to take two home with me, feed, water, wash and entertain them all evening AND write lesson plans, evaluate my day's performance and do some reading for my case study.

So now you know why I am a blogging Scarlet Pimpernel. Consider my every word a bonus from now until I (hopefully) graduate.

And in case I get too snowed under, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and Happy Easter.

Life is full of surprises...

... we came home from school today to find Tiggy was lying in her kennel.

Wonders will never cease.

We've been to Wien...

Where in the world can you conduct an orchestra, fly through the air dressed as a blue-bottle, admire world-famous Impressionist paintings and hurtle round in a dodgem, all in one afternoon?

Vienna, that's where.

I was all geared up for a rant about having to take the brats with us on our romantic anniversary getaway because we like all our friends far too much to ask them to mind the unruly mob for a couple of nights. We sent Tiggy to the kennels; no such thing for the kids unfortunately. But as it happens not only is Vienna a cultural and architechtural feast for adults, it's also quite well geared up for the small people.

Oh, except for the cathedral, which is where we (stupidly) headed to first. Have you ever tried to explain, in hushed tones, to a bouncy seven-year-old boy that skipping, humming and climbing on pews is somewhat frowned upon in most religious houses? And that the candles are not there for blowing out while you sing Happy Birthday To You? And that loudly declaring 'This is boring. Can we go now?' may well be true but it's really not polite? Yeah, well, we didn't have much luck with Pickle so we scarpered sharpish before we got chucked out and went to look at the horse and carriages waiting in the courtyard out front instead. Actually one of the horses had more luck with the discipline, more so than it's owner who made a bee-line for Pickle crying 'No touch! No touch!' the minute he stepped near one. The horse turned round and bit him. Maybe I need to try that one myself...

Luckily he wasn't too traumatised to ride in a carriage, a rather extravagant way to get across town when the metro only costs a fifth of the price, but it was fun pretending to be royalty and waving to passers-by. Both children were good as gold round the Impressionists exhibition, although I'm not sure anyone else got through all the paintings as fast as we did. Poppet spent more time playing with the turbo-charged Dyson hand-dryer in the toilets than appreciating the finer points of Monet and Renoir but at least there were no meltdowns with the promise of TGI Fridays if they behaved.

On Day Two we gave in and hit the kiddy-trail, starting with Prater Park - the fun fair. Actually, not many rides were open but I did get to try out one roller coaster where you lie down on your tummy in the car to be hurtled round loops and corkscrews like you're Superman. It was... interesting. Then we did the 'Dizzy Mouse' - twice - which I found far more scary because the car rotates as it throws you round countless U-turns at dizzy heights. Of course the kids loved it; I made Nobby take them on his own for round two.

Four ketchup-y hot dogs later and we headed to the Children's Museum called Zoom! for an exhibition on flying. They had a mock-up of a passenger jet to play in and Pickle was quick to don one of the pilot costumes and head up to the flight simulator in the cockpit. Poppet dressed up in a harness and got herself hoisted to the ceiling to get a fly's-eye-view of the place with accompanying buzzing noises. Thankfully there were no giant fly-swats around. I'm amazed we managed to prise Pickle away from the paper-aeroplane-making room but he was allowed to bring 'Cheat' and 'Bingo' his champion flyers home with him.

We also visited the Natural History Museum with it's aquarium and fascinating Darwin exhibition, but the House of Music was the real treat with three floors of interactive displays about sound and music. After conducting a virtual orchestra with something that looked suspiciously like a Wii, creating a melody by throwing dice and recording our own sounds for some sort of jukebox, the final room had Pickle and I making our own track using ambient sounds from categories such as 'Body,' 'Space,' as well as your own voice. He let me choose a little Mozart Nachtmusik for the background while he mixed in farts, yawns, space shuttle launches and the sound of him (and me) giggling. It wasn't quite Top of the Pops but we had a LOT of fun.

So I think we'll have to bear that in mind for next time we are tempted to explore a capital city - I'm seeking out the kiddy stuff... whether the kiddies come too or not.

It's Halloween in Budapest... and the kids and me have just been for a little stroll round the graveyard.

No I haven't gone barking mad, although after the week I've had I could be forgiven for going totally cuckoo. We've had to ban the word 'essay'; it can now only be referred to as 'the 'e' word', in a similar vein to 'the 'c' word' which sounds a bit like 'mishmash' and can equally send me reaching for the valium. Oh, and someone said the 's' word earlier when I mentioned how cold it's been today - I do not want to even think about s-n-o-w this side of mishmash so that one's on the no-no list too.

But you'll be pleased to know that I handed in the 1000 word-er in good time having finally struck inspiration on the return journey from Vienna on Thursday night. I cut this one pretty close, clearly I am settling in to my old student days at last. I subsequently tried some trendy entertainment with Nobby last night to really reconnect with the student 'vibe': we hit the A38 Club - a concert venue in an old, moored, Ukrainian boat down the dodgy end of the Danube.

Nobby, ever the eighties whore, has managed to sniff out a Hungarian band called the Panonia Allstars who play fantastic Ska music. He's seen them a few times but his usual Ska buddy recently skipped the country as we expats so often do, so I was allowed to go along instead. It took me right back to my Saturday afternoons at The Hop bouncing along to Bad Manners as 600 people all broke into the Ska dance when Panonia started playing. The only slightly un-nerving thing is the effect that 600 bodies jumping in unison can have on a moored boat - it moves. I didn't quite feel the need to cling on to the rigging but it was a weird sensation nonetheless.

However, I felt bloody old and not the least bit trendy all wrapped up in my sensible coat while these nubile young things hopped about in sparkly apparel. When someone behind me gave the crocodile clip holding my hair up an unfriendly poke (I hadn't had time to wash my hair, I was busy washing more nits out of Pickle's right up until the taxi arrived so the Carol Jackson look was the best I could muster) I realised a study full of text books isn't quite enough, I need to work on the image a bit. May require some hair dye as well as shampoo though these days, just don't measure me up for the zimmer frame and bunglalow quite yet.

Anyway, I digress. Did I mention we went to Vienna? Oh, but first, why did I take the kids to the graveyard on Halloween? Well October 31st is the day when Hungarians go to visit, tidy up, decorate and light candles on the graves of the dear-departed. It wasn't at all spooky wandering through the flickering candlelight and the place was really busy. I'm not sure my 'whooooo-ooo!' noises didn't do much for the contemplative atmosphere but I really couldn't resist.

I'll tell you all about Vienna next time. Happy Halloween!

One down...

Cripes! Has it been a week already since my last blog-confession? I didn't realise, as I came crawling out from under my text-book mountain, blinking and dazed in the bright light of having FINISHED MY ESSAYS!!

But the celebrations didn't last that long. Just enough time for a family trip to the cinema to see 'Up' in 3D which was so hilarious I think the whole room heard my guffaws (I'm a student, I don't get out much.) Though I seriously wish we'd nicked some of the 3D glasses, they are way better than the free ones that come with the DVDs, with a nice Wayfarer look to them as opposed to Blue Peter sticky-backed-plastic-covered-cardboard.

We also had a family trip to the Cash and Carry as my neighbour managed to wangle me a membership card - since I am not a VAT registered company she's put me down as a farmer! Given my addiction to Farmville on Facebook it's pretty apt. (My sister and I agree that Farmville is like a mini Zen garden in cyberspace and we won't hear a word said against it before you start.) It was quite fun dodging the fork-lift trucks and stocking up on a year's supply of Kitkats. We found some cases of Australian wine at a reasonable price too, cheers.

Today I have been back at the books doing some background reading for the next assignment, due in on Friday. Slight issue in that I am supposed to be writing a proposal for a case study in my school and the school is currently shut down for the Autumn break. Whoops, note to self: must be more organised and interview fellow teachers before they all skip the country for a well earned rest. At least the reading has been very interesting today, I am feeling quite intellectual and busting for a debate on the finer points of teaching theory with Rose, whenever we two emerge from the virtual libraries long enough to hold a conversation. At least I don't have any exams, she had one earlier this week, poor lamb, and just to prove Sod's Law wasn't solely created for me, the Parisien public transport system decided to go on strike that very same day. Ouch.

In order to stuff my head into my cerebral pursuits I need to get the rest of the family occupied. Nobby was easy - there was a match on. All I needed was earplugs so I didn't have to hear him yelling at the TV. I'm sure he's convinced they can hear his shouts of 'Refereeeeeee! That was NEVER off side!' Pickle went on the DS of course, although three hours of it stretched his tolerance a wee bit and he subsequently went nuts on the trampoline before settling down with Boy-Next-Door round at his house for a spot of cyber-golf.

To Poppet I gave a box of Halloween decorations and a packet of sticky-tack.
Oh. My. Giddy-Aunt.
The place is like a witches coven bar the cauldron... though they are all the rage in Budapest, you can pick them up at the local supermarket complete with tripod for goulash-making over an open fire a-la olden days field-workers and farmers. Since I am now a farmer, I really ought to get one. We had a Halloween party last year and my Mum sent a tonne of decs in one of her care-packages so we have bats, spiders, skeletons and pumpkins a-go-go. The place smells like pumpkin too because the Cash and Carry had them on special so I spent last evening hollowing one out and cutting a scary face on the sides. Now I have a fridge-full of pumpkin to bake into pies, whenever I tire of the intellectual stuff.

Anyway, not much more to report really unless you want to read some of my insights into modern teaching theory. No? Oh well, I'll leave that to the markers. Fingers crossed I scrape through and live up to my Swot label from my beloved Squis and her be-twinned mate who reckon I am really sad for handing it all in a day early. I do not apologise ladies and I was not trying to be teachers pet. You have no idea how close I was to head-explosion. Not pretty.

PS Congratulations to Big Bruv and the Missus on their house move this week. Hurrah!

Eeeeew

We had the day all planned out. Nobby was going to do the weekend party-run (birthday season has begun), thrust the children into the sugar-fuelled fray then take himself off for a mooch round the shops while I stayed at home and bashed out another essay. Then, after a quick lunch, they were off to the cinema with some friends to watch Up in 3D.

Oh, the best laid plans.

Curve-ball number one was my almighty hangover this morning from completely over-indulging at our anniversary dinner last night. It had to be done really; ten years ago I was pretty fuddled poncing about a restaurant in my wedding dress waving my bouquet around, I thought I could recreate the moment. Wrong. Capacity for alcohol is way down and I don't think we'll be going back to that restaurant in a hurry.

Well, I ask you: you've got a busy, successful eatery slap-bang in the middle of a European capital city, why the hell don't you accept credit/debit cards for payment? Even sober I find that kind of reluctance to join the rest of us in the 21st century somewhat insulting. Give me half a bottle of nice red wine and I can get very verbal about it. Tip? I'll give you a tip - don't sour my anniversary treat by making my husband run to the cash point so we can settle our bill. Now stick this piece of coal up your backside; give it a day, maybe two, you'll no doubt squeeze it into a diamond.

So I spent much of my kid-free morning feeling rather nauseous and not really getting much written down on the very bright white piece of paper moving about in front of my eyes.

Then my friend calls to cry off the cinema trip because she's just found head-lice on both her kids. Apparently the nit-nurse was in school on Friday as there have been a couple of cases, not that I heard anything about it, and despite being declared nit-free on Friday she'd just pulled 31 lice out of her son's mop. Eeew.

We've never had a nit-problem at our house, mostly I think because I diligently keep the children's hair completely filthy. But Pickle returned home from the party scratching his head... you guessed it - nits. Oh nuts.

I whizzed out to the Sunday pharmacy for some treatment, earning a sympathetic-if-slightly-disgusted look from the pharmacist, and we all spent the afternoon smelling pretty awful from the hairline upwards and fighting the urge to scratch imaginary lice running down our necks to escape the napalm in our hair.

After rinsing, in good mother-gorilla stylee, I then set about picking nits off every inch of my brood's scalps. I am pleased to report there were only two actual crawlers, one on each kiddy, although they were crawling no more after their dowsing. What a way to spend an afternoon.

I wonder if I can get extra time on my essay deadline? 'The lice ate my homework, Sir.'

Now, stop scratching.

Chilly

Another corker from Pickle: What do you call a girl with a frog on her head?

Lily!

What do you call a city covered in driving snow in the middle of October?

Budapest!

Yup, it is SNOWING here already. I am mightily aggrieved. When I said I was looking forward to some cooler weather this isn't quite what I had in mind. Global Warming? Yeah, right.

The landlord had to pop over and fire up the central heating boiler for me yesterday so I don't turn into a block of ice while I pore over my essays. I could just cuddle up with the dogs of course - they are so attached now that once they've finished a good wrestle in the garden they pick a house then curl up together for a kip. It's so cute!

I battled my way through the inclement weather yesterday evening to meet up with the one other person (nutter) doing the same distance-learning teaching course as me. It was so nice to meet a human being in the flesh to rant about the essays to that I chattered on like a fish-wife, I'm not sure I let her get more than two words out. I also met her sister, who successfully completed the course a couple of years ago and who thankfully doesn't appear to have lost any of her faculties in the process; in fact she seemed very normal and knowledable to me so there's hope for me getting through this without having to grow an extra brain to fit it all in.

By the way, congratulate me - Nobby and me celebrated TEN years of marriage yesterday. Ten.

Blimey.

According to the traditional 'list' ten years is 'aluminium'. Hmm... romantic.

So I made him a card with a heart on the front cut out of Bacofoil. He bought me some beautiful flowers and booked us (and the kids!) into a hotel in Vienna during half term.

THEN I found the 'modern list' which says ten years is celebrated with diamond jewellry! How hacked off am I?

There's no substitute for research, must study harder next time.

One stick short

Why would anyone volunteer to take on a puppy? Is a frontal lobotomy included in the price? Or does it only happen at a full moon? I have a theory - you take on a puppy because it looked cute and sweet and it was a sunny day. (And possibly because your son begged you for six months.) Fast forward to seven o'clock on a rainy Sunday morning when your son has let the puppy go outside while you try to snatch ten minutes more sleep and now there are muddy footprints all over the clean floor as well as a puddle of wee on the back door-mat because it decided it didn't like being out in the rain. Suddenly you realise that someone somewhere is havin' a larf.

Couple that with a sudden yell of 'Mummeeee! The puppy's vomited under the table!' and you might want to rethink just how cute that puppy looked in the box.

Still, we made it through our puppy-sitting weekend relatively unscathed and the children learned a lot. I'm not sure I was quite prepared for the anatomy lesson, but when your daughter asks, 'Mummy, what's that thing like a lipstick underneath him? Why is he trying to rub it on my brother?' you need to take a deep breath and be honest.

And Ike is kind of cute. He is especially sweet after 8pm when he crashes out for the evening, muttering the occasional groan in his sleep. The new Ja-JaBinks nickname really suits him, he even has the funny walk - rather like a drunken whippet wearing clogs: skinny legs, huge feet, aiming in a forwards direction but somehow veering off slantwise. And he keeps getting the hiccups, I have never seen a dog do that before. It's the Despereaux ears that really tickle me pink. I did a quick rendition of 'Do Your Ears Hang Low?' for the delictation of my small people yesterday. It's an old ditty I recall from my childhood, not quite as exciting as 'Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavour On The Bedpost Overnight?' but charming all the same. I'm not sure if the kids think I'm amazing to have remembered all the words for soooooo long or whether I'm just one slice short of the full loaf. But I don't really care.

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

Potty Time

Pickle's lost another tooth. The Tooth Fairy was running low on change and he only got 300huf. But he doesn't seem to mind.

Poppet smacked her big toe on the trampoline and needed an X-ray. It's not broken... but the lift from the basement car park to the medical centre on the 4th floor was.

The Insurance Fairy had better be able to poo money when I put the bill under my pillow tonight and rest my aching back.

Boy-Next-Door left his puppy here for the weekend - it looks like Ja-Ja Binks... only ginger. Tiggy is putting it through its paces and exerts her top-dog authority by dragging it round by the scruff of its neck. Still, it seems to have learned from her that weeing in the house really isn't going to win you any friends and keeping quiet at night keeps you from getting water-pistolled (all that Dog Borstal training is flooding back to me).

I am still having an essay crisis but my Mum is sending a text-book care-package, gawd luv 'er, (and by that I mean a parcel of text books, not a model parcel that would get you a Brownie badge).

Nobby is at a meeting over the other side of Hungary and missing all the fun.

That's all for now, but here is a joke from Pickle, who is reading this over my shoulder because he wants to play Grow-Island on Mummy's computer and the bit about pooing money made him giggle.

He says:

What happened when the cat swallowed a coin?

There was money in the kitty!

An announcement

I just need to let you all know that Pickle has finally lost his first tooth. I didn't twig at first when he ran up to me at the end of school yesterday with a huge grin - he's always happy, plus of course his adult tooth already grew in behind the wobbly one (flash git) so there's not much gap to speak of.

But after much wide-mouth-frog-style grinning coupled with meaningful eye-gestures and unintelligible noises I finally got it and congratulated him, while Poppet sulked how 'it's not fair!' that her own wobbly tooth isn't budging.

Despite suggestions to the contrary the other week, Pickle decided he does actually believe in the Tooth Fairy and later wrapped his tiny incisor inside a tissue, inside a ring box, inside a Russian dolly with a note saying 'Lots of love from Pickle'. He was delighted with the resulting 400 forints this morning, especially as he thought he'd only get 300. The Tooth Fairy must have been feeling generous after waiting seven years for her first visit to Pickle's bed.

Anyway, as you were. I have to get back to my essay, I still have half a Thesaurus left to swallow so I can beef up my words a bit. I mean, to enable myself to enhance my written vocabulary... I seriously don't envy my tutor their job.

Lookin' Good!

This will have to be a quick word as I am up to my eyeballs in essays. I have two to complete by Saturday and I only have 1200 words to play with - not easy for me, I do love a good waffle. The one I wrote last week is full of big words but sadly lacking in verbs as I was running over the word count. I'm hoping they'll get the gist... (or maybe I'll have to rewrite it. Sigh.)

Anyway, I decided to take most of Sunday off to get some household things done and spend time with the small people and Nobby. Poppet and I had some Mummy-Daughter time before I decided I couldn't put off Tescos any longer. No-one else wanted to come along so I went on my own.

I didn't think I was wearing anything particularly flash but I kept getting the feeling that people were looking at me. I checked the usual things - flies done up, same colour shoes on, bulges all normal size and in the right places - and all seemed to be in order. Then the girl behind me at the checkout was very obviously staring at me while the guy running my stuff past the infra-red was avoiding eye contact. Very strange.

So I busied myself checking off my list - I always take one and I always neglect to look at it until I am just about to pay. Luckily I had remembered everything except the make-up remover. Make-up remover? Now why did I need that? I don't wear a lot of make-up. I certainly never do my nails...

Then I finally noticed, with dawning horror, the bright pink blobs of Princess nail varnish on my fingernails and suddenly remembered just exactly what Poppet had wanted to do with our Mummy-Daughter time.

You guessed it - Beauty Parlours.
Using her own cosmetics.

I really should allow myself the occasional glance in the mirror on my way out the door because I had just spent an hour in Tescos sporting hair, nails and make-up by my eight year old...

Fish, footie and flying

Ever had one of those days when you just can't remember the Core Foundation Subjects of the National Curriculum? Or define the main factors that create an Effective Learning Environment?

Hmm, it's been a study crisis kind of a day and we're only on week two of the course. I blame the fun day I had at school observing lessons yesterday - I was lucky enough to pick a field trip day and took the opportunity to 'observe' Grade 7 on an outing to the local Cash and Carry to research products they might sell in a school shop they are planning to open. I observed quite a few items I would happily buy myself; I hope they'll let me tag along when they go to make the purchases. As for the students, it was literally watching kiddies in a sweet shop. Did you know you can still buy those candy cigarettes? At this place you can even pretend you're in candy duty-free and get 50 packs for a cut down price. I offered the group my services as a consultant representing the parent population who will be supplying the readies for their customers, in case they wanted to conduct a little market research on what Mummy will approve for little Johnny to spend his hard earned cash on. But once I'd put the kibosh on chewing gum, candy fags, fizzy pop and crisps they strangely stopped asking.

Anyway, after all the excitement (and the fun-packed journey with four eleven-year-old boys in my car) slaving over a hot OfSTED website didn't hold much appeal today. I think I learned that there are three types of planning - long, medium and short term (no kidding) - but that's about it. Luckily I was saved by a couple of friendly teachers at the school who were willing to listen to me rant then allow me to grill them about teaching practices when I went the collect the skunks. (What they don't know is I had a concealed tape recorder taking down all their pearls of wisdom so I can use them in my assignments as my own ideas! I AM KIDDING, Mr Course Tutor, Sir.)

Enough of study talk though. Let me tell you what I did at the weekend.

On Saturday we were invited to one of those company Family Fun Day things at a local camp. It was pretty good all told. I learned how to weave a bird out of strips of coloured paper while Poppet fashioned a pin-wheel, and Nobby and Pickle played football. Then I walked the dog round the forest while Poppet did some fishing in the little pond, and Nobby and Pickle played football. Later, Pickle and I raided the free buffet while Poppet fished... and Nobby played football. Poppet had a ride on a pony, while Pickle fished (and Nobby played football). Then Pickle and I visited the three fire engines they'd laid on and he went up on the hydraulic lift about 10 storeys in the air (it was strictly not for me, despite the comforting presence of a pretty fit fireman who offered to let me wear his helmet...) while Poppet fished and Nobby played football.

Are you getting a pattern here? Poppet and Pickle's previous angling experience is limited to a game called 'My Simms' on the DS but they were sorely bitten by the bug once they got a rod in their hands and the little fishies started to bite. Incidentally, I am doing Nobby down a bit here, he did come and join in between football games, they were only twenty minutes each, and he was rather keen on the fishing too, having been brought up by a keen angler and done quite a lot when he was younger. (But who caught the first fishy with the rod though, huh? Me!)

However the kids soon discovered a quicker way to catch lots of tiddlers using a large square net that you chuck off a bridge then pull up as they're scurrying past. Once they were over the revulsion of handling their slimy, flapping little bodies Poppet in particular had a wonderful afternoon hauling them in, then picking the dead ones out of the bucket.

Pickle joined in the fishing for an impressively long time after tiring of the football and then he decided it was time to test Mummys nerve to the max (as if he doesn't do that on a daily basis anyway). Before I knew what I had volunteered for he was in a harness and hard hat, attached by ropes to a chap known as 'Chubby' and shinning up a telegraph pole, gaily calling 'Come on Mum! You can do it!!' over his shoulder.

May I refer you back to the earlier paragraph about the lovely fireman and how he couldn't persuade me up his ladder? Well, I couldn't let my little boy down like that so up I went - it was one of those aerial assault course things, all about fifteen metres off the ground and requiring some serious monkey skills that my 7 year old has in abundance and which I sadly seem to have lacked since birth.

I get vertigo on a deep-pile carpet people, this was not fun.

I think the mountaineer types who were operating the thing quickly cottoned on to this fact as I bear-hugged each telegraph pole I arrived at like I was greeting an old friend. Meanwhile Pickle whizzed across swinging ropes, narrow bridges and what was basically a tightrope and proceeded to jump off the final platform for the final lowering to terra firma singing 'I Believe I Can Fly' at the top of his voice.

As if that wasn't enough, he then climbed up a single telegraph pole, stood on a tiny platform on the top, then jumped off, hitting a large beach-ball on the way down. All for shits and giggles.

I am happy to report that while I was trying to force my heart out of my throat and back to its proper place, Nobby and his company team won the football tournament. Unfortunately I missed the trophy ceremony because I was watching my son fly through the air on the end of a rope but I heard the applause through the trees and I was very proud.

The joy of learning

OMG my head is spinning. Today I have been learning about 'metacognition', 'deep learning', 'high order thinking' and 'constructivism'. This is mind-boggling stuff, and rather tricky to spell. There is no getting away from it, I am really going through with this PGCE Teaching course.

I have watched two lectures by a wonderful chap who sounds just like Eric Idle, and he certainly seems to look on the bright side of life with the little jokes and anecdotes he puts in his lectures. It was all on the internet so it could have actually been a Monty Pythoner for all I know, he was about a centimetre tall on my screen.
How's this for a great way to start a course:
Two parrots were sitting on a perch. One says to the other, 'Do you smell fish?' ... geddit? boom boom! Yup, he and I would definitely have got on if we didn't only get to meet in cyberspace.

It's interesting learning all these modern theories about teaching and learning methods. Apparently now we teachers don't instruct to a group of passive learners who learn by rote and regurgitate in exams. It's all about facilitating the learning and students have to take responsibility for their learning, constructing knowledge by analysing, evaluating and judging. Sounds a great idea to me, only trouble is I was taught in the old style and I am having to learn all this in the new style, there is no-one holding my hand here and making me nice cups of tea in a cosy faculty office when I can't think how to start my assignment essay. Eek!

I was the student in the back row of the lecture theatre with my eyelids made up to resemble open, alert blue eyes while I had my real eyes firmly closed, sleeping off the excesses of the night before. Now there's no one to nudge me if I start to snore or to lend me their lecture notes if I don't get round to taking any. Luckily the course is all beautifully guided with a detailed self-study workbook to go through and a crash course in study skills for the old farts like me who haven't had to 'compare and contrast' much more than which brand of baked beans to buy at Tescos for the last fifteen(ish) years.

And yet there are new distractions in the virtual learning environment. All is quiet in the house, there is no impromptu party thumping out loud music elsewhere in the hall of residence, I don't have to walk past a single bar on my way to the virtual lectures and tutorials. The dog is walked, the kids are in school, there is a flask of coffee on my beautifully tidy desk. What could possibly keep me from immersing myself in the books? These days it is not the pull of an afternoon with my friend Bob and her three male flatmates watching every episode of Black Adder then hitting the local student bar with the rugby team. Nowadays I have 'Farmville' and 'Mob Wars' and 'Livechat' to put me off my stride. They are just a double, sometimes only a single click away on Facebook... oh, how innocent we were in the olden days with only a drafty library and a microfiche for company.

Anyway, I really ought to get on with analysing that Ofsted report, I really don't have time to Blog. I am a student you see, and I can prove it. Not only did I pop into Farmville to harvest my crop of pumpkins when I should have been investigating the Core Subjects of the National Curriculum, I just fell asleep on Pickle's bed saying goodnight to him when I should have been preparing for a day in the classroom tomorrow.

All I need now is to stay up all night on ProPlus, sleep through my alarm every morning and have a lot of big rows with my flatmates about the washing up and my transformation will be complete.

What's big and white and if it fell out of a tree it could kill you?

Whilst my boy is watching some obscure cartoon about a boy with a pet fart (don't ask, but he keeps it in a cage beside his bed and Pickle thinks it's 'well cool' - so much for the spanky new TV and satellite receiver improving the quality of our TV time...) let me tell you about an exciting and fun new sport:

Fridge Wrestling.

Anyone can take part, it is particularly popular among Stay At Home Mums whose husbands are away and whose landlords insist on delivering a new fridge while you are out. Clearly landlords all subscribe to The Law Of Sod given that mine only ever calls to say he's on his way over when I have been in alone for 5 hours and am about to go out.

So get an old fridge, preferably one that has been used and abused by several tenants in a rented property over a fifteen year period, switch it on and wait for bits to fall off it for twelve months or so. When it develops a noise sounding like an aeroplane landing in your kitchen each time the motor runs, Round One can begin, as you wrestle it through the pantry door so you can shut the noise away for the sake of your sanity. You must be unaccompanied for Round One, the fridge must be heavy, with no wheels and the doorway must have maximum five millimetres clearance on either side.

Round Two can start when the landlord finally tires of your constant b*tching about the stupid fridge and tells you he'll buy a new one. He will keep you waiting a week for it then call to say he'd like to deliver it in the next half an hour just as you are leaving for a meeting. Of course he won't have his house keys with him so you must leave the front gate on the latch and when you return the new fridge will be on your doorstep with a note asking you to leave the old on in the same place for him to collect.

You can have help for Round Two if hubby happens to be home from his travels. All you have to do is move the fridge to the interior of the house so it doesn't get rusty or stolen in the night. Of course a telepathic link would come in handy to ensure no hands, feet or heads become wedged between the fridge and the door posts on the way in.

Round Three requires a free hour or two in your schedule and involves getting the old fridge out of the pantry and onto the front porch, unwrapping the new fridge from it's sellophane and somehow removing the polystyrene pallet from underneath it - small children can come in handy at this stage. Then, since the new model will not actually fit under the wall cupboards in the designated fridge corner of the main kitchen because the kitchen was built around the old fridge and they make 'em taller these days, wrestle it into the pantry, shut the door, have a cup of tea.

It's a very enjoyable way to spend a Friday afternoon.

Introducing a new Super Hero

Pickle has a new name.

I am pleased to inroduce you to Teflon Boy.

Nothing sticks to this one, both literally and metaphorically. Now that's quite a Super Power.

He came to me last evening, after a heavy session of spinning his sister round on an office chair, complaining that his dressing over his stitches was falling off. And sure enough, upon closer inspection, he was sweating so much that all the sticky had disappeared and the thing came off in my hand. Boy sweat - more effective than acetone any day. Unfortunately, upon even closer inspection, it seems that one of his steri-strips had also slipped in the flood and the hole was opening up and oozing out something nasty looking.

Just. Effing. Fabulous.

Options were limited at that time of night so I decided to let it scab again and take him back to the private clinic this morning. They confirmed that this is it now, there is nothing we can do but wait till it heals and get him seen by a plastic surgeon a couple of months down the line.
So much for keeping him off 'physical activity' - a note excusing him from PE is obviously not enough, but being Teflon Boy even the simplest instruction to 'not run about getting hot and sweaty and risking bashing your head' slides straight out of his brain. I might as well try to nail jelly to the wall.

He has Teflon shoulders too - earlier in the evening I was trying to get him to do his homework but I could not get any co-operation out of him; I tried threats (do it now or no DS for a week), bribery (do it now and I'll let you watch TV) and corruption (do it now and I'll pay you 300 forints) but nothing stuck. Actually the homework was to finish a task that he had refused to do in class because he was in a mood with the teacher for taking a toy off him... in fact now I think about it Tefal must have got their hands on him long ago; this is not new behaviour. Perhaps I should be looking for a red spot on his bottom to show me when he's reached optimum temperature.

Poppet, meanwhile, has astounded me this morning by locating her 'responsibility' gene, switching it on and actually helping me out. Somehow it has sunk in that if you wait for Mummy to do absolutely everything you're going to end up at the school gates half an hour late, still in your pyjamas with scraggy hair and smelly breath. Most mornings I even have to do the walking for the precious darlings; Pickle's favourite phrase is 'Mummy, carry!' while his dressing gown is on, wanting a lift from his bed to the sofa then from the sofa to the breakfast table. (Hey, perhaps that's what I'm doing wrong at every other mealtime when he can't stay in his seat for more than five seconds at a stretch, I should bung on his dressing gown...?)

How we ever make it out the door is a daily miracle, yet this morning when I raced back into the house to get Poppet's coat, Pickle's bag and shut the dog out, I encountered Poppet carrying Tiggy's water bowl into the garden to join the dog bed and toy she had already put there. Then she picked up her own coat and got into the car. You could have knocked me down with a feather.

Knowing my luck this was just a one-off and I'll be back to headless-chicken mode tomorrow, but we'll see. Hope springs eternal.

Infamy, infamy! They've all got it in for me...

They're watching me.

I'm not sure who They are but They are definitely out there.

I think They may by quite young because They are doing things my kids do... only worse.

See, I am familiar with the phenomenon whereby I can spend a happy couple of hours pottering about my housewifely duties completely undisturbed while the children play one of their games. If I drop in to see how they're doing I'll get told to go away (unless I'm carrying crisps or chocolate of course). Then the SECOND I pick up the phone or park my bum on the loo they will drop what they're doing and start shouting 'Muuuuum! I need a drink!', 'Muuuuum! He hit me!' or 'Muuuum! where are you?' Either that or they'll have a catastrophe and require medical attention.

Well They obviously think this is rather a good game and have taken it a step further. They are following me around like a stalker and broadcasting hints on 'How To Really Piss Off Nobby's Missus'.

So far this morning the doorbell rang while I was in the shower and completely covered in soap - Pickle had forgotten something very important for school (a Lego Storm Trooper) - then the phone rang while I had a mouthful of toothbrush and paste - Nobby was checking in from Vienna because I collapsed in bed too early to talk to him last night.

Next I went to Tescos because Old Mother Hubbard has been in my kitchen and all the food had gone. But They had already been there with a copy of my shopping list and removed all the stock. I ALWAYS buy Tescos chocolate chip cookies, they are what keep me going on a daily basis and we need lots because Poppet likes them too and has found a way to reach the high cupboard I keep them in. There was not one packet of cookies on the shelves. I always buy orange cordial because Poppet likes to make it up with fizzy water and pretend its Fanta (because mean Mummy won't let them drink pop). They had peach, pear, strawberry and apple, raspberry, elderflower... every darned thing except orange. It was the same with the beer, crisps, nuts and chocolate bars (are you detecting a theme here? I've gone a bit comfort-foody during this latest Pickle crisis and Nobby-absence), loads of brands except the specific one I wanted and always buy. But when I couldn't find a single turnip in a Hungarian Hypermarket I knew for sure this was personal.

And then They drained the power out of my i-pod while I was in the freezer section, just to add insult to injury. I hadn't even sung out loud once this time. How jolly rude. I had to listen to the muzak piped through the store instead and they're on a bit of an eighties 'bet you never heard this one on the radio' stint at the moment, it was not good.

So whoever They are, I'd appreciate it if They stopped. I have had enough now. I am off out to get the post. You can bet I will find a card there from the gas man or the parcel post man telling me they came while I was out shopping... if you hear a sky-rending scream, that'll be me.

TTFN

a stitch in time...

... saves nine (plus one) fingernails being bitten to the quick by an anxious mother. It also saves your beautiful little boy from a life-long souvenir scar across his face to remind him of his time in Hungary.

Yes, sorry, still going on about the hole in Pickle's head. The trees in my front garden know all about it because I went at them with the secaturs like a woman possessed yesterday evening after wrapping my offspring up in cotton wool on the couch. One big pile of ivy, tree and shrub clippings equals one very pissed-off mummy - Nobby knows I'm not one for gardening in a good mood.

Anyway, quick update. I want to name and shame the Health Clinic that Nobby's company have been shelling out huge great wadges of cash for over the last year but who have consistantly refused to see my children every time I call them. In a family of two adults and two little kids, according to the law of averages, who exactly is going to require the most health care over a 12 month period? You don't need to have kids or a degree in medicine to work that one out. Unless you work in this particular clinic, which told me this morning that I shouldn't bring my child in for a second opinion on the state of his facial injury because there is no-one there who specialises in treating children. Surely a cut is a cut? I wasn't aware there was a magic age where your skin starts to heal differently making you eligible for expensive private Hungarian treatment.

I am ranting, but, hell, I need to. Nobby is still in Vienna so I have both barrels pointing at the keyboard instead. And I'm not sorry!

Fortunately (or rather unfortunately for his poor mother) a little boy we know gashed his head during the holidays and I was on hand to do the mercy dash to the nearest private clinic which was recommended by a fellow teacher, so I decided to jump on this band wagon of 'it's not what you know it's who you know that counts'. So this morning I grabbed said Mum, got the phone number and took Pickle along to see if anything could be done for him.

Sadly after eight days there is nothing she can do to improve the quality of the stitching he received at the other hospital. It is too late for glue but it would have really helped when the cut was fresh (all we got was iodine.) So Pickle will have to chose whether to go with the Action Man 'desert warrior' look and wear his scar with pride or the Hugh Grant 'don't I look cute looking up at you through my fringe?' fop.

I, meanwhile, will have to choose between sending in the heavies from Nobby's firm to tell 'our' private clinic what I think of them forcing me to fork out 50 euros at another clinic because they are all too squeamish to look at a bleeding kid, let alone the requirement that I use a public hospital in the first instance last Sunday because they don't work weekends, or go down there and give it to them myself.

Either way, I recommend they run and hide.

Confused dot com

I have several questions buzzing around my tired little head today.

Firstly, where did all the Praying Mantises come from? I don't remember having seen a Praying Mantis in the flesh before even though they have been quite popular in kiddy films lately. And then last week my housekeeper was trying to explain this large green insect she'd found in the basement which had freaked her out. She didn't know the English for it though so I assumed it was a grasshopper or a locust and I've seen plenty of those; we did experiments on locusts for my Biology 'A' Level so they are, like, soooo last year for me.

But it wasn't until we saw the dog go into stealth mode down the basement stairs - head down, ears up, head, back and tail all in a straight line and creeping forward like something off One Man And His Dog - and we went to investigate that we realised 'Ah! It was a Praying Mantis!' (Life is like a game of Charades round here.) It was big and green and funny-looking. Even more so on the funny-looking front once the dog had played with it for a bit... Then a couple of days later I opened the front door and bam! there on the porch is a Praying Mantis, a brown one this time, calm as you please like a boy scout on Bob-A-Job week. I was going to invite it in to do the washing up but I'm not sure it would have reached the sink.

Secondly, this is one from Pickle and I am now curious myself, is Jerry a girl or a boy? I am talking about the mouse in Tom and Jerry, for which the children have a big passion at the moment, especially 5 seconds after the words 'right, it's time for bed' leave my mouth. They watched it all the way back from England last month and I find it very hard not to sit and join them guffawing at all the slapstick cat and mouse humour. Thankfully they haven't tried to re-enact any of the chases yet or hit each other with hammers or blown each other up with dynamite and it's proving a useful bribery-and-corruption tool at bedtime: 'Get into your PJs and brush your teeth and you can watch one more before we go up.' Works like a charm.

But, is Jerry a girl or a boy? When Jerry obliterates Tom's opera performance and takes over the 'Figaro' him/herself it's wearing a tuxedo. Yet when they're battling at the beach Jerry dons a Southern Belle dress and minces along holding a flowery parasol. Then there's the tennis tournament and Jerry is only sporting a pair of red shorts... Poppet and Pickle are convinced that the long eye lashes make Jerry a girl. I always believed it's a boy. Very confusing.

OK this question has only just popped up. Why isn't my computer keeping up with my typing any more? I'm hardly Miss Moneypenny tapping away at 100 words a minute but in the last couple of days I've had to go back and fill in the blanks where the stupid thing has been missing letters and spaces, dragging its feet like a petulant child being hauled to the supermarket. 'Dn't wana goto th sprmarkt ummy!'

This is the laptop by the way, maybe it's trying to tell me the honeymoon is over now. Blimey that was short. Meanwhile my desktop seems to have finally breathed it's last unfortunately. I tried to turn it on just now and clearly I've lost my touch (!) because I didn't even get a blue screen, it's black and blank and lifeless. Rest In Peace old thing.

Fourthly, finally and actually very seriously, the most important question of the day is why hasn't Pickle's head healed up despite a week in steri-strip stitches, two days off school and careful care from yours truly? We went to the hospital this morning hoping to rid him of the huge bandage and itchy surgical tape but somehow the sides of the cut haven't stayed together and it had started to heal from the bottom up in a nice leaf shape rather than the small unobtrusive scar I had been hoping for. Poor little chap writhed in pain as the doctor opened it all up, cleaned it all out and basically started all over again. I haven't felt so guilty since I watched three nurses hold my daughter down while they set her broken leg.

So here's another question: should I be getting a second opinion on this? My guts say 'yes' and as luck would have it Nobby is at a conference in Vienna stuffed full of medical practioners who are married to or well acquainted with other medical practioners and he's got the numbers of a couple of specialists I can take him to this week. I am well aware of the power of 'it's not what you know it's who you know' but I never dreamed that this adage would apply to health care. But in Eastern Europe, oh yes.

So I will keep you up to date on the progress of the boys continuing trauma. For now he is spending the rest of Sunday on the sofa with Nintendo DS, Jetix TV, Dr Seuss books, McFly CDs, pizza and iced tea all within easy reach. I am going to join him before my head explodes.

Hoping to have good news soon. On the other matters, anwers on a postcard please.

How's the patient?

When a fellow parent telephoned me earlier to check the homework for Poppet's class, he apologised several times for disturbing my evening. From the racket at his end of the phone I imagine it was Bedlam Central over there. Thank goodness video phones are not the norm, 1) so I didn't have to witness someone else's evening kiddy-carnage and 2) so that he didn't see what I was actually doing, which was building 'The Ultimate Thomas the Tank Engine Railway Track' whilst sporting a Sportacus hat on my noggin (he's a character in Lazy Town, don't go there). I had blithely volunteered to rake out the blue plastic train track in a final bid to get Pickle off the DS and back into the real world while he recuperates from bouncing his face off the asphalt. The hat was his personal touch. Pickle said it made me look like an elf so I must be an Elf Worker. I tried to explain I want to be a teacher not a nurse, ha ha, but the irony was lost on him... possibly because he's only seven ('ealth worker? boom boom! My Dad would be proud of that one).

Speaking of 'ealth, Mr Pickle had a checkup at the hospital today on the hole in his head. Despite it looking rather gooey to my untrained eyes the doctor was satisfied that it's healing nicely and he can go back to school. Hallelujah! I might actually get some studying done now without the pinging and beeping and repetitive annoying tunes of his DS and having to rack my brains for other ways to keep him from being bored. Trust my luck to get my lovely back-to-school celebration kyboshed within the first seven days. But pity the poor office staff who will have to put up with his verbal diarreah all break time while he's signed off physical activities.

More 'elf' - I've also taken the pair of them to the dentist this week. Poppet had a panoramic xray to check if the two teeth we've been waiting for for over a year are actually somewhere in her head. They are, of course, and she looked so tiny standing in the xray machine in a massive lead apron that I hope they make an appearance soon and she won't have to do it again. Pickle, on the other hand, hasn't lost a single tooth yet and none of them are wobbly (which is fine by me because wobbly teeth make me cringe). However he is growing two new ones behind the baby ones.

Now that's just showing off.

Stop the world, I wanna get off

I don't think I can take any more excitement this weekend. Can someone please make all the madness go away?!


It all started last night at the Hungary vs Sweden World Cup Qualifier. I have been a football widow for more than ten years, but I decided early on I should show willing and join in a bit. I could probably manage a reasonable explanation of the off-side rule these days and I know one or two colourful songs. Nobby's and my second 'date' was on the footie field - I went to watch him play for the company team on a pitch just spitting distance from my house and very nearly blew my chances by having to make a mercy dash to the bar for hot coffee before the final whistle because I feared all my extremities were going to drop off. I had dressed for a date and completely ignored the fact that it was December and blowing an icy gale. I soon learned - by February I was in full ski gear with a flask in my pocket and a hot water bottle up my jumper and before long I was in charge of half-time oranges and the bucket and sponge for being such a regular on the touchline.


Anyway, Nobby took me to the match last night and I witnessed first hand Hungary coming down with a nasty case of Sweden. They were all over them, and scored after just nine minutes. I didn't get to sing 'You're Sh*t And You Know You Are' or 'It's All Gone Quiet Over There' at all during the first half, because they weren't and it didn't. Not that anyone else would have had a Scooby Doo what I was saying of course. The game picked up a lot in the second half and Hungary scored a penalty in the 79th minute, at which point the entire crowd of forty-two thousand people was on its feet yelling and screaming 'Ria! Ria! Hun-ga-ria!'. A draw was a great result and they only had to hold onto the ball for eleven more minutes of play and three minutes of injury time. They almost managed it as well.


However, the goalkeeper who frankly had been riding his luck the whole game in my professional opinion (!) somehow cocked it up two minutes and fifty seconds into injury time. He kicked the ball away, it rebounded off a Swede, and trundled into the back of the net. Forty thousand fans were suddenly deathly quiet, standing still with their mouths open, trying to work out what had just happened. Meanwhile the ref blew the final whistle and two thousand Swedes went bezerk. The Hungarian team sat down on the pitch as if they'd just lost the Cup itself and the fans continued to just stand there in silence. We all filed out like zombies. Nobby and me felt compelled to drown our sorrows in beer and curry before heading home in the wee small hours, little knowing the drama we'd face this morning...


Poppet and Pickle each stayed at a friend's house last night so we could head out nice and early to the game and appreciate the full experience of the packed underground train, singing and chanting and beering all the way. I took Tiggy with me to collect Pickle this morning because his best friend only lives about 200 metres away. I managed to extract him from the house without too much fuss and we were just heading off down the road when disaster struck... in the form of a speeding dog with no sense of direction. She pelted towards me seemingly oblivious to the small boy who was standing in the way and so took him out at the backs of his knees, sending him flying up in the air and crashing down to the ground. At first I thought he'd just grazed his side until the screaming started and we noticed the blood... he'd gashed his face and I'm convinced I could see bone. Yuck. How I refrained from joining in the screaming I really don't know but I scooped him up, ran him home, scared the crap out of Nobby with our entrance and shortly headed off back into the land of Hungarian National Health Care. Not quite how I wanted to spend my Sunday morning, but them's the breaks.

Long story short, he is sporting a neat row of steri-strip stitches and an impressive head-bandage and the x-rays showed nothing is broken, phew. He's now on the sofa with a DVD and a bucket of popcorn with the promise of two days off school and frequent 'How are you feeling?' from the rest of us. I never knew having kids could be so frightening. Still, I am hoping we've had our three catastophes now - my knee, Poppet's chin and Pickles head seems a fair score for this year. I want to publicly thank my lovely hubby for keeping for putting me back together this morning, perhaps his presence at the next Hungary game on Wednesday will help them too!

Ria! Ria! Hun-Ga-Ria!!

School Days

The big day has arrived! Last night the shoes were polished, the pencils were sharpened and the school books were retrieved from behind the sofa... the alarm went off disgustingly early this morning and we all piled off to the first day of school, with Mummy hip-hip-hooraying all the way.

Trouble is, there were a lot of changes in our school over the summer so we parents were expected to stick around all morning to hear about it, so no sloping off to Ikea for me. But since I had already met the kids' new teachers I was able to relax a bit and catch up with some other mummies and swap summer stories: 'Yes, we had a great time, wasn't the weather wonderful? What? you spent a month in the south of France with hot and cold running Nannies? How lovely! Then your parents took the kids for a fortnight and you finished off your tan in the Seychelles? Super!' Ugh. I soon tired of that as the painted-on grin started to slip. So I crept off to the car, where I had cleverly stashed a flask of real coffee because the stuff they serve from the school canteen is pretty grim, and texted Rose to let her know what I spiffing time I was having. It's occasions like this I really miss my double-espresso-with-a-lesbian-tea-chaser buddy to giggle in the corner with over the dad who was blatantly talking to my chest and how Pickle heckled the Principal during the assembly.

Pickle, as it happened, didn't stop with heckling. It seems ten weeks of do-as-you-please, or close enough, has turned my Gorgeous Boy into a Grumpy Bugger. His new teacher asked all the children to sit and draw a picture and write about their holiday while she held a meeting with the parents. My boy lay on the carpet with his head under the sofa declaring that he didn't want to, 'It's boooooring.' Hmm. Mummy meanwhile is looking for the nearest hole to climb into, or at least to throw all the copies of Horrid Henry into - sorry Francesca Simon, personally I think the stories are a great bed-time read but my son seems to have adopted them as a life philosophy and I'm not sure I can take it. Not when Poppet has Moody Margaret down to a 'T' as well. She's been throwing stroppy tantrums all week, although I must say she was terribly polite and diligent for her new male teacher. I'm not sure what he made of her affected American accent which became stronger as the morning progressed; seeing as he's from Pennsylvania I hope he doesn't think she's taking the piss.

So my son ended up the only boy in the entire school, I expect, to get homework on the first day back.

Later on, after a meeting where my new role as Student Teacher was announced to all the other Mummies and Daddies, much to my glowing pride, it became clear that Pickle was still in a bit of a funny one when he pushed through the crowds to me and told me, loudly of course, that some 'pooey girls' had come to sit at his lunch table and he didn't want to sit with pooey girls so I needed to go tell them to get lost. Hmm. Shortly afterwards we were all released early and some mug offered to take him for a playdate. I nearly bit their hand off. However Poppet then demanded that, to be fair, she needed some friends over as well. So having lost one boy I brought two more home then Boy-Next-Door came round to join in as well. It wasn't actually too bad, at least they left the TV and electronic games alone and made up a game in the garden. I'm not sure how much they all liked being bossed about by my daughter; she may only be eight but she already knows how to get boys by the bollocks (metaphorically only... so far).

Later I delivered the boys home and went to pick up my own. His friend's dad seemed not unhappy to see the back of him. 'I tried to get them out to the park but Pickle didn't want to,' he told me. 'All he's done is play DS.' Bugger. He's turned into Cyber-Boy - is that a USB port growing on the back of his neck? Long story short the behaviour did not improve all evening and all the 'Don't be horrid, Pickle!' in the world wouldn't stop him jumping on his sister, faffing around in my kitchen and teasing the dog, or get him to do the homework. Nor did taking away his Lego, teddy bear or bedside light. And putting him to bed at six-thirty did not go down well either ('act like a baby, get treated like a baby - and they go to bed at six-thirty, matey!')

How long can you string out drawing a picture and writing three sentences? I'll tell you how long - he was given the assignment in the parent's meeting at 11h15, he finally completed it (after being threatened with a visit to the Principal's office) at 21h15. So that's ten hours. Is that a Guinness World Record on procrastination or what?

And here's me thinking that the new school term would make things better?!

Sod it. Tomorrow I'm off to IKEA.

Is it time for school yet?

Our house is bursting with new technology – I am writing this on my sparkly new laptop and Poppet is watching Tom and Jerry on the new 37inch flat screen TV (my birthday gift to Nobby, what could be better than something I can use as well?)

Our house is also echoing with angry expletives – ‘which blasted remote control do I use to turn this damn thing on?’, ‘how do I switch to the DVD?’, ‘Muuuuuuuum! It’s not WORKING!!!’.

Yes, we love those first few days after getting a new toy when no-one has a clue how to use the thing except the one who diligently read the manual (me). You’ll note that there has been no yelling about my new laptop... that’s because no-one else is allowed near it and I do all my own shouting in my head (‘where the hell is the ruddy File menu?’ ‘Why on earth did I upgrade to Vista?’)

Meanwhile the old technology is breaking down around us in protest at the spangly new machines taking over their turf. My old computer says ‘No’ most emphatically every day at the moment so I am trying to do something about it, struggling to decipher the cyber-speak on the technical websites as I go along and delving into my deepest memories of my days as an IT support specialist almost twenty years ago. This is whilst the Small People are tugging on my chair and climbing onto my lap demanding,
‘Is it fixed yet?’
‘Can I go on it first?’
‘Can I use your new computer while I wait?’
‘I wanna play Barbie!’
‘I wanna play Club Penguin!’
‘I’m first! You had a go yesterday!’
‘No, I’M first! It did a blue screen on my when I’d only being playing 5 minutes and hadn’t even done Barbie’s hair yet!’

You get the picture? Total bedlam. You can tell it’s the end of the summer holidays, they are suffering from ten weeks of close proximity and now they can’t even watch five minutes of Tom and Jerry on the same sofa without a fight ensuing. I, like many other mothers around the globe, cannot WAIT for school to start.

Actually, for me school has already started. As a trainee teacher this year I was invited to the pre-term teachers meetings last week to get me up to speed on the workings of the place before all the kids pile back in. It was very interesting crossing over from parent to teacher. I will have my own magnet on the ‘In/Out’ board and my own coffee mug in the staff room. For now, I am learning the Theory of Teaching and observing classes being taught until, shortly after half term, some brave teacher has to give up a few lessons to me and let me use their students as guinea-pigs for all I've learnt. I am quite excited about it – not sure about the others - and I guess this means I am a student again, although without the pub-crawls and vomiting, all-night studying and Pro-plus, £1-a-pint nights down the Union and student discounts. Them were the days.

It's hard to believe that we've made it through a ten week summer holiday relatively unscathed. There were only two trips to the Emergency Room and only one of those was for my own child. Poppet is now sporting an 'H' shaped scar on her chin after a run-in with the side of a swimming pool. Ouch. At least I now know where to dash when things go tits-up, although I have to say that particular learning curve was as painful for me as for my little girl. I won't write out the whole rant - I've already bored a few friends with it and watched them glaze over, even though I felt a lot better for it - all I'll say is I fully support Dave the Sausage Man's philosophy that in Budapest you need to avoid Post Offices, Chemists and Public Hospitals. After one year in the city my repertoire is unfortunately complete and I have classic rants about all three.

Last time I mentioned our two-week holiday in Croatia, although I think I hijacked my own post with the Miss Crystal Hotel story, how vain am I? Suffice to say the rest of the holiday was as relaxing as it promised to be. Nobby and me spent most of each day sitting by the pool reading while the kids were in the Kids Club falling in love with the animators so they could bawl their eyes out when we had to leave. Besides the Mr and Miss contests there was plenty of other entertainment, Pickle particularly enjoyed the Games Room which had two Playstations you could play for free in case your tight-wad Mother refused to keep coughing up a Euro-a-go for the pinball, pool and Grand Theft Auto machines. We all enjoyed the canteen meals - the kids ate pizza, chips and ice cream every day for two weeks while Nobby and I enjoyed a variety of fare, made all the more delicious by the fact that someone else bought it, prepared it and cooked it for us.

We did explore just a little bit and imagine my surprise to suddenly find myself cycling past the hotel I stayed with my own parents 25 years ago when the country was still known as Yugoslavia. That called for an instant text to my Mum. She replied straight away, reminding me how much my Grandad enjoyed the place and how we all loved Colin the 'Female Impersonator'. Hotel entertainment was a little different back then; Colin used to come on in full drag, somehow getting away with a tight, sparkly leotard with his ostrich feather head-dress, and he did a great job of clearing all the Germans out of the bar with his community singing of 'Hanging Out The Washing On The Siegfried Line' and other wartime greats.

Anyway, we came back to Budapest for a couple of weeks before Poppet, Pickle and I set off for a visit to the UK, slipping through a Time Warp on the way because I was about eighteen again when we landed at the other end. My parents laid on the full taxi service, both to and from the airport and to and from evening dinner dates so I could beer it up. Mum did all my washing, Dad loaned me the car and his route-master expertise (they have no need of a GPS, my Dad is a GPS) and I partook of all the Brit Grub I have been missing with the help of my brother and sister. Poor Nobby was well miffed to hear I had Chicken Tikka Masala and Peking Crispy Duck in the space of a week. It was a nice visit, apart from the English Summer weather (don't make me laugh) which had me reaching for the jeans and jumpers from day one and it was great to catch up with so many people. I stocked up on English books so thoroughly that I had to borrow another bag to get them all home.

Since then it has been a bit of a treadmill waiting for the old school bell to ring again. Thankfully Boy-Next Door is back in town and giving me a hand entertaining the troops. Perhaps he will also help surgically remove them from the Nintendo DSs and DVD player. I wonder if the school is giving a prize for the most hours clocked on electronic games? Somehow I doubt it but I would not have got through the full ten weeks without them. Roll on registration!

Bikini

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

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

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

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

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

???*&!!?*!!

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

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

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

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

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

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

I won third prize!

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

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

My 100th post!!!

Ouch! I ache. No, stop chuckling, I am in serious pain people. I think I pulled something in my back this morning. Funnily enough I was doing some exercise at the time which is supposed to work on my posture and alignment as well as my wobbly bits - it's called T-Tapp, although Nobby derisively calls it 'Clap-Trap' or 'Trip-Trapp' because I got it from a book. Hmm, most of my older clothes are falling off me and the last skirt I bought was a size 8 so who's laughing now, mister?

Anyway, I think I squeezed when I should have released or something technical like that, or else I am so used to being completely out of alignment that my back is screaming in protest at being fixed. Either way I'm somewhat uncomfortable here.

I don't think the two hour walk round Margaret Island with a pair of reluctant kiddies was quite what the doctor ordered for soothing it either. Oh, I tell a lie, we cycled for half an hour of that so it was only an hour and a half of dragging feet and whining 'I want a carry!' like they're still tiny tots. Pickle just turned seven and can't make it from one end of a room to the other without wanting to be picked up. What kind mother am I raising such lazy little blighters?

Just to shut them up, and also to compensate for the fact that the goal of our mission to the island was thwarted by another random act of Hungarian-ness, we rented one of those four-seater bikes so we could go and see the dancing fountains down the other end from where we'd parked. Only trouble was, of course, that the skunks can't reach the pedals and help with the propulsion, although they were each very handy on the bell, once we'd worked out a system of sharing that wouldn't end up with one of them chucking the other one in the river.

They have been getting a little tetchy lately and rather bored with the long holiday so every new experience is way too exciting and prompts bouts of competitiveness to rival Cain and Abel. And I am proving pretty bad at coming up with ideas to get them off the sofa and off each other. Between fights there has been a lot of lumming going on too. I think it's a hangover from all the pre-holiday shopping we've been doing to make sure they have all the necessary items for a fortnight by the sea - jelly shoes, sandals, beach-tent, summer clothes. So now they want more and more. Poppet is constantly begging for more clothes (she's already going to need her own suitcase because she wears at least two outfits per day and can't be seen in anything twice... I'm not sure when it was she turned into Victoria Beckham but I must have missed it.)

And today Pickle announced he wants a pet rabbit. This is not the first time he's asked but he's clearly forgotten all the reasons we said 'no' before and he would not let it drop this morning. Which is why I offered to take them to the petting zoo I've heard about on Margaret Island so he could stroke a rabbit and get it out of his system. So after administering the crowbar and the monkey wrench required to get them away from the computer games and television and into the car, we set off through the obstacle course that has become our route to town this past week.

They are re-surfacing the road. Why they couldn't have waited another week until I was safely on holiday I do not know. And they're doing a proper job this time as well rather than the patch-work sticking plasters we're used to. So they dug up the old road one day, laid new tarmac the next couple, then dug up random holes along the length of the new stuff for reasons best known to themselves, and fiddled with all the manhole covers so they stick up half a metre above the road-surface so all the cars, lorries and buses have to weave in and out between them - it's like a giant game of 'In-and-Out-The-Dusty-Bluebells out there. I'm not sure even the French could surpass the chaos.

Incidentally we're talking about a kilometre stretch of road here, and the main route from our district to anywhere remotely interesting in the rest of Budapest. Plus there's none of this traffic-flow control over here. When Bob was here during the digging-up phase she told us that in the UK now road-works not only have traffic lights but also a bloke on a moped with the words 'Follow Me' on his back to escort you through the contra-flow. (I wonder what happens if he forgets to take his jacket off at the end of the day before he drives home...) But there's no Nanny State over here in the East, just a couple of youths with walkie-talkies and a little red-on-one-side, green-on-the-other lollipop stick each and you have to find your own way through the holes, bumps and kerb-stones littered all over the road.

Anyway, they were just laying the second layer of tarmac as we came home so perhaps there is light at the end of it all. Meanwhile the 'petting zoo' at Margaret Island is also undergoing some timely renovation, in the middle of the school holidays, so most of it was shut. There wasn't a rabbit in sight. We saw a lot of peacocks and pigeons, a couple of ducks, a horse or two, which you were allowed to pet if you had 3 metre long arms because these guys were not coming over to the fence for all the grass in the world, but nothing small and fluffy. This is the second time in a week we have schlepped to so-called 'Paradise Island' to find the main attraction shut. On Pickle's birthday we wanted to go to the swimming complex for all the slides and fountains but that was shut too because of 'water contamination due to the flooding'.

Of course when we rode past it today on our way back from the fountains on our consolation bike-ride the place was open again and only flooded with swimming-costume clad people. Grrr. Oh well, the best laid plans and all that. At least we made it there and back without serious injury to us or any of the passers by - luckily the short leg thing meant that they couldn't steer either which is a blessing as there were a lot of people meandering about in our path and who didn't seem in much of a hurry to move when faced with half a tonne of Mummy-powered metal hurtling towards them. As I got off the bike, my leg muscles now screaming as loudly as my back, and wobbled over to pay the lady, Pickle pipes up with, 'Mummy! you're sweating!' No sh*t Sherlock. It wasn't until we were headed back to the car that I spotted another rental stall where you can hire a little golf-cart vehicle for only a fraction more than the half-tonne bike.

I seriously need to do more homework before we venture anywhere again.

Anyway, that's all academic for the next fortnight as I am expecting full entertainment at the half-board, kids-clubbing, spa-treatment-providing hotel we have booked in Croatia. Fingers crossed. Happy holidays everyone.

Carnival Time! and other announcements

Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to make a few announcements. Are you sitting comfortably?

First, I am honoured and proud that a recent Nobby and Me post has made it onto the Best of the Expat Mums Blogging Carnival . Please drop by for a visit, where you will find out that it's not just me ranting into the ether about this roller coaster life we call expat mothering. Brit In Bosnia is also missing all the Sports coverage (except her hubby prefers the cricket), Nappy Valley Girl is finding there is more to Long Island than nice iced tea, and Expat Mum has been meeting up with fellow 'Brits Abroad' Bloggers for moral support.

Secondly, I heard back from the University of Sunderland that I have been accepted onto the PGCE Teaching course I applied for. I am now a student again! Hurrah to that and let's go down the Student's Union and get plastered! What? Distance Learning doesn't provide cheap beer and pin-ball machines and weekly gigs by rubbish bands to take your mind off the four hours you spent taking copious notes in lectures and the couple more in the library slaving over a hot text book?? Oh. I knew I should have read the small print.

Thirdly, and no less proudly, I can announce that this very day I handed to Nobby not one, not two but three buckets of home-made compost, thereby dispelling years of crushing sarcasm from the unbeliever. We've lived together for over ten years and I have always had a composter in the garden and diligently plonked in my veg peelings, grass cuttings and other garden rubbish, and he has consistently derisively laughed at my efforts as a total waste of time, moaning that I have never produced so much as a crumb of compost.

Well it doesn't help that during those years we have relocated four times and I haven't yet found a removal company that will take your heap of rotting foliage along in the back of the truck. But after a particularly cruel ribbing after he found my latest new compost bin hiding behind the bushes at the end of the garden here in Budapest after strictly forbidding me from buying one (yeah, right) I was determined to do it all right this time and make him eat his words. So I have aerated, stirred and tended this latest pile of rot for over six months and today was the day I extracted the results. Three buckets-worth. Me and my little grubs, worms and maggots are dead proud.

Nobby merely shook his head, smiling. But silent. Now that's all I wanted.

computer trouble

Can I just point out that I can't reply to your comments at the moment due to a technical fault - I am not technical enough to work out what's wrong and it's not my fault.

For some reason this computer has a phobia of pop-ups, even though they are supposed to be allowed according to all my settings. There was a time when I was getting adverts appearing every time I clicked on anything and I think that may have put the poor dear off. These days computer not only says 'no' but regularly adds 'how very dare you!' and spits its little cyber-dummy out. And not just at me - every time Pickle surfs for new and exciting games on it the darned thing crashes and a blue screen appears.

Lately Pickle has been getting up earlier than me in the mornings and his first order of the day is to get on the DS and play the new Indiana Jones game he got for his birthday. After spending several hours on it yesterday and refusing to join us in the real world, even for meals, I hid the DS last night in a high cupboard in the kitchen. When I got up this morning, after my customary 4 snoozes - it is the school holidays after all - his bedroom door was shut and his bed was empty. I looked in all the usual places - in front of the telly, amongst the Lego, under the dog - and didn't find him so I came to switch on the computer.
It was already on.
With a sinister blue screen showing.
And a 'bugger off, I'm not playing' message from the hard drive on the screen.

The sneaky beast.

I resumed my search, following the scent of small boy to the little cubby space under his cabin bed. And there he was, playing Nintendo DS with the sound off.

'How did you get hold of that?' I asked. (We have guests at the moment but they were still in bed.)

'Mummy, you know I'm very good at climbing...' is all he said. Hmph.

Anyway, I am now going to try and coax this computer into behaving for me. I have disabled some driver it claims is causing the problem and now my display is ten times bigger than before; the computer clearly knows I am technically challenged and is now treating me as a decrepid, short sighted old duffer. How kind. I am going to flash it a bit of my sun-burn from our day in the pool yesterday (I am a-glow in a Belisha Beacon stylee and not in a good way) and see what that does for it's sodding screen.

This is cyber war, baby.

Cramming

Would someone please tell me how I can cram eighty megabytes of scanned documents into an email? I am having a go with 'zipping' but it's rather like wrestling with my suitcase when I'm packing for a family skiing holiday - it almost took the entire family sitting on it to get it all in last time. I think I am going to be here half the night sending eight separate emails instead. That should create a marvellous first impression to my would-be examiners. Oh the joy - it's deep.

In case you're wondering what I am wittering about, I am finally getting my application sent off for my teaching course - the deadline is tomorrow. I hope I can squeeze these files a little bit before then without having a full-on meltdown. Ooh, melting. Does that compress documents? I also hope that the university don't take my tardiness as a benchmark for future assignment submissions. Yes, I did pull several all-nighters when I was a student first time round, trying to be hip and cool and run the deadlines to the limit. But those were the days when I could handle a whole packet of Pro-plus in one sitting and no-one was expecting me to get up at 7am and give them breakfast and wipe their bum the next day (at least I think there wasn't...) I would like to think I am somewhat more sensible now. There's just been some fun and games getting all the information about the course and subsequently getting the forms filled by the school which has caused the delay. I think I am in for a roller coaster year.

Anyway, I am happy to report that the Simply Red concert on Saturday was a total success, not one drop of rain all evening. We arrived by taxi at the rear end of a crowd of ten thousand people and managed to bop our way to very near the front - we couldn't quite see the whites of their eyes but still a great view. There were huge screens all around to get the full Mick effect, and he was superb as usual (I know my brother will be shaking his head at that comment..) And did I mention that this was all free? They closed off a whole section of Budapest surrounding Heroes Square for celebrations to mark the 20th anniversary of the end of Communism in Hungary. Even though we are not natives we were very happy to join in with everyone else. We rounded off the evening with dinner al-fresco and a boogie in some student cellar-bar, much to the amusement of the trendy twenty-somethings we were elbowing out of our way so we could give the Macarena the full treatment.

Sadly the rain returned on Sunday but that didn't stop us Brits donning the raincoats and wellies and wading around the Railway Museum. My friend Bob was here with her hubby and son and the three year old is well into trains. His Dad didn't seemed too put out either about climbing all over some of the trans-Siberian monsters they have on display, some of which have wheels two metres in diameter. I have to confess that we chose to dry off in McDonalds, clearly we know how to show our friends a good authentic time when they travel halfway across the continent to see us!

Today was also wet, so the kids opted for swimming. Argh!

OK, while I have been typing this I have put my daughter back in bed three times, talked to my brother for the first time in weeks and found out that my Nectar card with 32000 points on it has been deactivated for my lack of activity, just when I was planning to spend some on tickets to Legoland. Great. See, I can get on with lots of things at once when I want to; coursework will be a breeze - think of all the Blog entries I will be writing mid-sentence. But I have also now pinged off two enormous zip files containing my application. Fingers crossed everyone.