Gloat over

Well my gloat was rather short-lived; there is currently about a foot of snow outside and I haven't left the house for 3 days because both the children have nasty colds. All the tissues have gone and we are running low on food because we had house-guests for a long weekend, but I can't get the car out because the garage is at the bottom of a snow-bound slope and the shovel is broken. I am considering strapping some tennis rackets to our feet, tying us all together with ropes and striking out for the nearest Spar shop before I find myself having to serve up dog food and honey for dinner as that's all I can find in the larder.

Actually, I am exaggerating slightly, I think I am suffering from a mild dose of cabin fever brought on by the back-to-back Disney movies and never-ending bleep-bleep-ding-ding of the Nintendo DS. I did manage to get Pickle into the garden to make a snowman yesterday, although our masterpiece was buried overnight in another blizzard and all you can see now are the tips of the little stick arms poking out of the mound. At least when the telly gets boring there is plenty of entertainment right outside the window as people try to drive up the hill without sliding back down again.

So since I last managed to muster some blogging energy I have aged a whole year! Well, technically all I had was a birthday but I definitely feel old having only managed 3 cocktails on Valentines night before I lost the use of my legs. Which was not convenient right before a night-time ten-pin-bowling session; I hardly did justice to my boast that 'I used to bowl for my university' when I couldn't even scrape 100 points. Oh well, it was fun to get out and about thanks to my folks offering to babysit while they were staying. You can tell my Mum's been here just by checking out my laundry room - the ironing mountain is no more and the place is neat and tidy, definitely not my handiwork. And you can tell my Dad's been here because Pickle's singing and dancing mouse is working again and the quick crossword puzzle in the weekly newspaper that's been baffling us for days is complete. In return we have whisked them round a couple of Budapest tourist attractions - the banks of the Danube, the Houses of Parliament and crown jewels, the Castle District, Kika furniture store - taken them for dinner at TGI Fridays, lunch at Trofea and playtime chez nous complete with Barbie, Lego and Uno Extreme. All in sub-zero temperatures and howling winds I might add; despite getting out before the snow came the poor things have still been treated to the sort of weather that would make a polar bear prefer to stay indoors with a good book.

For my birthday treat Nobby bought me a treatment package at the local Thai massage emporium known as 'Paradise'. I read on the web site that I was in for 2 hours of exfoliation, deep Thai massage and a complementary cup of herbal tea. What I wasn't expecting was to be stripped naked and rubbed with turmeric by a surprisingly strong Thai lady in sweat pants and a vest. She then ordered me into a shower to rinse off all my scummy exfoliated dead skin then proceeded to jump on the treatment bed with me, all the better to use her entire body weight to methodically pummel my every muscle and crack my fingers and toes into alignment. I have to say I wasn't expecting at first to get very relaxed with a total stranger knelt between my legs with only a scrap of sarong covering my dignity - there is clearly no room for English prudery in a Thai massage cubicle. But I think the fact she had to shake me awake at the end of the two hours to drink my cup of tea is proof enough that the session was entirely what the doctor ordered.

I emerged from the establishment on my own private cloud of happiness, marvelling at how the exotic aromas of the lotions and potions she'd used were lingering with me. Until I reached out my hand to open the door to the supermarket and saw that it was bright yellow. It was then I realised the exotic aroma was coming from me, I was still somewhat dripping in turmeric - add a little coconut milk and I would have been mistaken for a Thai curry. I think that post-exfoliation shower was supposed to be more than a 'rinse' - that would explain the family sized bottle of shower gel in there which I neglected to use on the basis that I was enjoying the aromatherapy side of the experience and didn't want to smell of Imperial Leather instead. A quick trip to the ladies room in the supermarket and five frantic hand-washes did nothing to shift any of the yellow but at least I could check it wasn't on my face as well. I've never tried shopping with my hands in my pockets before, it was not the day to have forgotten my gloves. Perhaps the lady at the till just assumed I had a bad case of jaundice. For once I was grateful for the language barrier so I could just play the peculiar foreigner with the yellow hands. My parents, on the other hand, found me hilarious to behold and helped me roll up my jeans to check whether I truly looked like a banana all over. I've had several showers since and my toes still have a golden hue to them. But I would definitely go back for another pummelling.

Happy Birthday to me!

I’m not stopping long, I’m just here for a quick gloat – the BBC news says that England is struggling with extreme snow across much of the south; well I am here to let you know that I have just been sitting out in my garden basking in glorious warm sunshine. Ha! I know it won’t last but I am particularly grateful today because I have raging flu and I’ve been stuck in bed for the best part of four days this week. Yes, real flu, none of this ‘man-flu’ palaver; the proper bone-aching, shivery-feverish, throat-burning, head-pounding, wall-to-wall snot-fest variety. I am actually up and about today having reached such depths of boredom in my pit that I even turned off my Friends DVD earlier. And whilst Nobby would never actually ask me the pertinent question, having learned early on in our shared parenthood how to keep his family jewels intact, it is obvious around the entire house exactly what it is I (normally) do all day. Because since I haven’t been doing it we are now knee-deep in dog-hair, waist-deep in dirty laundry and not even big-toe-deep in food because the fridge is completely bare. I’m not sure I’ve a very good case for getting a housekeeper as I am not very often ill but at least I’ve rammed the point home once again that I’m not a ‘lady-what-lunches’ I really am a Perfect Housewife!

Now I am off back to the sunshine and a large Lemsip. As you were.

What's all this white stuff?

Don’t mention the ‘C’ word. You know the one I mean. The one on every child’s lips as soon as the Halloween costumes have gone been packed away for another year. The one on every Grandma’s lips from the moment the grandkids go back to school in September - ‘I just want to plan ahead, darling…’ The one that ruins your weekly shopping because Tescos has to rearrange the entire store to accommodate the ‘seasonal fayre’ it wants to flog you and can’t possibly continue to stock Weetabix when there are chocolate Santas to accomodate.

NO! I said don’t say it! I am doing my best to get organised and catch all the last posting dates and work out how to smuggle the usual sleigh-full of presents to my mum’s house with a baggage allowance of only 20kg per person but I fear my C*******s spirit is still in the bottle at the moment. And I hadn’t counted on the dog getting sick this week and needing injections at 8am each morning, then pulling a ligament whilst romping round the forest yesterday so she also requires ointment applied to her foot 4 times a day ‘and please stop her from licking it off for at least 5 minutes afterwards.’ You what?

So to top off the week with a big fat cherry I have been snowed on 4 times today. It has been very weird because the snow cloud was caught on top of the Buda hills for most of the day so while it was semi-blizzard when we took Pickle to football practice right up in the hills this morning it was just cold and sunny with ominous looking clouds in the distance down in town at Nobby’s football tournament. Our house is halfway between the two and the snow finally reached us in swirling gusts at about lunchtime so I dug out the snow chains for Sharan just in case as we set off to watch Daddy and his mates kicking a ball about (ooh, I’m going to get hell for that one – I have been told time and again, no, it’s NOT just a game…) However by the time we reached the bottom of Gazdagret hill it was sunny again, with an ominous cloud in my rear-view mirror. Weird.

Have you picked up yet it’s been a football kind of a day? Nobby’s company had their annual inter-departmental tournament and despite the fact that this time last week he couldn’t stand upright having put his back out with a particularly violent sneeze (?!) Nobby insisted on playing. These tournaments have come up several times before in the past; after all I have been a football widow for the better part of twelve years now. And although I used to enjoy standing on the touchline for hours on end yelling encouragement, these days it’s not quite the same when you have two little monkeys pulling on your trouser leg moaning ‘Mummmeeeee, I’m booooooored!’ two minutes after kick-off. I had to boycott most of the French competitions after the first one over-ran by about 3 hours and I had to make my way home alone on the train with two small, tired, hungry kids and leave the car for Nobby so he could follow on when it eventually ended. In the old days I'd just have met him in the pub. But I have to say I was very impressed today; these guys could teach the French a thing or two about running to time and they laid on lunch too. Needless to say my two stuffed themselves with free chocolate bars all afternoon then ran around like loonies whenever the pitch was empty. HoweverI am pleased to report that Nobby’s back held out and his team came second out of seven.

Then as we all exited the dome we discovered the world had turned white. That cheeky cloud had followed me down the ruddy hill and dumped all over us while we weren’t looking. Poppet and Pickle were very excited and immediately set off to make their mark on the pristine layer of white in the car park. And now all they want to do is cut out paper snowflakes to decorate their rooms. Plus of course, what does snow mean when you’re 7 years old? What question have I already heard ten times since we got home?
‘How many sleeps till Christmas?’
Aargh!