Walls

Now here’s something you don’t get asked every day: ‘Can you give me your dogs’ vital statistics, please?’ Have you ever tried to get an accurate idea of an animal’s height, length and width while it’s alternately tying itself in knots to try to get at the tape measure in your hand or desperately backing away into a corner ? I can tell you it was highly amusing, I never knew Tiggy could walk backwards at such a speed. I ended up pinning her to the wall and drawing pencil marks on it so I could let her scuttle off while I measured them instead. That made the job much easier, though I was a bit peeved about drawing on the walls as I had just spent half a day scrubbing them to relieve them of 4 years of finger marks, snot paintings and other assorted stains in a bid to keep my landlord happy since he’s been visiting regularly lately with a string of potential tenants. Not that he seemed that bothered at first, until someone expressed the opinion that the place was filthy and although she did want to rent it he’d have to repaint it all first. When he relayed those comments to me by phone (in French) I have to say my brain tuned out after hearing ‘bad state of the paintwork’ as my house-pride kicked in with a big dose of ‘how very dare she?!’ So I didn’t catch every word of what he said next apart from ‘coming tomorrow to visit’ as I hastily sought out the bucket and the Jif and set to work like a woman possessed. I never really noticed how many doorways we have until I decided to scour ingrained grime off them all evening, but there was no way anyone was going to accuse me of keeping a mucky house, let alone waltz back in with the landlord to point it all out to him.

When he turned up the next day I was all prepared. The walls were (mostly) white once more, the skirting boards, doors and frames were all free of scuffs and fingerprints. I was ready for the snotty cow to take another look around and have to eat her words. She looked slightly different when she walked in, not quite as I remembered her from the first visit. Rather more friendly and smiley than I had expected too. And her baby had changed sex … Der, it was someone else completely seeing the house for the first time. Had I concentrated harder during the phone call I would have heard that Mrs Snotty was planning to come back on Saturday to discuss the ‘state of the paintwork’, and that in any case my landlord heartily disagreed with her opinion and had no intention of painting anything so he was still showing the place to other people. And this one liked the place so much she paid the deposit there and then, blowing Mrs Snotty out of the running and rendering all my knee-busting, knuckle-crunching cleaning totally unnecessary! Oh well. At least I can appreciate it myself for a few weeks, dog sized pencil markings and all. I would have loved to have seen that woman’s face though!

Anyway I can console myself with the knowledge that I got right up someone else’s nose instead the next day, with the help of my four-legged friend (who is 90cm from nose to tail by the way.) I was treated, along with four friends, to a corker of a French tantrum - a full-on finger wagging, foot stomping, raving lunatic performance. It was a thing to behold; they love a good rant over here, and never more so than on the roads. Strictly speaking this one wasn’t actually on the roads as she sped into the school car park and my brainless dog wandered in front of her car, but the result was the same. Apparently I am highly irresponsible for letting my dog roam free amidst friends in an enclosed car park when there are no children around (apart from one who is perfectly happy with dogs). She didn’t appreciate it when we countered en masse that perhaps her driving or eyesight were at fault rather than the large, easy-to-see animal who couldn’t care less about giving way to metal boxes on wheels when there are interesting wee-wee smells to sniff in the middle of the thoroughfare. So she turned on my friend who had a 2 year old with her and berated her for not ‘holding the child’s hand while there are cars about’, even though the child was right beside her leg and all the cars around them were stationary till Mrs Speedy arrived! You never saw anything like it. She was deranged; clearly gunning for a fight before my crazy dog even crossed her path and self-righteously at ease taking on five women at once, although she did keep her Renault Clio between us the entire time before flouncing off into the building.

Vive la France! You know, I am really gonna miss this place…!

Timing

Eebygum I am soooo sore! It’s possible that at my age 3 hours of jujitsu on a Sunday morning is not such a great idea. It was a one-off course on ‘le fighting’ (say it with a French accent, bizarre, non?!) where at one point I was trussed up in body padding and boxing gloves exchanging blows and judo throws with a girl three quarters my height and not even half my age. I would like to say I won… but I’d be lying. The feisty little beast pummelled me 3:1 and left me with a purple toe and various bruises. But we partnered up later on and our technical demo got a round of applause from les boys so it wasn’t all bad. I just wish it didn’t take me a week to recover each time I don my kimono. I haven’t even got the energy to push round the hoover. Well, that’s my excuse anyway.

At least now I may stop stressing so much about our imminent move. I’ve been entering that ‘gotta sort everything out NOW’ mode lately and I’ve been in danger of imploding. It’s a little like that nesting thing you can get just before you have a baby – which saw me on a ladder at 9 months pregnant because I HAD to get the windows clean before the baby came and I couldn’t possibly trust the task to a window cleaner. Of course now I am wanting to finish all those projects I started here but never finished– the scrap-book of our time in France which currently only covers the first 6 months, that knitted bed-throw for which I have completed about 14 squares out of 200, the princess dress Poppet requested about a year ago for which I’ve turned one hem… plus I also want to chuck out all the crud I don’t want to be unpacking in my new house wondering what on earth possessed me to hang onto it AND spend some quality time with all the friends I’m going to miss.

All this requires timing and planning of course (and energy). And that’s why my head’s in a spin. I can plan until the cows come home -you should see the beautiful lists and timetables I can produce. But sticking to them is proving too big a challenge, especially when there are children around. They have their very own sense of timing, perfectly calculated to cause as much mayhem as possible while you’re distracted with something else, with the ultimate goal of a full Mummy-meltdown. Sometimes I think children are born masochists. Yesterday Poppet managed to invite next door’s twin boys over for a play without my realising what was going on as I was discussing her homework over the phone with another Mummy and just gave her the ‘talk to the hand’ stance when she started blabbing at me. More fool me; by the time I hung up there were two Tasmanian Devils in the garden, one with his head in the playhouse chucking toys out over his shoulder as he tried to reach the one right at the bottom of the pile, the other one dipping the swing-ball in the paddling pool so it would make a more interesting game. It’s a similar story if you try to visit the loo (one of them will suddenly be desperate for a pee or will fall down the stairs and need a cuddle) or try to send an email (they’ll be jumping on your chair yelling ‘I wanna go!’ so you can’t type).

I can’t think how we made it through this last weekend, which was back-to-back parties and sports with Saturday school and an FA Cup Final thrown in for good measure. How are you supposed to get two kids to two different parties for the same start time and with the correct present while there’s football on the telly and only one car? Even on Saturday night at a village party with all their friends, the kids decided they needed me most during my shift pulling pints behind the bar. Pickle appointed himself ‘pot-man’ and sat behind the bar handing me the coca-cola and cans of Guinness. Rose caught sight of him and quipped ‘Oh look, we’re short-staffed!’ tee hee!

Anyway, I can report that in amongst all the shenanigans that marble has reappeared, albeit without its former silvery coating thanks to its adventure down Poppet’s alimentary canal, much to her astonishment. You’ve seen what Coca-cola can do to a coin? Well this is what your insides can do to a metal ball. I love a bit of home-schooling on the side.

PS my final word today is ‘yah-boo-sucks’ to the scum who burgled my parents’ garden shed while they were over here helping me out. I’m sure you’ll go far selling stolen lawn-mowers, you losers.

It’s been ages…

…since I last blogged. Forgive me readers for I have been up to my eyeballs in school holidays, parental visits and getting ready to move. Yes, in case you haven’t heard yet we are leaving Paris in July to move to Budapest. Nobby has a flash new job and I get to pick out new schools for the kids, new walks for the dog and a new kitchen to hang out in for me. And hopefully a few friends as well! I can’t say I am not a little daunted by the prospect of going through it all again, but surely it can’t be any worse than last time?!!

Anyway, thanks to Dazza for the line ‘Sod the dog, beware of the kids.’ Given recent events I am going to paste that to my letterbox, underneath my ‘Attention au chien’ sign. Not that Tiggy would give any prospective burglar much more than a vicious tongue-wash, but the kids…? That’s another story; I am collecting grey hairs on a daily basis.

Take this week for example. Poppet swallowed a metal marble from Pickle’s magnetic building thingy on Monday then smacked her chin while jumping into the deep end of the swimming pool on Wednesday. Meanwhile Pickle did a disappearing act while we were visiting a little village in the south of France during the holidays. He was gone for almost half an hour, during which time Nobby and me rallied the entire place into looking for him and I’d even called the police already. Talk about heart in mouth – I thought they were supposed to grow out of running off?! It seems that he got it into his head to race us back to the car. Only he failed to tell anyone ready-steady-go and just took off while we weren’t looking. The only person who might have seen him leave was this little old lady I stopped and questioned on my frantic flight through the place, but she was too intent on assuring me that little children don’t go missing in this day and age and would I please stop shouting in the narrow streets near her house!!!??!! Anyway, I am very grateful to the lovely people who helped us look and the fellow Mummy who let me soak her shoulder when he turned up. Oh and the police of course, who proffered wise words for future reference; ‘well, at that age, Madame, you do need to keep an eye on them.’ No sh*t Sherlock.

But not to be outdone Tiggy is also somewhat out of favour now. Since the marble swallowing incident I asked Poppet to use the potty for number 2’s so I could check for the offending article without getting up to my elbows in the U-bend. Oh the things we do in the name of motherhood, never did I foresee myself sifting through poop with a wooden kebab stick. However on Tuesday night Nobby got the call because I was out, but Poppet had to come out of the loo to fetch him. As he went in, stick in hand, the dog was coming out… licking her lips. Needless to say we didn’t get to check that one and I refuse to expand my repertoire to steaming dog-turds.

On that note, it’s time for bed here in rainy Paris. But I ain’t kissing the dog goodnight.

Codename Sparky

What do you get if you cross a dog with an electric fence?

Well, if the dog is stupid enough to try to crawl under the fence to get at the golf balls on the driving range on the other side then the answer is: a lot of yelping. Especially if it's raining.

Yes, our lovely Tiggy is living up to her new nickname of Dogbrain (courtesy of Pickle, naturally) and managed to get zapped not just once, but three times by an electric fence today. Somehow the first shock didn’t stop her crawling all the way under and getting trapped on the far side. Then while we searched for a place where she could safely jump back over it without becoming tangled in the barbed wire strung above it, she panicked and crawled under it again, getting zapped twice more. Poor thing promptly took off to the car quicker than a whippet, with her sizzling tail tucked firmly between her legs.

But some good may come of it; perhaps now she’ll think twice before digging under our fence to get at next door’s Chihuahua, something she has been doing pretty regularly, including yesterday afternoon… during our neighbour’s annual Easter Egg hunt. You never saw twenty kids running so fast away from the eggs...

Where is the Off Switch?

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, we spend the first two years of our kids’ lives teaching them to walk and talk, and then the next sixteen telling them to sit down and shut up. My son has such a bad case of verbal diarrhoea at the moment I’m thinking of inserting an Imodium up his bottom to see if it works in reverse.

I do love to listen to him talk, of course, and I am proud that he is taking notice of the world around him and finding so much to say. That is, when he’s not teamed up with his sister whining for something, or ‘lumming’ as we call it. You know, someone once said that a baby’s cry is specifically tuned in to their mother’s consciousness so that she cannot ignore it; something along the lines of a pneumatic drill outside your front room I think is how they described it. It makes perfect sense: baby cries, Mummy picks it up - because it feels like her eardrums are going to burst. It is now apparent to me that they keep this ability as they get older but cunningly exploit other sensitive sounds to prevent Mummy from becoming immune. Rose and I are both susceptible to the same trigger. You know that moment on a hot summer night, when you have just finished scratching the latest crop of insect bites on your legs and finally turned out the light? Then, out of the darkness, somewhere just above your head, you hear that distinctive, high pitched ‘eeeEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeee… eeeeeeeEEEEeee… eeeEEEEEEEE…’ of a small, hungry mosquito looking for it’s next meal. (And you know you’ll never be able to find it if you turn on the light and all the repellent in the world won’t make the little bugger go away.) Well, that’s the sound our kids make now when they follow us round the kitchen, on the lum, whining ‘MumeeeEEE… can I play on the computer?' 'MummEEEEEE.. can I have something to eat?’ It’s astounding we still have any hair left; I’ve already chewed away all my finger nails.

Then there’s Pickle’s current favourite: every sentence starts with ‘Muuum? d’you know…?’ Then he’ll launch into a monologue about how he can’t wait to marry his little girlfriend and wondering what their children will look like and whether he’ll be a train driver or a farmer and deciding how he’ll be taller than his sister when he’s seven and describing how he rescued so-and-so’s toy car from under the fence in the playground and on and on and on. Bless his little cotton socks and khaki combats. I do try hard to be attentive and keep nodding and smiling and saying, ‘Really, darling?’ and ‘Gosh how interesting!’ at the appropriate times but often I find myself tuning out and thinking about Mummy stuff like the shopping list or whether I should put on a darks or a whites wash next or how to make broccoli exciting for a 5 year old tonight... (yes, it’s exciting stuff, my internal dialogue.)

And that’s when he comes out with the profound, heart-warming, bottom-lip-wobbling observations like, ‘Muuuum? d’you know?… I’m so glad that I am in the world because it’s so pretty with all the flowers and colours.’

Well you can’t argue with that can you?

They grow up so fast…

I know they say that children grow up faster these days but lately Poppet is taking the mickey. And to cap it all she can’t decide whether she’s going to be a stroppy teenage thorn in my side or a thirty-something tea-sucking bossy-boots.

She awoke on Easter Sunday a normal enough 7-year-old, racing downstairs to see if the Easter Bunny had been. Of course he had, and he’d left her a chocolate rabbit plus a Barbie Easter egg with obligatory bling accessories which made her squeal with glee – this was all pre-dawn by the way so you can imagine how delighted I was for her, since Sunday is my day for a lie-in. By lunchtime rather a lot of chocolate had been eaten in front of the TV and maybe that’s what brought on the bout of adolescence when she was told to find something else to do. She threw an almighty tantrum with full Kevin the teenager arm waving and stomping, yelling ‘It’s so unfair!’ However by tea time, after an afternoon of drawing and playing she was all but middle- aged, requesting a cup of tea with her hot-buttered muffins and remonstrating with Pickle for not sitting still on his chair. Now I’m no psychologist but the girl seems a bit confused?!

Pickle, on the other hand, is in full regression, incapable of doing anything for himself, staying in one place for more than thirty seconds or resisting any distractions. He won’t eat unaided - ‘Mummy feed me!’- his idea of putting his own shoes on is holding out his foot to me and if you send him to get dressed you’ll find him an hour later, still in PJs (or possibly stark naked if you’re lucky), playing with some piece of plastic which has been lying in a corner for several months. Ironically he is still wiping his own bum, maybe there is hope.

And me? I think I can feel another grey hair coming on.

Random

Who am I trying to kid? ‘I hope to get round to it in the next couple of days’… as usual it’s taken me a whole week to drag myself back to the keyboard, suffering from the worst curve-ball of all, a stuffy nose. Yuk. And what is more the accompanying itchy eyes and wheezing make the doctor think I am allergic to something. Uh-oh. The dog is the prime suspect of course but I am hoping that it might turn out to be something less controversial such as tree pollen. If it’s dust, of course, I am stuffed; there is no way I can muster a dust-free home no matter how much I need to. Although at this moment I think I would do anything to stop my sinuses from feeling like they are about to burst through the front of my forehead. So for now I’m on industrial strength anti-histamines and bronchodilators and looking forward to the hilariously named ‘Prick Test’ (steady on) which should reveal the true culprit.

Meanwhile I thought I had better respond to Dazza’s latest tag before he writes me off as a total failure so here are 7 ‘random or weird facts’ about myself.

1. I get cramp in my tongue. I do also get it in more normal places like my feet and calves but you wanted the weird stuff. I believe it proves that I am in fact a quiet and shy sort of person whose tongue cramps from under-use rather than the gobby cow whose tongue is trying to silence her so it can get some rest.

2. I handed in my dissertation for my degree 3 days after the deadline, despite having had over a year to get it done. And the reason? (not the one I gave my tutor of course, he thought I’d had flu) - Lemmings. It was a dippy computer game which required you to guide a crowd of mindless little green-haired creatures across an obstacle strewn landscape without them all throwing themselves off any cliffs. I was hooked; I hold my hands up to it. Whenever I sat down at the computer to work on my ‘diss’ my hand automatically passed over the floppy disk storing a year’s worth of study (this is some time ago, can you tell?!) and headed straight for the Lemmings instead, assuring myself that it was actually exercising my brain trying to work out the best route across and which little guys to sacrifice off the cliff for the greater good. And I have the gall to berate my son for his Sonic dependency? Shame on me.

3. I am a recovering Trekkie. (This is becoming a confessional.) There was once a time about 5BC (Before Children) when I couldn’t sleep unless I had watched at least one episode of ‘The Next Generation’, of which I have the full collection. On VHS cassette. It takes up half a wardrobe. I am better now thank goodness. I am not sure how I'd fit any Klingons on my starboard bow given my current schedule, coupled with the fact that Nobby can't stomach Star Trek so any indulgence has to be strictly Sulu, I mean solo. I have occasionally succumbed while the kids are at school but I can actually go a whole fortnight or more without a fix. And I bought ‘Voyager’ on DVD so it only takes up a small cupboard...

4. I detest conflict. What I mean is I hate arguing. Not just doing it myself (and not because I can’t) but watching other people argue and fight brings me out in unbearable cringing and makes me want to go and hide. I can’t watch any of those confrontational programmes like Jerry Springer, Oprah or even Watchdog where they righteously challenge rogue traders with evidence of their villainous behaviour on our behalf, like charging bewildered housewives £200 to change a washer. In the heat of the moment I am that bewildered housewife; I can only think of what I should have said 10 minutes afterwards by which point I have probably lost face and lost money. I do all my complaining by email or letter as my face, neck and décolletage always give away my inner torment by turning a disgusting shade of crimson if I attempt to berate someone in person. I have to say my game is improving somewhat since the children came along, after all I did muster that spectacular rant for Mr Bonfire (who came and apologised yesterday by the way…! you could have knocked me down with a feather!) And I do a much better job when I am drunk, as Nobby will testify.

5. I am scared of moving tractors. If you’re ever walking down the road with me (or like Nobby once was, cycling down a country lane) and a JCB approaches, particularly if it’s sporting a scoop or other digging paraphernalia, be prepared to watch me dive down the nearest man-hole so it won’t ‘get’ me. What can I say? There was an incident in my childhood, my Mum probably can’t even remember it, but the damage is done. I am a wuss.

6. I once saw Belinda Carlisle without her slap on. Whatever she pays her make-up artist, it isn’t enough.

7. I went to Uni with a chap called Michael Jackson. He was blonde and liked Frank Sinatra. I never met his parents but I bet they were a hoot.

In the words of our garrulous American friends, go figure. Here endeth today’s revelations.