Right that's it. I have officially had enough. Stop the world, I wanna get off. If I thought yesterday was bad then it was a big mistake waking up this morning. I had to make an emergency trip to see Rose this afternoon so she could put me back together. And Nobby keeps calling from Malta all sad and homesick and I can't bring myself to share the gloom down the phone so poor Rose copped the lot.

The worst bit is my landlord, who is turning into the tight-fisted pedantic old b*stard that the agency said he would as the end of our contract approaches. He stood in my kitchen this afternoon inviting the family over for champagne on Friday night then I hear not half an hour later he was lying his arse off to my agent trying to wriggle out of 600 euros it turns out he owes us. I'll spare you the details but suffice to say I've got to pass him in the playground tomorrow on the school run and how I'm going to stop myself now from kicking him in the nuts I have no idea.

On top of that I have to babysit the new tenant while he swans off for his annual 2 month summer holiday which means that he won't be here for the changeover. He brought her round today, complete with 8 month old baby and heart-breaking story about how they are living in temporary accommodation with all their stuff in storage while they wait for us to bugger off. I wonder how honest I should be with her? She's French though so lucky for Mr Tight-arse I lack the vocab to explain how I really feel.

Meanwhile, the kids are on some sort of mission to keep me so busy that I forget about all the other cheese (see the Hungarian phrasebook for that one, 'cheese' = 'shite', I'm just toning down because my Mum's due to look in here!) . They are blazing such a trail of destruction through the house I am going to recommend the next major US hurricanes are named after them. Plus they are also doing stuff that's just downright naughty. For example, I have filled the old sandpit with water for the dog to cool off in, which she has been very grateful for while it's been so hot here this week. So Pickle decides that it would be a great place to have a quick pee while he's out playing in the garden rather than having to take his shoes off to come in the house and use the proper facilities. That's male logic for you - I'll get told off if I run inside with my shoes on but if I sneak a pee-pee out here there's a chance she'll never know. Sadly he's rumbled next time Tiggy takes a drink from her pool when Poppet falls about laughing yelling 'She's drinking your wee-wee!!!'

So off they go upstairs to get out of Mummy's way as she is rapidly growing horns and a forked tail to go with the bad mood due to trying to get the house in some order before the landlord comes round with the new tenant. Then Poppet comes down to say that she can't get off the make-up that Pickle's applied to her face.... alarm bells ring, I dash upstairs, and sure enough there's face paint all over the freshly washed towels and a bright red greasepaint stick discarded on the white carpet. Cue the frightening fangs and reverberating roar and my transformation into Monster Mummy is complete as the little darlings dive for cover back out in the garden and I pointlessly dab at the carpet with Vanish. Aaargh!

Next stop Rose's house for a coffee and a rant. How guilty do I feel sitting there off-loading while Rose looks like she's just gone a couple of rounds with Mike Tyson. But that's the beauty of it you see, sharing woes between Mummies. She's been there too, there are stories of her own to reassure me that my kids behaviour is perfectly normal and we all relax just a little bit in time for the show-down of attempting to extract my two away from her two. No mean feat when there's a Mr Incredible game on the computer and Pickle's getting his first fix for a couple of days. I can assure you that our eventual get-away went relatively smoothly, but when we found the dog wandering in the road upon our return to the house having for some inexplicable reason decided to make a bid for freedom from the garden, I may have had a tiny outburst just to ruin the moment.

Anyway, I'm hoping that sleep might help me and I'll wake up all fresh and happy in the morning. That's the yarn I spin to the smallies, maybe it really works? It's worth a try. First I need to get the blighters into bed - I tucked them in 2 hours ago and I can still hear them mucking about. Come home Nobby!

News at Ten

I am somewhat in the doldrums today. I so wish the Doldrums was an all-inclusive resort in the Caribbean but in all reality it’s just a suburb of Gloom in the vicinity of Dismal. Besides, Its Nobby who gets to do all the travelling these days, he’s the veritable Scarlet Pimpernel lately poor thing. He’s only home long enough to chuck one load of shirts in the wash and pack up another before he’s off again. Poppet even told him off about it the other night: ‘Daddy, I’m very cross with you. You’re never home!’ And I am run so ragged that I wasn’t even home myself last time he came back from a week away so now my own name is Mud. I have a to-do list as long as the Bayeaux Tapestry but I’m not feeling terribly motivated. To put it in Blackadder terms, I’m as weary as a dog with no legs that’s just climbed Ben Nevis. I am learning to hate the end of the school year with all the shows and fetes and trips to keep track of. Poppet is on another one today and I know the perky, perfect Mummy she deserves would have made her packed lunch the night before instead of racing round like a headless chicken ten minutes before school-time, throwing Weetabix down throats with one hand and whipping up a healthy picnic with the other. But that Mummy lives elsewhere I fear. And she probably isn’t also juggling a house-move, a birthday party for 20 six-year-olds and a leaving do, with the mountain of associated jobs those three keep vomiting into her lap.

I could whine on all day but for the benefit of my time-pressed readers and in the interests of ticking at least one item off today here are the headlines.

BONG! I am allergic to Ash trees. No, not ashtrays, Ash trees. I had the hilariously named ‘Prick Test’ last week following on from the episode I had back in March (see how long it takes me to catch up with myself?) and the result was very clear. So I looked out for the culprit at home only to find that I am in fact surrounded on all sides by Ash trees here. They flank the house, the neighbours have at least 2 each and they are everywhere in the forest. Thankfully the buggers only pollinate for 2 months per year and now I am forewarned I can stock up on appropriate drugs ahead of time – just don’t expect much sense out of me in March and April from now on, I’ll be the one floating by in a cloud of nasal spray..

BONG! Talking of nasal, Rose broke her nose. Seriously, this is not a Dr Seuss joke. She was playing tennis and hubby hit a high one which came down hard on her raised racket and smacked it into her face. She now claims she looks like Stephen Fry. Her children reacted much as mine would: her little girl ran to the bar to get napkins and ice to stem the pouring blood, her boy just rolled his eye skywards and said ‘Daddy, will you play tennis with me?

BONG! I can get E4 on satellite all of a sudden. You know what that means? Friends!!! Two episodes a day, every day of the week. Now I have my own obsession to compete with Nobby’s football compulsion. I can’t get a word out of him while 22 blokes are kicking a bit of leather around but now he’s getting a similar response when 6 people are chatting on a sofa in Central Perk. Ha!

BONG! I got through a play-date with next doors twins without committing any murders. They’ve recently grown extremely fond of Pickle and call for him constantly through the fence. They can’t actually see through the fence to check if he’s there so they just call and call, sometimes for half an hour at a stretch. The parents and Nanny never say a word but on occasion it has driven me to hiding in the house with all the windows and doors closed to shut the beggars out. So my latest strategy is just to send Pickle over to play, in the hope that he’ll break something thereby encouraging the parents to train the boys to shut up and not invite him round. However I thought is was only fair to have them here for an hour or two in exchange, what am I like? Last time they spent ten minutes here they left an hour’s worth of tidying up behind them. But I am relieved to report it was a total success – thanks to a pile of chocolate crepes and a baby gate across the back door.

BONG! Pickle came first in the sack race at Sports Day. He also got 2^nd place in his other three races so he is very proud of himself. I love watching him run – luckily the races are all in a straight line because he runs with his head turned sideways checking up on all the other runners rather than looking at the finish line. I wonder where that competitive streak came from?!

BONG! The kids have trained the dog to jump up onto the trampoline. She hasn’t mastered bouncing on it yet but its early days.

Well, that’s about all I can muster for now folks. I am going to crawl into my hammock this afternoon and forget about all of it. Sod the removal inventory, sod the insurance documents and sod the immigration questionnaire. I am on strike.

Small Talk part 2

Strike that, here I am again. I’ve gotta tell you this one. I had just finished Blogging this afternoon when the doorbell rang and in walked another removal company representative to estimate how long it will take to cram all our worldly goods into crates and schlepp them across Europe. The last one was a wee bit reminiscent of a Bond villain, complete with dodgy accent but minus the white cat, much to Tiggy’s disappointment. This one, however, to coin a Little Britain phrase, Ooh ‘e was GORgeous!! And he spent a whole hour going through my drawers, phnarr. Actually, since the cleaner was just on her way out as he arrived everything was pretty much tip top, no knickers lying on the floor, no piles of washing-up in the sink. But I had completely forgotten about the toy display in Poppet’s bedroom.

She and a little friend disappeared for over an hour on Monday, so engrossed were they in their game. They only emerged to ask me for some string. I thought nothing of it at the time and handed over a whole ball. I am not sure what Mr Gorgeous made of the resulting array of Barbies, each beautifully dressed in her best clothes, hair coiffed to perfection, and each tied up and gagged at the end of Poppet’s bed, but he never said a word.

Small Talk

Poppet: Mummy, if there’s a place called Hungry, you know where we’re going to move to, is there another place called Thirsty?

Pickle: You know, when Tiggy dies we could get a German Shepherd.
Poppet: Yes, and if it’s a boy we could call if Nitchy and if it’s a girl we could call it Bitchy!

Mummy: I have to tell you some bad news children; we didn’t manage to get the house with the swimming pool in Hungary.
Pickle: That’s all right, we’ll sneak into the house next door and use theirs!

Rude Awakenings

No sooner do I get back into a bit of blogging than something else comes up and I stop for another fortnight. This time it was my first reconnaissance trip to Budapest, which meant leaving my children with my parents and taking off for the weekend with my best friend. Hey, it may sound like fun but the preparation was no picnic I can tell you. My brain was so overloaded with writing out a short handbook of instructions and tips on how to cope with my kids’ various foibles, not too mention getting enough food and wine in to keep them all ticking over for 5 days, that I became about as much use as a chocolate teapot and unable to retain any information from one moment to the next. Hence the rude awakenings throughout the day. For example, I’d make a mental note to put a new toilet roll beside the loo since the Andrex Puppy had clearly been round again and cleaned us out. But it wasn’t until I settled myself on the throne a couple of hours later that I realised that I’d completely forgotten to do it. Then I’d tell Nobby that we’d have fajitas for dinner and make a mental note to buy some, but not actually remember to do it until I put the pan on that evening and wondered where the ingredients were. So when the landlord came round to badger me again for a moving date he found me incapable of speaking any French, and I had to resort the Parisian full-body shrug (which actually felt pretty good having been on the receiving end of them for four ruddy years!) The kids didn’t help by deciding to try skipping with a rope on the trampoline. I could see disaster looming as I had a flashback to the last time I was due to go away without them and Poppet broke her leg on that bouncy castle. The one good decision I made that day was making a carbonara to a recipe which required a tablespoon of white wine in the mixture… and a glassful in the chef (it really says that in the book, honest.)

So back to my little jaunt. By weird coincidence Rose’s Mum lives in down town Budapest and kindly agreed to let us stay for the weekend so we could to familiarise ourselves with my future home and seek out the essentials for living there. We took our task very seriously, conducting an extensive survey of local amenities – coffee by the Basilica, dinner al fresco beside the Danube, Long Island Iced Tea chez Fat Mo’s – and learning some local language, such as the Hungarian for ‘cheese’ which is pronounced ‘shite’. I was also introduced to a totally new level of customer service in the local restaurants. Having been used to surly waiters with a whole bag of frites on their shoulders here in Paris it was a total revelation to eat in a place that keeps a little basket of reading glasses behind the counter for those who've forgotten to bring theirs for reading the menu, like Rose’s Mum. And they do ‘doggy bags’ too in case you’ve ordered more than you can manage, plus the coffee knocks Paris into a cocked hat.

Anyway, the relocation agent brought us crashing back to reality on Monday with a whistle-stop tour of the available schools and houses for rent. The school was a no-brainer luckily. I had no problem rejecting the swanky-looking school that proudly showed me a class of 5 year olds each plugged into individual computer consoles with headphones, and a class of 7 year olds putting together a Powerpoint presentation for their parents. Call me old-fashioned but I plumped for the school that showed me a class of 6 year olds reciting a poem at the tops of their voices whilst jumping up and down behind their desks, with the teacher joining in. The houses were another matter altogether though. Things were looking pretty grim after nine viewings and none of them ticking all my boxes. Thankfully the agent pulled a corker out of the bag on the final day when Nobby was actually with me and we were all done and dusted by coffee time. Nobby has since found out that the street name where we’ll be living is the Hungarian equivalent of 'Sesame Street' in that it features on a popular kids television program. I'll have Tiggy keep a look out for large yellow birds landing in the willow tree.

I am pleased to report that Mum and Dad weren’t quite on their knees when I returned and they had worked their way through an impressive list of jobs which I had cheekily left lying about. They stayed on for a few days so I could pamper them a little bit myself to say thanks. Now I am psyching myself up to the task of sorting out all the junk we have lying around the place so we don’t transport all the way across the continent to sit and fester in another house. Given that I am the world’s worst squirrel and struggle to throw away clothes the children have grown out of or drawings they have proudly thrust at me after school this could take some time. See you another fortnight, probably!

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.