Love 'em

I wish you could have been at our house at about 8 o'clock this evening.

The kids were both outside having a game on the trampoline.

Poppet was pretending to be a princess in distress and screaming with each bounce.

Pickle was just naked.

Back from ze 'olidays

Sorry for the long absence, I felt the need for a wee sojourn in gay Pareee with me mate Rose over Easter and I have been trying to catch up with myself ever since. Plus, I have been working. Yes, me. Not getting paid mind you which doesn't sit well with Nobby the former accountant, but still, it gets me out of the house and away from Ikea. And guess what I've been doing? Teaching, no less. They trusted me with a class full of nine year olds and I can honestly say it wasn't so bad. No lasting injuries, either mental or physical, were sustained and I have been invited back this coming week and they may even help me get certified if I want to. (I thought I would need to be certified in another way as they all piled in saying 'what are you doing here' last Monday but I managed to escape with my wits intact.) This could be the start of a whole new career for me, I am quite excited. Tiggy is most dejected as she doesn't get to come on the school run any more poor thing, but Nobby is happy that I have given up the idea of getting a second dog if I'm not going to be home as much. I decided we need a cleaner instead... ha!

So anyway, France. How weird was that to go back to my old road and hang out in Rose's kitchen for a mooty lesbian tea with a taffee chaser? (that's 'herbal tea with milk washed down with espresso' to the uninitiated.) The first thing the kids and I did when we rocked up on Sunday afternoon was to go out and find Jesus. It was quite a search I can tell you. We looked all over the garden but we eventually found him under a bush and were much relieved. I should probably mention that Jesus is the name of one of Rose's tortoises... along with his parents, Mary and Joseph, they are a cute little band of walking rocks which the children had a great time moving around and watching them grow legs and scurry back into the undergrowth. Jesus has wanderlust though and kept escaping across the lawn prompting frantic searching before someone stepped on him.

We enjoyed a week full of play dates with all our old friends as if we'd never been gone for the last nine months. Except that all the little people have grown a startling amount and the ickle baby I was cuddling all last summer now has a mouth full of teeth and is crawling around at alarming speeds. The children all just picked up where they left off and made themselves right at home. Poppet and Peony's middle daughter decided the best place for lunch was under the cot and proceeded to make a nest under there. I forgot to go and clear it up before we left as it was the usual mad dash trying to round up the brats into the car at home time. Gathering kids is somewhat like herding cats, non? I only hope the chicken bones and crisp crumbs didn't stay under there too long. I enjoyed re-visiting the local Shopi and stocking up on some of the pre-packaged crap the kids have been missing - pre-rolled chocolate crepes and long-life croissants. I also bought a bag of grapes which I neglected to wash and got myself a violent case of food poisoning that night. Nice. Luckily I managed to keep the noise down and didn't wake anyone up, although it would have been nice to have a companion to hold my hair back for me.

Meanwhile Nobby was all alone in Hungary pining for his family... yeah, right: he kept phoning from the golf course! And when he collected us from the airport we could barely get the cases in round all the golf equipment, gourmet Tesco shopping and bedding plants he'd had stashed in the car all day long. Still, he appreciated the little Eiffel Tower Poppet and Pickle insisted I paid huge great wadges of cash for at the airport and the Cream Egg from me.

So it's been back to the grind ever since, I may get round to unpacking the suitcase sometime next week. Meanwhile the children have turned into total teenagers this week, I don't know what's going on. But that's a whole other post. I can only recall one cute comment lately. Pickle was watching Charlie's Angels with his sister earlier and one of the bad guys (a woman) said 'Never send a man to do a woman's job.' (I think one of her henchmen just got his arse kicked by Cameron Diaz in high-heels and tight trousers.) Pickle pipes up with 'Yes, and never let a man do the cooking, that's Mummy's job.' Hmm.

Boing!

Spring is here.

I know because my nose is streaming, my face is itching, I can barely get 5 minutes of regular breathing between sneezes and my eyeballs (yes, the actual white bits) have swollen up. Furthermore, I am losing the power of normal speech; Nobby and Me will be brought to you today in the total absence of the letters ‘m’ or ‘p’, presented by ‘Bubby’ who will be talking about Bobbet and Bickle.

I have a spider bite on my shin already which is rapidly expanding to look as though someone squished a strawberry on my leg. I just pulled 3 ticks off the dog and Pickle hit the hard drugs this morning as he’s starting to look hay feverish.

But, you know, it all looks so pretty outside with the blossom on the trees and the daffodils and tulips. I dried 3 loads of laundry in the sunshine in 2 hours flat and everyone is happy and jolly now that they’ve been able to finally stow away the snow-boots and ski-jackets for another year. The birds and the bees are doing what birds and bees do, and Poppet has had three proposals of marriage this week.

Spring has definitely sprung. Ah-choo!!

Have you heard the one about the brunette who goes to the Dr complaining that she hurts all over her body? The doctor tells her to show him, so she touches her knee with her right index finger and yells 'Ow!' Then she touches her head and yells 'Ow!' Then she touches her tummy and yells 'Ow!' So the doctor says, 'I'm guessing that firstly, you're not a natural brunette and secondly... you have a broken finger.'

Well today's typing is something like that as I just gouged a hole in my index finger trying to fix the front gate. I make no secret of my blondeness but I really shouldn't push my luck and reach for the tool box. I didn't even feel it until the blood started to drip down the screwdriver, yuk. The gate has been a right pain for some time. Not so long ago it wouldn't stay shut, so the landlord and his Handy Andy Man had a go at it, and now we can't open it without a battering ram and a small army. I was particularly keen to get it open just now because my friend had turned up and invited my kids to go swimming in her pool. Never one to pass up a couple more hours of peace and quiet I agreed and conducted a swift search for a crowbar to enable me to get them off the premises.

My kids continue to live in a social whirl, I don't know how they do it. I keep taking them places then coming back empty handed as another parent gets suckered into an impromptu play-date. I do actually do my share - I had 5 kids here for tea on Friday night. But I am pleased to report that the Dog Show did not happen. We were out all day Sunday anyway at yet another birthday party at the bowling alley, so if any pampered pooches did turn up they would have found Tiggy guarding the gate all on her own without so much as a rosette in sight, let alone a year's supply of Pedigree Chum .

On Saturday we benefited from the newly discovered and highly delightful 'Double Sleepover' where we get free babysitting (although I did drop in a bottle of wine and some chocolates to take the edge off,) a pass to stay out as late as we want, and no kids waking us up in the morning! I can really recommend it. I'm not sure I'd recommend the bar we went into in Budapest - my friend and I were feeling our age a bit watching all the bright young things dolled up in trendy gear pile into the place (apparently shorts worn with tights and knee-length boots are the current fashion over here... er, no thanks) when the DJ in his wisdom decided to put on Rick Astley 'Never Gonna Give You Up'. Well. We bolted. Despite the fact we might have impressed the crowd with our intimate knowledge of the lyrics, we would know it was from the first time round and no-one wants to be reminded of that.

So we managed to blag our way into a post-fashion-show private party further down the road. Nobby and his mate were very enthusiastic at the prospect of rubbing shoulders with a few models for the evening. And so were about a hundred other blokes - the place was packed full of men! Only one model showed up but Nobby was most disappointed that he didn't fancy her. Oh well.

At least I showed him a good evening out last Wednesday when I was given tickets to the Hungary v Malta World Cup Qualifier football match at the stadium in Budapest. We took both the children because the tickets came via the school and Hungary won 3:0! Plus the kids were able to participate in their first Mexican Wave in between goals and I witnessed first hand the Hungarian obsession with eating sunflower seeds at football matches. Nobby had told me about it before but I didn't really appreciate it fully until the chap next to me stood up at half time, leaving a small mountain of seed husks on the floor as though I'd been sitting next to the world's largest budgie.

Anyway, my finger is really throbbing now so that's all for today, I have every excuse to leave all the housework alone and enjoy the peace and quiet (and sunny 23 degrees, tee hee) till the rabble get home. TTFN.

Worms

I just opened up a can of worms. Literally. Although technically it was a Tupperware storage box - one of my favourites actually - but it was still full of worms. I found it next to the dog kennel, full of water... and worms. How and why it got there will remain one of lifes little mysteries but I suspect the Small People had something to do with it, now that they have been spending some of their after-school time in the garden rather than curled up on the sofa.

Worms. Whatever next?

Actually, I have the answer to that too. Dogs.

Pickle and Poppet cooked this one up in the car on the way to school. Pickle started it, once he'd stopped moaning about how he didn't want to read his book to me and how booooring reading is and how he doesn't care if he never gets onto stage 7. Clearly he was looking for something to stop the nagging and this is what he came up with.

Pickle: Aren't we lucky having such a lovely dog? (Tiggy was tagging along on the school run) I know! (Mummy grips the steering wheel a bit tighter) we should have a contest for all the dogs! I'll invite all my class who have dogs and we can have prizes for the most obedient and the prettiest!

Poppet: I can invite my class too! I'll make the invitations and the prizes!

Mummy: Who wants to play I Spy?

Pickle: we can have it on Sunday, but I'll make the invitations for my class, you just do your own. And I want to make prizes too.

Mummy: Ooh, look at that cute little cat sitting on the fence over there!

Poppet: But if I do the prizes than I can give them out while you do the judging.

Pickle: Oh, great idea! thanks!

Mummy: I thought we were going swimming on Sunday?

Poppet: (entering the school and seeing a few class mates) Hey! We're having a dog show at our house on Sunday! You can bring your dog and we'll have prizes for the best ones!

Well, it worked; I definitely stopped nagging him about the reading. You've got to hand it to them, they are real pros. They would not be distracted from their scheming and I was torn between not wanting to rain on their little parade and really, really needing to point out the logistics of holding a dog show in our back garden at 5 days notice. In fact any notice. When's the last time they scooped a poop?

You know, normally I escort the children up to their classrooms but today I thrust their bags in their hands and fled. I've decided I'll deal with that can of worms later.

This past week has made me realise that my children truly have a better social life than me. All I need now is an orange light on the roof of my kid-mobile, a bri-nylon shirt and some cute cockney patter and I will have become Mummy-cab. I wonder if I can get a meter fitted…? If I started to charge proper fees for the amount of taxiing I am doing I would soon be rich. Hmm, slight flaw is that I am also the pocket money provider… maybe I just need to withhold it all until they learn to drive, then charge them rental?

We had to put a veto on play-dates on Sunday just to spend a few hours with our offspring ourselves and make sure we don’t miss out on anything. Poppet spent a day in the countryside with her best friend and her family on Saturday and came back having learned how to ride a bike. Pickle was at one friend’s house for lunch then we picked him up and dropped him at another one for dinner where he made it to the next level of Indianna Jones on the Play station (ok, I didn’t mind missing that one so much).

So Nobby and me got to sample our exciting future adults-only weekend lifestyle, all the lunching and sight-seeing and movie-going that we promised ourselves would once more be ours like it was in the old days B.C. (before children) as soon as they were old enough to palm off on other people for the weekend… and we ended up in a garden centre. Oh crap. We’ve skipped middle age and gone straight for our bus-passes, hanging out by the winter pansies wondering which realistic woodland creature fashioned from an old log to buy next for the patio display. Actually, I exaggerate; we were looking at furniture - nice rattan stuff for the conservatory, we didn’t go anywhere near the cane chairs with the loud chunky cushions so maybe there’s hope for us yet. But I did find the gnomes highly tempting…

And anyway, Nobby needed bringing back down to earth after a weekend in Portugal with ‘da ladz’ for a 40th birthday golf session. They spent 3 nights at a 5-star hotel with all the golf they could handle and no curfew on getting home for the babysitter, so I needed to make it clear that this is not going to be a frequent occurrence, however many Super-Wife points it earns me to let him go. I myself actually made it out to a party while he was gone. The kids came too of course, so it wasn’t exactly the beer-stoked rave-up I imagine the boys were having, nor did we manage to stay out past 9pm but still. I felt slightly better when Nobby told me that the ‘great value golf package’ his mate had found on the internet because the hotel had just been refurbished and wanted to attract new business meant that certain features were still not ready – like the pools and the sauna… was it rude of me to laugh? Oh, and they had to fly slEasy-Jet, who ran out of bacon butties on the early morning flight. But the suntan he was sporting when he walked back in the door on Monday night made me slightly green, although the ‘Hello’ magazine and pot of Clarins helped.

So given my comparatively dull existence at the moment I have very little to report, unless you want me to detail all the road-works in the area, on which I am now a total expert. Now that the weather is getting warmer there is way more bum cleavage on display at the side of the road than usual, it’s really not a pretty sight. At least some of them still turn and notice the nice blonde in her shades trundling past with the tinted windows hiding the mess of battling brats in the back – perhaps I’m not ready for that blue rinse just yet.

Be careful what you say…

There is a new by-word in the Nobby household for cheekiness, sarcasm and general f*ckwit commentary – the Bloggable Offence. Nobby invented it when I relayed the story of Pickle and the ‘nice to see you up and dressed’ quip. He was still smarting from the ‘would you like me to drive?’ backlash in a previous post and warned our offspring ‘you’d better watch out, that’ll be straight on her blog.’ And he was right.

Well they have both done it again in the last half an hour, bless them, and it just wouldn’t be right to let them get away with it.

Pickle was off to play with Boy-Next-Door on his computer and he popped in to tell me he was going. I was touched that he hadn’t just buggered off without a word so I told him how much I would miss him.

Pickle: well, if you miss me you could go and get Boo Boo [teddy]… and while you’re in my room I’ll let you clean it up as well.

I’m not sure what his last slave died of (don’t tell me – disobedience) or where he gets the impression that I live for housework but I don’t think I like it.

However, I do acknowledge there is a need to tidy up, especially because when Nobby just phoned on the home number – he’s the only one that does – I couldn’t find the handset anywhere. It shouldn’t be a problem since we have an answering machine, only the stupid thing kicks in after just 3 rings and Nobby won’t talk to it. So when I eventually located the phone under a pile of laundry, cursing myself for not switching off the ruddy machine, he’d already hung up. B*stard. I shot him a text, dripping with sarcasm, to which he replied ‘oops!’ but he hasn’t phoned back. He probably knows I’m already broadcasting his latest faux pas across the airwaves and just decided to read about it later.

Very sensible. You may have spotted that after two days with only the kids for company my vocabulary is starting to slip and I reckon I could slice heads off with my tongue right about now. I think I even swore in front of my parents on Skype last night, oops indeed.

Anyway, given that its Saturday, Poppet is at a friend’s house, Pickle is ensconced next door and Nobby is in Portugal on a golfing mini-break ‘wiv da ladz’ I am going to stick 2 fingers up to the housework and settle myself on the sofa while there’s no-one to wrestle with for the remote control. All I can say is Tiggy had better behave.