Monthly Archives: August 2014

Various from the re-Crippled

19 Tuesday Aug 2014

Posted by in accidents, family, holidays, humour, Living in a village, Living in France, osteopathy, Parenting, Parenting and family, Raising boys, renovations

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(For anyone that i’ve emailed this week, don’t bother reading this blog as I’ve already exhausted your sympathy with my moaning about my back. For anyone else, read on and sympathise!!!!!)

Blog, good afternoon and a g’day to all of my followers especially Story time with John and Felix O’Shea (maybe not a follower but now that I’ve applied some pressure…)who between them have given me some (blog) laughter on an otherwise pain filled Sunday (except when Fatty ran into my room, stumbled and 3 of his toes ended up inSIDE the posterior of the sleeping Lidl Supermarket Dog… rude awakening indeed. Entre nous, I also laughed whilst watching the Gumball cartoon on Cartoon Network even if the kids weren’t there. Bloody funny that show).

Crippled Again

Life can be cruel.

So, as I knew that Fatty was about to start school (and I’ve been waiting three years for this to happen), I ordered some new running shoes expecting to be able to run a marathon in the way that some men of a certain age still believe they can fit into their 20 year old, size 28 waist jeans? Actually, no. Optimist I may be; deluded? I wouldn’t say never but only rarely.

However, my super duper run like the wind shoes remain unused as:

5 months on from The Stone Steps Bounce and near Ruin, I find myself immobile again. At least it’s different this time. If my spine were representing a letter from the alphabet, it would be an S…….could be worse….could be a Z …heaven forbid, a W.  Funnily enough, I’ve learned from the tongue yanking, ear shoving, coccyx tickling experience with the local osteopath (see post The long road to recovery) and will try a new guy on Tuesday. Watch this space.

s shape spine

 

The 5 boys – an update

The Prodigal

Out of sight out of mind. Sounds harsh? Ok, he is in mind but as I can’t see or hear what he is getting up to, I can’t worry too much about it (except in the long, dark hours of middle night).  He has moved into a flat belonging to some person who lives somewhere in London. ‘I’ll give you my mobile number when I get it. mum’ and ‘yeah, everything is great.’

As with the osteo appointment; WATCH THIS SPACE

The Face

Has been gallivanting in style. Most of his summer was spent in England and he enjoyed two weeks in Sri Lanka.

‘How was it, Face?’

‘yeah…..it was ….erm…….yeah, it was hot.’

I’m hoping that at the start of this new school year, we reach a break through on the understanding of what is homework and what is revision and the difference between the two.

‘So, Face, do you have lots of homework AND revision for this weekend?’

‘Nah, I did it on Thursday.’

Start as you mean to go on, why don’t you.

The Prof

Has started a new school.

It is a Catholic school, in fact but that’s not why he chose it (unless, there is more to him than meets the eye. Mother WOULD be pleased to have, if not a son who is a priest but a grandson).

Although I was brought up Catholic (and let me tell you that one day soon I shall blog about my childhood memories of our family praying together activities……yes, all 8 kids and parents – especially during the month of MAY), the Prof has only been inside a church a handful of times so I’m fully expecting to find him doing some Mass research from the ‘R.C. guide to Mass Etiquette’ prior to his school’s welcome mass next week.

child and bible

The Lips

Still making dark paintings and drawings. Spends lot of time alternating between cuddling Fatty (and who can resist all that softness? All that softness yet what a very foul mouth) and punching him. I guess it’s good training for Fatty’s introduction to Ecole.

 Fatty

‘Mum, your legs are SOOOO SPICEY!!!!! You LOOK.LIKE.A.PLANT!’

A picture of me, second one in from the left:

cactus legs

 

Well his Dad (whom he revealed was actually Michael Jackson) who lives in England now has a wife………yes……called Mum.  Fatty was talking to them both on his plastic telephone and passed me over to them.  It was very much a one sided conversation which I terminated after a few pleasantries.

The next day:

‘Hey Fatty. How is your English dad and mum?’

‘They’re dead.’

—

‘Eye spy with my little eye, su’fing that is yuk’

‘We don’t know Fatty. What is it?’

‘Papa’s arsehole’

I’m relieved that at our local school, the English speaking teacher isn’t there until January.

Upcoming posts:

Catholic family prayer (not to be missed)

The nearly drowning dog, part II

and my thoughts on the recent scientific achievement of brain to brain transmition of thought……actually, I won’t write that down, I’ll just think it to you.

Blog and readers, happy Sunday to you and hope that you don’t get that Sunday evening ‘Haven’t done my homework feeling’ that some decades after leaving school, I still suffer from………unlike my eldest children…….they haven’t done their homework but they don’t suffer from the feeling!

 

 

 

 

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Windswept & interesting

19 Tuesday Aug 2014

Posted by in Parenting and family

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Bonsoir Blog,

We’re still holidaying (is that a word?) up here in the Department of Somewhere.

Here’s a list of some of our enjoyable activities:
-Making the kids cycle to the next town on their gearless, pygmy bikes and deciding, just for fun, on the return trip to take the road less travelled …. Or never, ever since Time began, travelled by anyone other than say, a rabbit. It was bumpy.
It was boggy.
It floods at high tide.
The extremely narrow ‘track’ was lined by brambles on one side and an electric fence on the other (to stop holidaying terrorists from entering the local airport?) and as we all tested the fence to see if it was live, we were glad to report that it wasn’t.
The kids didn’t moan……. Oh what I mean is that the kids moaned non stop.
The Husband, full of an unusual amount of vigour, took on this treacherous course with a smile (plus 20kg of dead weight called Fatty in the baby seat (DO NOT EXCEED 15KGS) attached to his bike).
Ah, happy memories.
Luckily, the hunting season started the next day..

-My husband, in having PAID for a summer pass for the pool at the Tennis Club (imagine this scene: the Tennis Club is FULL of fab-u-lous, beau-ti-ful, coloured jean wearing Parisians and my husband quitted la maison covered in plaster, paint etc.) cycled over to the Club yesterday with Fatty (DO NOT EXCEED 15kgs) comfortably if not snuggly attached to the bike, the Prof and the Lips in tow on their pygmy racers.
A car (audi big boy car) cut it’s corner and nearly hit the husband and Fatty (Id put my money on the car coming off worse in that collision).
The husband and the Audi driver exchanged pleasantries and it crossed the husband’s mind if he could swing a left at the driver without wobbling Fatty off the bike.
Happy to report that my innocent, gentle children (well… in an ideal world) didn’t witness this act of violence
However,
The Husband is now scanning every single Audi that passes (up here, this means every other car) and is utterly obsessed in correcting this WRONG.
He is talking of Audis in his sleep, he throws the word Audi into every sentence, he has joined the Audi Appreciation Association in the hope of finding this driver:
-‘What colour was the car?’
‘Black … No maybe grey but dark.’
-‘oookkay – and which model?’
‘A big one.’
-‘ what did the driver look like?’
‘Like a Parisian visitor.’

Luckily,
This year, my husband had been distracted by not one
But THREE women (‘they were just friends’) from his past; his very murky ‘I dont remember much about it’ past; the ‘I’ve been holidaying up here in Somewhere since I was a small child all the way through to my lusty teens and 20’s, past’.
One of these ‘just friends’ approached me in the local supermarket to ask if I could remember her to my husband and then left (to get into a large black, grey Audi?). How did she know who I was?
This ‘just friend’ turned out to be a not very insignificant girlfriend going back 20 years.
Never heard about her before.

Is this the reason for the Husband’s diet?

Or,
Is it more to do with this portrait of Papa by the Lips:

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Boys and their boules

04 Monday Aug 2014

Posted by in Parenting and family

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Howdy blog,

Up here in the Department of Somewhere the August holiday makers have arrived. And whether there is sun, hail, rain, hurricanes or snow, they WILL be outside enjoying themselves. The August bunch who flock to this seaside town are on the whole, from Paris. What this means is that everyone not from Paris blames any and every act of rudeness on the capital’s residents…. And with due cause.

Comments from my children

1.Yesterday we passed a toy shop with such a display layout that once you enter, the only way to make enough space to leave the shop would be with a 4 foot shoe horn and a tub of vaseline OR perhaps a large purchase:

‘Can we go in?’ asks the Lips

‘Oh – well we could if there weren’t 3 buggies, 4 adults and kids already in there. We couldn’t fit in.’

‘Oooh but you said……….. THEY HAVE SUCH FAT BUTTS THAT WE CANT GET IN!!!!’

He said it in English – at least.

2. ‘My daddy lives in England.’

‘Yes, Fatty. And what is your daddy’s name?’

‘Michael Jackson.’

Francais

Im feeling fairly fluent in the local language that day and believe that I can successfully navigate returning books, taking out new ones plus renewing our library membership. Easy?

-Return of the books – done
-Choosing of new books for Fatty, the Prof and Lips – done with ease, surprisingly.
-Checking out new books with an expired membership? Well…

There was some confusion with me hearing prendre or rendre which meant the books got stamped as returns.
Then stamped back out.
‘Your library carte?’
‘Je n’ai pas la carte.’
Her eyes roll up.
‘Je dois to renew our membership.’
‘Votre nom?’
This question actually floors me in it being easy on one hand but complicated on the other – the other being the pronunciation using the French alphabet.
‘Hmm mon mon. Oui. Erm – mon nom? Alors, mon nom est V… Erm…. V … Erm.’
The kids start to slide away from me for shame. Eventually the Prof tells me how to spell my own name and we’re back in business.
Except,
Our membership has expired over two years ago so we have to begin the process from the start.
At this point, the unwilling librarian pulls a fast one on a colleague who happens to come to the desk (as of course, dear reader, there is quite a queue forming behind the English speaking idiot) – she moves away from me to make it look like im not being dealt with and the new librarian? Well she picks up our checked out, checked in, checked out again books and yep – she checks them in as returns.
The first librarian realises her escape from me and allows me to flounder around linguistically as I explain that these are the books I want to prendre and not rendre but I need to renouveler our membership blah blah blah
‘D’accord. Votre nom?’

This evening, in the company of my Beau parents (in laws), I am trying to convince my father in law that I have seen seals on the beach. He refuses to believe me as he has been visiting this beach for over 70 yrs and what Im claiming is to him, nonsense.
‘C’est vrai. Le premier fois that I saw one, I thought it was a labrador swimming in the sea.’
What I said – in French was – ‘… I thought that it was a snowing labradors.’

The fact that I was having a tiny drink of rose out of my tea cup did nothing to improve my credulity. I could also hear my charming husband informing his mother that I drink rose out of a tea cup all day. She believed him.

Boys and boules

Last night we took the boules to the beach for a quick game before bed.
Simple.
We took the dogs too.
We took a constipated fatty.
So we organise who gets which colour boule and someone throws.
Fatty begins to squat.
‘Where are your trousers?’
I see him bending his head to check out his own under carriage whilst Lidl Supermarket dog starts licking her lips.
‘Im doing a poo!’
He then lifts up his bum and shuffles some sand on his deposit then runs mid game to collect the boules including the potential winning shot.
‘FATTY!!!’ Noooooooo.’
Meanwhile, Lidl sees another dog and runs which pulls me backwards onto the sand.
Fatty drops the boules and squats again.
Another dog appears…… Etc etc etc

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