Tag Archives: living in France

A dreary, February Saturday aka Valentine’s Day

14 Saturday Feb 2015

Posted by in february, photography, school holidays, snow, valentines day

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Now there’s an attention seeking headline if ever I saw one………

February is the month I least like (whilst in the northern hemisphere – have to say it wasn’t too tough when I lived in Australia), dear Blog. The ONLY good thing about it is…….pancake day and erm….that I don’t have to do another tax return for at least a year.

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Some things that have occurred during Februarys:

-1952 test drive for tv detector vans (Bad, Bad, Bad)

-1953 – sweet rationing ends (now there IS something positive about February after all).

-1965 Beeching plans for bloated railways (what CAN this mean?)

-1974 Americans end outer space marathon (did they beat all the other species in this race? Who came second? Or they just ended it because the Martians were winning?).

And finally:

-14th February – my charming sister was born. HAPPY BIRTHDAY & Valentines Day! Lucky her? Not really. She doesn’t get two lots of presents on her birthday. Instead anyone who wants to buy her birthday flowers either doesn’t OR takes out 5 mortgages on their home to pay for the ‘Valentine Day’ rate. She doesn’t go out to dinner on her birthday else she is shoved between hordes of disappointed Valentiners looking over their partner’s shoulders for the next best thing to come along before next Valentine arrives.  Ah…..yes, lucky her!  Enjoy your day, sister.

What has happened since my last post:

-We had snow:

What this means is that by the time you’ve put on your three inner layers, jumper, sweatshirt, light jacket, waterproof jacket, body warmer, coat, hat, two scarves, two gloves, four pairs of socks and boots x you plus 3 buggers, you open the door and realise that it is in fact the middle of May.  We’ll have to practice and get our wrapping up faster for next year.

Snowfall here also means is that the snow covered sock-encrusted (Lidl Supermarket Dog – All eyes look toward YOU) doggy caca strewn across the garden is now hidden and readily waiting to be discovered and found within a snowball……….in some child’s eye.

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-We’re on half term holiday

Yes – this is just awful. Who decided to make a February half term last two weeks?

WHO?

If I found out who this was, I would make one of the above mentioned snowballs and stick 5 down the inside of their coat and then wallop them on the back!     Not only is this holiday 2 weeks long – because we had 4 flakes of snow, the week before the schools broke up closed for two or three days JUST IN CASE…………

-The photography mania continues

Not just confined to cover my procastination with regards to putting off my tax return. Turns out, I have become slightly obsessed with all things photo. To the extent that after owning my camera for 8 years, I downloaded the instructions.

Inspirational.

But as I’m pretty thick, I cannot seem to absorb information about ISO and exposure blah blah blah and how they relate to each other.

I bought myself a tripod anyway and reckoned that I would be divinely inspired (aka if I press enough buttons on my camera and keep clicking say…….oh…..5000 times, one of my photos might be decent enough to sell for what? 5 million and then I can retire. You’ll never see a better and well thought out business plan than that and my tripod did only cost me 14 pounds (sterling…….. although my husband pointed out that this was 25 euros and then we had one of those discussions on FOREX where he becomes exasperated by my stupidity which means, in my eyes, that I’ve won).

I badly wanted to capture some stars…photographically.  I waited for a cloudless night, set up my tripod, made some random selections on my camera, opened my windows and then nearly died from cold so decided I’d better put the radiator on to warm up some of that antarctic (this window faces south after all) wind coming through.

Stars a plenty. It truly was a beautiful night.

The door opens and a shaft of light enters the room:

‘SHUT that door and don’t turn on the light!!!!’

I point the camera and click. Now, this is going to take some time to unclick as I’m on loooong exposure (yeah, that’s what I thought).

I hear shuffling, jeans coming off, jumpers coming off and then my underpant (and socks…..of course) clad husband tries to walk towards his side of the bed but he trips over my tripod leg and can’t get past.

‘what the hell are you doing?’

‘You have to wait until the photo has been taken.’

‘It’s February, I don’t have any clothes on and it’s freezing. Hang on…..is that radiator on?’

At this point, I quickly disassemble my tripod, shut the window and deny all knowledge of doing something so wasteful as to have an electric radiator on in the middle of winter, whilst the window was open and THEN……only THEN hear the click of my camera as the shot is taken.

Ok, dearest reader(s)(?), my children think that it is not unreasonable to hang around me whilst I type, holding foodstuffs that they would quite like to eat for lunch.  As one of them can actually read, I shall stop and say, au revoir, leave me a comment, leave me a like (even …..ESPECIALLY, if you don’t like it) until next time.

p.s. Here is photo. Those blurry lights are stars. Impressed?  Well, look – it was either blurry stars of a photo of my husband falling into the tripod…..half naked….and it wouldn’t have been blurry!

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Things I have done this week to put off doing my tax return…..plus other snippets

31 Saturday Jan 2015

Posted by in Parenting and family

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Good eve-noon, blog (that’s the time between afternoon and evening. I just made it up),

So the Inland Revenue or Her Majesty’s Revenue C….. erm..not sure what the C stands for. I’d suggest that you all (yes, that’s all 3 of my followers) message me with an answer but that could get me kicked off WordPress.  Anyway, so the HMRC had a deadline today: fill in your self assessment tax return or ELSE.

I’ve known about this since October (and not to mention all the years that I’ve known that I’ve had to do it in a timely fashion). However…….I prefer until I get to the insomniac state of fear and worry before I do anything about it.  This usually involves most of January……and every, damn January for years and years.

Things that I’ve done to put off actually doing what I should be doing:

-re-creating my Flickr account and actively posting. In fact, I’ve so fully submerged myself into this act of procrastination that I’m about to order a tripod and make a dark room.

-Having an illness. No, I’m not some sort of maniacal hypochondriac despite living in  France for the past five year and yes, this is a genuine illness but with a twist. The twist is that with every virus I acquire (and there be plenty) I lose my balance (a hangover from my fandango down the stone stairs last April). Feeling drunk without the fun? That covers it.

-Going through the sock basket. ……………. which lasted about 4 minutes and 29 seconds and then I threw all the 68 or so odd socks, in the bin. Felt guilty in case my husband found out so had to take the bin down to the village bins which required me hanging off walls to keep me upright.

-Feeling the need to learn a collection of Irish songs on the tin whistle and posting them to Youtube where I shall be mortified (and all viewers will be petrified) now that I’m out of my HAVENT DONE MY TAX mania.

Other events from this week:

Last Saturday the Face told me that he got a really bad grade in Science. As I am a reasonable type of mother (lacking, others might suggest), I asked him in which subject:

‘Reproduction’

Which, luckily dear followers, is MY area of expertise having had 5 kids.

‘So Face, what exactly didn’t you understand? As it is QUITE straightforward.’

‘none of it. I dunno. The teacher was going on about all these words and none of us knew what she was talking about. BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH.’

So I suggested that he revise the lesson and look up the words that he didn’t understand.

Then, I got the huffing

puffing

shrugging

‘you’re just an idiot’ look

Tutting

ATTITUDE

This MANNER of BAD attitude  makes me turn from nice, reasonable Mother to Feckin Lunatic Wildebeest.

‘Right then, Face. What we’ll do then, as you seem SOOO disinterested in learning it the right way is watch a lesson together on YOUTUBE.’

I actually heard his heart drop from his chest and hit his feet and bounce back up again.

I actually felt the heat from his utter SHAME and embarrassment that I should suggest such a thing.

I heard the pin (of collective SHAME) drop as the other 2 also doing their homework around the table, picked up on the absolute horror of the situation even if they had no idea what it was about – they felt the sibling PANIC.

It didn’t help that the first video I found to watch on Youtube began with a very lifelike computerised image of a woman’s hello there.  But watch it we did.

Once it was finished, I found sitting where my full of life 15 year old son had been, a ball of Cringe.  He’s not been right since but my God, does he know the ins and outs of the human reproduction system.

Mondays

The alarm didn’t go off (because some fool of a mother had not set it) so we all woke up late. What an enjoyable start that is.

I managed to get Fatty and the Lips to school 1 minute before being locked out and Fatty said ‘I NEED a poo.’ and no amount of me ‘no you don’t’ would shut him up.

Into the school midget toilets we go. And he sits………..and he sits…………and he sits………’have you finished yet Fatty as I think they’re now calling you for lunch’ ……..and he sits………and then he says ‘Im finished’………and then he says ‘no, I’m not as there is more’………and then I hear parents coming to pick up their kids as it is the end the day and we are still in the cubicle and then he launches himself off and bends over. Great. We’re done. My bobble hat, scarf, jacket, coat and gloves have been effective in making me SWEAT and hard. Thank god that’s over and I can get some fresh air. And then I see…………….I see something that I don’t quite understand…..I see poo poo footprints all around the infant toilet floor.

How could this happen?

How could one slip out and be trodden in without me noticing?

I wiped it up.

It was EVERYWHERE.

But I couldn’t not bleach it. Little hands could be covered in FAtty poo germs and I’d never forgive myself so I had to say in my best fRench to a teacher that FAtty did a poo, it dropped onto the floor and he walked into it. Yep.  I HAD to do that. And it was a very bizarre moment.

Right – Fatty has just sneakily fallen asleep so I must dash and fill him up with coke to see him through to the official bedtime.  I shall leave you one of my procrastinating photos:

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And it has only been a month since Christmas!

24 Saturday Jan 2015

Posted by in Parenting and family

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Blog, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!

Week before Christmas:

Let’s go back four weeks and to the Nativity play at the Prof’s school.  Held in an old, crumbling stone church down here in the department of Nowhere, the entire school plus family, plus family friends, plus the friends of friends, plus friends of friends of friends, plus people from the next village and then people from the next dozen situated further on, settled uncomfortably on the wooden yet humble pews and awaited le spectacle.  The priest walked onto the altar to kick off the festivities :

priest

‘IS HE A VAMPIRE? MUM? MUM? IS HE DRACULA?’

‘Shhhhhhhhhh Lips’ as I gag him by pulling his scarf up whilst his hat gets pulled down.

‘WHERE is the vampire? Where ? Mum, I CAN’T seeeeeeee.’    This, from Fatty who I then shove under the pew with a pack of tissues stuffed into his mouth.

3 minutes later:

‘So, WHERE IS GOD THEN?’

‘Not in your heart, clearly Lips.’

Christmas week:

Pack bags for Christmas trip in the (virtually bootless) car with:

3 children, 1 teenager, two labradors, 2 adults, clothes for said family, coats, scarves, hats, pillows, food for ooh, what? 3 months, every computerised device we have in the house, paperwork, paperwork, paperwork (which is left undone and brought back with us to take again to (not)do next time we go), gifts, shoes, shoes, boots, shoes, toys, books, drinks, more food, maps, toilet paper, more pillows, blankets, snow tyres …and a toothpick.

Drive the 700000000000 miles – that’s me, driving the 700000000000 miles as my husband informs me that he feels unable to do any of the motorway part:

‘Erm, so you mean, the entire trip?’

Get to inlaws, unpack for one night. don’t sleep. get up and pack. load car and then drive another 3 hours to our destination: a falling down, unheated house in the department of Somewhere.

Unpack the car. Now, what happens is that we are so tightly packed in in the first place that this can be likened to releasing a sealed pack of say, peanuts. The force of air and US that explodes out of that car upon arrival? Well, it affects global weather patterns.

Now, we have a few days of freezing our bits and pieces off INSIDE the house before repacking and re loading the car to go to England from Calais.

As I’m a news junkie I am well aware that I need to keep my doors locked around the Calais region for fear of my kids escaping the car and trying to hitch a lift on the back of a lorry to get to England in greater comfort than they are enjoying.

We FINALLY arrive in Essex to a house which, rather extraordinarily (for my kids) is warm in every room and ‘you can even leave the doors open.’

Unpack the car………(to re pack it 4 days later and make the return trip) to relax in the bosom of my family? No, I need to make sure that Father Christmas delivered early ALL the presents for the 5 boys and wrap all of those presents up!

Boxing Day I manage to sneak out from the kids in my running gear, across to the park ‘lovely. Just the job this, having a good run in my favourite park’ when I hear a guy shouting at me ‘Handicap?’

‘eh?’

‘Handicap?’

‘What do you MEAN?’

‘Are you running for the Handicap Charity Race?’

We pass a lovely Christmas and then start repacking the car….to return…….

And then I fall sick.

On NYE.

Of course.

NYE week:

Sickness

Colder than I’ve been since the last December I spent in that house when I swore I would never pass another week in winter there again……as I said the year before and the year before and the year before…

‘Fatty, bedtime. Go up and do a wee now!’

‘ I already did a wee, Fathead!’

‘What did you say?’

‘I didn’t say nuffink.’

A few days later, we make that 700000000000000000km drive home.

My husband remains incapable of driving on ‘just the motorway part.’

To be continued  – or rather, one day to be edited …..one day but not any day soon. I shall say a bientot and  leave you a photo of something…..I mean, my family.

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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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Exchanging wine for a boomerang?

12 Wednesday Mar 2014

Posted by in current affairs, humour, Living in France, Parenting, Parenting & family, Parenting and family, Raising boys, teenagers and alcohol

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Howdy Blog and a very warm welcome to my new followers – may we enjoy 1,000s of blog entires together….

I’ve just lost you haven’t I?  You can’t answer as you’ve already spaced out and moved on to a better, brighter, funnier, more insightful Blog – in case you’re waivering, I’ll insert an extraordinary picture (which truly has nothing whatsoever to do with this post):

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Things we now know that we didn’t know last week:

-Passenger planes can just vanish OR Governments/Army/Navy can not tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth….or nothing at all, as in this case.

-When large lorries, travelling at speed in the middle of a country lane where the road narrows, break hard and quickly, they skid for about 20 metres…..you can also smell burned rubber for about two miles further on up the road…….or was that coming from my foot as I JAMMMMED THE ANCHORS coming against the said lorry, with no where to go but a wall or a river?

-Bob Crow died. Who are Daily Mail reading London Tube passengers going to moan about now?

-When you invite lots of people to your house, perhaps consider that they might all turn up so be prepared – that showed me, didn’t it? And them…..

-When people (moi?….jamais) say ‘I’m going to sell this baby’, they don’t really mean it and the person they are having this lighthearted exchange with, REALLY shouldn’t take it as literal……because….I wouldn’t have sold the baby, I would have given him away.

The Family

I can feel that you are all desperate to hear news of the 5 boys and the Woofy?

So are the local police.

All right, all right:

The Prodigal 

I’ve not managed to find ONE empty alcohol container over the past 3 weeks. This means that

a)he has turned a corner and given up or

b)he is getting better at hiding them or

c) my eyesight is getting worse

d)he sneaks back into the neighbour’s house and ‘steals her wine and leaves his boomerang’ (her very words to me via a charming email about teenagers and alcohol and the dangers and how my son is leading her daughter astray….I should probably return the favour and reply with a charming response warning of the dangers of teenagers and say….oh…..marijuana and how her daughter is leading my son..if not, astray, then stumbling slightly off the Path towards the Righteous Parent? But I’m not enough of a bitch…actually, I am….but my Level of Bitch in French is pas bonne.  In English or French, I still cannot grasp what she meant by the boomerang – it’s probably the same case for her).

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The Face

‘Prodigal, does that make me Jesus as I cured your jaw when I kicked a football at it?’

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The Prof

Dunno as I’ve not seen him for nearly two weeks

The Lips

ditto – i do hear though that they (the Prof and Lips) have studied hard and are getting more serious about knocking the hell out of each other.  I’m very much a stand back (and block my ears and eyes) and let them get on with it . Up until blood is spilled or worse,  they’re about to break something I like, then I’ll step in.

Fatty

Turned 3.

‘So Fatty, remember we said that on your 3rd birthday, you are going to throw away all of your dummies (soothers)?”

‘I DON’T WANT TO BE 3!!!!!!!’

He made me think of how his father is when he has run out of Nicorette gum. I found him searching under things; lifting things up;looking looking looking looking with that crazy, addict look and yearning for his drug of choice (sillicone in his case).

He found one in the car and knew he had conquered and crushed my No Dummy Phase I stage (little hands clamped around a dummy have a strength that surely goes against all physiological possibilities).

Later, I found him face down on the floor under his little table……face down to hide what he had in his mouth.  No Dummy Phase II stage destroyed.  In the Tug of Dummy which occurred after this:  Fatty’s grip 1  Mummy 0.

Things that Fatty says:

‘Can I open more presents now?’  on waking up the day after his birthday.

‘if a shark wanted to eat me, I would turn into a snowman.’

And,

‘Fatty, where is your other shoe?’

” is it behind my ear?’

The Woofy

She’s getting a bit porky around the middle but that’s not surprising as she spends most of her time hanging around Fatty who has an extremely generous  nature especially with a packet of biscuits and his breakfast, lunch dinner, knife, spoon, fork. He is also generous with sharing his sword with the Woofy ‘see she likes being hit with it.’ and sharing his sense of fun as he pulls her tail and goes ever so near to her ‘what’s that mummy? is that where her baby comes out?

‘GET YOUR HAND OUT OF THERE NOW< FATTY!!!!!’

OH and better not to forget, The Husband

Is still away. yes, I know, he has been away rather a lot but at least this time he took 2/5 with him. I know that you are wondering if he’ll buy me another family pack of chocolates by way of a present from his holidays. I’m feeling lucky. I think that he might.

—

Ok, thank you for reading. Feel free to leave a comment – if I don’t like them, I won’t approve them…..I HAVE the Power!!!!  Also, as I’m not going to edit (EVER) feel free to make the corrections. I’ll read them, take note and then empty my brain of them.

So, I’ll leave you with a line by one of my all time favourite characters (plus he reminds me of my brother, Fingers):

You can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be led.