Tag Archives: raising boys

Printemps, poo & voyages

09 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by in Parenting and family

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Bonjour Blog,

Comment ca va?

Moi? Je vais très bien because Printemps is coming.

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ok – that’ll do on the old French and anyway, to say that I am very well is a slight lie as I was in Dublin (again) this weekend and going to bed later than 9 p.m. two nights running (with no mention of the alcohol consumed) plays havoc with my aged skin.

As I was on such a roll, I decided to drink more alcohol upon my return to Froggy Land which could be put under the heading ‘Things not to do when you get home from Dublin’ OR ‘What not to do on a Sunday evening’.

At age 42, it is not enough to congratulate myself on the self control I showed by not getting drunk drunk (this is second stage level; level one being tipsy).  It is also not enough to self congratulate as half a pint of one of those drinks got knocked (self knocked) onto my lap. I’m sure all that iron that is in Guinness (ahem) did wonders for the skin of my upper thighs and bum.  Running around the suburbs of Dublin with wet pants and trousers, a damp vest and very damp shirt in the sultry March weather could also go under ‘Things to avoid whilst in the Emerald Isle’.

This was the reason I was there:

a christening

What has been happening here, you may ask?

Lild Supermarket Dog had to have an operation.  She now feels less of a woman and shall be having counselling for the loss of her womb.

The reason that she had to have an operation was because the vet who performed the ‘Stop the dog having babies’ operation’ bodged it up.  As an aside, that vet has since killed himself. Are these things related?   The Vet-the-2nd told mon mari that Lidl would have to go to a specialist vet in all things reproductive. The husband could feel….literally feel the euro notes flying out of his wallet.  I can’t say that I caught him sharpening his knives to perform the operation himself but I know him well enough to suggest that he thought of it.

Lidl is depressed.

She is depressed as she has been made to wear a plastic cone.

This plastic cone is used as some sort of battering ram against all other species…….like us, the Humans. I feel that she is expressing some of her aggression at being mutilated in the form of ramming us with that bloody plastic cone. She is particularly good at attacking us with it through doorways as we both try to walk through at the same time. The Cone wins every time.

The Children of mine

The Prodigal has been fairly quiet – no news is good news? Definitely in this case.

The Face – has been secretly pumping iron. He must be pumping iron so hard and fast that he has caused some kind of Movement Hurricane which has emptied all of his drawers of every item of clothing onto the floor……along with wrappers and a serving bowl.

The Professor – you can only have a conversation with this child if it involves football.

The Lips – worryingly, he has been quite good recently. This can only mean that he has some grand scheme on the go which will be the downfall of the planet. In the meantime, he has found a pet – a pet toad which he has named Beans. Perhaps Beans shall be the vessel of the Lip’s plan. If I see him searching for his slingshot, then I’ll have to release Beans back to the wild of our swimming pool (and, let me tell you, that place is wilder than say, a wine and canapes evening……hosted by riotous prisoners).

Fatty – shall be 4 tomorrow.  Yes, I can hardly believe that the baby is at such an age. The beginnings of independence display itself. How can I tell?   I’ll tell you how I can tell.  All I have to do is check out the toilet and IF it is covered in poo, then I can tell you that FAtty is exerting his 4 yr old independence by wiping his own bum.

Last week, his Independent streak was doing so well that not only was there poo ALL over the toilet but it was also on the walls and a mirror. How did he manage to get it spread so far and wide?  Let me tell you:  now, after living with 6 brothers and now 5 of my own, I pride myself on being a bit of a Sherlock when it comes to piecing together what (bad) activity has taken place. As Holmes says, we just need to use ‘the data’ and not……NOT listen to the lies of our children.  So the reconstruction went like this:

-Fatty on the toilet enjoying himself (he REALLY loves to sit there right up until the blood stops getting to his toes)

-Reaching and grabbing the toilet paper and having a go whilst still sitting on the toilet. He produces two large, crumpled pooey pieces of toilet paper (probably one entire roll) and as he is still on the toilet the only place for them to be disposed of is? Well, of course – elementary my dear Watson – the floor.

-Job done in his head however he reaches behind to make sure and gets some deposit on his hand. What to do? What to do?

-So as he slides off the toilet seat, he leaves a nice skid.

-His hands are still covered and the only way of getting that off is to first wipe them on the lid of the toilet and then flick around the walls, the last scraps.

Meanwhile, this Mother of boys, has NO idea what he is doing and her spider/poo senses tingle. As she is dishing up the dinner, she sends the Lips to find Fatty.  He comes back and walks past the mother and her serving spoon:

‘Hey, Lips – so, what is Fatty doing then?’

‘Nothing’

‘What do you mean?’

‘he is on the toilet.’

‘oh no – is her doing a(n unsupervised) poo?’

‘no, just a wee.’

‘ok. great. DIN-NER!!!!’

So Fatty comes down and tucks into his meal.

He hadn’t washed his hands

but that’s ok

they got clean whilst he picked up his food and licked his fingers.

Later that evening, after all the kids were in bed and after not wanting to partake in my husbands inability -to- find- anything- to- watch- on- tv- mad- 30 minute- flick-daily-activity, I took myself up to our Big Room which was daring as were we only at the beginning of March and it is unheated. Still, the sofa is quite comfy (and unripped) and I put on a lamp and found a book.

Lidl came up and found me and I could tell that she was enjoying sniffing around…….sniffing around until she found the right place……to squat and pee on the fecking rug!

That was the end of that 2 minutes of bliss.

It was at this point that I discovered the Independent Poo incident of the upstairs toilet.  To be fair on Fatty, when I suggested the events as I had worked out, he didn’t disagree.

The Cone Head

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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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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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Le Paddington Bear goes on a trip to England

24 Monday Nov 2014

Posted by in Parenting and family

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Scene 1: London Bridge Station – Mum of 5 boys and the Prodigal are on their way to a family christening:

‘It’s ok Prodigal, we’ve got loads of time.  We’ll let this train go and get on the next one. That’s how much spare time we’ve got……….I would go as far to say that we’re pregnant with spare time. In the meantime, let’s have another snap of the French Paddington Ours  bear for the Prof’s school project. Do you reckon his foot was already hanging off?’

Scene 2: A coffee shop, London Bridge

‘Madame, we do not accept these 20 pound notes.’

‘Really? Since when?’

‘2010, Madame.’

‘Do you accept Paddington bears?’

(That bloody cheap husband of mine, gave the kids a 20 pound note to buy themselves something with – yes, forget about the fact the Im trying to use it to buy a coffee – he’s the cheap one here, not me!)

Scene 3:

‘Mum, this train seems to be taking its time.’

‘Shit!  Never mind that, hold Paddington up against the window so he can enjoy all that Kent has to offer and how amazed the French children will be to see a photo of that very enjoyment.’

Scene 4:

We have 6 minutes before the christening kicks off at 2 p.m.

Running out of the station, the Prodigal is so desperate for a pee that he does one next to a bus stop on the main road.  Paddington goes too.

I, meanwhile am running UP the LONGEST, STEEPEST FRIGGING HILL in KENT.  Luckily I had the good sense to keep my ultra white mid top girl skate shoes on – set off nicely against my black pvc leggings and green coat. I must have picked up my great sense of style from living in Nowhere in France.

We are carrying one large bag, one handbag, one camera, one pair of shoes, one gift bag, two paper bags filled with the Prodigal;s old clothes as he went to a Gentlemen’s Outfitter just before meeting me.

He looked like an Edwardian gentleman but with pale beige suede lace ups (I guess the sales assistant in the shop wasn’t willing to give advice)  and I looked like a Romford tart. He smelt like he’d showered in litres of  whiskey and I just felt like I’d drunk that amount.

We ran.

Scene 5:

Throwing our bags onto the church bench and changing shoes.

Scene 6:

Banging on the church door, rattling another door, looking through windows.

‘Funny that they should lock us out, Prodigal.’

Scene 7:

2.05 p.m.

Running up the eternal hill this time in black high heeled boots (Lidl – special – e14.99)

We now enter the CORRECT church (what wally put two churches so close to each other?) as the christening is in full flow.

We were HOT. We were breathing hard.  I didn’t dare to take off my green coat as I didn’t think it respectful to flash my pvc legging-ed droopy arse in a house of God, so I nearly vanished into a pool of sweat.

Except

No-one else seemed to be taking any photos.  I hadn’t dragged my heavy camera across Europe to have it lying idle.

I dragged my hot self, ducking down so that no one would notice me (?) across the aisle and sat at the front and then tried to take photos with the flash going off, blinding the priest and baby and then trying to look like I wasn’t doing that……..and failing.

‘hmm, that’s 5 flashes in a row. At one point will the priest tell me to fuc poke it?’

I shall not win any awards for my photos.

And what a lovely day we had!

Later, as we went to leave the festivities to make that long journey back to London and then onto Essexshire, the Prodigal had lost his wallet…..and train tickets…and oyster card….and his mother’s sense of humour.

Part II of ‘a little snippet of a post’ post from Saturday 8th November

Scene: On the plane with the Prof and the Lips

Paddington is looking at the window as the plane starts to take off.  The Lips seems a bit agitated as he feels the place lift upwards.

‘WE’RE GOING TO DIE. WE’RE GOING TO DIE. WE’RE GOING TO DIE!!!!! PROF PROF, PROF!! WE’RE GOING TO DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!’

Drowning Dog – attempt II and other trucs.

12 Friday Sep 2014

Posted by in Parenting and family

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Blog,

Hello there and good afternoon.

I’ve just finished my online purchases of more tat for the house whilst the Husband isn’t looking. Do you know how quickly I can punch my bank card numbers into this computer without being caught? Do you also realise how my greed need for these purchases is only short term – i.e. 5 mins after throwing money down the toilet, I’ve forgotten all about it until

‘Zere ees a man at le door avec beaucoup de packages. What ‘ave you been buying?‘ –

it is a good question and my answer of ‘erm…..not much and maybe someone sent it to me as a present?’  is surely followed by

‘why do you keep buying so much merde?’ – the truth hurts? I’ll say but probably not as much as a depleting without being replenished bank account.

Anyway, let me tell you what happened one morning during our holiday in the Department of Somewhere with Lidl Supermarket Dog.

The beach was deserted. The clouds were low, full and very grey – I would go as far to say, moody (truly without trying to sound like a wally).  The grass of the dunes rippled by the gusts of winds changed from green to yellow to silver in colour.  The tide was in and the sea was choppy.

So,

Having learned the hard ( shameful, wet and cold) lesson of letting Lidl off the leash for a swim a few weeks before, I herded both dogs towards the dunes for some fun, SAFE, no danger of getting wet or drowning, play.

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They scurried up the dune and were lost in the grasses.  I followed (however, I can’t apply my movement as a scurry – more along the lines of an elephant trying to climb up and out of a large……very large…..HUGE..bowl of blancmange).

We remained within the safety of the dunes, far enough away from the sea for Lidl to not be able to make a 2nd attempt at swimming the (English….how the French hate that) channel.

Just before we came to the end of our walk and just as I was about to put their leashes back on, that bastard adventurous dog made a break for it up and over the last high dune towards………horror of horrors, the place where the estuary meets the sea.

‘feckin’ feck feck feck FEEEEEEEEEECCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKK!’

Maisy gulped and managed to look ashamed on behalf of her hairy sister.

We ran up and over that last dune only to see Lidl supermarket dog begin to swim from the fairly calm estuary water towards the open sea.

It had started to rain.

The wind was now howling and gale force.

I took off my shoes and some clothes and went in screaming Lidl’s name.

The shock of the water temperature stopped me for a few seconds. I took in a breath and then it felt like my lungs reduced in capacity; it was ARCTIC in that water.

Lidl was having a ball. Swimming around and around. Looking at me quizzically (surely, dogs can do this….). I looked at her quizzically (how far around her thick neck will my hands reach whilst I throttle her).  My feet were slipping and sinking into some oozy mush.

She swam out further.

The cold of the water was punishing. The blood began to drain out from my fingertips. I was now in up to my shoulders.

The storm continued.

Im going to drown or die of hypothermia and then who will write my blog?

or

If I die, people will realise just what a dirty chaotic house I live in and how slack I am at paperwork

These thoughts gave me the push to survive.

So I made one last water-slow leap forward and grabbed her collar and dragged her very wet and soggy derriere out of that water.

What I didn’t call her as I started to take off my wet clothes and exposed parts of my very white body to some dog walker who must have been laughing at me from the dunes and who happened to walk past just as I started stripping, is of little import.

The storm worsened.

We had to walk at least a mile back along the beach without any respite from the sand blasting wind and rain.

When I got back home and by now I was so cold that I was dizzy and wanting to vomit, the Prof said to me:

‘I told you not to let her go back near the water.’

which was helpful…………

A few days later, we revisited the place of the second almost drowning and I saw, as the tide was out, exactly what I had been standing in:

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I started to look up about dogs and drowning and found the piece which said:

Labradors are natural swimmers and have the ability to swim for hours. Only a total idiot of an owner would risk going in after them as even their tails act like a water propellor.

I’ll remember that next summer.

Right, now the bottle of bleach which I put on the workbench to begin burning and scraping the peepee and caca off the toilets is starting to shame me in the longevity of its position out of the cupboard that I’m off to put it back……..ok, I’m off to clean…..off to clean…..really…..

Until next time.

By the way, go crazy today, post me a comment.

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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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.

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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.

And then we were down to three (boys and a dog)

02 Sunday Mar 2014

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Good morning  mon cher and happy Sunday to my thousands of followers,

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The Husband, the Prof and the Lips have just thrown some belongings into supermarket bags (for life) and are heading north for the holidays.

This leaves me with the dog, Fatty, the Face and the Prodigal.

What this means to me:

Now, we’ll REALLY be able to get to grips with who pees around the base of the toilet; who never flushes; who is smashing, breaking, cracking, scratching, marking everything; throwing around contents of rooms, boxes, the kitchen and walking off and leaving it, the mess, unclaimed.  Two (actually, let’s make that three as the Husband has potential for some if not all of those) are out of the equation. 

The Face and Prodigal are onto this. They know that when half of the Tribe of Potential Blame is out of the house, they have to watch themselves…….. if they’re really desperate they can blame the dog, who, as far as I am aware is not able to climb up into cupboards and open tins of sweets, chocolate, biscuits, crisps and cleverly stuff the empty packets under sofas, cushions, down the sides of beds…..but I’ll keep an open mind. Labradors, after all, are well known for their capacity to be trained.

If you follow this blog, you’ll know that the Husband ONLY arrived back from Paris last Sunday. Also, if you follow this blog, you’ll remember that the last time he came back after a two week holiday trip, he was bearing gifts (for a not so very high class pole dancer). This time – this time, what did he bring me back?

A family size packet of maltezers.

The ‘dog’ ate half of them.

p.s. that photo has nothing to do with the blog.  I just liked it. It’s how my head feels most of the time – kind of stripy and spinning. Come to think of it, it’s how my hair looks too (yesterday the Prodigal did my highlights for the first time).

We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones

Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613 – 1680)

 

Chasing my tail

06 Thursday Feb 2014

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Dear Blog,

This is what I do, every, single day:

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Now, the week that has been, involved :….- or should it be – Things we now know that we didnt (want to) know last week?

-little sleep. Such little sleep that my logical (?) brain decided that ‘surely we are under attack from a bad spell/demons/ evil spirits?’ Yep – it has got to that level. I know this is clearly madness (but entre nous, I asked Archangel Michael to come and clear ‘them’ out of the house anyway).

-Archangel Michael, in cleansing the house of evil, sleep eating monsters, somehow managed to sieve the kids out the mixture and they, the kids, remain (cleansed?)….. And remain the main cause of the lack of sleep.

-the Prodigal has upped his level of anti-parent, unacceptable behaviour and is literally reaching for the skies (not quite reaching Angel Michael).
We are now 3/4 of a very large, very good armagnac bottle less than we were a week ago. To think that he mixed this with apple juice must have made all previous dwellers of this ancient house, slap bang in the centre of armagnac world, groan (and rise up to keep me awake).
This bottle had been bought as a Christmas present for my father in law…. I hope that he isn’t too thirsty.

-snip snap? Not for the Prodigal. A hairdresser without scissors, is like a …. Very useless person. Not just one pair of fabulously expensive scissors but two!
‘And do you know what? A funny thing happened and you wont believe it’
‘You’re right there, Prodigal.’
‘The salon got broken into the ONE time I left my stuff there.’
‘Well, what do you know…? We don’t believe it.’

-the Prodigal (yep, still on this theme) has gone to England for the weekend. He has gone for the sole purpose of accompanying, erm..escorting his girlfriend to her prom (the Prom, which to her, is the single most important event to ever happen…. until she goes with my son and then there’ll be numerous spin off BIG events). The Possibilities OF Shit Hitting The Fan and spreading infinitely far are eeendleeeessss.
I don’t (currently) have an English Brief but I think I might start researching:
‘Ok, Google, Uk. Search for: ‘most successful defence lawyer of absolutely, for sure, definite to lose, cases.’

Meanwhile:
The Face went skiing for the day.
I got up at 6.30 to get him to school.
As I had another 160km to drive that day (demons children to various things), I stopped the car, 300m away from the school door for a quick turnaround:
‘What? Have you forgotten where my school is?’
As I shoved him out of the car and wheel span off – that moment? Well, it was the best part of the day.

Ok, as we (me and THEM are in the unheated Big Room, in February), Im signing over and out and shall post this unedited (again) and wonder.

Farewell.