So Last Century

'The Beatles? Aren't they some old band from last century?'

This year's summer holiday was to Liverpool and the Isle of Man. The weather allowed plenty of swimming in the Irish Sea, and the rare occurrence of accompanying sunburn. The return journey included a stopover in Liverpool.

I thought my offspring would be excited to see the world-famous Cavern Club. Turns out...no. Primark was more exciting, as we don't have one near us. Not only were they not impressed by one of the most famous live music venues in the world  ('Can we go now, it's dark and boring'), we discovered that it wasn't just that they were firmly not Beatles fans, but that they actually didn't know any Beatles songs.

Clearly a case of parenting gone wrong, I sought to rectify this, immediately. I know, I thought, the drive back from Liverpool is a good four or five hours. That will give me plenty of time to educate these poor, deprived children.

Cue rapid download of The Beatles 'Essentials'. Don't worry, I felt the hand of Alan Partridge as we were doing it.

And then I thought, it isn't that they don't know any songs, it's just that they don't know they are by The Beatles. Let's see how many they are actually familiar with!

It didn't go well. Gertie had her headphones in, but she did deign to remove them for the opening few bars of each track to then offer an increasingly frustrated shake of the head to indicate that no, she really didn't know this one either.

Eventually, success!  We All Live in A Yellow Submarine provoked a spark of recognition. 'I thought it was a nursery rhyme.'

And Let it Be was 'vaguely familiar'. Nothing else though.

'Do we have to listen to any more of this OLD rubbish music? Seriously, mummy, these songs all sound exactly the same.'

Eddie joined in with the general malcontent, putting his fingers in his ears and pointedly singing, 'HATE Jude' once he'd mastered the refrain.

It was a very long journey home.

Christmas According to Gertie

It began a few weeks ago with the raised eyebrows, mocking tone of voice and fingers making inverted commas around the word 'Santa'. For Gertie, aged eight, some of the magic of Christmas seemed to have been lost.

And yet it has been something of a social whirl since she broke up from school. There have been parties and play dates and sleepovers. In fact, she has barely spent a night at home and when she has it has usually been accompanied by a friend. And many of them seem to be just that little bit less cynical and worldly wise than Gertie; and I imagine that over those late night bonding gossips and midnight feasts (the sweet wrappers and orange peel beneath her bed is a sight to behold) the question of the man in red must have come up.

And there has been a definite shift in attitude in these final few days. So, whether it is posturing for the sake of her younger brothers, a kind of 'Santa agnosticism', or a last ditch attempt to make sure that her stocking was filled - more magical discussion and less eye-rolling has taken place (the Santa-tracker app was also instrumental) and all is well.

Currently reading: The Road That Led To Where by Sally Gardner

Currently driving: Triumph Spitfire in Pageant Blue.  Clever Hearth-Father in his choice of Christmas present! Who needs Santa?

The Dark Side of the Gloom

I've posted before about how much hard work Saturdays seem to be.  Not the relaxing weekend experience I always anticipate. 

Last weekend was Gertie's ballet show.  Gilby was his usual 'Eeyore' in the morning, claiming that he was 'shop-sick' as we gathered groceries.  I say 'Eeyore', though indeed he makes Winnie the Pooh's friend seem like the life and soul of the party.  His glass isn't just half-empty, it appears to have sprung a leak.  On this occasion, however I do him a little injustice.  We came home and he took an unprecedented day-time nap.  For two hours.  Eddie also slept, and Gertie was already at the dress rehearsal.  It was unexpectedly peaceful.  So much so that I was reluctant to wake both boys up.  I

We left for the show with not much time to spare.  Gilby got sick in the car so great clothing improvisation took place and we arrived just seconds before the performance began.  It was beautiful, but long, and I spent three hours wrestling with a one-year-old in a darkened room, which is exhausting.  He didn't seem to want to sit still and watch the ballet for some reason.

We left to be greeted by a flat-tyre on the car.  Yes, Cheryl had let us down.  Let herself down.  Well, let her tyre down, anyway.  Balls.  Hungry children.  Very late.  Call Daddy and head for the Harvester.  We stayed the night with the grandparents and my string of pearls broke at the supper table, cascading across the dining room. 

Bed was a blissful release, I'd had enough of Saturday.  Ah, perhaps that's where Gilby gets it from: the Eeyore-gene.  I have only myself to blame.

First Graffiti

"Mummy, look what I've done..." There was pride tinged with anxiety in the voice.  It's a tone I know well.   It translates roughly as, 'I'm ever so excited about the thing that's just happened, but I have the teensiest tiniest suspicion that you may not share my enthusiasm for it.'

I had asked Gertie to wait by the car for a moment as we were getting ready to leave the house this morning.  In those few seconds, what she had produced, technically, was her first piece of graffiti.  In case you can't quite make it out, it reads, 'I *heart* charlie xx *heart*.

Charlie is, like Gertie, five years old. He is one of four boyfriends, she tells me with a blush.  Graffiti and polygamy.  Can't wait for the teenage years.

No comments about the state of the car, please.  It's been very, very wet here.

Lunar Lunacy

This morning Gilby jumped on us in bed.  Of course, it was Saturday morning, so we get woken up extra early, because the laws of having children say that on days when you are able to have a lie in you actually get woken up at least an hour before you usually do.  Everyone knows that.  But this morning, he was excited to tell us about his dream. He dreamt that he was a grown up.  (How exciting is that when you are three?) And he was a spaceman.  Every boy's dream, no?  And not only that, but when he went up into space he baked cakes. 

So I am thinking that we will have the first lunar celebrity chef when he grows up; hooray! Move over Jamie Oliver, there is a new niche in the market.

The other good news is that our new au pair has arrived from Austria.  Let's call her Lady Visa.  Very efficient with the children, perfect in fact.  And they love her. But - vehicles seem not to be her friend.  She has been here for a week and a half, and so far she has managed to obtain a parking ticket in Guildford, and had to call out whatever the Austrian equivalent of the AA is to tow her out, since she got Rooney stuck in the mud at some lovely rural spot that she stopped to admire the view at. (Rooney because the car is maroon, not after the England striker; I'm bored of having to explain that.) And she missed the last train home from London, resulting in a midnight dash for my husband to collect her from the next station.  Still.  She seems to settling in well, just as long as transport isn't involved.

Early Career Choice

This is, unbelievably my 100th post.

I feel that it should be on a weighty subject, perhaps with some thoughtful insights about motherhood, or even blogging itself. Alas, no. It is, in fact, about fairies. Sort of.

I've been out playing stoolball at a tournament today, the last game of the season. For anyone not in Surrey, Kent or Sussex, this is a relatively obscure team game that involves wickets and boundaries and was a forerunner to cricket (allegedly). It is mostly just played in the south-east of England.

Gertie was a great spectator and in between games also unwittingly provided most of the entertainment. At one point I asked her, in front of the team, what she would like to be when she grew up. I expected her to say a teacher (like her Mum) or a farmer (she is obsessed by a local farm park, where Brenda, our Wonder from Down Under, works part time). I even half suspected she might say something to do with cars, like her Daddy.

"A fairy," came her immediate, and confident response.

I'm not entirely sure that she's getting helpful career advice at this early stage.

I Spy With My Little Eye Someone Who's Not Ready to Play 'I Spy'

Gertie isn't really 'game-ready' yet. Board games have to be ridiculously simple and engineered so that she will win, within about five minutes of starting. Hide and Seek is....not terribly difficult, particularly if one is the 'seeker'.

So when Gertie announced in the car earlier today that she wanted to play 'I Spy', it was with some trepidation that I agreed.

"You go first, Mummy."
A convoy of motorcycles roared by at that moment, providing just the inspiration I needed. "I spy with my little eye, something beginning with 'M'."
"No Mummy, you don't say a letter you say a colour."
"Right. Of course you do. I spy with my little eye something that is..."
Gertie eyed me pityingly, and spoke slowly to make sure I understood. "No Mummy, you don't say 'that is' you just say the colour."
I was slowly getting the hang of the game.
"Right. I spy with my little eye something pink."
"Is it my cardigan?"
"No."
"Yes, it is, Mummy. It is!"

Clearly there is a rule somewhere about the guesser also deciding on the object that I am not familiar with, knowing only a more traditional form of the game...

More Car Horror

Given how busy life is in the run up to Christmas, I am going to cheat with this post and use something I just found in my diary from not long after Gertie was born. Two and a half years ago I don't even think I knew what a 'blog' was, but clearly I would have been 'at it', had I been aware. It also seems quite appropriate given that I have been blogging about my poor knowledge and skills in relation to cars recently...

"All new first-time mums are anxious to get everything right. But no matter how hard I try, I seem somehow to always get it completely wrong. I fear that I may be in the running for this year’s worst mum in the world award.

For the last year or so I have been driving round in a little two-seater convertible. What do you mean I wasn’t ready to have a baby? Admittedly it wasn’t the most suitable vehicle for my final months of pregnancy, and I probably more closely resembled a shuffling hippopotamus than a chic glamour-puss as I got in and out towards the end – but with the actual arrival of my little one it became totally impractical and had to go. One last trip, I thought, as I strapped the car-seat and my newborn into the front. I heard a strange clicking noise as I busied myself with seatbelts and straps, but thought nothing of it. Until I shut the door on Gertie and realised that the clicking noise was the automatic locking system and my bag and keys and phone and baby were securely stuck, inside the car. And no, I hadn’t put the roof down yet, so there was no way to get in.

I had to leave the car to attack someone with a phone, to then scream in tears at my husband who, in turn, drove home from work with the spare set of keys to resolve the crisis. But as I waited for him, I was also expecting social services to appear at any moment. Gertie fell asleep and was oblivious to the whole sequence of ‘abuse’ and whilst the whole debacle was a complete accident, that knowledge did little to help my self-loathing bad-mother vibe. Needless to say, I never took that ‘last trip’ in my car, and was happy to see it go.

When I meet up with the other mums, Gertie is the one with the worst cradle-cap – that somehow must be my fault. She is also the only one who is able to poo through her nappy and all over whatever cute outfit I have dressed her in. Nowhere seems to do mustard yellow baby clothes, as this would be the only way we could make it through the day without looking totally incompetent. The discussion about routines happens, well routinely. Unfortunately the closest we come to the ‘r’ word in our house is in knowing that at some point we will go to bed, and at some point(s) we will get up.

We do do lots of nice things together. We went to a little music class earlier this week. One of the other mums refused a coffee at the start, because she was breastfeeding. So am I. Gosh. She wouldn’t like to hear about my current level of wine consumption then.

But I love my baby dearly, impossibly, indescribably. The problem is that I am used to being successful at work and, in my past-life, being good at things generally. And I am blatantly not good at this mum-thing. Yet. Good job I am going to have many years ahead to perfect it."

Well. Good job I've got it all sorted out two and a half years later, isn't it? Not like I've ever phoned my husband in tears and had to get him to come out from work...

What Spacial Awareness?

Oh the shame. To have to call my husband to the rescue like some pathetic damsel in distress, sobbing and snivelling in my own driveway.

Let me explain a little. My husband loves cars and works in the trade. I, on the other hand, don't really 'get' them. Beyond details like a decent stereo and being a nice colour, I couldn't really care less, as long as they get me where I want to go. They all look the same to me. I could probably tell a Mini from a Porsche, on a good day if pushed. So a car is just a car. But with the arrival of Gilby back in July, and now having to have two car seats as well as all the other accompanying 'stuff' (potty, pram, changing bag, etc.), things had got a little bit squashed in our old, er, 'silver' car.

So a few weeks ago, my husband brought home a seven-seater thing that looks a bit like a small bus and has these amazing slidy doors, so you can get children in and out however tight the parking space. I had a stronger positive reaction to it than I normally do to a vehicle, so Daddy took this as a good sign and promptly bought us this, er, 'green' one. It had one damaged panel from the previous owners and so he took it straight to the paint-shop and got it all straightened out.

Trouble is, it's a wee bit bigger than the last one. The same afternoon that he brought it back all perfectly repaired, I managed to scrape exactly the same panel on our gatepost. He was...a little bit cross. But we got over it with a little laugh and some jokes at my expense about poor spatial awareness.

On Friday morning our neighbours were parked in such a way that when I tried to turn the car round there was even less room than usual. I embarked upon something approximating a 57-point turn and somehow I got stuck, quite literally, on the gate post. I had cunningly managed to manoeuvre myself into a position whereby I couldn't move forwards or backwards without scraping the side and causing untold damage. I don't know how I managed to do this. Neither did my husband, when he arrived home from work in the middle of the day, at my blubbering behest to get me out of this predicament.

At least it was a different panel this time.