Half Term Plate Spinning

The character of half term definitely changes as the children get older.

For starters, I get disproportionately cross at the wheedling morning conversation that begins, What are we doing today?

'Nothing' is apparently not a satisfactory answer to this question. And supervising half term basically requires a qualification in plate spinning.

Because, after shooting myself in the foot by starting the week with the surprise 10am big screen showing of Spider-Man Spirals into the Super Spiderverse - might have got that title wrong, it was something like that - first thing on Monday morning, I seem unable to top the wow factor.

(There was an ulterior motive to this uncharacteristically generous and thoughtful surprise though; it bought me two hours of precious scrapbooking time with a fellow mum while they were safely ensconced in the cinema with secreted home-made popcorn. Oh, and the tickets were less than £3 each.)

Since then I have tried to avoid a descent into the eleventh circle of hell (death by screens and devices) by: attempting to make homework 'fun' (that didn't turn out terribly well), encouraging drawing and doodling with actual pens, supervising fudge-making, driving eldest on a five hour round trip to visit her cousins, and even dragging out the unbelievably faffy chocolate coin maker of a few Christmases ago which tries my patience entirely since there are 35 steps to make a single sodding coin.

And it's only Wednesday! Happy half term.

Currently Reading:

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

8 Reasons Not To Live in a Castle

Christmas 2013 has been spent at Harburn House in West Lothian, a Georgian mansion set in 3000 acres of glorious Scottish countryside. It enabled twenty-one of us, from three generations of family, to all spend Christmas together in luxurious surroundings. All the young cousins could romp around together, and the adults could too, for that matter.


Sitting at my dressing table each morning with the four poster bed reflecting in the mirror made me feel like a character in a Jane Austen novel. Walking Kempy in such beautiful, tranquil countryside, with hills rising majestically in the distance, was dreamy.


So, before I get too carried away with the romance of the whole thing and decide that my real life is inadequate by comparison, I've decided to focus on all the reasons why I really, really wouldn't want to live in a glorious castle.

1. It is a very, very long walk to the nearest pub.

2. You get achy legs from having to keep going up and down colossal flights of stairs. Longer than four days here and I would end up with calves the size of large pheasants.

3. Hanging Christmas decorations becomes a life-threatening mission given the height of the ceilings.

4. There are so many bathrooms that choosing where to have a bath or shower becomes a major decision.

5. The drapes on one's four-poster-bed block out the light from one's bedside lamp, making night-time reading difficult.

6. There's no mobile phone signal, and fairly intermittent wifi, so it's difficult to boast about being here without constant access to social media.

7. Whatever you want is inevitably an awfully long way away from where you happen to be. On occasion I found myself three floors away from my slippers.

8. And, linked with number seven on the list, you have to shout very loudly indeed to be heard whenever you do want something.


But aside from those little niggles, it really has been a magical Christmas. Father Christmas managed to find his way here, alleviating the fears of the children. And though it didn't settle, we even had snow flurries throughout the day on Christmas Eve. I'll just try not to think too much about the journey home.

Christmas Road Trip

'Twas the night before our departure for five days away, and I found myself ramming 'stocking' presents into a hard-structured suitcase thereby crushing carefully wrapped Barbie doll boxes and bending unbendable tubes of smarties. "You - will - go - in.." I snarl threateningly at some inanimate and hitherto unobjectionable objects, regretting it immediately amidst the sound of sinister snapping sounds and as the foot of a dinosaur protrudes menacingly from cheap wrapping paper. It is an ominous start to a long night.



At nine am the next morning, Daddy proclaims that the car is full. I look on to see, with no small measure of alarm, that so is the kitchen. Full of bags that still need to go in to the car. And it is, of course, imperative that most of it is unseen by the children.



The sideways rain doesn't help. It comes lashing at you in waves, like a giant dog in the sky shaking itself off vigorously from side to side. Daddy on a step-ladder fiddling with the things in the roof box is making absolutely no difference to the space available, but quite a lot to his life expectancy. In the wrong direction. Now we are an hour late departing. The giant dog in the car, Kempton, is quaking with fear as she is forced into the boot alongside boxes of bags and tubes and packages. And well she might, since around the first corner most of it falls on top of her. A hasty pull in to a lay by and some significant adjustments later and we are off again. There is a repeat performance round the next bend and Daddy begins muttering about more bungee cords. This will continue until the motorway. Muted swearing and some gritted-teeth conversations take place.



Gilby asks about the language that is spoken in Scotland. He translates my definition for Eddie: "Yeah, so it's English, just not spoken properly." I look at the heavy sky. It doesn't help, or offer any inspiration. That wasn't what I said, nor what I meant. I shrug.



We stop at the printers to pick up photographs that had been promised but aren't ready. I grin and say that it doesn't matter and then promptly step in a puddle outside the shop, smashing muddy water across my clothes. Exactly what is not required at the start of a four hour road trip. More swearing. It turns out that I am quite cross about the photographs in spite of what I might have suggested to the shop assistant.



One more set of Kempy-calamity-avoidance adjustments are made and then we are really off. So far it has taken forty minutes to travel sixteen miles. Now we are nearly two hours behind schedule. Gertie is wedged uncomfortably between a box of Christmas crackers and an extra large bottle of cider. She has heard the exchanges between her parents and knows better than to complain. I am starting to suspect that the cider may not make it past Watford Gap. It wouldn't do a great deal to ease the congestion in the car, which is rammed to the gunnels and has begun to resemble the old woman's house in A Squash and a Squeeze. I don't even like cider. This journey seems more likely to arrive in divorce than in Scotland. But before that destination there is visiting Grandpa Mac in Derby.



The M25 is also congested, so now we are experiencing it both outside the car and in. We come to a standstill around Heathrow. The helpful picture of an upturned car reminds us of our own good fortune in merely moving slowly rather than having been part of a crash.



The first part of the M1 is, unsurprisingly, congested. This time due to 'pedestrians on the road'. Right. I speculate about what they might be doing there. Spontaneously liberating themselves from the stress of long car journeys, perhaps. We manage to successfully dodge them and continue to wend our way. It isn't long before we are heading for 'the North'. I feel like doing a celebratory air-punch.



Eventually we arrive with Grandpa Mac. No thanks to sat nav, who has quite distinct ideas about the best way not to get us to our destination. We have a good lunch, and somehow manage to negotiate the strange requirements of Sunday carvery in far-flung lands. The beer is cheap, and there is an ice-cream machine which delights the children. Though this provides more than enough sugar for one day, Grandpa Mac appears to have bought sweets in the kind of quantities that might have sunk the Titanic should an iceberg not have been around to do the job.



The kids turn hyper.



I drink lots of wine.



And consider the silver lining: I have learned some salutary lessons about the obscene levels of materialistic consumerism to which I have sunk, namely through the recognition of my inability to stuff all this stuff into the car (and I'm not even seeing all my family over Christmas, for chrissakes!), I have discovered that the Premier Inn in Derby is like heaven after that cramped and fractious journey, and I have inadvertently compiled some material for a blog post.



Three sleeps and three hundred miles to go!

Walking Holiday

It has been a wee while since my last post.


This is not an oversight, but as a result of my employer using a 'smart' system at school (and I do use that term very loosely) which meant that all of a sudden I was not able to access my blogger account.  Very frustrating, but a more normal lack of service should now resume.

In the meantime we have been enjoying our summer vacation to the south of France.  A selection of quick highlights will provide a taste.

It was twelve hours each way in a car. There were seven of us on the way out: the five of us, plus Nano and a niece. To while away the time we mostly enjoyed the stilted and frankly inappropriate pronunciation of French place names by the sat nav.  Destinations like "Boulevard Georges Pompidou in Troyes" made my own attempts in French sound positively fluent. We found the most amazing crumbling chateau on the outskirts of Amiens that will definitely be worth a second visit and beat last year's overnight stop in the equivalent of a Travelodge in Lille by a significant margin.

Eddie took his first steps, a month short of his second birthday.  I watched him get up and walk a good four steps across the balcony before reaching out to a folded deckchair which promptly clattered down on top of him.  We were both crying. Mine were tears of joy, his of pain and shock, for a moment that at one stage we weren't sure would ever come. He became a good 'pool guy' and enjoyed holding on to the net pole each morning, and the steps have come fast now that he is back on British soil.

Other highlights included kayaking beneath the Pont du Gard, masses of rosé, early morning lengths, Gilby turning four and inexplicably being let loose with 200 water bombs (thanks, Nano!)great clothes buying in the shops and markets at Uzes and an anniversary meal at Remoulin. Sigh. Over for another year.

The way home was memorable for the wine drinking on a foot-wide balcony of our hotel room in Troyes. I know that we will not be the first parents to have resorted to that, but we could be on for the record for the most wine consumed on the smallest balcony...


We also met a German couple at breakfast who were fascinated by Freddie's ability to talk. I pointed out that this was directly related, perhaps, to his inability to walk - and the necessity of communicating his every whim to two older siblings willing to run around doing anything he needs.

"Ahh!" said Herr with understanding. "I see. It is he who gives zee orders!"

Indeed.

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.

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.

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.