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!

The Very Hopeless Mother

This week I have managed to miss my youngest son's nativity, practically ignore Gilby's Christmas play, and cause Gertie's grandfather to miss her performance as the very hopeless camel.

Eddie didn't take part in his play because, well, it was scheduled on a day when he wasn't in nursery and I just couldn't get him there. I console myself with the thought that I don't think he has any awareness that he was missing out on anything. He's too young to remember it.

I missed Gilby's because somewhere along the way we simply didn't find out about it. I checked his book bag to see if I had inadvertently mislaid a letter, but no, apparently it was all done by word of mouth at the school gate. Fine if you are there every day; not so good if you are one of the two full-time working mums of the class. So nobody was at his first performance during the day, and we managed to get him rushed to the second, evening performance, with seconds to spare and a breathless father somewhere at the back having dashed there early from work. There was some talk of me getting there the following night; except that it transpired that this mythical, third performance only existed in Gilby's head. He was very disappointed. Never mind. It's only his first term at school. His first ever nativity. The first time of wearing the tea-towel on his head as a shepherd...

But on the Thursday, we were far more organised for Gertie's starring role in 'The Very Hopeless Camel'. We had grandfather on board to get her there early, and had managed to secure elusive extra tickets, presumably on the basis of having been entirely hopeless and missing out on everything else thus far. It didn't quite go according to plan, though. I neglected the fact that not everyone else in the world is used to flying through the world at an unholy pace. The car journey to school - seven minutes if you really put your foot down and take the sneaky corner parking spot that most other parents wouldn't dare to, and which I have to do each Friday when I fly out of my school with ten minutes before the bell goes for the end of the day at there's - takes much longer in the dark and the rain when you are in your mid seventies and unfamiliar with the route and the idiosyncratic parking arrangements. So Grumps missed his grand-daughter harrumphing around brilliantly hopelessly.

And my new year's resolution? To slow down a little. I am going so fast that I am missing the important moments.

Currently reading: In Praise of Slow by Carl Honore.

Imaginary Gaming

We have been determined to forestall the technological revolution in our household for as long as possible. Not because we are Luddites, but for two main reasons in relation to our children.

Firstly, there is a desire to hold off the inevitably heated debates about 'screen-time' that will ensue for as long as we possibly can. They don't have a great deal of television time but it has already increased dramatically from my original intentions. I hear close friends with older children battling and negotiating in relation to how much time is spent on the computer, and I'm not ready for it.

Secondly, there is the simple fact we can't really afford to furnish all three of them with iPads and the latest games consoles. Nor would I want to, because thirdly, aside from a brief flirtation with Chucky Egg in my very early teens, I've never had a great deal of time for computer games. (Assuming that Words with Friends doesn't count, of course.)

So. The current situation is that, very occasionally, Gertie is allowed to use my iPad for homework-related activities, and Gilby has used it twice to practice with his letters. No gaming products have crossed our threshold, yet; though I know it is only a matter of time.

They don't seem to have been drastically damaged by the absence. But. Eddie won't leave the house without his 'iPad' (a pink mirror compact - don't ask) and I have just caught the older two 'competing' on small console-sized objects from around the house. They pretend to have reached certain levels, and occasionally some victorious cry emanates, suggesting that ten-million-thousand aliens have been killed. Grrr. They are still sitting in chairs, playing at playing games. What's a parent to do?

Fluent in Dubby Dubby

Whilst Eddie's linguistic skills come on apace, Gilby's seem to be regressing.

Since starting school, he has acquired the ability to communicate in 'Dubby dubby': a nonsense language that contains a number of incomprehensible (to me, anyway) words; many of which sound remarkably like 'dubby'.

It is also important that he insult any (male) friend with a compound image involving the word, 'poo'. A conversation at the school gates might go something like this:

Gilby: Bye bye poo-poo-head.

Friend: Bye bye nicompoop-poo.

Gilby: See you tomorrow silly-poo-face.

Friend: You too, poo-poo-pop.

And they giggle and wave at each other as they depart, no sign of any animostity between them.

I always smile, uncertainly, at the inevitably middle-class looking mum whose son is the recipient of these terms of endearment, and comment on how well they seem to be getting along. They usually tend to hurry in the opposite direction.

If I suggest quietly to Gilby that it might be a good idea not to shout so loudly or indeed add the word 'poo' to everything he says, the response is very likely to be something along the lines of "Dubby, dubby, Mummy nicompoo-poo."

Eddie, in the corner quietly scribbling on my freshly-painted dresser with his fat felt-tips, might comment, "Gilby's talking nonsense again, Mummy," and my two-year-old and I will shrug together and share a moment of collective eyes raised to heaven before I throttle him for graffiti-ing the kitchen again.

Adventures in Fairy Land

Gertie has just had her second visit from the tooth fairy.

Apparently, after much research (or surreptitious playground discussion), it transpires that a first tooth is very special and is worth £2, and thereafter the going rate is £1.

The first tooth came out much later than those of all Gertie's contemporaries, so the wait was long and arduous. But when it came it provoked a relentless interrogation, Jeremy Paxman style, about the minutiae of the expected visit. I came away from the conversation sweating, wondering why we ever embarked on this elaborate fiction.

First time round, the mission to place the £2 coin was aborted twice due to stirring and loss of nerve, and the tooth itself couldn't be located. Finding a tooth under a pillow in my children's room is akin to the proverbial needle in a haystack. The detailed note to the tooth fairy was removed instead, and Gertie was delighted with the money and the tooth - bonus.

This time round, Gertie decided to make a gift to the tooth fairy, sellotaping some of her doll's house furniture to a letter. A smart dining room table and chairs, no less. The tooth was eventually found, (upon a return visit) and taken this time, but now the doll's house furniture is languishing in a shoe box.

The £1 was duly spent...on sweets. I'm not sure how the 'tooth' fairy feels about that. Tell a lie (imagine!), I know exactly how she feels: down in the mouth.

Heavenly Thoughts

Gilby, who begins school this week, is brushing his teeth as he asks, "Mum, how far away is God?"
Wow. Where to begin?
"Um. In heaven, which is a long way away."
"Further than France?" Clearly, our recent twelve-hour stint to the south is still very fresh in his mind.
"Yes, further than France..."
He spits out the water he's been rinsing with. "In that case, I don't think I'll 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.