Kerry On Living

The Women We Become After Children

2011-08-26T20:06:00.005+01:00

Friday night is a treat for my boy. He gets to stay up later than normal bedtime and invariably falls asleep on the sofa, snuggled up under the red blanket.

I watched him tonight on the sofa as his eyes closed and his breathing became regular. I watched him as wakefulness seeped away and his body eased into stillness, the day's energy finally spent. I watched him with a large lump in my throat and hot tears welling in my eyes.

He starts school in a week and it is another milestone on the inevitable journey towards independence. Whilst I know he is ready in every way for the next challenge in his short life I'm not sure this melancholic mother is.

Being in this frame of mind I was brought up short by the book I have been reading and wanted to record one passage that really resonated with me.

The Women We Become After Children.

We change shape, we buy low heeled shoes, we cut off our hair. We begin to carry in our bags half-eaten rusks, a small tractor, a shred of beloved fabric, a plastic doll. We loose muscle tone, sleep, reason, perspective. Our hearts begin to live outside our bodies. They breathe, they eat, they crawl and - look! - they walk, they begin to speak to us. We learn that we must sometimes walk an inch at a time, to stop and examine every stick, every stone, every squashed tin along the way. We get used to not getting where we were going. We learn to darn, perhaps to cook, to patch the knees of dungarees. We get used to living with a love that suffuses us, suffocates us, blinds us, controls us. We live. We contemplate our bodies, our stretched skin, those threads of silver around our brows, our strangely enlarged feet. We learn to look less in the mirror.We put our dry-clean only clothes to the back of the wardrobe. Eventually we throw them away. We school ourselves to stop saying 'shit' and 'damn' and learn to say 'my goodness' and heavens above'. We give up smoking, we colour our hair, we search the vistas of parks, swimming pools, libraries, cafes for others of our kind. We know each other by our pushchairs, our sleepless gazes, the beakers we carry. We learn how to cool a fever, ease a cough, the four indicators of meningitis, that one must sometimes push a swing for two hours. We no longer tolerate delayed buses, fighting in the street, smoking in restaurants, inconsistency, laziness, being cold. We contemplate younger women as they pass us in the street, with their cigarettes, their makeup, their tight seamed dresses, their tiny handbags, their smooth, washed hair, and we turn away, we put down our heads, we keep pushing the pram up the hill.

excerpt from 'The Hand That First Held Mine' by Maggie O'Farrell.

I recognise that my heart does indeed exist outside my body in the shape of two sturdy, warm, often mucky bodies and the further those bodies move away from me then the greater the chance of my heart becoming even more bruised and battered by this journey of motherhood.

Denying the inevitability of growing up is to be the mothering version of King Canute. I know it can't be stopped by wishful thinking and I have done all I can to induce a sense of excitement in my son about this new adventure. I just hope that I can hold back that first hot fat tear until after he has waved goodbye to me at the school gate.

Feral Camping and Just So Festivals

2011-08-22T21:01:00.013+01:00

So this was the summer I wanted to immerse the kids in the outdoors. Heralding from a suburban cul-de-sac, the concept of total freedom to run around is pretty unprecedented in their young lives.

I took my eldest to a small festival last year which was a great success. I'll never forget his utter joy at being allowed to sit wrapped up in his buggy, eating fish and chips and singing along to Seasick Steve at a time outrageously north of normal bedtime. That time we slummed it in a two man tent whilst taking advantage of a friends superior caravan facilities. This year I needed something a little more plush for the three of us so invested in a larger four man tent which I can just about manage to put up by myself, as it is unlikely that I can tempt my man away from such luxuries as mattresses and running water to join us on a regular basis.

We have had two great trips away with friends and I have been amazed at the speed with which my kids can go feral. Smeared with mud, scooting down hills at terminal velocity and tearing around in packs systematically sniffing through open tents hunting out the next salt or sugar based snack, like National Geographic footage of monkey thieving raids.

It was wonderful to be able to go away with my two closest friends and our six children, and I can't wait for future summer holidays away together. Apart from the tragic loss of an incompetently secured gazebo (RIP - you served us well for the first two days. Stupid wind.) it was a joy from start to finish.

Then hot on the heels of 'Nine Go Away on a Camping Trip' came the bunting strewn joy that is the Just So Festival. We loved it last year, and this year did not disappoint either. The weather was far better for a kick off. The festival is chock full of adventures, curios and activities for the youngsters. Long may it continue. I for one will be definitely be taking the new tent and family to camp there next year. In the meantime here I am showing off my new photo editing software. I have yet to develop any subtlety of touch with this, and the discovery that I can de-wrinkle, airbrush, tooth whiten and thin out all the old horrid photos of me that exist means that any future natural photos of me are going to be as rare as sightings of Alice's white rabbit at the Just So festival.

Looting: A Masterclass

2011-08-10T12:11:00.005+01:00

To My Two Year Girl

2011-07-08T12:01:00.004+01:00

You were not my first, but you are my last. My baby. My adored girl.

Your infancy was not marked by the all-encompassing anxiety of the first time mother. I did not spend my time trembling in fear of your vulnerability but instead gloried in your perfect simplicity.

As a first time mother I didn’t trust my own instincts. I looked to others for guidance and answers and merely become confused, conflicted and frustrated in the process. As a second time mother I trusted that you and I would find our own way together. I was right.

You have enchanted and bewitched me from the moment we met. All cheeks, curls and dimples. With eyes of cornflower blue and hair that changes colour with the light. A sweet tempered, giddy, twinkling fairy.

There you go - twirling in your ballerina skirt banging your dolly’s buggy into some convenient ankle. Look there you are - grabbing your brother’s toys and running away shrieking with delight much to his annoyance. Oh and here you are – tugging me towards the fridge and demanding “Logurt and poon”.

You greet me every morning with a smile and cuddles which melt my heart. I will yearn for those cuddles in years to come and their memory will sustain me. For now I just beg shamelessly for more; “Another cuddle for mummy please. Oh and a kiss. No a big kiss…….” It is always you who loses interest first, lured away by an enticing book or an opportunity to tease your brother. Until then I will take all I am offered.

I was blessed with my first child. I never knew I could love another child as much - but then there was you. It was a done deal. I could no more resist you than I could decide to stop breathing.

And now you are two. For two whole years I have had the privilege of being your mummy, and I promise that I will do all I can to deserve the light, love and happiness which you continue to bring into our lives.

Happy birthday my darling daughter.
xxx

Blimey - Its Been A While.....

2011-07-07T19:37:00.010+01:00

Oh dear. I'm a bad blogger. Call blogging social services - I'm guilty of appalling neglect.

I'm sorry blog - it wasn't you. It was all me. Specifically the fact that my new job only allows me half an hour for lunch and I always did my best blogging whilst luxuriating in the decadence of a whole 60 minutes at my last place of employment.

Half an hour is barely enough time to read half a Grazia whilst wolfing down a pot noodle without burning my chin, never mind trying to simultaneously craft some barely coherent words of insight and interest. However the anniversary of your creation is fast approaching and you deserve some attention. So I'm back.

A quick update on events since we last chatted.

I'm now officially old. Yup - the big four oh grabbed me by the hand and pulled me kicking and screaming into the bosom of middle age. I have spent the last year practising how to nonchalently tell casual enquirers that I'm 40 hoping it wouldn't come as too much of a shock to my system in due course. But darling blog - I don't mind admitting to you that I don't feel half so nonchalent now that it's true. My decolletage is crepe'ing as I type, and I have been monitoring the armpit wattle situation on a daily basis. Bah.

Still I had a very nice party, and I have some lovely friends who truly embraced the seventies party theme. Anyone who is prepared to wear polyester clothes and bad afro on a hot June night just to celebrate my birthday is a hero in my book.

However the real hero of the hour was my husband. He gave me one of the most thoughtful and sweet presents I have ever received. He found some short fairy stories I had written years ago and thought long lost on an old computer. He had beautifully illustrated them and printed them into a book which I am now under instruction to fill with other stories for the children. I will do my best.

He also planned the party, stayed sober at said party in case he had to make an emergency dash home to a daughter plagued with tonsilitis, and then let me stay in bed until noon the next day, despite the fact that it was father's day. What a guy.

Other news is that my darling girl turned two. I will post about her separately, but here she is on her birthday. My darling baby girl - all growing up and beautiful.

Some months ago I had announced to my husband that we were going on holiday in the week of my birthday. "Fine" he said. "Whatever makes you happy". He visibly blanched when I told him we were going camping.

My husband has developed a significant aversion to life under canvas as a result of an unlucky incident at Glastonbury 2005. Lying in our tent one night there was a panicked cry of; "Incoming!!!!"

The whole sky seemed to light up as an emergency flare was released into the sky by some stoned numpty only to plummet earthwards into the tent next to ours, incinerating everything except the charred remains of the tent poles.

For some reason this has left my husband with an uneasy feeling about the safety of camping, however a trip to Featherdown Farms has relaxed him on this subject somewhat. An idyllic, bucolic week was spent on a gorgeous farm and I can recommend this holiday to anyone with young children and a yen to get back to nature. Some piccies;

The morning routine: yawn, stretch, walk out of your tent, step into warm goose poo. Every day.

Adventures, larks and lashings of ginger beer.

You know the eggs are fresh when they are still warm from the hen.

Took a while to pluck up his courage but a true friendship was forged.

Scream if you want to go faster.

The wood burning stove. Heater, cooker, entertainment and bloody hard work.

God bless gas and electricity.

Well blog, that's us up to date. Oh don't look at me like that - I've said I'm sorry. Now you're just pouting - you're making me feel bad. Look I am really, really sorry. How about some chocolate? No? What about wine? Flowers? Diamonds?

What about if I just tickle you right here. Right by your mouse. Ha - that's much better - a lovely smile.

Friends?

Friends. x

Listography - 5 Simple Pleasures

2011-05-02T06:56:00.005+01:00

This week's listography over at Kate's is one which appeals greatly. Here are 5 of my simple pleasures in life:

1. Slipping between freshly laundered sheets one hour early to indulge in some quality bedtime reading. Oh the luxury. It happens so rarely at my house (the clean sheets part, not the reading).

2. My morning latte and walk to work. Alone time - just me and the caffeine. It's a love thing.

3. Red magazine day. Look at it lying there on the dormat, encased enticingly in its pristine plastic wrapper, all full of pretty stuff and words of wisdom. Sigh. *strokes it lovingly*

4. Sneaky mid-week child free days with my husband. It's absolutely fine by me if all we do is go to the garden centre, as long as there is a lunch out thrown in to the mix too. Especially a pub lunch - or to be more specific - scampi and chips. I love scampi. In fact can I just change this choice to 'scampi'. Deep fried loveliness. Mmmmmmm.

5. Sunny picnics in our favourite local gardens. Even better if there are other children there for the kids to play with. Even better again if I have had sufficient forethought to prepare a flask of tea. Perfect.

Those are a few of mine. Why not pop over to Kate's to read a few others or to share yours.

The Best £89.99 I Ever Spent

2011-05-01T13:26:00.004+01:00

Back After A Brief Hiatus

2011-04-25T20:23:00.009+01:00

Over the last month my poor blog has taken a back seat to the strains of a new job and the fact that building work meant the computer had been packed away together with all cutlery, glasses, camera equipment, sellotape, easter decorations and countless other daily essentials, which actually we found we can get by fine without.

Starting a new job has been pretty intense - new colleagues, new commute, new systems and a whole new area of law to learn, but stretching the old brain muscle does bring its own satisfaction and I think I'm on the way to bedding down into my new routine.

This is the sixth employer I have worked for within my career and I am proud to have collected friends from each place I have worked in who are still important in my life to this day. In my book this is a true mark of how good a place is to work for within the big scheme of things. My last firm was no exception and I hope the people I was most sorry to leave will be the people I continue to keep in touch with.

The building work is now nearly complete and we are loving the convenience of modern open plan living. No longer do I have to swerve through rooms and doors to get to my squabbling children when they are in the living room and I'm in the kitchen. Now I can just look up from what I'm doing and yell at them directly. Saves so much time.

Equally after tempting them from their early morning slack jawed Peppa Pig addiction with jammy toast, I no longer have to slalom back and forth with a wet cloth to mop up spills and jammy fingerprints. Now I just chuck the cloth right at them from the kitchen sink whilst loading the dishwasher for the umpteenth time and trying to force myself awake with my third strong coffee of the day. Bliss.

So here are a few highlights from the last month:

I learnt that Batman should never be upstaged by a younger sister on nursery superhero day.

I learnt that it is foolish - no rephrase that - it is stupid to expect young children to understand that it is ok to draw on a wall which mum and day say is going to be knocked down, but that DOES NOT mean they can just go round drawing on any other wall that takes their fancy. How stupid can parents be?

We have learnt that there is never any profit in trying to pass off your own work as the work of your four year old child's in the nursery Easter Bonnet competition. We was robbed.

And after organising an easter egg hunt for all of the neighbourhood children I remain secure in the knowledge that there is little in life I love more than the excuse for a celebratory party with it's own bunting.

I have missed my blog and fellow bloggers. I'm looking forward to catching up with everyone and hope you all had a wonderful bank holiday weekend. xx

Some Words on 'Me-Time'

2011-03-23T10:45:00.010Z

As I have mentioned a couple of times I have been hit with a bout of redundancy. After much initial musing my husband and I agreed not to disrupt the kid's routine by taking them out of a nursery where they are happy, for fear that we would loose their places, and in light of the fact that I would be looking for another job sooner rather than later.

Accordingly for the last four weeks I have been in the enviable position of being at home, child free, and with all the time in the world on my hands during the day.

Here is what I planned to do:

Go swimming.
Ride a bike everywhere.
Go to daytime yoga classes.
Meet friends for lunch.
Go to the cinema.
Blog lots.
Read lots.
Bake.
Get a facial/manicure/massage.
Spend one on one time with each child for one day a week.
Take the children swimming, to the cinema and theatre,
Save the pandas, understand the theory of relativity, and buy a pair of jeans which make my bum look pert (although I do realise that these last aspirations were idealistic and impossible to achieve within a relatively short period of time).

Here is what I have done:

Avoided going swimming.
Not taken the bike out of the shed.
Not looked for a yoga class.
Met a friend for lunch - once.
Been to the cinema - once
Written an average of less than one blog post a week.
Read Grazia on a weekly basis and the family section of the Saturday Guardian twice.
Barely turned the oven on (although I did bake 30 cupcakes for my son's birthday party).
Been nowhere near a Beauty Salon but have tried to find my tweezers several times.
Spent time with the children at GP and dental appointments.

In fairness it wasn't the best timing in the world to have arranged major structural building work to take place whilst I've been off work, rendering the house unsafe for little people to be around and meaning only my bedroom and the cellar are accessible during the daytime. Now to my utter shock someone has decided they would actually like to employ me, starting next week. My little oasis of idleness and self indulgence is therefore drawing to a close.

So I would like to share with you a little wisdom garnered from this experience of serious 'me-time'. To all the working mums and stay at home mums - you are fantastic. To keep all those balls up in the air is a spectacular feat of imagination, endurance and organisational skills.

I know when you are up to your armpits in meetings/laundry/nose-wiping/nappy changing/report writing it feels like nothing more than drudgery and 'me-time' is an aspirational luxury you can only dream of. But 'me-time' is only valuable when it is in the form of brief respite from an otherwise hectic life. In the absence of the day to day chaos too much 'me-time' feels quite frankly a little dull and meaningless. I have missed the kids and my husband during the day, and I have missed work, my colleagues, and purpose.

And so I am enthusiastically looking forward to resuming normal service. The rush to get four people dressed and out of the house in the morning. The commute, the interaction, the drama of working life. The thrills and the spills, the chaos and the mess are what make life interesting. You can keep your 'me-time' for now - I'm back in the rat race.

source: www.volacci.com

It's Not What You Say, It's The Way That You Say It......

2011-03-22T10:12:00.005Z

So there we were, a full carload, on our way to Blackpool to pick up a second hand fireplace which we had bought off ebay. The kids had dozed off in the back and my husband and I were listening to a programme on Radio 4 about Bob Newhart, the star of the first ever comedy album (The buttoned-Up Mind of Bob Newhart) and a famous US comedian. The album was a runaway success and credited with saving a then floundering little company called Warner Bros records back in 1960.

His style was to perform short phone conversation monologues, and if you have a spare few minutes to relax with your eyes closed and a nice cup of tea, theres one at the bottom of this post. In the programme he was interviewed about his deadpan style of comedy and I was particularly taken by his comments on the power of the well chosen word.

Imagine Mark Anthony about to make his seminal speech to the people of Rome following the assassination of Ceasar. It is likely that the citizens of the empire would not have responded quite as strongly to his invective if, instead of the famous;

"Friends, Romans, Countrymen. Lend me your ears."

he had instead opened with:

"Er.....excuse me, excuse me everyone. Could you come here a minute? I've got something to say..."

I am frequently amused by the modern flim flam of language, typified by those Marks and Spencer food adverts.

"This isn't just burger and chips. It's hand mashed meat byproducts, hand seasoned with your full years recommended salt intake, and lovingly deep fried by artisan operated catering machinery."

My husband and I were recently reduced to giggles when shopping in Debenhams as an enticing loudspeaker announcement was broadcast inviting us to visit their cafe and enjoy free range bacon on hand sliced bread rolls. Is it really a valid marketing strategy to boast that you have an employee stood in the kitchen slicing open bread rolls for the bacon butties?

Next time you feel that your life is a little on the mundane side, and needs an injection of glamour I suggest you take inspiration from these strategies. I decided there and then that we were no longer on our way to buy a second hand fireplace. We were sourcing a pre-loved vintage period piece.

Equally I am no longer killing a bit of spare time by blogging but am actively participating in creative community interaction. I am not going to have beans on toast for my lunch but instead am going to enjoy pan cooked pulses in a tomato jus with a fresh baked side of granary batch loaf. I am not sitting here in holey jeans and a baggy jumper but am modelling a creation of hand distressed vintage denim and a one off piece of individually designed artisan knitwear.

Try it for yourself. It's amazing how interesting our lives really can be.

Liebster Blog Award

2011-03-09T15:16:00.005Z

Thank you to Lory at motherblogging for bestowing the above award upon my humble, little blog. To receive a compliment from someone who's writing I admire and regularly read brings a shy and bashful smile to my face.

As this is a spread-the-love-type of award, there are conditions in accepting it:

1) Create a post on my blog and add the Liebster blog image.

2) Link back to the person who gave me the award and say if I accept.

3) Choose 3-5 of my favourite blogs, link to these in my post and tell these lucky bloggers that they've been tagged.

The aim of this award is to bring lesser known but great blogs to light and so I am pleased to nominate the following favourite blogs of mine as recipients of this award:

Hannah Grage - open your heart to Hannah and her mom Carrie as they take you along on their fight against leukemia. Hannah is as cute as a button, with a will of steel and the soul of a rock star. She handles her illness with incredible bravery and stoicism. Carrie is one of my favourite people out there in blogland and her incredibly generous comments on my blog always make me smile. Inspirational.

My Mummy Wrote This For Me - a beautiful blog written by a mum who has survived breast cancer and writes about it in such a powerful way, including this post - an amazingly honest and powerful piece which has stayed with me. A beautiful blog with wonderful writing.

Parklover - I suspect this blog may have a larger following than is intended with this award but am nominating it in any event. I am fairly new to this blogger with her amazingly comprehensive guide to enjoying life in the outdoors with a young child. Whilst the blog is geographically based in my neck of the woods (mostly the northwest of England) it is utterly inspirational about just getting out there in all weathers and enjoying being outside with your little ones wherever you live. Love it.

Multum in Parvo - this mum writes with searing honesty about her divorce, and about the courage of opening herself to a new relationship with her fireman. Another blog I am new to but which has hooked me from the start. Her writing is truthful, genuine, and at times laugh out loud funny.

Manana Mama - as she has just been nominated as blogger of the week by the BMB blog I suspect she may not qualify as a lesser known blog for long, but nevertheless I will just pass this award on before her followers hit triple figures. She writes with a wistful, dream-like quality and her use of language is wonderful. Wisdom and humour permeate her writing and I always love to read her posts.

Do check these ladies out if you get the chance and bloggers please feel free to nominate your own favourite little gems.

Four Years

2011-03-08T10:45:00.014Z

Some four years ago I was two weeks overdue with my first child. I was huge, hormonal and desperate to be rid of the squirming intruder inside my belly which seemed to show no interest in exiting at the appointed time. Two sweeps, two pessaries and 36 hours of gas and air assisted labour later and my boy arrived at 12.07 am on 7 March 2007.

There is nothing like the first few weeks with your first baby. Equal parts awestruck at the miracle you have created and sheer terror at the enormity of motherhood. Slowly you find your groove, and before you know it the first year has passed in a blur of nappies, sleeplessness and a love you never knew you could experience.

Then comes the milestones of walking and first words. Then the emergence of a strong willed little individual with their own opinions as to whether they should comply with your entirely reasonable requests. Another year passes in a whirl of delight at your little one's achievements and battles for supremacy.

Then came the terrible twos and, in our case, the arrival of a little sister. This combined with a 7 month extended potty training period made that year a challenge but nevertheless the charm of that little person never fails to win you over after even the worst day. A little smile, a whispered "Love you mummy" and a fierce hug will never. ever. ever. fail to win me right back onto his side. Another year passed.

Then the threes hit. Somehow I thought they'd be more straightforward but I was wrong. He's a handful. A bundle of bouncing, wrestling, mischievous energy. Cheeky, clumsy, impish, monkey child, leaving a trail of smells, noises and chaos in his wake. He cannot stay still for a moment, has to touch everything. And the questions....dear god....the questions. From morning til night;

"why, where, how, when, which, why...".

This is the year when I first started to hear my parents words coming out of my mouth;

"Because I said so"

"I said NO"

"I don't know why it's like that. It just is"

And my personal favourite invented by my great-grandmother and going back over a hundred years in my family history; "Because why is a crooked letter and you can't straighten it". (I don't believe it is intended to make sense, just to stump the average three year old into silence.)

I wouldn't change him for the wold. Not one single part of him.

Happy fourth birthday my dearest, darling first born. My son. My boy.

Struggling With A Case of the What If's.....

2011-02-25T22:23:00.005Z

What a wierd, wierd week. For the first time in my adult, post-education life, I am jobless although admittedly I did manage to prolong the student years for far, far too long. More accurately I am redundant, albeit voluntarily before anyone starts feeling excessively sorry for me.

The word 'turbulent' would accurately describe how I have felt this week. I've veered from ecstatic appreciation at being able to laze about watching films on the sofa, to guilt at the fact that I have not already managed to clean the house from top to bottom with nothing but my tongue and some bicarb of soda (by way of bad housewife self-flagellation), then to despair that I may never get another job again and have now condemned my family to life in a small rusty caravan with nothing but pot noodles and a dodgy one bar electric fire by way of comfort.

I may be slightly over-egging the pudding, but if I were an actress in a film this week I would be Joan Crawford in one of her great over-acted melodramas, Mildred Pierce perhaps, but without the scary eyebrows and hopefully without my children writing a tell-all memoir about my evil parenting methods in 20 years time.

The thing that stops me from just sitting back and enjoying this time off is that I struggle to live in the moment. As soon as I achieve one thing my mind is racing to criticise for not having achieved something else.

"Oh wow I have just mopped the floor for the first time in....well nearly ever to be honest. Aargh but the kids have not eaten anything but carbohydrate for the last two days...."

You see? Why can't I just be rightly proud of my new shiny floors (who knew that was their real colour) before I race to lament another example of my failings in life? I know I'm not alone in this and it is an affliction which most of us suffer from as it is just too hard to keep all those balls up in the air at once.

There are so many things I want to spend this bonus time doing but when push comes to shove the only thing that counts is to spend time with the important people in my life; family and friends.

So I am forcing myself to try to live in the moment and enjoy this for what it is, but there is that little niggling voice at the back of my head which keeps asking:

"What if you never get another job again?"

So I am going to use every tactic in the book to force myself to relax into this period of downtime. I am not going to give in to the 'what if's' with their nebulous, all encompassing anxieties. A quick stab in the leg with a fork by way of aversion therapy should put paid to that, so whilst my redundancy may leave me with permanent markings akin to the crocodile people of Papua New Guinea, I will at least be able to tend to my wounds in an entirely relaxed, anxiety-free frame of mind.

Free Will, Ageing Armpits and a Truly Original Valentines Present

2011-02-15T08:46:00.002Z

So the last few days have been revelatory in many ways.

My 19 month old daughter has just discovered free will in a big way. Every parent reading this will need no further explanation and can just nod in empathy remembering their own particular moments of public humiliation at the hands of a tantrum wielding toddler. I have been there before with my son, yet somehow I thought my daughter would be different. I had convinced myself that her amenable, giggling babyhood was indicative of a truly sweet and placid temperament. I am an eternal optimistic fool.

The difference this time is that I know it will not be for ever. This phase does come to an end. My son is now peeping shyly around the corner of becoming a reasonable human being. He is within touching distance of rational thought and basic decency....if he can only......stretch that bit.....further........ we'll be there.

In the meantime I will ride the crest of my daughters moods and it will all be fine. She may look like she has come straight from a Mabel Lucie Atwell illustration, but she has the fire of a true warrior. Let battle commence.

Leading me to the second revelation of the week. Historically I've not really given much thought to my armpits. They get a daily dose of deodorant and are casually threatened with a wafting razor and that's about it. I now realise I should have paid them much more attention. I should have revelled in their tautness; the tight hollow between arm and torso. I should have gloried in their smooth contours because seemingly overnight they have become the first part of me to significantly and irrefutably look OLD.

At some point between September (when it was last hot enough to wear a vest outside) and Saturday night, gravity has extacted such a precision targeted almighty pull on my armpits that I now officially have an armpit wattle.

I noticed this as I tried on a sleeveless dress to go to my friends 40th birthday party. The dress always looked fine on before but this time something jarred. It took me a few minutes of squinting and trying different angles in the mirror before I realised what the subtle difference was. Before I had nice armpits, now they look very much like the photo I chose for this week's silent sunday;

My armpits have now been formally retired from public view. I am distraught.

And the final word is reserved for my husband. I love you so very much. You are thoughtful, loving, supportive, generous and do all the laundry. You are my hero and I know that your heart was truly in the right place. It reflected my love for history and collecting quirky and interesting anecdotes about places. At any other time it would have been the most wonderful present, but somehow buying me a guided tour of Manchester's underground sewer system for Valentine's Day seems to err slightly on the side of unromantic.

I'm just saying.

(I love you. x)

Listography - 5 Favourite Movies

2011-02-14T21:44:00.005Z

So this weeks list over at Kate's is 5 favourite films. Here are some of mine;

Raiders of the Lost Ark.

I remember being taken to see this film at the cinema. I was 10 years old and I fell deeply and irrevocably in love with Indiana Jones. The film had everything. Drama, spookiness, adventure, romance and a fantastic score. Everything. And I even loved the heroine - a truly worthy match for Indy. And what about the ending - was there ever a better ending to a film? What the hell was in those other boxes????

Up.

I love this film. It was the first film I took my son to the cinema to see and it was also the first film my daughter sat and watched all the way through, cuddled up on the sofa with me and her brother not moving once. It has the saddest, most bittersweet start to any kids film you could ever see and the most random assortment of character, but still manages to be truly uplifting. Beautifully animated with an amazing soaring orchestral soundtrack it is a wonderful film for all the family.

Uncle Buck.

This is frequently repeated on TV and every time I watch it with my husband we end up laughing. The downside is that upon meeting any annoying person with a facial growth we have an entirely un-pc urge to quote Uncle Buck by telling them to; "Take this quarter, go downtown, and have a rat gnaw that thing off your face". Fortunately I never have because that would just make me a very bad person.

When Harry Met Sally.

Just the perfect romcom, and the start to a huge girl-crush on Meg Ryan. My husband and I visited the famous Katz Deli when were on honeymoon (location for the faked orgasm scene). We got a bit scared by the huge choices on offer and the impatient, shouty New York deli staff so left without ordering anything, but I still managed to pay homage to Meg with a bit of a hair toss and a moan.

Gone With The Wind.

Unadulterated melodrama and tragedy. I first saw this when I was around 10 or 11 and my mum took me and a friend to see the film. She sat inbetween us and by the time of the interval (back in the days when there were such things) my friend and I had had sobbed so uncontrollably at Scarlett's civil war traumas that both of mum's sleeves were soaking and she was dreading the appearance of Bonny Blue Butler and her tragic demise in the second half. Scarlett has to be the ultimate heroine. Dazzling, beautiful, flawed and with a steely inner core. And the book isn't half bad too.

Silent Sunday - Bit of a Turkey

2011-02-13T09:58:00.002Z

My contribution to Mocha Beanie Mummy's Silent Sunday

Nightbreath On My Cheek

2011-02-08T17:00:00.001Z

My boy has been feeling under the weather and for the last few nights, just around bath time, has come a small plaintive request;

“Mummy, I still feel poorly. Can I sleep in your bed tonight?”

My husband sighs and shakes his head but his eyes betray his smile. He is smiling at the simplicity of the boy’s request; at how little it takes for him to feel safe and cared for. He is also smiling because it means he will have to squeeze his large man-frame into a very small toddler bed located upstairs from everyone else, and will therefore enjoy a night undisturbed by the random cries, snores and snuffling which usually punctuate our sleep on an exhaustingly regular basis.

My son’s eyes light up when we agree that he can sleep with mummy;

“Just for tonight though…” I warn him with little effect.

Once in his pyjamas he scampers into the bed positioning himself firmly smack bang in the middle and waits expectantly for his bedtime stories.

Usually a minimum of three stories and as many songs is required before he will agree to surrender his grip on his day, but when in mummy’s bed he needs much less knowing that he is on slightly uncertain ground and better not push his luck if he is to avoid eviction by an exasperated mother.

Stories and songs complete he snuggles down contentedly.

“You coming to bed soon mummy?” he asks.

I assure him that I will be up very soon to check on him.

“Will you give me a kiss when you come up?”

I tell him that I always do, and he is happy with this.

His eyes close, and his long eyelashes rest on his perfect cheek. His breathing slows down and becomes regular. I pull the door shut and walk downstairs to the rest of my evening.

Later, when I come to bed, he has crept over on to my side hugging my pillow tight. He is hot underneath the thick duvet, and when lifting him onto the other side of the bed I let some air under his pyjama top to cool him down. His hair is damp on his forehead and he smells like wet puppy and fresh baked biscuits rolled into one. As I lift him he stirs and throws his arms around my neck holding me tightly. I whisper reassurance and as I get into bed next to him he relaxes his grip and snuggles in close, his face against my face, his arms and legs a jumble of limbs trying to slot comfortably into me.

I remember back to when that body did fit snugly into mine. When I would spend evening after evening hypnotised by the activity inside me, wondering whether it was tiny hands, elbows or feet that were causing my stomach to undulate of its own accord. I marvelled then at the sheer miracle of this tiny life and I marvel now at the love I have for this small, loud, exasperating, chaotic, wonderful child I am so lucky to know.

I lie there with his hot nightbreath beating against my cheek and cannot sleep. I am not comfortable and every attempt I make to move slightly away from him causes murmured protest. So I lie there simply loving my boy as he twitches to the rhythm of his dreams, and I listen to him breathing in and out, in and out, in and out.

Just for tonight though….

Listography - 5 Most Annoying Kids Programmes

2011-01-31T13:50:00.007Z

So this week's listography subject over at Kate's is '5 Most Annoying Kid's TV Programmes'.

To be honest I'm going to find this one hard as I don't allow my children to drain their brains in front of the tv. I'm too busy hothousing the 1 and 3 year old into appreciating classical literature (so far they love Dostoevsky and Flaubert). I've been using flashcards to teach them French and Cantonese Chinese, and encouraging their creative side with patchwork quilting.........oh who am I even trying to kid?

Too much time is spent with the mind numbing tv babysitter which is Cbeebies, and to be honest it would be far easier to come up with a list of the kid's tv programs I do like.

Anyhow as I'm sure many of the major annoying culprits will be fully outed by other contributors I'm including some vintage options in my listography:

1. Any Timmy Mallett programme, ever, even if he was just doing a guest appearance. No need for explanation is there?

2. Little House on the Prairie. I loved these books with an all consuming passion. I still have them, but their translation onto the screen with that toothy, saccharine, wholesome Melissa Gilbert just annoyed me with it's bad acting, overt sentimentality and never-bloody ending episodes which after the first couple of series were absolutely nothing like the book. Nellie Oleson's hair was scary and used to give me sympathy ponytail-too-tight headaches. Little sister Carrie just smiled her gummy smile and barely spoke a word ever and big sister Mary's 'Ooh look, I have a major visual impairment' over acting was just horrendous.

Of course in real life they now all have drink problems and have starred in a few dodgy porn movies.*

3. Any program containing Roland Rat. As with 1. above, I'm sure no further explanation is really needed.

4. Moving on to current times I hate, with a passion, Big Cook Little Cook. Even more so since I found out that they are an actual stand up comedy partnership called Electric Forecast. It's not so much the inane repetitive storylines, and terrible song and dance routines which make me shudder. It's more that I have a sense of the palpable waves of self-hatred emanating from these credible performers as they realise the creative depths to which they have sunk in the name of regular money.

5. Come outside. The one with Nurse Gladys Emmanuel (showing my age) and her perky little dog. So far, so nice. And then she goes outside and climbs into her light aircraft just to visit the bloody library. Then invariably looses the dog. So not only does she show scant regard for her carbon footprint, but she is also a negligent pet owner, and on that basis she has to be included in this list.

* This is absolutely not true. No not at all. It was a joke. Not, I repeat, not intended to be taken seriously. Not libelous at all then.

Silent Sunday - Nappyhead

2011-01-29T20:50:00.004Z

My contribution to Mocha Beanie Mummy's Silent Sunday

Redundancy - It's All In The Planning

2011-01-25T20:06:00.006Z

So one week into the new year my colleagues and I get called in to see our boss, and are cordially advised that we have a choice of:

a) 20% pay cut, or
b) voluntary redundancy.

Oh and Happy New Year!

Having pondered this Hobsons Choice, I have plumped for option b). So like many other casualties of these current economic badlands it appears that I have a little downtime stretching ahead of me.

Am I downhearted? No, not I. Instead I am planning how best to use this little windfall of free time.

I plan to use my home gym to get fit;

(redundancy exercise plan)

I intend to catch up on some reading;

(redundancy reading matter)

I plan to spend time catching up on popular culture:

(redundancy culture)

I intend to improve my culinary skills:

(redundancy cuisine)

Maybe even turn a regular lunch into a boozy lunch with the girls:

(redundancy drinking)

I plan to take a few day trips:

(redundancy excitement)

and I plan to take some time to work on my wardrobe:

(redundancy chic)

Wow. It's going to be great. Really!

Listography - Things I Wish I Could Do

2011-01-24T08:32:00.009Z

Thanks to Kate for this week's list, which is 5 things I wish I could do.

1. Have the right response at the right time.

You know the feeling. Someone has just put an argument to you/insulted you/laughed at you. After stewing over things for half an hour it suddenly comes to you in a flash of brilliance. The response you should have given which would have utterly defeated your nemesis/husband/colleague and made you look dazzlingly witty/erudite/intelligent. But it's not much bloody good 30 minutes later is it?

2. Dance an Argentine street tango in Buenos Aires.

Who wouldn't?

3. Whistle

4. Burp

I just wish I could. These two choices aren't big things I know, but when you can't do them you look with admiration upon people who can. I have previously blogged about my burp envy. If you are blessed with this talent drink a fizzy drink and do one for me. Then whistle in appreciation. How cool are you?!

5. Write a novel.

Am in total agreement with Kate on this one. I love writing and have tremendous respect for anyone who can sustain their train of thought long enough to actually get several thousand cohesive words down on paper. One day I'd like to have a go, but I'm just a bit worried I won't be able to do it, so I'm putting it off for now.

Remarkable Women: Diana Mosley

2011-01-23T21:47:00.009Z

The second of my remarkable women blogs concerns Diana Mosley. She was born Diana Mitford, on 17 June 1910. She was the third of the Mitford sisters, a subject of fascination, and latterly scandal and hatred. A figure mired in controversy, with distasteful, even dangerous politics, she is nevertheless a figure of popular historical interest and remarkable in her own way.

Her aristocratic origins were far from luxurious. She, her five sisters and one brother were brought up in a draughty country pile by parents who did not believe in education for girls or in anything as modern as central heating or even hospitals, with Diana famously undergoing a childhood appendectomy on the spare bedroom table.

Subject to parenting which vacillated between disinterest and authoritarianism, the Mitford children relied on each other for entertainment, with eldest sister Nancy being a merciless wit and tease, and Diana filling the role of the beauty.

By the age of 18 Diana was chafing to escape from her restrictive upbringing and meeting Bryan Guinness, an Irish aristocrat and heir to the Guinness fortune, was a welcome escape route. Despite parental objection based upon their young age, they quickly became engaged and married when Diana was only 19. At the time she was feted as one of the most beautiful and glamorous women of the age, and the union was the society wedding of the year.

Diana and Bryan lived a glittering life of parties and society events. Evelyn Waugh dedicated his novel Vile Bodies to the couple having been inspired by one of their raucous parties. They mixed with the main figures from theatre, literature, art, politics and society and existed within a gilded cage of luxury and glamour which was not curtailed when two sons came along in quick succession.

However the bubble was shortly to burst when after only three years of marriage Diana met Oswald Mosley. A swarthy, fiercely passionate man, he was born to a Baronet, had been a conservative MP at the age of 21 and then served as a minister in a Labour Government. Having become disillusioned with the available party politics he had set up his own political party and over time had become fascinated by the various fascist leaders springing up in Europe. He founded the British Union of Fascists in 1931 (also known as the Blackshirts) with the Daily Mail being one of his early supporters.

Mosley was also married to Cimmie, the daughter of the Indian Viceroy with whom he had three children. No stranger to infidelity Mosley had an extended affair with Cimmie's younger sister amongst many others, however his affair with Diana resulted in her quickly leaving her husband and children to be Mosley's mistress. Bryan behaved in an impeccably gentlemanly manner over the matter by producing fake evidence to allow Diana to divorce him on the grounds of his adultery instead of the other way around. (Bryan went on to have a second happy marriage which produced nine children.)

Cimmie was aware of the affair between Diana and her husband, however Mosley was committed to his wife and their three children and would not leave her. This situation changed dramatically in 1935 when Cimmie died of peritonitis at the age of 35 leaving the way clear for Diana and Mosley to be together.

Diana was entirely seduced by Mosley's fascist politics, and indeed many aristocrats of the time admired the Nazi movement, including the then Prince of Wales, the future Edward Viii. Diana's sister Unity became obsessed with Hitler and the two of them attended the Nuremberg rallies in 1934. They went on to meet and indeed become friends with Hitler.

When Diana and Mosley eventually married in October 1936 it was in the house of Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels and Hitler was one of the guests. Another two sons were born; Alexander in 1938 and Max in 1940 (who has of course recently been the subject of much salacious reporting as regards his alleged predilection for ladies dressed in Nazi uniforms).

By the time of Max's birth public opinion as regards the Mosley's both personally and politically was poisonous. When Max was only 11 weeks old Diana and Mosley were arrested and imprisoned without charge or trial. After a personal intervention by Diana's close relative, Winston Churchill, the pair were allowed to live together in a cottage in the grounds of Holloway prison. There they were allowed to garden, employed neighbouring sex offenders as domestics and used the time to read extensively. They were eventually released after three years imprisonment to much public disapproval, and were placed under house arrest until the end of the war.

Following the war Mosley tried to re-start his political career forming 'The Union Movement' and calling for a European single nation state, but he faced too much opposition and disillusioned the Mosley's left England to reside mostly in Ireland and France. Mosley did periodically try for re-election to the British parliament, usually on an anti-immigration stance, but without any success. He died of natural causes in 1980 and Diana mourned him for the rest of her life. All else aside there is no doubt that she deeply, passionately loved her husband from the moment she met him, at the expense perhaps of her own morality and certainly of her public and social standing

In later life Diana remained ambiguous as to whether she regretted her political views and infuriated many by refusing to repent for her views and actions. A many times published author she wrote in her 1977 autobiography 'A Life of Contrasts'; "I didn't love Hitler any more than I did Winston. I can't regret it, it was so interesting". A view I'm sure was shared much more discretely by many other high profile figures of her era.

Diana died in Paris aged 93. She left her four surviving sons, a large extended family including her model granddaughters Stella Tenant and Jasmine Guinness, and the sole surviving Mitford sibling; Deborah, the Duchess of Devonshire.

Journalist and author India Knight described Diana as "Briefly sinister but also clever, kind and fatally loyal to her Blackshirt husband, Oswald Mosley". She was certainly a woman I find intriguing, though far from admirable, whose life touched and was touched by many of the major figures and events of her day.

Silent Sunday - Little Bit Snotty

2011-01-23T09:28:00.002Z

My contribution to Mocha Beanie Mummy's Silent Sunday

Silent Sunday - Ipad Babysitting

2011-01-16T12:59:00.003Z

My contribution to Mocha Beanie Mummy's Silent Sunday

Remarkable Women: Coco Chanel

2011-01-09T21:20:00.008Z

The first in a very occasional series where I get to indulge my inner history nerd and write about some of my favourite extraordinary women from history.

Coco Chanel. A universally recognised name and brand, the woman behind the glamorous facade lived a rags to riches fairy tale life. But all fairy tales have a dark side to them and Chanel's life certainly had its share of heartbreak.

There are many grey areas concerning Chanel's life. She was not always too familiar with the truth, preferring to concoct a tissue of fantasies to blur unsavoury parts of her life, or to inflate and perpetuate her own legend.

She was born Gabrielle Chasnel (a clerical error on her birth certificate) on 19 August 1883 to desperately poor parents. One of six children, her father would often vanish and leave her mother in very poor health and with little means to look after her children. Tragically on one of these absences Chanel's mother died when she was 11 years old and the youngest child only 4 years old. When discovered nobody knew how long the children had been existing with their mother's remains in the one room hovel they lived in at the time.

Chanel and her oldest sister were immediately placed by their father in an abbey to be brought up by the nuns, and it is from here that she developed her love for simplicity in clothing and the use of the colours black and white in clothing. They never saw or heard from their father again.

Whilst in the abbey Chanel was taught to be a seamstress and found work with a tailor when she left the care of the nun's at the age of eighteen. At night she and her Aunt (only a couple of years older than Chanel) would go to rowdy music hall events. As a pretty girl she received a lot of male attention and enjoyed singing songs to them. One of these songs was about a lost dog "Qui qu'a vu Coco" and it is this song that gave Chanel her lifelong and celebrated nickname.

At this time, maybe due to her singing, Chanel formed a relationship with an aristocratic playboy and in unclear circumstances she ended up living at his chateau sharing his affections with his mistress, a famous courtesan and actress who ended up as one of Chanel's first clients.

Chanel remained with the playboy for several years during which time she become known for her style of dress. In the early nineteen hundred's the preferred fashion for women involved frills, flounces, bustles and ribbons.

In complete contrast Chanel preferred simplicity and would often dress in a simple mans white shirt, straw hat and tweed suit. She started making simple boater style straw hats, and soon built up a following for her pared down style promoted by the high profile connections she was already beginning to make.

In 1909 Chanel formed a relationship with 'Boy' Capel, an English playboy, polo player and son of a wealthy industrialist. She always referred to Boy as the love of her life and he was also crucial to her business as the funder and co-founder of her first clothing boutique at the fashionable resort of Deauville in 1912. The boutique was a success from the start as women, tired of the constrictions of corsetry and bulky dresses, continued to covet Chanel's style of hats and clothing. Chanel had by this time also opened a millinery shop in 1910 on Paris's Rue de Cambon, where the company's headquarters and atelier are still based. Chanel subsequently bought several adjacent properties on the road as her success grew. Interestingly it is thought that the interwoven double C which is the Chanel logo refers not to Coco Chanel, but Chanel and Capel.

Chanel's relationship with Boy lasted 10 years during which time he also married an English aristocrat and became a father, however he was killed in a motoring accident in 1919. She was devastated.

Chanel understood the power of celebrity. The celebrities of the time were the aristocrats and glitterati of the Parisian scene whom she courted and was courted by in turn. She became heavily involved with Diaghilev's Ballet Russe who were the sensation of the 20's (Njinski danced for them, Picasso designed the sets for them, Stravinski the music and Chanel the costumes) and this in turn brought her great fame and notoriety.

However without her amazing designing ability she would have been nothing. In the twenties she introduced the 'little black dress' to which we all remain indebted. She was the first to design loose flowing jersey garments for women, and it is entirely down to her that breton tops and wide leg trousers are still as chic an outfit some 90 years on. In addition she was one of the first designers to understand the power of branded fragrance introducing Chanel No. 5 in 1922, followed by many other successful fragrances which provided the cash flow to sustain her business through many future lean years.

Chanel never married or had children, but had many significant love affairs along the way. She was the mistress of Britain's richest man; Bendor (yes really!) The Duke of Westminster for many years in her forties. She was also the lover of Stravinsky for some time, and more shockingly in her fifties, during the Nazi occupation of France, she conducted an affair with a German Officer. After the war other women with German lovers were put on trial for collaboration or had their heads shaved and had to endure being paraded naked through the streets as punishment, however no such allegations about Chanel ever stuck. It has to be said that through her British aristocratic connections she was on first name terms with Churchill, however it is more likely that Chanel never actually did anything anti-French to merit prosecution.

Notwithstanding this she had lost all popularity in France and decided to move to Switzerland in 1945. There she remained until 1954 when she returned to Paris at the age of seventy with a new collection. The French remained ambivalent if not suspicious of her, but she was lauded by the British and Americans who to this day remain faithful customers. Within three years she was at the top of her game, where she remained until her death in 1971 at the age of 88 in her private apartment in the Paris Ritz.

Some quotes from Chanel:

"A dress isn’t right unless the arm lifts easily… Elegance in clothes means freedom to move freely."

"Nature gives you the face you have at twenty. Life shapes the face you have at thirty. But at fifty you get the face you deserve."

"A girl should be two things: classy and fabulous."

"As long as you know men are like children, you know everything!"

"Elegance is not the prerogative of those who have just escaped from adolescence, but of those who have already taken possession of their future."

Silent Sunday - Sunday Fresh Air

2011-01-09T17:24:00.005Z

Review of the Year - Things I have learnt

2011-01-05T12:06:00.007Z

Stop fannying about with cheap and/or old crusty make up. Use a Bobbi Brown foundation brush to apply Bobbi Brown foundation over Bobbi Brown concealer. I am a 39 year old working mother functioning on too little sleep and too many lattes. Trust me, this makes you look human.

Ironing is not necessary. Not remotely. Maybe work shirts but that is absolutely it. No-one really judges you for being a tad rumpled every now and then.

Playing with your children means letting them make the rules not imposing your own, despite the fact that they are ruining another game of hungry hippos by outrageous cheating. In all seriousness I give a big thank you to the lovely friend (and lurking reader of this blog!) for buying me this book containing the above and other very helpful advice when I was despairing over my sons behaviour at times.

Blogging is good for the soul, but getting bogged down in stats, numbers of comments and followers is not good for mine.

All the recession related talk about not buying frivolous fashion and just saving up for one or two quality investment pieces is bullshit. Would you rather have one fancy schmancy £300.00 dry clean only dress or 30 bung ‘em in the washing machine pieces from H&M? Me too.

When your child is misbehaving, shouting and screaming at them vents your frustration but does not tend to improve matters. I need to stop shouting as much.

Try hard to find the positive in life. For example a recent four day bout of tonsillitis caused me misery and pain, but also had two bonuses:

1) Not eating as much means you lose weight. My work clothes are fitting better than before Xmas, so in a nod to a healthy lifestyle I have now resolved to replace my usual morning latte with a nice green tea instead. That's as far as it goes though.
2) Being physically unable to shout and scream meant I had to use alternative parenting techniques, such as three warnings then a time out. Surprisingly this actually worked quite well and I wasn’t immediately filled with self-loathing afterwards. Genius!

Say yes to more stuff. Make a bit of effort to do things and see people, and hard though it is to force yourself off the sofa of an evening, it is usually worthwhile.

Be kind to yourself. If there is one wonderful thing to be taken from the parent blogging world it is that we all have ups and downs. No-one is perfect, no-one is constantly happy, everyone has doubts, everyone thinks they are failing as a parent from time to time, but the very fact that we can acknowledge this means that we are good parents trying to do our best, but still only human.

Finally, if you really, really want the White Company slipper boots in the lovely mink colour next winter just buy them for yourself. Don't trust anyone else to read your Christmas list and buy them for you, as when they don't the damn things will just be sold out come Boxing Day...again.

And to round off my review I would like to hand out some awards based upon my lengthy research for the kerry on reading section of this blog:

Best fiction – Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant,
Co-incidentally also given to me by the lurky blog reader referred to above, this truly has been my favourite fiction of the year. Admittedly I am a sucker for the Italian Renaissance period, but dry though that subject may sound, this novel was an exquisite read. I judge a book by how at home it makes you feel when leafing through it's pages, and I was absolutely transported to the intrigue and politics of life in these 16th centrury cloisters, never mind that it was heart in your mouth exciting at times. For total transportation away from 21st century life this is a must.

Best non-fiction – Billy by Pamela Stephenson,
This was published in 2001 and so a bit old now, and I will admit that I picked it up in a charity shop having developed a bit of a crush on the magnificent Ms Stephenson during her amazing stint on Strictly Come Dancing (please let me half as amazing as she is when I reach 64!). I think Billy Connolley is funny but probably wouldn't go out of my way to see him, but after reading this book can only express admiration that he has achieved such an amazing career after a shockingly bad start to life with horrific neglect and abuse both physical and sexual to contend with. A rollicking great read, which is particularly interesting given the fact that the author is his wife and has a quite different perspective to her subject than most biographers. I especially liked the final chapter, extracted from the book and repeated here for your entertainment:

Billy's Life Lessons:

Tread gently on anyone who looks at you sideways.
Have lots of long lie-ins.
Wear sturdy socks, learn to grow out of medium underwear and, if you must lie about your age, do it in the other direction. Tell people you're ninety-seven and they'll think you look fucking great.
Try to catch a trout and experience the glorious feeling of letting it go and seeing it swimming away.
Never eat food that comes in a bucket.
If you don't know how to meditate at least try to spend some time every day just sitting.
Boo joggers.
Don't work out, work in.
Play the banjo.
Sleep with somebody you like.
Eat plenty of liquorice Allsorts.
Try to live in a place you like.
Marry somebody you like.
Try to do a job you like.
Never turn down an opportunity to shout "Fuck them all!" at the top of your voice.
Avoid bigots of all descriptions.
Let your own bed become to you what the Pole Star was to sailors of old.....look forward to it.
Don't wear tight underwear on aeroplanes.
Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes. After that, who cares? He's a mile away and you've got his shoes.
Clean your teeth and keep the company of people who will tell you when there's spinach on them.
Avoid people who say they know the answer. Keep the company of people who are trying to understand the question.
Don't pat animals with sneaky eyes.
If you haven't heard a good rumour by 11:00am, start one.
Learn to feel sorry for music because, although it is the international language, it has no swear words.
If you write a book, be sure it has exactly seventy-six "fucks" in it.
Avoid giving LSD to guide dogs.
Don't be talked into wearing a uniform.
Salute nobody.
Never run with scissors or other pointy objects.
Campaign against blue Smarties.
Above all, go to Glasgow at least once in your life and have a roll and square sliced sausage and a cup of tea. When you feel the tea coursing over your spice-singed tongue, you'll know what I mean when I say: It's good to be alive."

Listography

2010-12-29T12:01:00.004Z

Here’s a good idea from the lovely Kate Takes 5. I’ve never been sufficiently on the ball to join in all the Silent Sundays, Gallery’s and Wordless Wednesdays etc, but here is my offering for Kate’s new Listography:

My Top 5 Things About Having Kid’s:

1. Minesweeping their leftovers by way of an aperitif for your own evening meal.
2. The magic healing powers of your kisses and cuddles.
3. Playing, playing, playing.
4. Cuddling a warm toddler as they sleep in your bed, occasionally warming your leg with little bubbles of flatulent contentment.
5. Knowing the secret spot where with one well aimed tickling finger you can reduce your child to helpless crumpled giggles. Total control for a few fleeting seconds.

Next.....

2010-12-28T19:46:00.005Z

Christmas is over now and I'll have no more talk of it. Tomorrow I go back to work and the Christmas tree and its foot puncturing needles are being expelled into the garden where trees actually belong, thank you very much Prince Albert and your fancy Germanic ways.

I am tired and weary. My liver hurts. I have overdosed on pork products and I will scream if I have to count to the mythical 'three' one more time in order to try to stop a sugar induced tantrum.

Admittedly heart warming moments abounded. I have never been so proud as when watching my son performing his at his nursery concert in his Santa costume. Watching a dozen three and four year olds impersonating penguins in Christmas attire was hilarious and thankfully safely videoed for future blackmailing purposes.

The kids ooh'ed and aah'ed appreciatively over their pressies (again, responsibly captured on film) and there was only one person who brought a far more generous present than I bought for them; the politics of presents - the unspoken agreement that you will both spend a similar amount on each other, only for the other person to aim a passive-aggressive undercut by unilaterally blowing the budget. A different person would be grateful for the generous gesture, but sadly not me - it just makes me feel guilty that I didn't buy them something just as nice....

In addition it was lovely to see friends and family and spend time with them, especially on the day itself when a kind friend invited us and other friends with young children to her house for us all to create mayhem whilst she cooked. We had a great time and she is a good, good friend. Mwah mwah.

I find Christmas to be a bit like giving birth - all anticipation and anxiety in the run up to the event, barely tolerable pain and incredible joy on the day itself, then as soon as it is over you forget and within a few months you are ready to go through the whole blooming thing again........

I'm such an old misery - I blame it on a liverish reaction to another pig's in blankets based evening meal. Tomorrow I'm finding a recipie for miso soup or perhaps curly kale and mung bean stew.

Jingle What?

2010-12-19T07:11:00.004Z

My son has been practising for his nursery carol concert but doesn't seem to be using the words I remember.

Never mind. He's still a star to me.

T'was the Night Before Christmas

2010-12-15T19:40:00.011Z

T'was the Night Before Christmas when all through the house

The only creature stirring was the kid's zhu zhu mouse.

A large glass of red was poured and ready,

Mum's little helper (to keep her nerves steady).

The children were manhandled into their beds

And visions of presents danced in their heads;

Mum and Dad drained, and with legs like jelly;

Had just settled down to watch some crap telly;

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter;

They sprang from the sofa to see what was the matter.

They ran to the window like bats out of hell,

Tore open the curtains and started to yell.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow

Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below;

When, what to incredulous eyes did appear

But a whopping great sleigh and eight bloody reindeer!

With a little old driver so lively and quick,

They knew in a moment it must be St Nick.

"Excuse me, but who do you think you are?

You crazy old dude - you've knackered our car!"

"And Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen;

Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen;

Impressive you are, but what do we do

With a garden now covered in reindeer poo?"

Shocked by this outburst St Nick took the hump

Walked into the fence and fell with a bump.

Mum and Dad laughed; said "I think we're agreed;

It's not a flying sleigh but an eye test you need!"

He sprang to his feet and recovered his pride;

And with a sneer said "At least I've not lied!

You've told your children I'm bringing surprises,

But I'm leaving bugger all now for your early risers!"

His eyes how they twinkled! His dimples how merry!

His cheeks were like roses and his breath smelled of sherry.

The white beard on his chin was flecked with saliva,

They realised he was just a festive drunk driver.

"You don't frighten us - you nasty old goat;

Standing there in your smelly old furry red coat.

We've bought our kid's presents so go away please",

And with that they confiscated his keys.

He knew he was beaten and without any fuss,

He headed into the night to wait for the bus,

But they heard him exclaim as he walked out of sight

"Merry Sodding Christmas and to all a good night"

Credit of course must go the original poem by Clement Clarke Moore.

Variations from the original are all my own.

Winter Wonderland at Centre Parcs

2010-12-13T12:35:00.015Z

So, a couple of months ago, when Christmas was just a far off possibility, I thought it would be great for us to snatch a quick few days away with the kids before all the craziness began.

"Ooh look..." I pointed out to my husband, "Centre Parcs puts on a Christmas Winter Wonderland in December. Visit to Santa, panto, fake snow, Christmas kids party.....all the usual festive gubbins out of the way in one fell swoop."

Seemed like a good idea. Husband agreed, so we booked to go on the 6th December.

It was of course one of the coldest weeks on record. Temperatures reached -17.5 one night, and the thermometer never ventured a mittened finger above - 5 the whole time we were there. We walked around in constant fear of being impaled by the two foot icicles which draped from every tree and the kids lips turned blue if we were outside for longer than 10 minutes.

If we were a skiing type of family the salopettes, fleeces and polar expedition outerwear would have been invaluable. However this is not equipment we had to hand as neither of us understands the allure of voluntarily turning oneself into a human missile on sticks and calling it a 'holiday' . As it was it took 10 minutes to dress and undress the kids from their 72 outer layers each time we changed location, and we had to learn how to manhandle them whilst wrapped up so tightly they could no longer bend in the middle.

Don't get me wrong it was beautiful, like walking through C.S Lewis's eponymous wardrobe, but as soft city dwellers we are just not used to these weather conditions. Due to slightly hysterical fears about frostbite I didn't take that many external photographs, but here are a few:

My son lobbing a pretty impressive snowball at me:

Our preferred mode of transport to see the big man himself:

The big man pretending he knows who Ben 10 is:

Pretty.

As holidays go it had good times and bad. The horse drawn carriage ride to see Santa was magical; the panto was fun; and the kids were agog at the magic of the setting. However they also remembered to throw in a few regular tantrums to keep us on our toes and invested a large amount of time in perfecting a form of harmonious stereo screeching which they find most amusing.

The worst thing about Centre Parcs is the constant uneasy feeling that you are being politely yet unapologetically ever so slightly ripped off. The good folks of Centre Parcs relax in the knowledge that they have a captive clientele and therefore squeeze that little bit more out of them than is strictly necessary. This included providing each cute little cabin on site with a very tempting log burning fireplace, then charging £10.00 for a bag of three poxy logs which each burned for a maximum of 2 hours. Harumphh.

Accordingly I have taken inspiration from our holiday and this season of goodwill and am happy to share with you the following festive offering;

'The Carol of Centre Parcs'

(to the tune of 'Come All Ye Faithfull')

Oh Come all ye parents,

Stressed and sleep deprived.

Oh Come here

To Centre Parcs

With purses open wide.

Come and behold how we

Part you from your money;

We tempt, entice and lure;

So the children still want more;

Then cry and screech and roar

At Ceeeeeentre Parcs....

I thank you.

Do This, Do This, Do This

2010-12-01T20:25:00.009Z

In case you haven't already come across this, click here and amaze your kids, big or small, with a personalised message from Santa. It's free and a sure fire way of blackmailing your kids into behaving if nothing else. Do it, do it, do it, and let me know their reaction.....

Then go here for complete festive amusement for you and your friends and family. Make sure you have access to photos you can download as you are doing it. I laugh at it every year - it never gets old.

Have fun x

Weather Warning - Two Feet of Snow Expected Today

2010-12-01T13:56:00.004Z

Dear Santa

2010-11-30T19:26:00.012Z

Dear Santa,

I don't really understand who you are, but I can tell something different is going on because my brother is even louder and bouncier than ever.

Mummy says that I should tell you what I want for Kissmass. Well, I do like chocolate buttons but I am also partial to sucking wet wipes too, so either of those things would be good.

I think my brother's toys look quite good fun so I would really like it if I could play with some of them for longer than three seconds without him pulling them away from me and making me cry.

Sometimes when I am on my own in bed I get worried and shout for mummy and daddy to come and give me a cuddle to make me feel better. I am always really happy to see them in the middle of the night but could you make them just as happy to see me as well. Sleeping is boring after all.

Most of all I wish people understood what I wanted when I told them. I know I can only say a few words, but I am trying very hard and I really think mummy should know by now the difference between the noise for 'these sleeves are annoying me' and 'I need another yoghurt'.

Lots of love,

Thea (1 year 5 months old).

Dear Father Christmas,

Last year I thought you were called Farmer Christmas and your reindeer pulled your tractor. This year I understand much more and talk about you all the time.

I would like everything in the Early Learning Centre catalogue, and the Great Little Trading Company catalogue and the Tickety Boo catalogue and the Argos catalogue. Even the things I already have. I like anything with Ben 10 or Spiderman on them because I am going to be a superhero when I grow up and go to big school and I would really like it if I could eat chocolate all day and if mummy would understand that I don't listen to her most of the time because she is not saying anything interesting like "Do you want to play this game with me?" or "Do you want ice cream for lunch?" or "Shall we colour the walls in with marker pens?".

I'm just going to leave this letter in my bedroom for you to read because I know you are watching me. Mummy and daddy have been telling me for a long, long time that you are watching me all the time to see if I am a good boy.

Lots of love,

Gabe (3 and 3/4)

Dear Santa,

I don't expect much at Christmas, really I don't. A nice pot of honey and some aftershave would do me fine, but as my wife thought it would be fun for us all to write you a letter I thought I may as well mention a couple of other things.

I'd really like it if someone could magically clean the car for me. It's not a new car, or a posh car, or a fast car but it would be nice if I could get out of the car at work without having sweet wrappers stuck to my clothing, or being booby trapped by a casually discarded spiderman toy as I sit down or my feet getting stuck in the primordial ooze which covers the floor.

I'd also really like it if my wife could find the diamond earrings I designed and bought for her after she told me it was the law that new mothers were given a diamond per offspring. They weren't under the chest of drawers when I moved them to look, so I'm hoping she is going to come up with another possible hiding place very soon.

Most of all Santa, I would be the happiest man alive if you could just give me some more sleep. It's such a little thing to ask for, but I really miss it.

Best wishes,

Mr Kerry

Dear Santa,

This year I would like to enjoy the Christmas holidays. Last year I decided that we should spend our first Christmas as a family of four on our own together, but it ended up feeling just like any other day. This year we are going to spend the day with friends and family and I am really looking forward to it.

I hope I enjoy the special times and not waste them by feeling stressed and frazzled. I hope I spend time playing with my children making mountains out of wrapping paper insetad of fussing about tidying it into a bin bag. I would like to appreciate the Christmas tree instead of secretly counting the days until we can take it down because it makes the living room really cluttered. I would like to have all my shopping done and wrapped before Christmas Eve, and to account for the time that has to be spent in removing all those stupid wires that are used to package the kids toys and which add hours to the process.

I would also really appreciate it if you could make sure that I keep to the right side of the fine line between vivaciously tipsy and a bleary, slurring drunkard at my work do's.

Finally, if it's not too much to ask, I would also really, really like to find my diamond earrings and for my daughter to start sleeping through the night. Oh and some snuggly slipper boots from the White Company (in the mink colour) would be lovely.

Yours sincerely,
Kerry.

My Movie Fantasy

2010-11-24T12:40:00.009Z

Yesterday evening my three year old son was sat on the sofa eating his supper. Upon finishing he leaned back, rested his hands on his tummy and like a post-Christmas dinner flatulent elderly uncle, let out the most enormous, self-satisfied belch. There was a stunned silence as we took in its melodious resonance, and after prompting the requisite “Excuse me”, I could only admire my son’s precocious talent with an enthusiastic high five.

It got me to thinking about my own personal inadequacies as it is a quirk of mine that I can’t burp. This is surprisingly a recurring source of disappointment as there are many instances in life when a burp serves as appropriate punctuation or emphasis in the conversation – it can be appreciative, disgusted, contemptuous, insulting, entertaining, distracting….the list goes on. Burping is something you probably don’t give much thought to if you are adept at casually discarding your excess wind, but to belch-free me it is an ability I am actually quite jealous of.

The same goes for the other skills and talents I do not possess. For example I am bitterly disappointed that I can’t whistle, that I can’t play a musical instrument and that I can’t speak more than basic Del-boy French; “Mais oui, mon petit fromage frais” - see what I mean?

I’m sure at some point most of us have indulged in a few moments of idle daydreaming, casting ourselves as the star in the movie of our lives, sweeping in and amazing all around with beauty, wit and intellect. Possibly as an immaculately kooky Holly Golightly-type, hosting a debauched house party a la Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Or inspired by Mad Men, a Joan Holloway-type. Queen bee of the office in a sexy pencil skirt and mistress of the sassy riposte. Or possibly a kickass, wise cracking heroine such as the long lamented Buffy the Vampire Slayer (was there ever a better role model for teenage girldom?).

However my movie fantasy goes something like this;

In a Parisian back alley I stumble upon a dimly lit, smoke filled café. I wander in and am quickly dismissed by the uber-cool, black clad inhabitants who are all too busy smoking their gitanes, drinking rough red wine and discussing Sartre to pay me any attention. I go to the bar. In immaculate French I order my drink and casually enquire about the little piano hidden away in the corner. The barman shrugs his shoulder and motions to me to help myself. I sit down at the piano and proceed to stun the insouciant clientele with a perfect rendition of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumble-bee (yes, a scene stolen straight out of the movie Shine) whilst whistling along in perfect harmony. Upon finishing I graciously acknowledge the crowd's standing ovation and then respond with a perfect, full-bodied, 10 second burp……….the crowd goes wild…….and fade to credits.

It'll never happen of course, but it has happily filled a few daydreaming minutes.

Mungosaur, Lord of the Mould

2010-11-18T21:07:00.011Z

The mouldy pan from Tuesday's blog is still an ongoing issue. However little did I realise that by embarking on this righteous crusade for the equal division of domestic labour I was also placing my family in genuine peril from the malevolent goo which was multiplying inside.

Matters came to a head today and I'm still shaking as I type this blog. I'm only grateful I managed to capture the events on camera, Blair Witch style, so as to share the experience.

There I was this morning, pootling away in the kitchen when suddenly the pan of horror started to make a funny noise. The plate covering the mouldy mess started to move as something seemed to be escaping from inside. I could barely utter a single profanity before out peeped the head of 'Mungosaur, Lord of the Mould'.

Well this is how he introduced himself. I didn't like to assume that his intentions were hostile, and offered him a cup of tea and a custard cream, however he soon made his agenda clear when he answered with a blood-curdling "Mwah Ha Ha!", which as we all know is the universally recognised laugh of a real bad 'un.

He immediately set about spreading his repugnant rot. Everything he touched seemed to die and decay before my eyes. The flowers...

Then the bananas.

But he then realised that pretty much everything else which was edible was already past its sell by date, which seemed to spoil his fun somewhat. So he decided to call on modern technology to assist in a quickly hatched plot to take over the world and then did the 'mwah ha ha' thing again, which to be honest was getting a bit old by now.

Still he had the household worried, so they just hid behind the cushions, whilst making sure that they could still watch Toy Story 2 though the gaps.

This left saving the world down to one plucky little chap known by the imaginative yet literal name of 'Fireman', who had been keeping a beady eye on the proceedings. He may have been short on stature but he had attended a few emergencies in his time and figured that a quick mind could outwit the pestilent fungus-spreader at his own game. Fireman decided to fight fire with fire. The only way to defeat Mungosaur was to find a substance more revolting than that which he was created from.

Fireman followed his nose and identified a strong contender in the form of the youngest householder's discarded nappy and delivered the same to the feet of the vile one.

Mungosaur laughed his evil laugh and sneered in the face of Fireman. "This nappy is no threat to me," he cackled inhaling it's odour appreciatively. Then added; "Mmmm I love the smell of used nappy in the morning. It smells of ....",

but Fireman had already driven away to discuss the matter with his three colleagues, Fireman, Fireman and Fireman.

What could they find that smelled worse than the nappy? They had to think of an object of even more distilled vileness to defeat this heinous creature. After some head-scratching inspiration came in a flash. Of course..........Dad's socks. Objects of such vinegary potency that Mum refused to pick them up in case they took her nail varnish off. Fireman (the original) bravely volunteered for the task. Gingerly he approached Mungosaur with the dreaded item......

Mungosaur's smirk turned to puzzlement....then to terror.......then with a shriek of; "I'm meltiiiiiiiiing........." Mungosaur turned back to the green goo which had spawned him in the first place, and Fireman, Fireman, Fireman and Fireman returned to the Fire Station for a well deserved cup of tea and rich tea biscuit, whilst I hurriedly poured a kettle of boiling water and half a bottle of bleach into the offending pan, then left it for my husband to finish off the job when he got home. After all one has to hold to one's principles.

The End.

After the Wedding Comes the Mouldy Pan

2010-11-16T22:00:00.008Z

Ahhhh! Don't they make a beautiful bright eyed, over-privileged pair?

Good luck to Wills and Kate as they embark on a new chapter in their lives and head towards the hysteria, pomp and ceremony that will no doubt mark their wedding day.

If you have ever been through the process of planning a wedding you may well have been tearing your hair out whilst trying to navigate the minefield of mother of the bride/mother-in-law competitive dressing, where to seat the bitterly divorcing relatives and how to keep your sleezy drunken uncle away from your bridesmaids all whilst ignoring the acerbic comments from a permanently wasp mouthed great-aunt. Imagine the minefield that the lovely Kate is going to have to navigate when she also factors in Heads of State and Church, the inbred aristocrats and courtiers on his side and the nouveau riche and gauche middle class on hers. Rather her than me, although I'm sure she will get a great dress out of it.

Anyone who has been through a wedding has also woken up the day after the main event realising that all that planning was just a way of avoiding the actual reality that you have voluntarily and legally bound yourself to the same person for the rest of your life (or at least for the next twelve months based on current UK divorce law).

I will have been married for five years this December and find marriage to be both as warm and cosy as a favourite pair of tartan flannel pyjamas in front of a log burning fire and at other times as frustrating and isolating as a 10 mile tailback on the M6 on a rainy February friday night.

However we have chosen to navigate life following a common path and despite the havoc that two small children are wreaking, we still seem to be crawling in the same direction. I love my man but this is not to say that hazards don't crop up on a regular basis.

Currently, for example, we are having a passive aggressive mouldy pan stand off.

He says that because I cooked the food - once baked beans but now some new variety of penicillin by the looks - then I should also wash the pan. Au contraire, say I. If I go to the trouble of cooking (or technically opening a tin and warming the contents) then I should not have to wash up as well. This is an argument which has frequently raised its head in our house without resolution, but marriage is a marathon not a sprint. I'm in it for the long haul and I am not washing that pan of horror as to be honest it's starting to frighten me a little.....

My Obsession

2010-11-12T19:47:00.010Z

I've blogged before on my love of the catalogue. In reality this is just a mild crush compared to the passion I have for the loveliness of a shiny, crisp, glossy magazine.

My love of magazines was fostered and encouraged by my mum who was an avid reader. She wanted to instill the same love of reading in her daughter and figured that comics may be a good place to start honing my skills. It certainly worked, so much so that I can pretty much define my life by the comics and magazines I have loved.

I started with the Twinkle (pre-school), Bunty (infant school), Mandy (junior school), Jackie (early teenage years), Just Seventeen (mid - late teenage years), Cosmopolitan (early twenties), Marie Claire (late twenties/early thirties) and currently Red.

As well as the quality monthly mags I am also a sucker for the more low-brow gossip mags; Heat, OK, Hello, Now, Closer..... bring 'em on. There is no better way to numb and becalm my frantic head than to spend a lunch hour flicking through the ridiculous lives of z-list c'lebs.

As addictions go this is a pretty tame one but it does have a sinister downside. As a result of this constant ingestion of magazine frippery my brain is full to brimming with useless, random information but very little of anything which is, well, intelligent. Once you get to my advanced years when at best I'm pretty much half-way through my likely allotted span (ill health and catastrophe permitting) I think its fair to say that the brain is pretty much at capacity. For every piece of information that now goes in, another piece has to make room by simply fading away to leave the merest shadow of itself, occasionally grasped for but never to be recaptured.

How I wish that rather than following the antics of Katie Weissel and Cher in the X factor house, I instead understood why accelerating tiny particles into each other somewhere deep under Switzerland is actually important. Instead of marvelling at Courtney Cox's poise and dignity in the light of David Arquette's craziness, I understood how quantum physics meant that Schrodinger's Cat could be both theoretically alive and dead at the same time. Hell, to be honest I would settle for knowing how the television works.

However I think inner peace comes from accepting our limitations, so for now I will continue to while away the few minutes of spare time I have by catching up on the latest celebrity Botox overdose and the progress of Anne Widdecombe's Strictly Come Dancing training.

Just For A Laugh

2010-11-02T22:02:00.003Z

It has rained all day, I have the first cold of the season and for the next five months will no longer see weekday daylight outside of working hours. In case anyone else has got the seasonal blues I thought I would share three blog posts which have actually made me laugh out loud when I have come across them during recent aimless blog wanderings.

George the Guilt Explorer at Goonerjamie

Picture Perfect at Scary Mommy

Motorway Tail Backs and The Surprising Capacity of a Nappy at More Than Just a Mother

Right, am off to smear some more vaseline on the end of my red, flaking nose.

Yucky Blog

2010-11-02T12:05:00.005Z

Today I experienced an early morning moral dilemma when seeing my husband drying his face with a towel after his shower. The dilemma was simple. Should I tell him that the same towel had been used the previous night to soak up the little wet puddle left by our nappyless daughter when I was running her bath? On balance I felt it kinder not to tell him, and a covert sniff of his face afterwards confirmed that no harm had been done.

I don't think anyone can have entered parenthood realising the degree to which they are going to be covered in human waste and secretions. New parents of baby boys probably get an earlier heads up on this issue than those with girls. Personally the idea of urine coming into contact with my face was far from appealing but when my tiny infant son first successfully hit his target at nappy changing time I did feel a slight surge of pride at the achievement of that sweet little appendage, although did quickly learn the appropriate precautionary steps to take from then on in.

Fast forward a few years and I don’t have to go into detail with fellow parents as to the decline in my hygiene standards. I recall the results of a study a while back which found that on average 25% of women’s handbags revealed traces of e coli and lots of other nasty bacteria and substances, including fecal matter, as a result of us ladies putting our handbags on the floor in public toilets, buses, pubs etc. I dread to think what a swab of my jeans would now find but if fecal matter were the worst of it I would be laughing.

I never knew that being a parent would include being regularly painted in sick, having clothes permanently dusted with white flaky patches of dried snot, having to plunge my arm elbow deep into a bath of diaorrhea, or constantly having to proffer a cupped hand to catch discarded partially chewed food. Experience has now taught me that this comes with the territory and to be honest as long as there is a wet wipe somewhere to hand to smear across any contaminated clothing, furniture or faces I’m surprisingly not that bothered.

Halloween Horror

2010-10-31T19:56:00.022Z

I have a scary tale to tell.

T'was a dark, moonless night. The smell of roasting pumpkin and witches brew lay heavy on the air. Suddenly the murky blackness was pierced by the shrieks of a sinister skeletal figure and his accomplice, a terrifying and powerful witch of rather small stature.

They danced to a cheap Halloween novelty CD. They ate brain and gore sandwiches (egg and jam)*, baby's fingers and eyeballs (sausages and grapes), and finished off with that old favourite; blood jelly and bogey cream. Then they started on the chocolate. Then some more dancing. Then a vicious balloon fight. Then some more chocolate, and then the assault on the neighbours began.

Up and down the road they patrolled, their beady eyes alert for likely prey. As soon as there was a response to their rapacious door hammering the victim was overwhelmed with fearsome roars and blood curdling screeches. They demanded chocolate and sweets and were rewarded richly by neighbours desperate to be rid of these tiny predators and get back to Sunday's X-factor results show.

Simon Cowell's opinions were of scant interest to these hydrogenated fat and sugar saturated creatures as they continued to greedily devour their booty. One foolish parent tried to prise the goodies from their sticky paws only to be repelled by howls of rage, clenched fists and the perfect impression of a full set of baby teeth in the hand.

Soon the skeleton slumped into a sugar coma rendering him sufficiently compliant to put to bed. However the little witch demanded a yoghurt and then her final bottle of milk to add to her day's intake of party food, chocolate, jelly and cream, chocolate, sweets, cake, more sweets and more chocolate.

The first inkling of trouble came with a faint whiff of yoghurt belch, then her eyes opened wide with a look of surprise, then the stomach contortions. Then the noise of a large volume of pungent, potent vileness errupting at force and hitting everything within a five foot radius.....I can't even describe the horror. The carnage. The smell. Three out of four of us had to have a shower and complete change of clothes. The living room is permeated with an odour which I suppose only goes to reward us for the day's gross neglect of our daughter's basic dietary needs.

This has been the Halloween horror chez Kerryonliving. May your Halloween be far more fragrant than ours.

*(I am here referring to egg sandwiches and jam sandwiches. An actual egg and jam sandwich does not sound like a winning combination)

A bit of this, a bit of that, and a bit of spooky.

2010-10-29T21:19:00.013+01:00

I just happen to have caught a whiff of some recent ructions within the higher echelons of the UK mummy blogging community. It all sounds very unpleasant and hurtful with several high profile bloggers bowing out as a result. Like many things in life it would seem that the higher up the ladder you get the more political and complex life becomes.

I was also very sad to see that the mum behind Mila's Daydreams has had to put a stop to her original blog concept as photos of beautiful baby Mila were being stolen by utterly unscrupulous advertisers amongst others. I could understand the attraction as her photos were truly unique and gorgeous, but how awful to realise that the memories of your newborn which you were kind enough to share were in fact being exploited for financial gain.

Then there has been my own recent experience of being hacked into. Somehow some sort of South East Asian technology website has managed to infiltrate my email and blog and as a result some random and quickly deleted blogs have been posted in my name. To be honest I think I'm actually more offended by the terrible spelling and grammar being published in my name than by the identity fraud itself.

So it is apparent that blogging does have its pitfalls.... but then I get a little message from Carrie wondering about the unusual activity on my blog. I encountered her as we were both mentioned in the lovely Jana's blog - a fantastic, feisty, attitude strewn heavyweight USA mommy blog. Carrie is a gorgeous mom of three and her blog centres on her family's journey to hopefully overcome her five year old daughter's leukaemia. Hannah is currently losing her hair, but as Carrie says - with trademark positivity and good humour - this means the drugs are doing their work. I always feel humbled when I read her blog and marvel at the way she manages to maintain grace under such pressure, and I am grateful to my little blog that it has opened up the opportunity to meet lovely people from far away only to find common ground and interest. I suppose the biggest leveller of all is the fact that we are all just doing our best to live good lives and love our families and friends.

And so to move onto the spooky part of my blog. I love Halloween, and to celebrate we are having a little party on Sunday. Here pumpkin preparations are underfoot:

There is one childhood Halloween party game which I always remember playing. It revolved around being blindfolded then guessing which part of Nelson (aka a volunteer grown up) you were touching and which culminated in putting your finger into a bowl of wet squidged tissue paper and being told you were putting your finger into his empty eye socket. Ah, I recall with memory made vivid by engrained childhood trauma how we screamed and had nightmares for weeks. Happy days.

Here is a similar game I have found. Clearly it may need to be modified for the littlest witches and vampires out there, but I may be trying out a few of these on Sunday!

Doggy Blog

2010-10-19T20:42:00.010+01:00

On the whole I am not a dog lover which is strange given that I grew up in a doggy household.

The first dog in my life was Rowan, an irish setter. The runt of the litter, she was plagued with constantly flaking eczema, fur like a threadbare sofa and a resulting inferiority complex when compared to her peers who would look perfectly at home lolloping around in a timotei advert. An unassuming dog slavishly devoted to my Dad she is fondly remembered for spectacular heroism when chasing away a near rabid Alsation which was trying to bite the five year old me. Despite being half its size she streaked out of nowhere like a copper coloured whirling dervish, leapt onto its back and clung on for dear life until shaken off halfway down the road by the yelping emasculated beast. There were also her heroic services to hamster-kind, waking my Dad one night from deep slumber with a wet nose and gently leading him, littlest Hobo style, to the front door where our hamster was trying to pull off its own version of The Great Escape, and on another occasion patiently defrosting a near frozen hamster in the warm crevice between haunch and belly after we had thoughtlessly decamped for a particularly cold weekend leaving the little chap without the benefit of any central heating.

Next came Kirsty, the neurotic border collie. Her obsessive behaviour ran the gamut from uncontrollable doggy pouncing and nose dobbing on any stray reflections from your glasses or jewellery (most inconvenient when driving) to the dubious activities she got up to with cushions when left on her own in the lounge. All I’m able to say is that when you came back into the room there would be a hairy cushion in the middle of the floor and an embarrassed looking dog slinking behind the sofa, so its fair to assume some sort of pleasurable rubbing had been taking place….

There was also a brief period when, due to ill health, I had to look after my Grandparent’s dog Ben. The dog was of unknown age although undeniably on his last legs given the stench he emmitted. I had to sleep with air freshener next to my bed for the occasions when the smell of rancid dog would actually wake me up. Forever after the smell of neutradol will make me dry heave in remembrance of Ben’s stomach churning odour which turned out to be the result of his elderly organs giving up the ghost one by one. Our time together was short, however the day before meeting his doggy maker he still managed to go out for a walk and waddle enthusiastically up to an alluring lady jack russell’s bottom which is not a bad way to spend your last day all things considered.

Then I met my husband to be and was tentatively introduced to his doggy mad family. Mum and Dad had six, Sister had nine, and Auntie had, count them, seventeen. I recall clearly the first time I met my future in-laws and their much adored pets. There was the obese white miniature poodle as wide as it was tall whose vast girth gathered such momentum when it scampered across the kitchen tiles in search of doggy treats that the only way it could stop was to skid sideways into the kitchen cabinets. Then there was the black poodle which snuck into the space beneath my future father in law's favourite reclining chair, staying there quietly entombed after the chair was returned to its original upright position. I interpreted this as some kind of canine suicide bid given that the dog would have been there for days had someone not noticed the tip of a forlorn black tail sticking out from underneath the chair. It may well have been out of sympathy for the gnarled yorkshire terrier with a broken jaw, lolling tongue and a dead eye. It kept its head on my knee, staring at me unblinking (well the dead eye anyway), a silent plea for release from the ongoing deterioration of its body parts almost audible to the human ear.

So why the subject of dogs? Have three guesses as to what my son has decided he wants for Christmas.... The list of reasons not to give in to his wish is endless, starting with the fact that we both work and I am mildly allergic, but there is a part of me that thinks back with fond nostalgia as to the pooches, flaws and all, which have been part of my life, so maybe one day....

Bedtime Rumblings

2010-10-18T19:21:00.004+01:00

Things are getting a little fraught in the bedroom department. All is not well. Mouths are pursed, harumphing is audible and there is an issue in our marriage which is currently ring fenced from discussion in much the same way the current NHS budget is ring fenced from budget cuts (that is to say we just don’t mention the subject directly and hope no-one will notice).

In the red corner is me. In my view my husband is a ridiculously light sleeper who awakens at the brush of a baby moth’s wingbeat half a mile away or at the merest glimmer of refracted light from the Arctic Aurora Borealis several thousand miles north.

In the blue corner is my husband who has the temerity to say he can’t sleep because I snore.

Now I ask any reader of this blog, does the fairy footed, sylph-like wisp of a thing that I am strike you as the sort of person who may snore? Clearly my husband is being slightly overly dramatic in likening my nightly fluttering murmers as reminiscent of an African warthogs mating call?

Nevertheless in light of my beloved’s alarming eye bags, grey pallor and the increasingly evil looks he is shooting at me as I awaken refreshed from a full 8 hours sleep, I am resigned to visiting the chemist to purchase some night time nasal strips in the hopes that these will mollify the sleep deprived grumpy one, at least until the next nocturnal insect dares fly within a mile radius.

Easy Post

2010-10-15T13:03:00.007+01:00

I've had quite a busy week with little chance to post. Accordingly this is a very quick one.

I just wanted to share one of the best round robin office emails I have received in recent times.

Amongst the usual dross of hoax emails claiming to donate money to charity for every person you forward to, or instructing you to forward to ten people you love so that 'good luck will come their way' there can be some gems. Apologies if this one has already done the rounds of your inbox, but it does make me chuckle.

21 Economic Models explained with Cows -

SOCIALISM
You have 2 cows.
You give one to your neighbour.

COMMUNISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and gives you some milk.

FASCISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and sells you some milk.

NAZISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and shoots you.

BUREAUCRATISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the milk away...

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.
You sell them and retire on the income.

SURREALISM
You have two giraffes.
The government requires you to take harmonica lessons

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.
Later, you hire a consultant to analyse why the cow has dropped dead.

ENRON VENTURE CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows.
The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company.
The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more.
You sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving you with nine cows.
No balance sheet provided with the release.
The public then buys your bull.

A FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You go on strike, organise a riot, and block the roads, because you want three cows.

A JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.
You then create a clever cow cartoon image called 'Cowkimon' and market it worldwide.

A GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows, but you don't know where they are.
You decide to have lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
You count them again and learn you have 2 cows.
You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

A SWISS CORPORATION
You have 5000 cows. None of them belong to you.
You charge the owners for storing them.

A CHINESE CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You have 300 people milking them.
You claim that you have full employment, and high bovine productivity.
You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.

A BRITISH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Both are mad.

AN IRAQI CORPORATION
Everyone thinks you have lots of cows.
You tell them that you have none.
No-one believes you, so they bomb the **** out of you and invade your country.
You still have no cows, but at least now you are part of Democracy....

A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION
You have two cows.
The one on the left looks very attractive

AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Business seems pretty good.
You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate.

The Siamese Slanket

2010-10-11T13:06:00.002+01:00

For reasons far too dull and lengthy to go into (key-related), I was stuck in my car with my Dad and two sleeping children for a time last weekend. All that lay between us and interminable boredom was a copy of my Dad's Mail on Sunday, winking away at me.

I'll set out my stall from the start and risk offence to any Daily Mail lovers out there. This is not a newspaper for which I possess any warm and cosy feeling. In my view it is agenda pursuing journalism at it's worst, full of erroneous, misleading writing designed to whip up ill feeling and encourage fear and prejudice amongst its readership. Indeed there is a rather interesting website devoted to pointing out the errors spewed by the Daily Mail journalists, and I would at this point pass the subject over to the incomparable Stephen Fry to articulate far more effectively than I as to why this is a worthless rag and a waste of the world's resources.

So, you can see my dilemma.

However having quickly tired of watching grey Cumbrian drizzle rolling down the steamed up windows of a filthy Renault Scenic, I swallowed my pride and started leafing through the least offensive part of the paper - the magazine. All hostility was soon forgotten when I came across an advert for the 'Siamese Slanket'.

A blanket...with sleeves....for two people.

Is it wrong that a part of me - a primitive part, my lizard brain or inner Homer Simpson, actually found this to be an idea of genius for a fleeting minute? Practicality quickly came to the fore - what would happen if one of us wanted to get up from the sofa to make the evening cup of tea? There would be bitter argument over who kept the slanket, and who would lose the benefit of slanket heat. Logic would dictate that the slanket stayed with the sofa, but then what of the party getting off the sofa to make drinks for mutual benefit?

I think it is fear of the resulting squabbling which will stop me from purchasing one of these items, rather than the realisation that owning one is tantamount to admitting our life has become reduced to a sedentary couch potato high cholesterol spectator sport. However the siamese slanket advert should always have credit for being the one time when reading the Daily Mail genuinely made me laugh.

Catalogue Porn

2010-10-08T13:34:00.002+01:00

As a little girl growing up in the seventies prior to the onset of 24 hour kid's tv, video games, soft play centres, indoor plumbing and the host of other modern inventions with which we pamper our children, there was one sure fire way to keep me entertained for days at a time. The humble catalogue.

Mum's Great Universal catalogue would be delivered four times a year and upon the eagerly awaited arrival of the latest edition I would be gifted the old one to play with. All I needed was the catalogue, some scissors, glue and an old cardboard box and I was in heaven.

Hours were spent carefully and meticulously cutting out mother, father, children, clothing, furnishings and pets, glueing them into their cardboard home and creating my own ideal of the perfect life in all its intricate detail, even down to the camping equipment the perfect family would take on their perfect holidays.

Now I am all grown up and fully aware that happiness does not come with a price tag payable in 52 easy installments. Yet I still retain a warm fuzzy feeling inside when flicking through a lovingly crafted catalogue.

I am like a cat purring when I survey the Cath Kidston and Great Little Trading Company catalogues. I veritably rub my back along the couch with pleasure when perusing the offerings from Kew and Cox & Cox, and I am padding my claws in and out of the nearest cushion when devouring the Pedlars and White Company mailings.

Nine times out of ten I never buy anything from these catalogues, but still it is a cherished pleasure in my life to spend an evening with a crisp new catalogue, a cup of tea and my imagination.

Now, what would I wear if I were the perfect mother?.........

The Cold War

2010-10-06T13:07:00.001+01:00

It is that time of year when the battle lines are drawn, trenches dug and open hostilities commenced. It is Autumn.

On the one side is my husband who likes to relax at home in his t-shirt and shorts in front of the fire all warm and cosy.

On the other side is me. I believe in putting on more clothes if you are cold and not the heating, which is not going on until November. That is my rule, and I pay the heating bills.

Whilst I am reasonably secure in my position as bill paying authority figure, mutinous mutterings are becoming audible. Moreover in bed last night my husband, aka the human hot water bottle, rebelled by refusing to let me warm my cold feet on his legs as usual. Instead he had the cheek to suggest that my feet wouldn’t be so cold if I allowed some heat to permeate the house.

Rules are rules, and whilst flexibility has its allotted time and place in my life I am not moving on this point until such time as my children’s tongues become stuck to any interior ice formations. It’s time to pull out those old woollies and hunker down. It’s going to be a long, cold October!

A Very Important Phonecall

2010-10-04T20:59:00.000+01:00

My daughter gives strict instructions to buy low, sell high and remember to pick up some more chocolate buttons on the way home. Meanwhile my husband channels his inner Muttley in the background.

First Aid

2010-09-29T12:14:00.000+01:00

Following on from the playground accident (referred to in my last post) which resulted in a trip to A&E for emergency chin repair, I realised that our bathroom cabinet is woefully lacking in first aid stuff.

Today, however, the cabinet is positively bulging after spending yesterday's lunchbreak browsing around the very large chemist shop near my work. I never realised what pleasure could be had in pawing through the extensive menu of first aid remedies, creams, lotions, potions, sprays, dressings, ointments et al.

I hope it will be a long time before I have the chance to use my shiny new dressings scissors, the spray on plaster stuff, the spray on 'stop the bleeding' stuff and the various cartoon covered plasters, bandages and paraphenalia; but if we need it, I've got it covered.

The same determination now needs to be applied to some first aid for my own body. It's been two babies and then some since I last saw a gym, and straightforward denial is no longer sufficient to stop the realisation that something has to be done.

So I have joined a gym and last night saw my first session. I scurried around the edges of the room looking for a piece of equipment to use which was least visible to the other toned and honed gym bunnies. I ran for a whole three minutes before nearly coughing up a lung, then managed a fast walk for the remainder of my allotted time. It was hard but given that my level of body fat is roughly equivalent to that of a chocolate fudge cake, smeared in butter then fried in lard, I will give it my best shot.....

Social Inadequacy And Its Unforseen Conseqences

2010-09-27T13:21:00.000+01:00

I'm not perfect. Who is? Hands up all those who are not very good at keeping in touch with people.... Good, I thought there would be a fair few of you. Sometimes such social ineptitude can cause a real problem, to wit this weekend.

Sunday saw my three and a half year old son scampering off for an afternoon of fun with a close friend. Fast forward a couple of hours and along came the call reporting an unfortunate incident involving a see-saw, a copiously bleeding chin and many tears. When the crestfallen pair returned home it was obvious that a trip to the A&E department was necessary.

It should have been straightforward to bundle my son into the car and rush him off to hospital were it not for the fact that any trip to our two local A&E departments will involve a degree of embarassment on my part.

I have only taken my son to A&E on one previous occasion when he was nine months old. I will gloss over the facts (he was crying, I was crazy) however upon entering the triage area the Sister in charge took one look at me, and asked if I remembered her. I did. We had been childhood buddies who lost touch over twenty years ago. She ensured I was treated speedily, reassured that the baby was perfectly fine and sent on my way with her telephone number and an entreaty to keep in touch. Needless to say, I lost the number almost instantaneously and haven't made contact since.

Then a few weeks ago, I was pushing the kids up the Sainsbury's crisp aisle when a male voice said my name. I looked up and was catapulted back twenty years to my university days when I was great mates with this same person but again lost touch over the years. He is now happily married, a proud father to a newborn baby and the Head Consultant at our second nearest A&E department. We exchanged numbers, entreated each other to stay in touch. You guessed right.... I haven't because it would feel a bit weird calling him up out of the blue to have a drink and catch up (although when I write it down it doesn't look like it should seem wierd....but it still definitely would be).

So you may understand why I was not leaping with enthusiasm at the prospect of having to encounter one of these fine medical professionals and embark upon some cringeworthy, grovelling explanation as to why I haven't been in touch. Luckily my husband is used to covering for my inadequacies and so he volunteered to take the wounded soldier off to have his cut glued back together. Fortunately it was all a big adventure to my son, and he is mightily proud of his big bandaged chin. As for me, I am now working on having an instantly accessible explanation for my communication failings in readiness for any future A&E dash.....any suggestions will be gratefully appreciated!

One For the New Baby in your Life?

2010-09-23T22:02:00.000+01:00

So how about this t-shirt from twistedtwee in sizes 0-6m and 6-12m?! Don't think it would have made my own kid's wardrobes but it did make me laugh. And let's face it.......it's kinda true for most ankle biters of that age, no?

Found this site by way of recommendation from ebabeelikes, a great blog with gems of shopping ideas for the little ones in your life. Together with the amazing finds from India Knight's posterous blog my Christmas shopping will probably still be done in abject panic one week prior to the day itself, but at least from the comfort of my own broadband connection.