'Scuse me Anglo Saxon...

I think I am related to Hagar the Horrible, well I am afraid my language is; it is definitley Anglo Saxon (although Hagar is of course a Viking but where my language and Hagar are similar is in the fact that both are basically dirty!). Someone once told me that swearing indicated a lack of imagination - but when I swear I promise my language is highly imaginative. The cadence of my voice, the rhythm of my speaking, the feeling I put into those four letter words - I need no others.
But perhaps I really should moderate my language...it's not as if I have not been warned!
A few years ago my Mother and I went shopping to Norwich to buy The Boy some shoes. He was about three or four at the time. It was a glorious sunny spring day prbably teh first for many weeks a bit like now. We parked the other end of Pottergate and walked in past teh market and to the Royal Arcade looking for children's shoe shops. Everywhere we went we saw people eating ice creams.
The Boy: Mummy can I have an icecream?
Me: No darling we are going to buy shoes...
After traipsing about some more we found the perfect place for shoes and bought a pair of beautiful red trainers which met the approval of my mother, my approbation and of course, most importantly, they got the nod from the Boy.
Passing waterstones on the way to Habitat, The Boy saw some more people eating ice creams.
The Boy: Mummy I want and ice cream!
me: I want never gets, now come on Boy we have more shopping to do.
And so we did, wandering around Habitat and  detouring into Jarrolds. Finally after what must have seemed like ages and feelign just a tad hot and bothered we started to make our way back to the car up Pottergate.
We passed and ice cream vendor.
The Boy: Mummy I want an ice cream...
I ignored him.
The Boy: Granny I want an icecream.
My Mother ignored him
The Boy: I NEED an ice cream
We both ignored him as we strode purposefully on up the hill with him dawdling a little behind.
Finally the longing got too much for him and just as we all strode into a small square full of studentsd laying around on the grass and smart ladies loitering in front of smart shop windows a carrying voice was heard..
The Boy: I WANT A BLOODY ICECREAM!!!!!!!!
Much as I wanted to charge after my mother, who by now was practically racing away in her attempt to distance herself from us both figurativley as well as physically, I was in no position to pretend he wasn't mine mostly because with that demand he also decided to have a sit down strike...
A few years down the line and I find that I don't like hearing my children swear, while it may be funny in a four year old on the odd occasion it is no good in a seven year old especially when other children are about who are quick tattle tale to their parents.
We now have a swearing box and my purse is definitley getting lighter and as for his swearing - I have hardly heard a bad word...!
Picture shows: Hagar The Horrible by Dik Browne

Seven!

“There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child. There are seven million.” Walt Streightiff

Seven Continents

Seven Wonders

Seven Dwarves

Seven days of the Week

The Secret Seven

The Magnificent Seven (Seven Samurai)

Blake's Seven

The Seven Summits

Seven Deadly Sins

Seven Sisters

Seven Seas

Seven Dials

The Seven Year Itch

Seven Colours of the Rainbow

Seven Chakras

007

There are seven fundamental types of catastrophe

Seven Spot Ladybird

Seven cervical vertebrae

Seven types of virus (according to the Baltimore classification)

Seven is the neutral pH value between acidity and alkalinity

Seven is the atomic number of nitrogen

There are seven stellar objects in the solar system visible to the naked eye from Earth

There are seven stars in the constellations of the Big Dipper and Orion.

Seven Emperors

Seven hills of Rome

Seven Liberal Arts

Seven Sages

Seven years of plenty and seven years of famine in Pharaoh's dream

Seven days of the feast of Passover

Seven Pillars of Wisdom 

Seven Vestal Virgins

Seven Virtues

Seven fires of hell.

Seven blessings

Seven Archangels

The Seven Lucky Gods (Japanese mythology)

Seven notes in the traditional Western Major Scale

Seven inches; The original diameter in inches of the 45rpm format gramophone record.

Seven Brides for Seven Brothers

The Seventh Seal

Seven Years in Tibet

Seven Cities of Gold 

Today The Boy is SEVEN!!!!!!!

A Visit from the Black Dog...

"My Mum’s got the black dog!" Bog Boy announced as he trotted into Nursery this morning

Lorna, the nursery assistant looked a bit baffled and tentatively peered outside to see if there was a large black dog tied up there. I contemplated my next move; I did have a black dog and for the moment it was tied up – figuratively.

"It’s our way of explaining my depression," I told her blithley, I mean how else would you describe it?

Bog Boy seemed totally unfazed and prattled on about his smoothie and wanting to have honey on toast for hsi second breakfast - he has as sunny a nature as any Hobbit. For him my depression is a statement of fact, the ordinary, the normality of his life, no big deal.

Would that I could think of it so prosaically.

This morning I told the boys that Daddy would not be home until tomorrow and that it was very important to try and be good and not wind me up. Now this is a difficult thing for children, let alone boys, to do – it’s in their very natures; it’s not deliberate but when I am in an episode, when the black dog is visiting, it is difficult for me to remember how very little they are. I cannot deal with anything out of the ordinary. All focus is on the Black Dog.

I have known it was coming for what seems like weeks and up until recently have been able to keep it at bay. But a series of sleepless nights with ill children and various other worries has meant that this time the Black Dog will not just wait outside.

All the systems are in place, phone calls have been made, and plans are being followed. We are on Defcon 1. I am under attack and all my energies are focussed on containing the problem. There can be no collateral damage.

I know what I have to do, the things I need to get done, for the bills come in and the work deadlines have to be met over and above the day to day minutiae of my life, however crap I feel. There is no emotional slack for the unexpected, even the smallest of problems can spin me out of control; the car not starting, the boiler going blink, there not being enough cat litter, running out of milk…

Unfortunately, boys not doing what they are told, or complaining they don’t like what they are given to eat etc can equally set me off and that is something I have to be prepared for and so do they.

So on the way to school and Nursery, very matter of factly, I tell them what to expect from me for the day ahead. I dare not contemplate how long it really will last so I just brief them day to day. I tell them that the Black Dog is with me and that they have to help me battle it to send it away again. I tell them how much I need them to help me. I use imagery they can understand along the lines of knights in shining armour and beautiful queens with strange enchantments. It is easier this way and hopefully not so scary - at least for now.

I know that I will have friends over at tea and that Dear Charlie will be telephoning during the evening to see how we are getting on, that my evening with the children, before I put them to bed, is all mapped out and all bases are covered. It feels like a major military operation. I do not look forward to it.

Now, I write this when I would be preferring to talk about chocolate or how well my eldest son, The Boy, is doing at not wetting his bed and how he is looking forward to his first ever sleep over and of course his 7^th Birthday. I just hope that the Black Dog will be under control by then and things will be back to normal – whatever that is.

Picture show: Cave Canem from the House of the Tragic Poet, Petronius in Pompeii, Italy

Operation Stuffing

I ate my cockerel. And very nice he was too. Usually I have a dilemma every year about my cockerels and the fact I have too many of them but this year we resorted to eating one and perhaps we'll continue.
It seems rather extreme and I totally understand but lets look at it from my hens point of view...
There you are, the sun is shining, you are minding your own business pecking away, scuffling up a bit of dirt and you spot a big fat juciy slug and them BAM!
WHAMBAMTHANKYOUMAAM!
You get up slightly dazed and shake your head a bit, the bugger who just did this to you really hurt when he grabbed the back of your neck with his beak. You chortle your disgust and give him the eye and then as you turn away to compose youself - BAM! It happens again with a different cockerel.
You let out an almighty squawk and make a dash for the barn where you join the rest of the disgruntled sisterhood. From then on in it is a case of slinking along the sides of buildings and peering around corners to see if you can make it to the hen hut where you can lay and egg in relative peace. You long for the grass and the weeds to grow long so you can hide more effectivley. You are desperate to lay an egg but you don't want any attention thank you very much from anymore lecherous young cocks strutting their stuff in the yard.

You plot the buggers downfall. You remember your youth when cockerels actually did more than just mount you. The days when they courted you and helped you find the juciest morsels, the time when they looked out for you. Now you just want them all to die and to leave you alone. Berlimey you can hardly eat without one or another trying to do his stuff without a by your leave! So much for long summer nights huh!
So you get the picture? Too many cockerels equals too many unhappy and exhausted hens. Solution: Operation Stuffing. I used to get someone else in and they would take the boys away now I am a little less squeamish and in the dead of night when all is calm and the chickens cannot see I slink down to the hen hut with deadly intent. Silently I open the door shine a flashlight in to identify my prey then bouff they are out and the deed done with hardly a squawk. The operation is carried out a few more times and tehn I leave. No evidence that the boys have ever existed.

The next day my hens are happy with the chosen few cockerels to stand guard, to treat them as they should be treated....
Top picture shows: 'Quasimodo' the Silkie Cockerel: a born gentleman despite his looks!

Being Nice

You are all geared up for a fight, you want a fight. “Bring it on!” you say. You are prepared. You know exactly what to say and how to react, heck you’ve even got the clothes right for once and then…you get metaphorically blown out of the water not by their superior fighting, their clever one liners or cruel twist of logic but just by them being nice!

It is NOT meant to happen. The person you’ve geared yourself up to have a showdown with is not meant to be nice, not now, not today.

Heck for years you have been longing to give them a piece of your mind and finally, after months of building yourself up to it, they start being nice.

OOOhhhh! How I hate that word N.I.C.E.!

Innate politeness means you cannot possibly be nasty when they are being nice. It is NOT done. So you have to be nice back, really nice back - Super Nice indeed. You know, say it like you mean it sort of thing.

The frustration builds up inside and you keep smiling while muttering over and over to yourself, like Dory in Finding Nemo: “Just keep smiling! Just keep smiling!”

The opportunity for a confrontation, which you have been pushing for like forever, recedes as quickly as a rolling mist in the sun, leaving you twitchy, disappointed and cross with yourself.

And there’s also a lingering slightly unpleasant feeling that quite possibly the person you wanted to give a piece of your mind to has outmanouevered you as easily as an bird would a new born kitten.

All that time and effort gone to waste, nothing to show for it at all but perhaps there is? For the best way to confound your enemies and even your friends could be as simple as being nice.

Bringing up Boys: Mummy Monsters need their sleep!

I’m lying in bed exhausted and very, very grumpy. Why is it that whenever I get a free pass to have an afternoon kip my boys decide that it is time they played in their bedrooms – loudly?
I bellow at them from underneath the covers, which of course is pretty useless as the muffling properties of one 13 tog duvet, one 100 year old Eiderdown, a fake fur rug and a large green candlewick bedspread of indeterminate age and ancestry, is going to be hard to break through even with my fog horn of a voice.
My dad says I could stand at Flamborough Head and keep the shipping lanes free so loud and carrying is my voice. He’s also called me an Old Fish Wife and he meant it!
However, despite my bellowing and screeching, there is hardly a lull in their enjoyment. So crossly I haul myself from the double bed and stalk over to the top of the stairs, which acts as the entrance to my attic hideaway, and bellow again.
There is a petrified silence, and grumbling and muttering the Mummy Monster stumbles back to its nest.
Downstairs the bad rabbits unfreeze and start to move about again: hippity hoppity. Quiet at first then growing louder and louder as their game of Narnia starts to get more and more exciting. There are baddies at the door and quick they must charge: “For Narnia and Aslan!!” The door is flung open for the brave knights to advance - and I am standing there. The Mummy Monster is NOT pleased.
It orders them to retreat to the Playroom forthwith or suffer a variety of dire consequences ranging from “No more Telly!” to “NO Nintendo!”, “No Jelly Cat!” and even worse banishment to the green house – FOREVER!!!!!
One pair of very quiet sad rabbits troop away all of five feet before there is a push and a shove and they race down the corridor to the stairs yelling about who will get what when they reach the playroom.
The Mummy Monster glowers after them and returns to her pit to sleep.
It is warm and quiet – blissful.
Bog Boy: “Mummum? Do you want a huggy?”
It’s a question I hear from far away down the bottom of the stairs.
Bog Boy: “Mummy? Do you NEED a huggy?”
I hear the pad pad pad of feet tramping up the stairs and I cannot say no can I?
I emerge from the depths and hold out my arms and get the biggest Hug. And the tears start to roll. There he is all of nearly four years old and he is hugging me, the Mummy Monster. The Boy appears from downstairs, curious.
The Boy: “Why are you crying?”
Me, drying my eyes: “Because…”
Because Bog Boy will be the one who holds me when I am old and alone, he’ll be the one to dry my tears, making it better. You’ll be the one organising everything longing to get closer but not knowing how, scared of rejection, being brave and carryingon.
I open my arms wider to dispel these nonsensical prophecies and we all hug and then the Mummy Monster has a quick tickle and there is a squeal of laughter and much giggling before a romp takes place on the bed with duvets, eiderdowns and fake fur rugs.
The Mummy Monster will just have to get some sleep later or perhaps tomorrow when they are at school and nursery….

It’s that utterly evil dog again…

You know the phrase: “It just eats money”, well guess what? It’s her latest trick.

However, in EBJ's defence, I will admit I don’t think she meant to eat it.

I had just taken the opportunity to de-fug my handbag and had everything out on the dining room table in neat piles ready to put back into said bag, including the ohmigodthat’sjustmademyday pile of scrumpled up £5 and £10 notes, which are to be found hidden among various receipts and other shopping detritus. This precious pile was sitting next to the rations pile of small round shortbread biscuits that you get with coffees in a variety of ubiquitous airport lounges, motorway hotels etc, and some good old fashioned individually wrapped teabags.

[I am sorry but in my experience, you only get decent tea bags in the UK.  A French tisane just does not cut the mustard and as for  a decent tea bag let alone a decent cup of cha in the good old US of A (unless imported) forget it.]

Anyway, I popped upstairs to put a few things away. You know Power Ranger back to Bog Boy’s room, Nintendo to the Boy’s room etc and was returning down the stairs when I heard a heavy thump, like a large parcel had fallen to the floor, there was a slight gagging noise then as I emerged in to the dining room utter silence. Just the flickering of the fire in the wood burner dancing across the scene. I switched on the light to get a better look and didn’t notice a thing. All the piles were exactly as I left them or so I thought. I started to put everything back in my bag and noticed that one of the biscuits was missing. I immediately glanced down at the Sassy dog in her basket by said fire and she rolled her eyes at me in that god-I-am-so-guilty-but-don’t-I-look-cute sort of way. And there beside her was the biscuit. So I picked it up thinking that was lucky.

I then turned to the most precious pile of all ready to start counting my millions. There was a problem. The folded up tenner which I swear I put there next to the ration pile was no longer there. I looked on the floor thinking the dog must have knocked it off after trying to purloin the biscuit. I searched every other pile on the table; I took everything out of the bag and searched again. I checked my purse and I checked the floor yet again even going under the dining room table on my hands and knees for a really good scout. Nothing.

I looked back at the dog. She grinned at me and thumped her tail – she looked so seriously guilty that there could be only one explanation – she’d eaten the tenner thinking it was the biscuit and had done so in a hurry because she could hear me coming down the stairs into the dining room.

It has left me in a bit of a pickle. I mean will she be able to digest a tenner? Will it do her any harm? Will I be able to retrieve said tenner and if so do I really want to? If I do retrieve it will it still be legal tender? And more importantly did the most evil whippet on the planet really make a mistake or has she decided that eating money is a good trick to add to her growing repertoire?

Now I know what's in mine - do you know what's in yours???

Things get lost in my handbag not just for days and weeks but for months and years. I no longer know what is in there, in fact there could be a whole other universe. It certainly feels like it, but whether there is anything useful  in there - well that’s the question really….I've taken up the lovely Diney's offer of a handbag meme over at Older Mum's are Fun 
just to see if I could actualy get my camera working!
Not a dog biscuit in sight honest!

Let's see:

Purse - bulging and fit to burst with used up car parking tickets, a variety of out of date loyalty cards for places I never visit anymore or only did the once.  No actual money I note...
Make up and make up remover and bright red nail varnish - ah yes I use that to identify my gardening gear. Three wicked stripes painted in the tools and easily identified when mysteriously found over at  Roger's... 

Loose change - even if it is in Euros and coppers  

A variety of empty cheque book stubs
London AtoZ  - because of course I will need to find my way around in...Suffolk 

Power Rangers - well don't you?

Hat and gloves   

Pac a bag
Rations - will always need a nice cuppa and a biccie shame I haven't actually got a mug in there too. 

Mini Leatherman - look I was once an agric student Ok and these things are important. It has plyers, tweezers, philips screw driver bit, scissors and of course the ubiquitous knife all of 1 inch long. I cannot tell you how useful it is and how often it has come in use. I just keep forgetting it is an offensive weapon too and I am always having to explain....to the guards at the Natural History Museum, the V&A, the London Metropolitan Police.... 

Passport - you never know when you might actually have to flee the country.  

Ladybird thing - I am not sure why it is in here nor what it does. In fact I don't think I have ever seen it before... 

White feather - good grief! Do you think they are trying to tell me something?????
I'd love to see what's in Muddy No Sugar's handbag over at How I like my Coffee as well as in Kitty's (bound to be so beautiful) up north in Village Fate 
But only if they want to!

If the leader of the free world can do it why oh why can't you?

He’s late again. I am on my own again. I should be used to it I’m on my own a lot. There was a programme today about parenting on Radio 4 saying that if you want happy children put your marriage first. I agreed – wholeheartedly, not for the children I might say, but for me. It sounded a little one sided, in that the person doing the running should be the mother but I presume that was because it is more usual for the mother to be the one focussing on the children to the exclusion of all else but who can blame her?
If they are anything like me it is because they are neglected.
If a man keeps his woman on her toes and affords her the attention she is due she’ll not be molly coddling her children all the time she’ll be making him cordon bleu suppers, wearing nothing much more than a string of pearls – men just don’t seem to get this.
Do they have no brains? Do they have no sense at all?
I know it’s sexist to play it like this but one glass of champagne on an empty stomach and I’m ready for a major rant.
I need a real man!
Actually I need my husband to pay me some attention and not when I remind him to either – Come on guys! Where’s the spontaneity and romance in that? I need him to sweep me off my feet to keep me in a state of flux to make me feel alive, in love, hell dare I say, it in lust!

I need to feel I am treasured, wanted, that my price is above rubies not like his trusty old lucky frog boxer pants that are kept because they’re comfortable despite myriad holes and distinctly grey appearance.
I am not grey nor am I there to be comfy.
I am a sensual being one that need to be nurtured if I am to be nurturing back – you know what I mean.
Don’t give me that: Well if you want to be taken out all you have to do is say, (and book the table and arrange the babysitter and make sure that you are not otherwise previously engaged with work, your mates or even the garden).
It doesn’t work like that you know it doesn’t. We’re not THAT equal you know. There are some things a man just ought to do – and keep doing even if he is married. Crikey of President Obama can do a date night then why oh why can’t mine???
Okay this was a short rant because if I say anymore I will start embarrassing myself…but please if the leader of the free world can do it – come on guys why not you?

House Hunting: Moving moments

We moved into our fnal resting place in 2001 on Halloween to be precise, six years later as I contemplated calling the builders in  for Phase II of the R£NOVATION, I spent my time day dreaming especially about those little ways and means of making the budget stretch just that little bit further....

"I swear the chimney creaked today. So I have been eyeing all day. As the winds howl round it and sleet slaps into it horizontally, I swear it must be moving - I actually want it to fall down! I long for it to fall down.

Just think of the damage a nine-foot chimney could do. Not those tall skinny ones on the more modern house such as a Georgian or Victorian one but a good old Tudor/Jacobean one, which houses an inglenook the size of a highly desirable London bed-sit.

Bearing in mind the Westerly gale, it should fall down the eastern part of the roof smashing through the attic, crashing across the small room, hopefully catching Charlie’s bedroom window on the way down. Wrecking the render perhaps? A good honest bit of damage. Roughly, what? Say £30,000 - £40,000.

I almost feel like walking along the roof ridge to give it a bit of a nudge. However, after some 450 years of being up there, my hopes are hardly likely to come true – I’ll just have to resort to the Lottery again.

Oh, how happy and naïve we were when we heard that the house was ours. The euphoria carried us for weeks and then the business of moving again cast a cloud over my existence. This would be the third move in two years – I suddenly realised just what my poor mother had to put up with following my father round the world with increasing regularity.

Whereas the move from London had been organised and slick, the move to Rookyard from rented accommodation was anything but. There was no Charlie to help; he was too tired of an evening to pack everything away. So it was left to me. I tried to put everything back in the right boxes but this time instead of knowing where everything was I didn’t and I didn’t know where I it was going either!

The pressure was increased when our landlord kindly informed us that he had already let the house we were renting to the underbidders – the family that had gone on holiday.

F**k!!

So, there I was, frantically packing and cleaning and longing to get out of there before the Underbidders turned up. They were due to come round the house on the day we moved out. With luck we shouldn’t meet.

Luck’s not like that.

In the middle of slapping post it notes on the boxes, scrubbing the banisters, stuffing the cats into their basket, the Jack Russels go off in paroxysms of barking.

And there she is getting out of her gleaming brand new navy blue Volvo – the wife of the Underbidder.

As she stalks her way to the door she barks: “Well we made you pay for it!”

She enters: “Well, you haven’t done much with this place have you?”

She stomps upstairs: “Well, we’ll have to get them to make this room up, I’m not paying all this rent for that.”

I haven’t uttered a word, my mind has atrophied with shock and all the things I should be saying just don’t.

Me: “Well, umm, would you like some tea?”

To my horror she says yes and then as I heroically scramble about and search for the kettle among all the newspapers, cardboard boxes, crates and suitcases, the removal men turn up and it’s all systems go, but she’s still there. Still wanting tea. Running from Kitchen to drawing room I manage to oversee a semblance of packing and at the same time carry out teatime inanities.

It is such a relief when she leaves I don’t notice that the removal men have completed the packing without me and suddenly the house is empty - everything is gone.
The relief is huge – then I remember that they don’t have a key for Rookyard and where the hell are the cats? Packed!