Having a good (clean) laugh...

I suddenly have a boy not a little boy or even an overgrown toddler but a boy. He has put aside babyish things and now spouts forth to all and sundry everything to do with bottoms.
Ah yes you all murmur with varying shades of embarrassment – lavatorial humour. Please when do they grow out of it?
The mere mention of bottoms, farts, pee and poo send him into paroxysms of stifled laughter. Sometimes he’s helpless with giggling too much and has to resort to shaking silently on the ground curled in an almost foetal position.
The best thing to observe is when he’s in a gaggle of his mates. You can see them egging each other on to say the MOST outrageous thing they can muster gaining particular kudos if it is overheard by an adult.
It bursts forth from them and is immediately rather unsuccessfully stifled by a hand. If admonishment is forthcoming it seems to make the situation worse with added spluttering and choking and in the face of that you know you are lost.
You can see the little blighters strut off like bantam cockerels all puff and pride buoyed up with their victory. You shake your head in secret admiration.
So instead of confrontation how’s about out bottoming them?
Please note this is not to be done when the headmaster can over hear you ‘cos in mid flow on the lavatorial front suddenly The Boy went very silent and I well I carried on until realisation dawned that I was not as alone as I thought.
I turned stricken to see our glorious head standing behind me arms folded.
He: Most enlightening!
All I could do was glow head to foot with embarrassment I tried to say something but instead all I could do was start to giggle. I felt that the situation called for a hasty retreat and The Boy and I bundled ourselves into the car tout suite bright red with embarrassment stifling our laughter as best we could.
It was great to be on the winning side!

Lament for a Land Rover

I want to blow up my car preferably with an anti tank missile or some other form of loud ballistic. In my mind’s eye I see her exploding with doors spiralling into the sky, a satisfactory whoomph and puffs of white smoke. It will take place on a gloriously hot clear sunny day. Piercing blue skies in the background, the car alone on the heathery moor.
What could be a more fitting end to a rusted out Land Rover, which has faithfully served my family for some 14 years?
It has been integral to our lives having seen me courted, married and brought back to earth with a loud bump due to impending motherhood. It has been there for the highs and lows. It brought my babies back from hospital, taken us on holidays and visits, brought us back from funerals.
We’ve slept in it, eaten in it, popped champagne corks in it. My son's first ice cream was devoured in it. We’ve been sick in it, hurt in it and even peed in it (well come on the poor boy was only three and Daddy would insist on going on to the next lay-by!)
We boogie in it, shout in it, sing in it and laugh in it. We tell stories to each other, play eye-spy, just shout at each other. Sometimes we just listen. We have full and frank discussions in it – many about it. We argue and we make up in it. My husband tells me he loves me when we are in it.
We’ve done 187,986 miles in it and now its bottom has rusted out and I can’t afford to weld it all together. And that is the point I can’t afford it any longer.
If diesel prices hadn’t risen so fast I might have nursed her through a few more years - in fact I always thought I would. But the cost of getting her through her MOT AND keeping her on the road is just too much to bear- some £6,000 a year and rising.
So the time is near and now it’s the final curtain and I am having problems emotionally letting go of a two-ton hunk of rusting metal. It’s just not in me to see her crushed, she deserves a better send off so I am seeking ways to do just that…and that’s where the tanks come in. The Army I’m sure could do with target practice and I know a man that knows a man who just might be interested - anything but the ignominy of the breakers yard….

What happened on Thursday evening...

Something out of the corner of my eye catches my attention, a fluid movement slips out of view, a deadly shadow in the evening sunlight, slinking ever purposefully towards the hen hut.
A cacophony of noise erupts in the peaceful evening haze. A scrabble of claws, a whirr of beating wings, squawks and thumps and a flurry of hens appears in the middle of the drive.
The wraith-like shadow pauses and passes on. There is easier prey to be had – almost on a plate. For at the back of the pen there is an inviting box and from the box the harbinger of death can smell warmth, blood warmth. Succulent warmth. Adding to the piquancy of the moment is the delicious aroma of fear. Hearts beat faster and faster and louder and louder stamping out the dance of death and in a flurry of downy white feathers the deed is done and all you can hear from inside is the snap of bones and cartilage and the chomp as the Ferret starts on hor d’oeuvres.
By the time I realise what is happening it is all over for the chick. My fury knows no bounds and like an avenging angel I descend upon the vulpine creature snapping it shut in the box. I pause and consider the options before me and in this time, these brief few seconds the Ferret is already making its move. Driven by a fury that matches my own at having its dinner disturbed the Ferret hisses a warning then determinedly it pushes its nose at the corner of the lid. Without thinking I grab at its scruff. There is a squeal of outrage and then the most exquisite pain as Tuppence sinks her fangs into the base of my thumb. I pinch tighter, determined not to let go despite the fact I can hear the crunch as her teeth sink right to the bone. She struggles to get a better grip and sinks her teeth again. I make a grab at her with my other hand and in a blur of mahogany ermine she plants her fangs into the fat of my other hand.
I love my chickens to pieces and instinctively I have gone to their aid but as I dance about the yard with a ferret stuck on my hand I do ask myself are they really worth it?
As the ferret flies through the air to land cat like near the feed bin some 15 yards away I am really angry and I now block its chittering movement with my feet, stamping down just in front of it’s nose letting the vibration force it to back away. Hissing in blind fury the ferret lunges again and realising that I have come out in flip flops I beat a hasty retreat hollering for Roger my neighbour to come to my aid.
Tuppence and I dance around the yard as she determinedly retraces her steps to the scene of the crime (or dinner depending on whose view you take).
Roger calls.
Me: Grab it Roger!
Him: What?
Me: The Ferret.
Him: What ferret
Me: That one, the one that bit me (as if there were more than one!)
Him: OK then.
Roger really is a very affable chap. Bonkers I’ll admit. And before I can warn him of the imminent danger he is putting himself to, he stoops to swoop it up and catching it, he expertly holds it in his arms. The ferret knows it is beat and acquiesces. Butter wouldn’t melt.
I glower then realise that I really am bleeding rather a lot and from both hands and it really is rather painful.
Me: Ow!
Him: Well you shouldn’t have picked it up then should you!
Me: Roger! I had no choice - it was killing my chickens.
Him, with a distinct air of superiority: Get yourself over to Annie and I’ll sort it.
I stomp off to see Annie muttering about know it all old farmers and hissing just like Tuppence about how unfair it is and why does it always happen to me.
Annie sorts me out quickly with a good dollop of TCP and listens as I continue to hiss and spit. Agreeing with me that he is a tiresome old bugger when suddenly there is an almighty yelp – we both grin.

Now let's be very clear...

Casually glancing up at The Boy’s bedroom window while deep in conversation I happened to spy a naked form flitting about on the window sill.
It took me a while to work out just what was going on and a few moments more before I was pelting round to the front door diving up the stairs charging into his room.
Me: “Just what the heck are you up to?!”
Although somewhat startled by my sudden appearance, The Boy looks at me as if I am extremely stupid. His expression becomes pitying.
Him: “Playing Mermaids.”
Right, silly me of course naked boys jumping off window sills -obvious isn’t it. We’re at the bottom of the sea and we’re mermaids.
Him: “I told you that’s what I would be doing.”
I remember something along the lines of I’m-going-upstairs-and-changing-into-home-clothes not I’m-going upstairs-stripping-off-all-my-clothes-climbing-on-window-sills-and-half-scaring-my-mum-to-death. I start to tell him this then I recall him saying to me he was going to play mermaids. I stand there with my mouth half open and my finger raised ready to admonish him. Nope I can’t I was so busy just doing things I probably zoned out on him as he was talking.
Him: “Mum?”
I focus.
Me: “Right. Well, playing mermaids is all well and good but jumping off the window sill is verboten. Now get dressed.”
Him: “But mermaids don’t wear clothes!”
Me: “This one does – now get a move on.”
Him: “Can I still play mermaids?”
Me: “Now let's be very clear about this you may but only if you’re dressed and no jumping off the window sill.”
I leave him to his imagination and return downstairs. Just as I sit down to have a cup of tea there is an almighty bang and thump from upstairs. I bolt back up prepared to do battler but before I speak, he interrupts.
Him: “I’m not jumping off the window sill, I’m using the desk…!!!”

How do you write?

This was a question posed on Purplecoo - the site I belong to (a seriously great place to belong) - by the wonderful and very talented Jackofall.
So how do I write? I used to write poetry as a kid and kept it up until/while I was at college - ghastly stuff full of angst and totally over emotional. I gave it up. There are some things in one's life, that as you get older, you realise are best left behind.
However, I used to read it aloud to check that it flowed. It is something I continue to do to this day. It also helps with the punctuation and where best to put the emphasis or stress points within a sentence.
I write for a living in the business sector and do a lot of research before a single word is put down. I interview about 8-10 people for each article plus gather as many relevant facts and figures from a host of sources. After talking to so many people I have a good idea of the issues and I will try to draw on them as the slant for my article.
Sometimes the slant or point of the article will be given to me by my editor and it is up to me to find the facts to back it up or failing this to persuade the powers that be that the slant I have chosen is the best one.
Then it flows or not. Sometimes an article just writes itself and at other times it is a total nightmare and I have to nurture it, pound it into shape, scream at it, jump up and down and then sullenly get on with it, muttering all the time.
Other times I am just not in the mood. However, bills and a looming deadline are great for concentrating the mind!
I will read and re-read each piece adjusting and trying to correct spelling mistakes etc as I go along. Once finished though I will quickly scan. I can't read it properly, it has to just go. I think that this stems from all the anxiety I had over exams. I once got so wound up that I ripped up the whole exam paper because my answer was not quite right and then did not have enough time to finish. Needless to say I failed the exam and the humiliation of that failure haunts me still as I was meant to be the best in the class on that particular subject.
When it comes to more creative writing I started out with a round robin letter when I first got married in 1999. I was stunned by the reception that first one, and now subsequent ones, garnered. I even have a fan base in Yorkshire among my parents’ friends.
To cut a short story long they kept badgering me to write more and although I think them highly biased in my favour, they were a great influence on me taking up the Country Living challenge in 2007. So I started to blog.
I am not disciplined and so I will just come to the screen when the mood hits me. Although I am now finding that I write loads in my head all day I rarely get it all down. There have been so many things I have wanted to share and so many ways I have wanted to express myself.
I now find that I love writing - just for the sake of it. The process is very therapeutic and I believe it is making me a more accomplished journalist - well, a certainly more confident one. And it has been profitable though only in a small way.
Dear Charlie showed my blog off to a publisher acquaintance of his and I now write a column for him three times a year - I know not much. It is a lighthearted look at the trials and tribulations of sending children into the private school system. Totally fictitious but with plenty of facts/stories to back it all up. Some I witness first hand and others I am handed on a plate, usually round the dinner table. Sounds silly but these three pieces (so far) are my most treasured cuttings. To be paid and acknowledged for your work especially when it is creative is one of the biggest buzzes I have ever had.

K.I.S.S.I.N.G

Harry and Sally sitting in a tree:
K-I-S-S-I-N-G
First comes love,
then
comes marriage,
then comes Sally and the baby carriage

Ah yes it was bound to happen sooner or later – for me it was Robin trying to pull up my skirt to see my knickers – the indignity especially as he was younger than me!
However, unlike me, The Boy is the instigator rather than the victim in this little playground scenario.
Strolling into school – early for once – The Boy was accosted by another Mummy.
With mock severity she says:
“What have you been doing to my daughter in the playground? Her Daddy is gonna’ come and get you!”
The Boy just giggles and squirms and I notice for the first time that he really does blush.
Me: “What have you been up to?”
OM: “Hasn’t he told you?”
Me: “No, it seems he’s already keeping secrets from me. What DID you do?”
The Boy answers from the depths of my skirt and I miss the crucial words as he gets an attack of the giggles again egged on by his friends who are all whooping at his embarrassment.
ME; “Spit it out monster.”
The Boy shouts: “Kissin’!”
Me: “Kissing!”
Oh My God we’re at that stage already. Kissing in the playground. Now most people would be fine about it – and I am really - but there is a certain amount of trepidation because you see I was kissed by Dear Charlie when I was only four and a half and look what happened to us!
On my way back home I realise that I could easily be looking at my future daughter-in-law and a little bit of me sinks somewhat. All day I try to put it to the back of my mind but it keeps springing back up.
Returning to school I laugh with the other mothers in the playground about these latest antics and secretly I ponder whether I would want any of them as in-laws for my son. I reason that on the whole I get on with all of them and I actually like most of the girls in The Boy’s class – it could be worse.
As they file out and say their “Good Afternoons” I watch The Boy. He catches my eye and grins and runs off laughing with the others for a few snatched moments before being rounded up by respective mothers to head home for tea.

They’re all in a huddle and suddenly I hear that old chant about K.I.S.S.I.N.G and damn me if it’s not about him with another girl. I have a feeling that my Son might just be a little bit of a tart.

(PS. I am secretly very pleased – he’s obviously quite a catch.)

Shooting Starlings….

I remember when I was young the horror of having starlings suddenly flying down the chimney and into the living room in a 'phut' of grey ash and flickering feathers which would invariably be accompanied by cacophony of squawks and screeches from sundry species.
It would usually end with the poor bird up against the window panting, while we, in the opposite corners, would be doing the same and my father would be surveying grimly the destruction of the best room.
It used to happen on frequent occasions as the poor birds tried and tried again to build their nest at the top of the chimney but it was not until the said nest got stuck and caused a fire that my father decided action had to be taken.
After trying every conceivable way to get rid of the little "S**Ts" as he called them and being driven to distraction he decided it was war and went into commando mode. The Full Monty in the back garden with his tent and camouflage - I believe he even painted himself. I'm afraid the starlings didn't stand a chance. BUT, there is always a but, they did get their own back sort of...it must have been the final days of the siege and Dad shot one. It landed with a plunk on top of the ridge of the barn opposite his bedroom window. It lay there with its feet akimbo a "V" sign, which Dad had to endure for many, many months afterwards....

Sibling Rivalry

Once upon a time many years ago a lonely Little Girl on holiday in Hammamet, Tunisia, wished for a baby sister. Like all wishes you need to be very careful what you ask for. Needless to say her wish was granted but by then some two years had elapsed and the Little Girl was used to being the ONLY princess in the house.
She put up with the new baby but hated the fact that her mother was always with The Baby and no longer had any time for her. The Little Girl was always told be careful of The Baby, be quiet for The Baby, let The Baby have that toy. The Little Girl was told how lucky she was to have a sister, how happy she must be to have a new baby.
When the Little Girl said she wanted The Baby to go away, to be sent back where it came from, she was told not to be silly, she was told not to be so mean. The Little Girl realised that people would only be pleased and kind to her and have time for her if she said she loved The Baby. So she did. But with no where to vent her true feelings, and no one to take her side and to make time for her, the Little Girl died a little inside and in that space a piece of jealousy grew and it was spiteful and cruel.
The Little Girl would sidle up to The Baby and pinch The Baby to make The Baby cry, she would take the baby’s toys, she would even steal the baby’s sweets. The Little Girl grew watchful and would do these things in secret so no one would know least of all her parents. For the Little Girl realised that with the birth of The Baby there was not enough love to go round, there was not enough time in the day.
The Baby grew and as far as the Little Girl was concerned The Baby always had her parents time and affection while the Little Girl was told to go away and play. The Little Girl had to play on her own. The jealously buried itself a little deeper.
When the family moved, the Little Girl was left to stay with her grandparents, as her parents sorted out the new home. Her parents said it was exciting to stay with her grandparents and what a treat it was, but the Little Girl saw that The Baby stayed with her parents, The Baby was not left behind. The Little Girl’s jealously grew again.
The Little Girl was sent to school because it was easier, she stayed in a big scary house with spiders that ran over her bed all on her own in a dark, dank room. She saw her parents at the weekend but they were very busy moving house and looking after The Baby.
Once everything was sorted The Little Girl came home for good and she was given a big room to play in. She made new friends and was allowed to stay up late. She was happy and she did not mind her little baby sister at all. Then her parents started to talk of sending her away again. She did not want to go away. The Baby wasn’t being sent away. Why thought the Little Girl do they want me to go away?
The Little Girl was eight years old and was sent away to a boarding school at the other end of the country and her parents moved again, this time abroad. The Little Girl begged her parents to take her with them, she cried and she pleaded but it was to no avail. The Little Girl saw that The Baby went with them the Little Girl cried her self to sleep because it was so unfair.
After a time the Little Girl got used to going away and The Baby grew. When The Baby was seven years old the Little Girl was getting bigger and so was her jealously. Like an evil witch the Girl would whisper dark forebodings in The Baby's ear; “Make the most of your time with your parents for they will soon send you away.”
And in time they did. And the Girl was no longer as jealous and she began to realise that this was the way of things and she regretted being so mean to her Baby sister.
Many years passed and one day the Girl met a boy and they married and had a child of their own. The Girl saw her parents often and life was good.
But what of the Baby sister? She too got married and had a child but she did not see her parents as often.
The Girl got pregnant again and her mother agreed to help her when the time was due. The Baby sister wanted to go on holiday and needed someone to look after her child. She called on the mother who said she could not, as she was to help look after the new baby. The Baby sister persuaded the mother to look after the child saying that The Girl had plenty of people to help, had plenty of money to hire help.
The mother was in a quandary. So The Girl suggested the mother bring the Baby sister’s child to stay for she desperately needed her mother to help her for things on the outside are rarley what they seem. The Baby sister’s child came to stay but missed its parents so badly that it cried all day and night to be with its Granny and the mother was unable to help The Girl.
The Girl was upset and unhappy. Why had her sister needed to go on holiday just then when the Girl really needed all the help she could get?
The answer was jealousy. For as much as the Girl had been jealous of her Baby sister so had the Baby sister been jealous of her. For every term time the Baby sister had been the only princess in the house and every holiday she had been usurped.
After the birth of the second child, The Girl had postnatal depression and was too tired to understand. All she reasoned was that she would never have played so shabby a card on her own sister. So she decided to have nothing more to do with her. They did not speak to each other and avoided ever seeing each other for nearly two years.
And then there was a phone call and The Girl’s mother was saying the Baby sister had tried to call The Girl but she was not there. The Baby sister had needed her family and they had not been there for her and she was all alone. She was all alone having a miscarriage and she had turned to the only people she could trust and knew who would care and they were not there.
And The Girl cried for although she was and had been jealous it did not seem important now. She left a message saying that she loved her Baby sister and as for the end of the tale – well, we shall see…

Where I live...

As a youngster this caused me great anxiety as I frequently had no idea. I think we moved so many times that I sort of gave up working out where I lived as I couldn’t explain exactly where HOME was. I still can’t: HOME is where my parents are and despite the fact that I cut the umbilical cord over half a lifetime ago, HOME is still where they are. It’s easier that way – tho’ causes my husband considerable consternation. I grew up an itinerant wanderer – basically a modern day camp follower. I hasten to add that my mother’s morals have always and will always be above reproach. Camp followers have such a bad press. By the time I was six I had lived in six different homes and had attended six different nurseries and schools. These were formative years and although I went on to be incarcerated at boarding school for ten years, the confusion about where I live, where home was and even who I was, was so deeply embedded that when the question is asked I can feel my heart beat faster, and my mind goes blank and out pops the answer: “With my parents.” This obviously causes raised eyebrows at social functions and my reputation is somewhat suspect. In answer to the question I now live in the depths of wildest Suffolk where the rabbits play chicken with your car at dead of night and Pheasants fly in low on kamikaze missions determined to drive you off the road. This is our final resting place - leastways says my husband who has never fully recovered from the move seven years ago from London. (I blame it on too much Styrofoam and bubble wrap) - and from the comments made by the parents on viewing our new home back in 2001 probably our nemesis as well. The story of its acquisition, like all good tales sees prospective owners Charles and myself falling in love with it, offering for it, nearly losing it, then battling it out with rivals to secure it for ourselves. A story of passion, skulduggery, hope against hope, and finally….my mother calling it Cold Comfort Farm and muttering about woodsheds while my father stared ashen faced refusing to say a word. It was and is a BIG project but one that is keeping us entertained and hopefully allows us to entertain in turn. Just to clear the outside to see what’s there, Dad estimated he would need 10 men working 4 weeks solid – his chainsaw went into ‘hospital’ after a mere 36 hours. Rookyard makes me laugh and not always with hysteria. We have woods, meadows, a fabulous moat, a hemp plantation - found in a secluded corner of the property - and of course the house itself with twisty corridors, undulating floors, inglenook fireplaces and at the beginning our very own mushroom cupboard providing delicious fungi for breakfast! Boy, have we moved on since then…several builders later and we are almost there but at the moment jus - we have run out of money and now must make do and mend…but what fun we’ll make it - it’s either that or going completely mad!

Shall I compare thee?

For The Littlest…

Shall I compare thee to a full time Mum?
Thou art more grumpy and intemperate
Thy work does use up all thy spark and fun
And my childhood is all too short a date:
Sometime too late thou may remember this,
That while thou workest I play alone
Some stranger holdest me and wins a kiss
That by rights is only for thee to own
But no it is not yet too late for thee
Shake off the clouds of deepest despondancy
Shut up thy work and come now and follow me
For the sun does shine on us right joyously
So long as we can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

I promise we will play together….