Wedding Anniversaries: I am a bit of a bitch...

Happy Anniversary to Me!

I am a bit of a bitch…

It’s my thirteenth wedding anniversary and all day I have been waiting for my husband to acknowledge the fact.

He failed.

But I feel a bit of a bitch about it.

I knew he’d forget. He has form.

But in my defence I did remind him on Sunday that today was our anniversary and that I expected him to remember.

However, things don’t work out as you’d wish. I wanted a phone call from him saying “Happy Anniversary Darling. I love you more now than I did then.”

Oh and a bunch of flowers.

I did such a ‘girl thing’. You know the one where you play the hurt party, the victim. Look how hard done by I am he forgot our anniversary the most important day in our combined lives. (She falls dramatically onto the couch her arm hiding her face as she weeps).

I should have just called him this morning and wished him Happy Anniversary adding that I loved him more now than I did 13 years ago. But I didn’t and in so doing allowed our special day to become a cliche: The One Where He Forgot...

I’m still pissed off that he didn’t remember and the only thing that is making me feel a bit better about it is that I of course now hold the moral high ground – but it is pathetic to go to these lengths. Playing games with people is childish in the extreme.

But (she says stamping her foot) I feel bloody childish.

He hasn’t made it any better by calling me from his digs in London, where he spends the week from Sunday through Friday, to apologise saying he didn’t do it deliberately.

“No, that’s not going to make me feel better,” I snap. “If you did it deliberately at least it would mean that you had at least thought about it!”

“I’m not going to able to get out of this am I?”

“Too bloody right you are not.”

We talked some more about mundane things such as the fact that our bank balance was about to suffer a rather seismic shift downwards as I pay out fuel bills, car insurance and school fees, and that I am about to embark upon a systematic affront on the aforementioned school regarding the education, or lack thereof, of our eldest son. Sending your child to private school is a bit like confronting the NHS the louder you shout the better service you get.

Then the call had to end abruptly as his landlady had supper and a glass of wine waiting for him and he felt it would be rude to keep her waiting…

Just as well I’d already had a half bottle of champagne really – off to finish the other half – Happy Anniversary!

When you desperatley need a loo of your own...

I love my children but I don't always like them.
I don't like them when I have to share a bathroom with them, it's bad enough sharing with their father. You know the problem: loo seats always left up, an inability to use the flushing mechanism, leaks on the floor and my worst favourite leaving the loo seat down and then you sitting on it thinking it's OK only to find yourself sitting on something distinctly wet.
Boys just don't get it at all! I bet if they had to sit down to go to the loo then it would be a completely different kettle of fish.
But the one thing that drives me to distraction is when I need to go to the loo and they insist on interrupting me. Going to the loo is a sacred ritual it takes time it is a place where one should be able to contemplate the world in safety, in privacy and NOT have to respond with undignified haste to screams and blood curdling shouts from ones off spring.
When they were smaller they would frequently accompany me to the loo and would bang pitifully on the door if I shut it until I responded by telling them what was going on.
"Go away. I'm on the loo!"
"Yes, but what are you doing?"
"None of your business!"
"Why...?"
Now that they are older I expect nay silently demand with a raised eyebrow that brooks no crossing that I'm left in peace with my ablutions.
But they still haven't got the picture.
I have managed to contain the boys they are playing happily together, the dogs are fed and sleeping it off no one is expected  to arrive at the house and I am in need of a quiet sit down in peace and quiet. I am positively looking forward to a contemplation with The Week magazine. Sheer bliss.
Then suddenly the door bursts open and I am caught in the middle of a poo.
"Mummy guess what!"
I cannot guess I am in the middle of a huge movement I don't want to guess I just want top get on  - on my own and in privacy.
"No," I say weakly, "what?"
"I've just got a legend in Pokemon White..."
There are times I think it would be a very good idea to get my boys telephones so they could just tweet me the news.

Musings on being a Grown Up

I often have concerns about growing up but the problem is I don’t actually now what that entails, not considering myself a Grown-Up at all.

This can be difficult especially when I land up yelling at my eldest, who is all of nine years old, that he needs to grow up. I fear that is the pot calling the kettle black.

Being a Grown-Up and feeling like a Grown-Up are obviously two completely unrelated things. You are a Grown-Up in that you are adult but whether you behave or feel like a Grown-Up is a matter of opinion.

When I think of Grown-Ups I think of my parents and it dawns on me that my boys see me as a Grown-Up and that in all probability my parents view their parents as the Grown Ups and so it will continue.

Grown-Ups are organised, poised, glamorous, unflappable, serene, knowlegable, considered, entertaining and endlessly patient. Attributes I have yet to garner – but that is my picture of a Grown Up I dread to think what my son thinks a Grown Up is; probably loud, contradictory, unfair, disorganised, nosey, and with a dubious dress sense.

And on that basis I should not be encouraging him to grow-up at all!

The best excuse for not eating vegetables…

Not eating vegetables!

Now my boys, like all boys, are not overly keen on vegetables and trying to get them to eat their statutory five a day is a task that would make even Hercules struggle.
But I don’t give up that easily and nor, am I afraid, do my boys.
They are ever on the lookout for excuses not to eat fruit and vegetables particularly ones they dislike. Obviously I try not to give them food I know they hold in abhorrence but just sometimes I feel it is good for their souls to be forced to eat something a little out of the ordinary or something that I truly believe they will enjoy some day.
I am not a sadist, I don’t force them to eat foods that I know they detest all the time, just occasionally, so that they get the idea that they should just get on with it. Nothing is more painful and embarrassing that when you take your child to a restaurant or to someone else’s house and they kick up a fuss about the stray Brussels sprout that is totally out of proportion to the situation. And you land up in a fierce whispering row about the fact that they should eat it because it is rude not to and then your host or the restaurant manager says its fine and not to worry but you’ve cornered yourself and it becomes a matter of principal and the whole meal/occasion is ruined and will be forever remembered as “The time when Mum blew her top over a Brussels Sprout and we got barred from the restaurant/were never got invited back again”.
There are times I look in askance at those hosts who serve up Brussels Sprouts/broad beans to children - it is almost as if they don’t like you…
Anyway back to the boys and the novel ways they engineer to get out of eating food they don’t like or at least think they don’t like because half the time you just know they have never even tasted the stuff before.
Now Bog Boy, at the grand old age of six, has taken to not bothering to go to the loo if there is something more important happening such as playing on the Wii/Nintendo/iPod or even playing on the trampoline and I get the jolly task of having to deal with his pants and the skid marks.
It is not pleasant and he and I have been having a running battle of wills all through the summer. He fails to make it to the loo and I threatened to put him back in nappies. Invariably I lose.
So when we were in Wet Welsh Wales he had another accident while we were out by the rock pools and I blew my top saying that that was it he was going back into nappies and he’d have to deal with it himself.
“But it’s all your fault Mummy!”
“Why on earth is it my fault? You are the one who has pooed his pants!”
“You make me eat tomatoes!”
Of course I did! Silly me! In my quest for healthier eating I had decided that all of us should eat tomatoes on a daily basis. Each boy should eat two baby plum tomatoes at lunchtime and as far as I was concerned they could smother the wretched things in mayonnaise just so long as they were eaten. I won that battle.
So there I am on the beach and he’s hollering at me.
“You make me eat tomatoes and they are poison.”
“How on earth can they be poisonous?”
“They are! They are making me go to the loo quicker so it is your fault that I poo in my pants!!”
“What!”
“Eating vegetables makes you go to the poo and you making me eat tomatoes is making me poo quicker so I don’t have enough time to go to the loo properly! You should NOT make me eat vegetables.”
He was so adamant and so very, very cross with me that I couldn’t help it, I burst out laughing and no, he didn’t have to eat any more tomatoes; I am still standing firm n vegetables though!

Looking good in a wet suit!

There is no way anyone on gods earth that anyone looks good in a wet suit - well I suppose a size zero model may do in fact I am sure they'd look relatively normal for once but a modest size 12 will look decidedly frumpy however much she sucks in her stomach.
I know I've tried.
In fact I tried all afternoon as I helped the boys with their boogie boarding.
And why may you ask was I trying to suck my tummy in?
Well believe it or not just sometimes on a beach holiday in the wet welsh Wales you happen to land up on a beach pitch right next door to a serious grey fox. For the unititiated that is a male of mature years who is a deadringer for George Clooney.
I couldnt help it. There's something about having a seriously good looking guy in the vicinity that makes one sort of want to be seen at one's best and turning up on the beach in a wet suit isn't getting off to a good start.
So I spent the whole afternoon trying hard not to breathe - a very difficult thing to do when you are in the sea boogie boarding with your kids and trying to look super cool as well. It was all too much in the end so I decided to cover my embarrassment and stay in the sea until he went much to my boys delight never have they had their mum so willing to stay in the sea with them right up until tea!

Not having a holiday

Do mothers ever get holidays? I'm not sure.
I'm here in a static caravan on a receding cliff on the Welsh coast with two energetic boys, a blind and somewhat deaf jack russell and a whippet that has serious separation issues and despite everyone else enduring a heat wave all we have on the horizon is rain, rain and more rain.
I'm trying to look on the bright side at least my boys don't care about getting wet so there are plenty of things for us to do most of which would involve them getting wet anyway such as boogie boarding, crossing the river (a favourite past time whenever we venture west which involve lots of broad flat stones and a river that is luckily nevermore than a large stream at best), rock pooling, and sea challenging which involves paddling in the sea in your clothes and challenging the surf to see how long you can stay dry before a rogue wave gets you and you get soaking wet.
The dogs quite like getting wet too, well perhaps not Tattie my whippet, but Tigger adores it and he is rather hairy. Every time the boys venture near the sea he is with them splashing about barking and digging up the sand.
Tattie ping pongs from me sitting well above the water line to them in the surf bravely plunging in then hurtling back to check that I am where she last left me and then shaking all the water off so by the time we return back to the caravan we are all rather wet and sandy.
I do a lot of cleaning in Wales.
Probably more cleaning than I ever do at home.
I also do a lot more ordering about in Wales trying to get the boys to think a bit before they charge about in their wet and muddy gear. I seem to be on a permanent look out lest the place gets wrecked!
But despite that I don't feel I am getting much of a holiday clearing, cleaning, cooking and minding, I do love it. Lying in bed at night listening to the waves crash down on the shore as I did as a child when we stayed here, I wonder if my mum got much of a holiday back then or did she too remember her childhood sojourns in this magical place?
For my boys are the fourth generation to come here for our holidays perhaps they too will bring their children in time and enjoy not having a holiday too...

Hi Wales we're here if you didn't already know...

Yep arrived with a bang or in my case with some rather choice Anglo Saxon after an eight and a half hour trek from Suffolk in the east to New Quay, Wales in the west via the M25 (deliciously clear) and the M4(what was that about nose to tail right through to bloomin Carmarthen!)
By the time I stopped driving I was literally seeing stars and felt as though I would never be able to stand straight again. There are times I truly believe I'd be able to get to Australia faster than I can get to the land of my forefathers and we're meant to be part of one united kingdom.
Crossing into Wales over the bridge in amongst the most godawful traffic this side of a bank holiday I glanced over to the opposite carriageway taking people back to england it was empty, it made me panic a bit thinking that all of those holiday makers trying to get back were still stuck trying to get in..
Anyway, we got here and just as I drew up it started to rain hence my choice words. The Boys were round eyed and let's just say very keen to help mummy unload and get sorted. The quickly hunkered inside 'sorting' everything out while I grappled with getting the gas on.
Every year I have the same problem or at least variations of it trying to remember just how it's done and every year I have forgotten - this year was no exception just that it was a bit wetter than normal.
A lot wetter than normal so much so that even my knickers were wet
And it wasn't until I called the cavalry in the form of next door neighbours, caretakers etc that I remembered to turn the butterfly valve to vertical...
It was time for a little more Anglo saxon - I really wish I could do it in welsh.
So hi Wales we're here if you hadn't already noticed....
And I remembered that I had to turn the butterfly to vertical

Welcome to Wet Welsh Wales!

New Quay, Wales

Well at least that's what it says I can look forward to this coming week on my weather app. Not a good start to our annual pilgrimage to New Quay in Wales but not an unexpected one either - it is the wild west after all and nobody said it had to be dry!
I'm half looking forward and half dreading it.
It will be the first time me and the boys will be down there on our own and although I have no qualms about managing the caravan - two bedrooms, two bathrooms one en suite - looking after two hyperactive boys and two mad whippets is quite another matter! I fear I may have to put out warnings for other holiday makers in the nearby vicinity...that  or ensure I get up at sparrows fart to exercise both dogs and children while the Traeth is relatively clear of human, animal and other animate obstacles!
Although we may be a small family as families go we are, to say it politely, rather loud and have a tendency to make our presence felt.
The boys chat to all and sundry and if the Olympics are anything to go by the youngest will be on the prowl for food to supplement his mother's pathetic attempts at a picnic while the dogs, going on past performance will not be saying please and thank you and will be making off with other people's picnics or else pissing on their sandcastles...
Ah the joy of seaside holidays with rats (whippets to the uniniated) on stilts and feral boys.

You Have Been Warned...

All men are bastards

Man at Work

Most girls are brought up knowing this; it’s part of an international female psyche on all levels - not just when your boyfriend dumps you. It’s there on a political, social and emotional level. Its realisation is part of growing up.

But as a mother of boys I am beginning to reassess these assumptions and take a particular look especially on the relationship front.

I have the privilege to be surrounded by men; in fact the whole of my working life I has been dominated by men; firstly in the farming sphere as an agricultural student then farming reporter, then in the property world as corporate PR and features writer extraordinaire and finally working with a myriad of builders over the last decade turning a romantic wreck into a glorious home here in Suffolk.

I am comfortable with that but throughout it all, I held strongly to the tenet that: all men were bastards, and knowing this has kept me linked, however tenuously, to the sorority of females the world over.

However the stories and tales I have been told over the years in this rarefied male atmosphere has made me look again at this confusing species.

Perhaps they are not as bad as they are made out to be. Perhaps my boys are not going to grow up to be bastards who rip through a myriad of females in a quest to satisfy their baser natures. Perhaps instead of having to apologise to distraught young girls and assuage their grief because my sons’ have done a bunk, I will be needed to care for my boys’ broken hearts.

The female of the species seems far more hard-nosed, mercurial, warped even than I could ever give credit. In fact for every tale of a man doing something truly despicable I hear several of women doing considerably worse.

The thing I think that makes it harder for a man is that society is disinclined to allow a bloke to show his feelings especially when a girl dumps him/runs off with his best mate/plays emotional ping pong with him/or even physically attacks him.

They are not allowed to cry, grieve for a lost relationship/feel scared etc. they just have to stand there like a sacrificial ox and show nothing whatsoever.

I suppose I am now in that honoured position of not just being a mother to boys of my own, but also mother figure to all those who work for me thus I am safe to talk to – I am told it is a privilege of age. (I don’t like it but I am getting used to it)

I’ve seen starry eyed boys crushed learning of betrayal, of grown men reduced to sobbing in dark corners when dumped for no obvious reason. I’ve seen them rant and rave at the unfairness as a partner leaves taking everything from their home right down to the kitchen sink and curtains in a petty act of revenge. I’ve seen them quake in fear as they listen to deranged threats not just against them but against their children because a two week fling has come to an end.

I am privy to many secrets of the heart and am expected to dole out sage advice when necessary. I am getting it down to a fine art. Usually it’s along the lines of:

“It will all come out right in the wash.”

“She didn’t deserve you.”

“There are plenty of fish in the sea.”

And my own personal favourite after many, many years of listening: “Look for God’s sake don’t charge on in there, give yourself time to get over her. There’s nothing worse than a rebound relationship.”

Sometimes I even - and I feel this a betrayal of the sisterhood - advise: “Look just go for a one night stand; you need sex and fun not a full blown relationship right now.”

And in all of this I am learning - not all men are bastards…

Bringing up Boys: Born Survivor

Boy and Ball

There are times you just know that they are born survivors. In fact there are times you actually begin to worry that they are, in fact, rather too good at surviving.

I frequently say that my youngest, Bog Boy, is going to succeed at anything he puts his mind to; the problem is I don’t know quite which side of the law that’s going to be…

He is disarming, charming, cheeky, clever and full of confidence. Chatting to people, be they older, younger, friends or strangers, hold no fear for him. He knows what he wants and when he wants something he really is quite ruthless. He frequently gets want he wants and all with a smile.

He has many gambits in his repertoire but the one that works best is a direct frontal attack. Take the time he cornered an unsuspecting mother in the playground at going home time. She had brought her sons some mini donuts so he could eat them after a hard day at school. Now Bog Boy has a penchant for donuts and he has been wickedly indulged by some of the mothers because he was very cute with his big blue eye, dimples and blonde, blonde, hair but like encouraging dogs at table by feeding them titbits, indulging a child this way can only lead to bad behaviour.

Spotting the donuts Bog Boy trots up to the mother and politely but determinedly states:

Him expectantly: “I like donuts.”

Her absently: “That’s nice...”

Him earnestly: “I like donuts.”

Her slightly confused: “They’re for my son

Him astounded and very round eyed: “What all of them?”

Her apologetically: “Erm, yes.”

Him sensing a chink in her armour: “I like very small donuts.”

Her giving in: “Oh OK well erm just the one…”

Mission accomplished.

IN South Africa while picnicking at Kirstenbosch (a bit like Kew Gardens) he trotted off to play and managed to join another family entirely and garnered all sorts of goodies stating when finally he returned to us that he much preferred their picnic to ours. I had to rush over and apologise profusely but they seemed perfectly relaxed about it.

And he did it yet again at the Olympics yesterday while watching the Women’s Modern Pentathlon, shamelessly taking advantage of the bon homie and good will of the spectators around him.

His father reported back that he secured nuts from a German, ice cream form an Italian and sweets from an American and not one of them seemed remotely upset by his tactics.

As I have said before I only hope that this is not a prelude of things to come as I fear that he might not be on the side of angels…however angelic he seems.