Germ control

I am completely neurotic about germs. When out in public I will not touch the buttons on a pedestrian crossing, or shop door handles, or the keypad on cash machines, or anything else that the masses might have put their grubby mitts on. I will always use my sleeve. And I would certainly never touch the flush handle in a public toilet, or the taps, or the button on the hand dryer, without using a piece of loo paper.

I had mild panics about Betty starting school and the fact that my 'germ control' would be out of my hands. And sure enough, just two weeks into the term Betty, who is not a sickly child, got a sickness bug. This has only further fuelled my anxieties about all the grotty germs lurking at school. Lots of little people, clumsily wiping their bottoms, not washing their hands properly, holding hands, sticking their fingers up their noses, and into their mouths, and then sharing each others sandwiches.

The vomitting occured just before we were about to leave the house for school on Tuesday morning, when Betty complained of a stomach ache. I naturally thought she was making it up, and ushered her towards the front door. She then promptly projectile vomitted all over me. Meanwhile a bemused Dolly watched on from the car.

Betty sobbed and begged me not to send her to school. Crikey, she must have a really low opinion of me, I thought to myself. I calmed her down, mainly by helping her identify what was in her sick and why it was the colour it was, and soothingly assured her that I would not be sending her to school.

I naively imagined her staying in bed all day, with a flannel on her head, sipping water and watching DVDs, leaving me to get on with all the work I had planned on the only full child-free day I get a week.

After twenty minutes of lying tucked up in bed in her pyjamas, Betty had basically made a full recovery. I walked into the room expecting her to be ailing, but found her making a den, wearing nothing but her gold tights and ballet shoes, and eating her way through a packet of chocolate biscuits. And it wasn't even 9.30am.

By 10.00am, although relieved that she was suddenly better, I think both Betty and I were wishing she was back at school. 'You are driving me nuts,' Betty told me.

Hooves beat along the quiet lanes

'When I turn into a grown-up, can I ride a foal Mummy?' Betty asked me as we drove back from the pub along the narrow country roads. 'Yes of course you can learn to ride a horse when you are a little bit older,' I replied, through gritted teeth.

I have had many run-ins with horses in my time, and don't particulary like them very much now. The combination of the subject of horses and the fact we were driving along a remote country lane, took me right back to a Christmas when my best friend and I thought it would be fun to foster a horse over the holiday period. This meant proper responsibility - feeding, mucking out, and riding...

Weirdly I really didn't mind the feeding and mucking out bit, but was absolutely terrified of the riding part. The one thing that made it slightly more bearable was that my friend and I did it together; one would lead the horse and one would sit on it.

On Christmas morning my friend announced that she was far too busy opening presents for horse duties and that I had to go it alone. I was pretty annoyed about this. Not only was the whole looking after a horse for the Christmas holidays her idea, but also I was desperate to play with my new much anticipated midi hi-fi.

As I rode Simba, the horse, down the remote country lane, with not a single soul in sight, we began our decent down a fairly steep hill. A couple of seconds in I felt a very weird sensation, and one I hadn't experienced in my limited riding experience. I quickly realised, to my absolute horror, that we were now sliding down the icy hill on Simba's hooves. I glanced at him to see if he seemed in control of the situation, but his eyes looked big and frightened. I, in turn, was terrified.

Skidding down the hill, and landing in a heap at the bottom with a chestnut horse lying on top of me, possibly dead, and no one being around to rescue us (because they were all in their nice warm houses opening presents and drinking sherry), and dying of hypothermia, and all on Christmas morning, was what went through my head.

In fact, none of this happened.  We probably slid for all of a second before the horse regained control, and we turned around and slowly walked back to the paddock. But this, and many more subsequent horse incidents have put me off horses for life, and I have been dreading the day when my kids would bring up the whole 'I want a pony' thing.

Save the Children - No Child Born to Die campaign

Children are dying from causes we know how to prevent or treat. That’s why lots more doctors, nurses, midwives and community health workers are needed in the poorest countries. We can stop millions of children dying. The No Child Born to Die campaign has helped secure a massive increase in funding for life-saving vaccines. Now we must take the next step to ensure children don’t die simply because they are too poor to see a doctor or nurse. Half of the 8 million children who die each year are in Africa, yet Africa has only 3% of the world’s doctors, nurses and midwives.


Join the No Child Born to Die campaign to ensure that no child dies because they can't see a health worker - help to save children's lives by signing this petition.

The world leaders are meeting at the UN in New York on 20th September - please support the campaign by calling on David Cameron to play his full part in solving the health worker crisis.

Take a few moments to sign the petition, blog about it, put it out on Facebook and Twitter (#healthworkers), anything to help spread the word.

Housework confession

The low autumn sun really shows up the dust and dirt and cobwebs in my house.  And then when the sun goes down, the dirt seems to disappear with it.  So in the evenings I slump onto the sofa with my wine and kid myself into thinking that just because I have thrown a hoover around for a bit that my house is immaculate.

Due to the nature of my job (raising children) I find my cleaning standards have slipped somewhat.  After a day spent washing up, sweeping food off the kitchen floor, wiping all the surfaces, picking up toys and random objects up off every floor in the house, cooking, looking after my kids, making beds, and hanging washing out, seventeen times over, I have no remaining energy to do any actual cleaning.

So this is the bare-minimum-cleaning routine I have found myself slipping into, I am ashamed to say:

• I only clean the downstairs bathroom when I know we are going to have visitors, who might need to use it (I am highly embarrassed on the occasions when I get caught out with a surprise visit)
• I only clean the the upstairs bathroom when I know people are staying the night, as they will need to use the shower
• I only hoover the downstairs rooms about once a week - normally on a Thursday night after Tom and I have had a takeaway curry and spilt pilau rice and poppadom crumbs all over the carpet
• I only hoover the upstairs bedrooms when I am in a bad mood, as I find it is a good way to let off steam
• I only clean Tom's office when I know that he has a business meeting in there, or a piano lesson, or a Tai Chi drinks reunion (although in actual fact Tom should clean his bloody room himself)
• I only mop the kitchen floor when our feet are actually sticking to the tiles or when Betty tells me it is looking 'disgusting'
• I only dust the TV and the windowsills about twice a year
• I never clean skirting boards or windows or door ledges or under the beds

I am currently sitting back with my glass of wine in the darkness and congratulating myself on a clean house.

Starting school and the Gurgle blog awards

Betty started school on Tuesday, and survived the week without a hitch.  She even picked up a little certificate in the Praising Assembly on Friday for 'her enthusiasm about school life and being a pleasure to have in the classroom'.  And while Betty was very cool about it, I was jumping up and down with uncontrollable joy and insisted we went out for a celebratory dinner.  I had to stop myself from framing the certificate (it is now stuck on the fridge instead).

However, I felt a neglectful mother, because during Betty's first week at school, I went to London to attend the Gurgle blog awards on Thursday, which meant I wouldn't be around on Thursday afternoon/Friday morning.  Again, Betty was very cool about this, but I was not, and I thought about her constantly while I was away. I couldn't wait to get home and see her and Dolly. Tom told me later that Dolly had taken my absence pretty hard and asked him a couple of times 'Where's my best friend mummy?' Which just about broke my heart.

But, the Gurgle awards were great fun.  I took one of my best friends, who lives in London, and we had a fab time.  Having gone for dinner in Pizza Express, we wandered up and down Dean Street in our ridiculous shoes, and could not find the Soho Hotel anywhere (which is where the awards were being held).  Finally we rocked up, about an hour late, sweating like pigs, just in time to down some wine and miniature burgers. And before the ceremony had even begun I had no choice but to change into flip flops which I happened to have in my bag, much to my friend's combined disappointment and embarrassment.

We met the lovely Gurgle team and Mothercare staff, and some lovely bloggers.  I wish I had got to meet more bloggers, but it all seemed to go so fast. I was absolutely thrilled to win the 'Mothercare Loves...' Gurgle blog award, but I was far less thrilled at having to stand next to the lovely Myleene Klass and have my picture taken.  It really knocks the confidence, standing next to someone so immaculate, beautiful, thin, funny etc.  When I got home I tried to do a bit of tinkering on Photoshop to make the photo look better - I changed it to black and white for a start, to disguise my red shiny glow, and I tried to get rid of my double chin using some blurring out tool.

Anyway, all in all this week has been very emotional, nerve-wracking, hectic, and fantastic. Now we are about to go to an Onion Fayre, which I am told is the place to be, of a grey drizzly Saturday, and I get to spend some quality time with my girls.

Not just a one-off

Today, having:

• not slept all night
• deliberated over blue v grey school tights between 2am and 4am
• woken up to the alarm (for the first time in years) having just got to sleep
• considered whether to phone the kids in sick and get more sleep
• woken the kids up
• meticulously packed their lunch boxes with an array of impressive food items
• given them a proper hearty breakfast, as opposed to their usual Cheerios
• got them dressed
• felt surges of pride towards them
• taken hundreds of photos of them in their uniform
• bribed them with sweets to stand still, hold hands, and say 'cheese' while smiling nicely
• joined the scrum in the school car park, trying to find somewhere to park
• nervously walked Betty into her new classroom
• stopped myself from bawling
• stopped myself from begging Betty to come back home with me
• clocked that I was fatter than all the other mums
• realised that I had forgotten to brush in all the Batiste dry shampoo on my hair
• walked Dolly into her pre-school
• stopped myself from bawling
• clocked that I was fatter than all the other mums
• taken some paracetamol
• moped around, hoping that my kids were ok and having a nice time
• ran to the loo a lot
• re-joined the scrum in the car park, and made an embarrassing hash of trying to reverse the new people carrier
• cursed Tom for not removing the attention-grabbing pod from the roof
• tried to extract information, in vain, out of both girls about what they had been doing all day
• eavesdropped on a conversation between Betty and Dolly about what they had been doing all day
• carefully removed school uniform and folded it up neatly
• uploaded a photo onto Facebook of the girls in their uniform
• unpacked bags and lunch boxes, and washed flasks
• prepared a special celebratory 'first day of school' supper
• taken some paracetamol
• got the kids to bed
• wondered whether wine with a banging headache was a good idea...

I slumped into a chair, breathed a huge sigh of relief, and thought 'thank goodness that's all over with'.  I have been so focused on 'the first day' that I think I subconsiously thought that that is all it was, one day, before getting back to staying in bed for as long as we liked, and having tea and toast in front of CBeebies, wearing nothing but gold sparkly tights and tiaras all day (the kids not me) and all meals casually merging into one.

It slowly dawned on me, as I lay in an exhausted and emotional heap, that we had to do the whole thing again tomorrow... and the next day... and the next...

Thank you for the summer of 1990

Who would have thought that exactly 21 years later, I would be writing about an ex-boyfriend (who I will call R) on this blog - an ex-boyfriend who I hadn't seen since our summer teenage fling back in 1990 - one of the most memorable summers of my youth.

It was the summer that I left school. The sun shone a lot, and my friends and I, and R, spent most of our time at the river having bbqs, swimming and laughing a lot.  I will always remember that summer.  I will always remember being besotted with R - the new boy in town... the boy that I bagged... the charming, confident, funny boy from away, the boy who told me that he would love me forever.

He then broke my heart, but in a very kind and gentlemanly way, in a way that made it impossible to hate him.  He had had a profound effect on me during that summer, and then it was over and he had run off with a school friend of mine.  And being a fickle teenager, I quickly moved on to somebody else too, and all was forgiven and forgotten.

I didn't see him again, or so I thought. Unknown to me he grew metre long dreads (having always been a short back and sides kind of guy) and so, without realising it, I probably bumped into him on countless occasions during my visits back from London.

Then last week I found out that in July, he was in a fatal motorcycle accident not far from here, and died at the scene of the accident.  I haven't been able to stop thinking about him ever since.  I find it hard to articulate why I can't stop thinking about him, specially as I haven't really given him a second thought for the last 21 years.  Perhaps it is because although I don't often think of that summer, I never forgot, and I held the memories firm, and now I feel that part of me and my past has been altered, and will never be the same again.

After some Googling, I found a Facebook page that has been set up for everyone to post up pictures, video clips and memories of R. This is how I found out about the dreads.  And apart from the dreads, he looked exactly the same; the same sparkly face, just 21 years older.  The comments were unbelievably touching, and utterly heartbreaking to read. He was obviously very well loved by his family and all his friends, and he was still the charismatic and funny boy I remember all those years ago.

If only I had known about the dreads, I may have recognised him in the local Co-op and sparked up a conversation with him.  And I would have been sure to point out to him his very dodgy hair.  It makes me feel very sad that I will now never get the chance, but perhaps if he hadn't died, I wouldn't have thought about him for another 21 years.  Who knows.

I am raising a glass to you R, thanks for the summer of 1990. May you rest in peace.  x

A place of my own

When we lived and worked in London, in dreary, crowded offices, Tom had romantic ideas of living in the countryside, and having an office in our house that looked out over rolling hills, a winding river, and apple trees. A room that would be his sanctuary, his quiet space, where he would sit at his late grandfather's old antique desk and write his first novel about the end of the world. The walls would be lined with his vast book collection, and a piano would sit along the far wall, along with his array of guitars.

Tom fulfilled his dream, and he now has this office, where he works from home, plays his piano, and listens to weird music.  And before we had children he began his first novel.

Two children later, the novel is still unfinished, and his room has slightly changed form.  Despite having a playroom in our house, his space now has toy shopping trolleys, ride-on bugs, and glittery fairy pictures lining the walls, and plastic tea sets and lego strewn across the floor. It also has two miniature beings whizzing across its long wooden floor on scooters and bikes, and bashing at his beloved piano, at will, with no consideration that 'Daddy has to work'. The kids aren't totally to blame though, as I too have now claimed part of his room, and have planted my own desk in there, because I also wanted to sit in a nice place and write, while staring out at the fields.

Despite all this, I believed that the set-up of Tom and I sharing an office was working, and felt a little bit smug that we seemed to be the ultimate, modern day, cool couple, who could sit and write/work together in harmony, while the kids were at preschool/school.

However, Tom recently announced that he finds my presence off-putting, that I tap the keyboard too loudly, that I sigh and tut a lot, that I make him feel self-conscious with my comments about his telephone conversations with his work colleagues, and that he indeed needs to work alone.

I coolly suggested that he invest in a garden office, where he could sit in peace once more, and watch his pumpkins grow, and gaze adoringly at his chickens, while getting some work done, and finishing that novel.

This is a sponsored post

Blowing dandelion clocks in slow motion

Tom thinks he sometimes gets a bit of a raw deal on this blog.  I tell him that it is all in jest.  But in his honour, I wanted to document what he got up to with his girls last weekend...

He took them on long walks with big bags, and collected hundreds of blackberries.  He spent hours with them at the chicken coop, collecting eggs and letting the chicken run free so that the girls could chase them.  He spent an afternoon with Betty putting about a billion miniature foam balls back into a washed bean bag.  He picked bunches and bunches of Sweet Peas with them and got them to place them in vases all around the house. He did loads of cooking with them: they made blackberry and apple crumble, plum jam and a big roast dinner using all our veg from the garden that they picked themselves. He prepared breakfast for them using the jam that they had made together. He took them out in the rain with their umbrellas because that's what they love to do.  He did some gardening with them, drew pictures, made up stories, took them shopping, and tended to them in the middle of the night. 

He danced barefoot through sun-dappled meadows with them, blowing dandelion clocks in slow motion, with the sounds of 'Why do birds suddenly appear' drifting through the air.

Meanwhile, I spent time putting up shelves, cleaning windows, clearing out the shed, and taking stuff to the rubbish dump.

A vacuum cleaner revelation

After letting my car roll down our steep driveway and down a 20ft vertical drop at the bottom, we had to set about getting a new car.  Tom saw this as an opportunity to down-size, but I saw this as an opportunity to up-size.  We now have a people carrier.

So the people carrier now lives at the bottom of our driveway, and is parked sideways on, so that should Henry ever get his grubby little nozzle on the handbrake of our new purchase (which is highly unlikely, as he has been banished to the house), the car ain't going nowhere. 

Tom quite rightly pointed out that as I had already cost us a small fortune, I wasn't really in a good financial position to start demanding a new vacuum cleaner, when Henry was still perfectly capable.  So as a compromise, and unable to ever let Henry outside again, I bought a £7 portable car vacuum cleaner, on eBay. 

My new vacuum cleaner arrived yesterday, and I was gagging to get outside and suck up all those crumbs that have accumulated over the past few weeks - a dustpan and brush doesn't really do it. 

As soon as Tom knocked off work, I charged outside weilding my new friend, and plugged her (notice it's a her not a him this time) into the cigarette lighter - she is powered by the cigarette lighter - how cool is that?  I attached the clever little nozzle that gets those difficult to reach bits between the seats, and I was in car-cleaning bliss.

Ok, so she looks and sounds like a budget hairdryer, but she sort of does the job, and she certainly doesn't have it in her to sabotage the car.  And there is the added bonus of being able to vacuum the car as we drive along - no sooner have the kids eaten a biscuit, or Tom a scotch egg, I am there with the vacuum cleaner, practically sucking the crumbs out of their mouths.

Emotional trickery

Dolly and I are lying in bed this morning, after she woke me up AGAIN in the middle of the night.

Me: Would you like a cuddle?

Dolly: No, I would like a rice cake

Me: You can't have a rice cake in bed

Dolly: Pleeeeeeeeeeeease

Me: What would you like to do today?

Dolly: Eat rice cakes


We both continue to stare at the TV in silence.


And then....


Dolly: Mummy, you are my best friend (said while stroking my cheek)
 
Me: Really? (I say with an air of disbelief, but I'm secretly thrilled)
 
Dolly: Please can I have a rice cake?

Living on sunshine

After months of lobbying from Tom, I finally agreed to the installation of solar panels on the roof of our house a few months back. The thing that convinced me was the security of having a back-up electricity supply if the power starts going off in the next few years (as Tom tells me it might)… especially living in the middle of nowhere as we do.   Heaven forbid if I were to ever miss an episode of Eastenders.

The builders arrived and the panels went up in three days. With all my health and safety alarm bells ringing, Betty and Dolly had great fun playing around the scaffolding.  Although when the scaffolding was still there after a week, I made a stroppy call to the scaffolding company and told them of my concerns (Dolly had tried to scale the side of the house more than once), and that it must be taken down immediately.    

It’s been pretty sunny since the panels were installed back in March and it’s very satisfying to put the washing machine on when the sun is shining knowing that it costs nothing. I even allow myself the odd use of the tumble dryer, only when the sun is shining mind.  Tom sometimes makes himself a random cup of tea when it’s sunny ‘just for the sheer satisfaction of it’. It seems to make Betty happy that our electricity comes from the sun - and she has an impressive antennae for spotting other buildings with solar panels on their roof - this makes Tom extremely proud.  

We obviously don’t get all our electricity for free, just when the sun is shining, so the panels do nothing for our night storage heaters. But because we’re both at home all day we get to actually use the free electricity, unlike in some houses where people are out at work all day, so over the past few months our bills have gone right down. 

We received our first cheque for nearly £200 from the government feed-in tariff the other day which was the icing on the cake, and Tom was walking on sunshine (boom boom).     

Solar panels aren’t right for everyone (you need a south-facing roof and the initial financial outlay is rather a lot), but they are working great for us and we’d definitely recommend that other people look into solar panel installation.

This is a sponsored post

Starting school: A sinking feeling

Despite the rocky start to the Summer holidays (namely writing my car off by letting it roll down a bank into a ravine), August has been such a fabulous month.  We bought a new car (far nicer than the old one), and have been on several jaunts around the country, from the mindblowing Camp Bestival, to camping with family and the hilarious Kevin Bishop for four days on a farm in Dorset, to becoming free-spirited and smelly at the Wilderness Festival, to being tourists (and nostalgic) in London for a few days. 

I cannot believe that August is already nearly over.  The week after next Betty starts school.  This gives me a sinking feeling.  This is because:

Firstly, my sweet baby girl is about to embark on a very grown-up thing - the education system, and she will be in it for many years to come, and for five whole days a week.  She will get attitude, learn unsavoury vocab, develop awful dress sense, and probably start to hate me.

Secondly, we will lose our freedom to a certain extent; no more visiting great grandma for lunch on Thursdays, no more going on holiday whenever the heck we like, and no more just being able to hang out together at home on weekdays, and get on each others' nerves, and argue about what we are going to have for lunch.

Thirdly, going into town yesterday to get Betty's new school shoes, and fighting our way through all the other parents and their slightly depressed looking kids (that was me thirty years ago) trying on shoes, made me realise that we are now part of the school pack - the pack who have to do these grown up things every term (or at least every year) for the next twelve years or so, like get school uniform ready, buy pencil cases and rubbers and exercise books and lunch boxes and bags - we are no longer in our own exclusive pack where we get to wear whatever colour shoes we like.

Our Summer of fun and freedom is coming to an end, and soon it will be back to routine and serious things like spelling tests and getting up early, and making sure we have edible food in the house for packed lunches. 

But Betty is very excited about starting school.  In fact, she cannot wait to start, and told me the other day: 'Please Mummy, no more camping, I just want to go to school and do my letters with my new teacher'.  Of course I share her excitment and enthusiasm, and on the one hand I feel excited and happy about this new chapter, but I still can't help that sinking feeling.     

Unfamiliar memories

Our last night in London, we jumped on the bus and went to Parliament Hill. The kids hadn't been going to sleep until about 10pm for the previous three nights and so we decided to keep them up late, to teach them a lesson they wouldn't forget in a hurry, and save ourselves the heartache of trying to get them to go to sleep.

We decided on Parliament Hill because it was a beautiful sunny evening, and it is the place where Tom proposed to me about eight years ago.  We wanted to show the girls the place where their Mum and Dad sat sipping champagne out of plastic wine glasses, gazing at the sparkling diamond, feeling utterly elated and dizzy from the moment, while fat men flew kites in the background.

As we strode up the hill, we passed many familiar landmarks (the Mandala pub, Tanza Road, the memorial bench), and it filled me with nostalgia and now slightly unfamiliar memories of being in my twenties, and spending long lazy afternoons here with my friends picnicking and drinking cider. Then a few years later the memories of Tom and I throwing frisbees, flirting, and talking a lot of rubbish to each other,while building on our friendship, which would eventually turn into marriage, and a Betty and a Dolly. Who would have thought.

Every time we go to London now, my former pre-children life seems to slip a bit further away. I found it almost impossible to remember the sense of total freedom and independence that I had when I sat in the very same park, a park that hadn't changed at all.  It was all reassuringly the same, yet felt alien - like I was some kind of fraud for thinking I did exist then - a much thinner, younger, carefree, less serious, less stressed me. 
 
I watched my girls dancing freely on top of the hill, while posh Hampstead types walked past and gave them admiring looks.  The wonderful views of London were behind them, and Tom was photographing them, and I felt very happy, and very proud. 

They're changing guard at Buckingham Palace

Seeing London through the eyes of a small child is such fun.  While Tom and I wander around feeling nostalgic but happy to be back in London for a short while, Betty and Dolly give us that excuse to become real tourists.  And instead of getting excited about visiting old haunts (ie pubs, cafes, markets, parks etc) we find ourselves getting excited about merely getting on the tube, or spotting black taxis and double decker buses, or seeing big buildings and statues.

Betty was almost beside herself when she saw a poster of Kate Middleton in her wedding dress on the wall of a tube station.  'Look Mummy, it's the beautiful princess who got married on the telly!'

So this morning we are off to see the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace, and if the queues aren't too long we may go on a tour of the palace itself where 'the dress' is on show.  I have secretly wanted to go inside the palace for years.

We are also going to go on a double decker bus, eat sushi, and go on the boating lake at Regents Park, and today, the sun is shining - London in the sunshine is just the best.

In the Wilderness

Tom has been smelling like a trout lake for the last three days, and I have been smelling like someone who hasn't had a shower.  When we got home yesterday afternoon after our stint in the wilderness, we almost had a physical fight over who was going to have the first shower, and who was going to scrub the tired and cranky kids. It had been three superb days of slighty stressful fun.

I have put on about a stone in weight, because we have been living on a diet solely of pie and chips and cider, apart from the one ostrich burger Tom bought me when I entrusted him to go and get lunch while the girls and I watched The Flying Seagulls show. He was severely reprimanded for this error of judgement.

Tom did a Chi Gung class in a yurt ('even waftier than I expected', was his verdict), he sat on a hay bale in the middle of the field and played a piano, he went on half a foraging expedition (terminated when Dolly's Hula Hoops ran out and she insisted they return to the main site), and he swam in the lake every morning.  Betty threw a pot, made a fairy crown and a felt butterfly, and learnt the art of stone balancing. Dolly spent a few short but specatular moments bashing some drums with a clown on stage. And I made sure there were enough nappies, snacks, and warm clothes at all times. I was almost tempted by the 'gong bath' but was put off by the constant gawping audience, and the giggling kids pointing at the poor person trying to get healed.

The festival had a Boutique Babysitting service, which was absolutely fantastic. Their tent was so warm and welcoming that I would have quite liked to spend a bit of time there myself. And the staff really went the extra mile. I took the kids along to have a look at their tent, and they loved it - in fact it was their favourite part of the whole festival. The lovely lady said we could leave them there til 11.30pm if we liked, at no extra charge.

So we dropped the girls off with great excitement and a tremendous sense of freedom. We could go and watch a gig, hang out at the masked ball, eat fine food, listen to a talk, drink cider, anything we liked. We ended up sitting in silence in a beer tent opposite the babysitting service, eating pie and chips and watching for any signs that our children might want us to come and get them. The pressure became unbearable after about an hour: we collected them and went off for an early night. We lay there smugly in our sleeping bags, listening to people stumbling around in the dark trying to find their tents and tripping over guy ropes throughout the night. The sun had not yet gone down when we'd gone back so we'd cleverly avoided that problem.

On the last night Betty and Dolly dressed up in their fairy/princess costumes and rocked out to Mercury Rev. Tom had promised to take Betty dancing all weekend and this was the moment. There was a fabulous atmosphere, it wasn't raining, and for a while we were all completely chilled out and happy.

It all went tits up when Betty and Dolly, in their excitement, accidentally bashed heads, so we bundled the wailing pair up and started making our way across the field towards our tent for another early night. Then the opening strings of the song 'The dark is rising' drifted across the site, and lured us straight back to the gig. Tom had wooed me with this song ten years previously, in a flat in Bayswater, and now here we were listening to it live, in the company of a couple of miniature humans who looked like us.

Wilderness, is a new three-day festival of music, food, theatre, literary debate and outdoor pursuits located among the lakes, forests and ancient parkland on Oxfordshire’s Cornbury Estate - a weekend of freedom and inspiration for all free-spirited festival lovers.   
http://www.wildernessfestival.com/

An audience with Jo Whiley at Camp Bestival

Betty and I have just got back from a full-on, but fabulous weekend at Camp Bestival which is held at Lulworth Castle in Dorset. Persil very kindly invited us to the festival to take part in their 'Pass on the Love Picnic' campaign. Tom and Dolly stayed at home (we decided that, at two, Dolly was a bit too young to appreciate the full glories of festival life), and so we invited a friend and her little boy to join us instead.

Persil organised for me to interview Jo Whiley (who was fronting the campaign) at 3pm on Saturday.  I think Tom was quite in awe of me, and the fact I was going to meet her. 'She is amazing, I LOVE HER' he said excitedly beforehand. 

At 2.45pm on Saturday, I sat drinking my tea, watching a magic show with Betty, my palms sweating. At this point I hadn't slept or showered for two days. I had white powdery hair from all the Batiste I had been putting on it, a ruddy blotchy complexion, dirty fingernails, and grass stains on my jeans. All ready to dazzle one of the country's top DJs.

The interview took place in a corner sectioned off in the Persil tent, where Jo and I were asked to sit on tiny kiddie chairs - this was fine for Jo because she is very light and narrow, but me being a somewhat wider and heavier load, I balanced precariously on the seat while desperately trying to remember the questions I wanted to ask her, and attempted to disguise the fact I had forgotten to take the gum out of my mouth.

So there Jo sat, looking fresh-faced, clean, immaculate, cool, and downright amazing. As I gazed at her, my mind went momentarily blank.  Being the lovely lady that she is, she put me at my ease, and asked me about my blog, and my children. As I babbled away about the ages of my children (and was about to mention the fact that Betty liked butterflies and fairies whereas Dolly prefers rocks and mud), I had to stop myself short; she was not here to interview me, I was supposed to be interviewing her, and so we began...

Having had a stressful two days with Betty in tow (mainly because I was neurotic about accidently losing her)I asked Jo how she manages her children at festivals, whilst working, and trying to have a good time, and she said that she is lucky enough to get a lot of help from either her husband or her friends. I was sorely missing Tom at this point. She said she loves having her kids there with her, as when she is not working, she gets to spend lots of time with them, doing fun festival things.

I had spent the last two nights in a tent, on a 45 degree incline, with no showers to speak of, and I was desperate to ask Jo about her festival digs, but I restrained myself in case it embarrassed her to highlight the comparison between her no-doubt luxurious surroundings and the crowded slope where I was camped.

Instead the conversation turned to Camp Bestival and how fantastic, and child-friendly it is - there is so much geared towards kids of all ages, and also towards adults - and with so much going on, it is totally mindblowing.  And Jo talked about Persil's 'Pass on the Love' picnic - where children are invited to bring along an old unwanted (but clean) cuddly toy, place it in a big basket, and pick out a different one to keep.  Betty picked out a giraffe, which she has named Jeremy, and who now sleeps in her bed with her - so like Jo, I think the campaign is a great idea.

I finished the interview by telling Jo that she looked amazing (and prayed that she wasn't getting wafts of my sweaty Birkenstocks).  I asked her how she always looks so good: 'Good hair and make-up!' she replied.  She also said that she goes to the gym a lot (she would have to with a figure like that), and enjoys her time in there, and that being in her line of work there is that incentive to look your best.  I, perhaps naively, inwardly consoled myself with the fact that if I was a celebrity, I too would look like Jo, and enjoy going to the gym.

As I shook her smooth, cool hand, I thanked her very much for chatting to me, and blurted out: 'MY HUSBANDS LOVES YOU', before we parted.

Jo Whiley is warm, friendly, and just lovely! - thank you to Persil for setting it up, and inviting us to be a part of this fab campaign and a truly fantastic festival.

'DJ and mum-of-four Jo Whiley hosts the first 'Persil Pass on the Love Picnic' at Camp Bestival this weekend. Mums and kids were encouraged to hold a picnic and bring newly washed soft toys for another child to love - for fun family picnic ideas and more visit www.netmums.com/persilpassonthelove'

My vacuum cleaner wrote my car off

I have been in a severe state of shock since last Thursday.

Having got back from Betty's 'farewell assembly' at her pre-school (emotions already running high), I decided to clean the car out - a rare event it has to be said.

Betty and Dolly were having their dinner with their grandpa who was visiting, and I was outside with Henry (the vacuum cleaner), rigging him up to the extension lead.

All car doors were open, mats were out and shaken, and Henry was happily whirring.  I vacuumed the driver's seat, without a hitch, then shoved the nozzle down between the passenger seat and the brake handle to try to get to a rogue Shreddie I had spotted.  The next thing I knew the button on the handbrake went 'PING' and my car started rolling away from me.  Bloody Henry, whom I have previously referred to as my 'saviour', let the frickin handbrake off.   Normally this would not have been so much of a problem as being the neurotic person that I am I ALWAYS leave the car in gear on our slopey driveway.  However, just 30 seconds before, I had pushed it into neutral to vacuum out all the crisp/biscuits crumbs inbetween the gear stick.

I dived out of the way, got knocked by the open door, and was pushed into my father-in law's car, then I watched as the car, who also decided to knock into my FIL's car, then went careering off down the driveway and down a steep bank at the bottom and into the ravine (as the recovery man referred to it) at the bottom.  I watched in absolute horror, car doors flying clean off as they hit trees on the way down, and my beloved car disappearing out of sight.

In my hysteria, I scrambled down the bank into the bog where it lay, and through a mangled doorway, I began sweeping off the remaining crumbs from the driver's seat.

Thank goodness no one was hurt.  A complete freak accident, but a shocking experience all the same.  The car is a write-off.  I was hysterical.  I have been beating myself up about all the 'what ifs?' ever since.

Once I had calmed down (only yesterday) Tom, who has been amazing throughout, commented: 'You've got to laugh, it is all rather slapstick'.

Henry got dragged down the hill with the car, but amazingly he survived and still innocently whirrs away as it nothing has happened.  However,  as irrational and callous as it may sound, he needs to go.

Stealing and lying

I tell my kids white lies on a daily basis, and rarely feel guilty. I think they are needed in order to run a functional, less stressful life: 'No we can't go to that fairground, it is for children over ten' or 'No we can't get the paddling pool out, there is no water left in the taps'.

However, recently I got caught out by Betty, told a white lie to save my bacon, and felt awful about it. She is a hoarder, and can make her Easter egg supply, for example, last months. I am a chocoholic, and if there is chocolate in the house I find it very hard not to eat it. I do have morals though and draw the line at stealing from a four year old.

The other night, however, one minute I was watching Eastenders, the next thing I knew I had devoured an entire egg, from Betty's collection.

Despite my prayers that she might not notice the missing egg, she of course noticed the very next day. 'My very very very special big egg has gone' she said with tears rolling down her cheeks.

'It's ok' I said, 'The Easter Bunny must have come back to collect it in the night, because it has been there for so long it became mouldy, and he didn't want you getting sick'.

Betty eyed me suspiciously. I felt wretched. And although fairgrounds will continue to be for over ten year olds, and our taps will conveniently run out of water when it suits, I will never ever steal from my children, and then lie about it, again.

Progress reports

One goes in...

'Dolly has started here without any problems, she has settled in very well and is quite easy going. She needs a little support at circle time and lunch time as she does like to be on the go. She is confident with staff.'

And one comes out...

'Betty is a very confident, capable and independent child.  I feel sure she has enjoyed her time here, just as much as we have enjoyed having her.  She is now ready to move on to 'big school'.  I am sure she will do very well.  We will all miss her'. 

And while I held the two progress reports in my hand and sobbed pathetically, Tom was strutting around punching the air, with his chest puffed out, thrilled at these particular lines:

'Dolly has helped in the garden, weeding and composting'.

'Betty loves being out in the garden and making sure we do the composting'.

Dressed to impress

We went to a fabulous wedding in Somerset on Friday, and got back yesterday evening.  The return journey should have taken two and half hours, but instead it took five.  Tom ignored our new lady friend and me, thought he knew better, and took a wrong turn.  He now feels he needs to make amends, and last night he put the kids to bed, and cooked supper, and this morning I am getting breakfast in bed.

Anyway, the wedding was great - apart from the embarrassment of Betty sitting on a hay bale and sobbing inconsolably, and saying 'But this isn't the same as the other wedding we went to - where's the carpet? I want to take my shoes off and dance on a soft carpet - I want to be at the other wedding we went to'.  This went on for some time, and when the groom overheard and looked hurt I considered throwing in the towel and leaving. Instead I bundled her up and took her for a walk around the grounds to explain that not all weddings were held at the same place.

Miraculously our little chat did the trick, and Betty became accepting of the carpetless circumstances.  She got her second wind, asked for her Snow White dress to be put on, and took ownership of the dance floor til the party finished (one woman was so taken with Betty's dancing that she went up and kissed the startled little performer). Meanwhile Dolly wandered around asking everyone if she could have a swig of their champagne, and if she could borrow their phone, because she wanted to play a game.

Before the Snow White dress came out, Betty and Dolly were wearing matching Stella McCartney dresses (we have a friend who occasionally sends us these wholly inappropriate garments for our kids).  Dolly took exception to her frock and spent the day angrily trying to rip it off.  And Betty didn't want to wear her leggings underneath because she said she preferred the 'pretty colour of skin'.  And before we'd even got into the actual wedding they both had massive grass stains on their knees and pig slobber on their hands which was wiped down the fronts of their dresses. 

As we walked up the grand pathway towards the wedding venue, Betty said: 'But Mummy, when are you going to get changed?'  So with me sporting Primark's finest, coupled with Birkenstocks, and my children in their designer wear, they looked like they didn't belong to me.  The only thing that gave it away was the fact that Dolly was in a pair of Clark's Doodles beach shoes.

During the day, I caught up with some old school friends, a few of whom I hadn't seen for years, and we had a merry old time.  I saw a bloke I was at school with and we happily chatted away for quite some time, until he said: 'I have absolutely no idea who you are'.  When I told him, he said: 'No way! I totally didn't recognise you - mind you, women do tend to lose their looks as they get older'. 

By the end of the night I was telling anyone who would listen: 'I write a blog you know - you must read it - it is absolutely amaaaazing hic', while spilling red wine all over the white jacket I was wearing (on loan from a friend). 

New lady friend

We Buttons had to drive into central London last week, for a function which was being held near Tottenham Court Road.  To help us negotiate the busy roads (Tom had forgotten the A-Z), we had an additional passenger in the car with us - a calm lady with a deep soothing voice, a lady completely unfazed by my children's backseat antics, and Tom's blatant rudeness and hostility towards her.

After a long journey on the M40, with the help of the lady, we effortlessly cruised down Marylebone Road, and Tom began warming slightly towards her, and commented that perhaps she was quite useful after all.  It was at this point that Betty declared that she did not like the lady's silly voice.  I defensively told Betty that this lady was about to single-handedly revolutionalise our experience of driving through a city.  In protest, Betty talked over the lady whenever she tried to direct us. 

When Tom misheard direction from the lady, mainly thanks to Betty, I could almost sense the lady inwardly tutting, as she announced for the third time in three minutes: 'Please do a U-turn at the next junction'.  'I am not doing a bloody U-turn on Marylebone Road, it is dangerous, and it is illegal,' Tom told the lady.  But it was when she coolly told us yet again to go the wrong way down a oneway street that Tom began shouting, and demanded that she get out of the car.  'Why are you shouting Daddy?' Dolly asked him.  'I don't like this ridiculous lady,' he replied.  'She is a funny lady,' Dolly said.

I think the lady could sense the tension in the car, and began to sound a bit exasperated herself, as she announced for about the 56th time that she was 're-routing' us.

Just as we were literally a minute from our destination, Tom and the lady had yet another argument, so begrudgingly, and at Tom's insistance, I muted her.  We then drove round and round without her, and eventually parked up, and walked for about half an hour to our destination.

The Birkenstocks' journey

They spent the first year of their life in London; frequenting the bars in Notting Hill, hanging out in the BBC canteen, and picnicking in Hyde Park. They were in their prime, and despite the wine stains, quite cool.

In 2003 they moved to the countryside, where the new terrain took a bit of getting used to. In their new environment they were something of a rarity, and although they relished being different, they missed their pals back in London.

It didn't take long for them to get back in their stride; they began walking up muddy mountains, wading through rivers, and frequenting the local pub. They happily started making new friends, and were delighted when others just like them started moving into town.

They went on to have many adventures; they went on a 15 mile trek in Cuba, they paddled in the sea in Italy, and they walked around many chateaus in France.

On a couple of occasions they were met with much hostility, once at a wedding, and once at a dinner/dance. But they stood tall and strong, and proudly danced for a good five hours, anyway.

In July 2005, they finally got the recognition they deserved, and although this time they were sadly not present (not for want of trying), they were mentioned in not one, but two speeches at the best, happiest wedding in the world, by two speakers who had become very used to having them around.

It was a sad day for them during the Summer of 2010; barely intact, they were begrudgingly put away, to make way for a much newer, shinier pair. Although they welcomed the much needed rest, they missed their trips to Sainsbury's, the playground, the soft play centre, and even the chicken coop, where the hens seemed to take exception to them being on their turf.

However, just three days later, they gleefully waved goodbye to the newer, shinier predator (who were now happily frolicking around on eBay), and they were back! And still to this day, although they are weary, they just keep on going.
 
Written for Josie's writing workshop

Crying in the playground

Betty went to school for a three hour induction session last Thursday morning, the first of five, in preparation for September. 

As I was walking back down the playground, having just dropped her off in her new classroom-to-be, I saw the Head Teacher.  'Is Betty OK about it all?' she asked me.  'Yes, she is absolutely fine  - really excited' I said. 

'Is the school uniform skirt, blue or grey?' I asked her, then burst into tears. 

Still whimpering, a barrage of questions then came out of my mouth:  'Will Betty have to wear black shoes?'  'Will she need to bring her own pencils?'  'What time does school start in the mornings?'  'Do the reception class have their playtimes on the big playground with the big kids?'  'Do they have homework at this age?'  'Does she really have to come to school?' 'Do parents often cry like this?'  The Head Teacher was warm, empathetic and reassuring in her response.

When I went back to pick Betty up at midday (after a fractious few hours of Dolly having a meltdown, and insisting that she too wanted to go to school), I asked Betty how she had got on.  'I played in the big playground, and I made a new friend, and I really like my teacher, but I really don't want to wear grey tights Mummy - please can I wear my gold sparkly ones?' she said. 

With a huge lump in my throat we drove home. We spent the rest of our Thursday making purple glittery play dough together, and then going to the playground, and having an ice-cream.

No handbrake turns today

After a couple of hours at the supermarket with an unusually impeccably behaved Dolly, when we got to the top of our driveway, I rewarded her by letting her sit on my lap at the wheel, and 'drive' us the rest of the way home. I somehow knew she would relish this.

There she sat with two hands firmly on the steering wheel, she checked her rearview mirror, did some movement with the gear stick and then assertively said 'Go Mummy'.

I know that Dolly has only just turned two, but it took me right back to the days when I first learnt to drive. My brother, who is 18 months younger than me, taught me in a field when I was 14 (which made him about 12). This is what us country folk did back then - we didn't have anything else to do, other than terrorise sheep in fields by skidding and bombing around, doing handbrake turns, with windows down and some dodgy 90s track blasting out; 'All That She Wants' by Ace of Base springs to mind - I seem to remember listening to this song a lot in my Electric Blue Ford Escort car - the love of my life.

I very slowly took my foot off the brake and we began sedately meandering our way down the muddy track. 'GO FASTER MUMMY' Dolly bellowed. 'This is quite fast enough my darling' I said.

I want to live in America Mummy

I sit at the kitchen table eating my toast, and look up at a picture on the wall of Dolly at around 7 months old - cute, and smiley, and relatively tame.  I reminisce fondly about her baby days; her being content with just a teaspoon to play with for hours on end, while gazing at me and Tom lovingly, and smiling sweetly at her sister.

'MUMMEEEEE' shakes me rudely from my thoughts.  I see Dolly, standing at the world map poster on the wall.  'I will live here' she says, pointing at North America.  'I will live here' she says again, as if labouring the point, and still pointing at America.

When I got to about 17 years of age, I had hankerings to move away from my hometown, onto to somewhere more exciting. Dolly has just turned two.

'And you, and Daddy, and Betty will live here' Dolly says, pointing to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

I don't care what the weatherman says...

Having camped many times in my life, I would describe myself as a pretty seasoned, unfazed camper.  I have experienced: being woken by a massive bird sitting on my chest, the car accidentally dragging the tent half way across the field by its guy ropes, not being able to remember which tent is mine, large bear-like animals poking their noses into the canvas in the dead of night, tent/music rage, being attacked by midges, tent burglary, and most weather conditions, including getting drenched, and getting half baked in the early morning sun.

So there we were on Saturday night, us Buttons, all lined up in a tired, snug, little row, in our tent, listening to the sound of the waves, our faces glowing from the cider, and the sunny warm day spent on the beach, playing in the sand dunes.  And I couldn't help but feel a little bit smug that we had ignored the weatherman's warnings, and made a last minute dash to the coast.  All was perfect.  And off we all went to sleep, in sandy, cosy, slopey airbed heaven.

At 3am I woke to the sound of rain lashing against the tent, and the wind ripping through it, blowing and bending it this way and that - rather vigorously I have to say.  And I could hear the waves crashing against the rocks just 50 yards away.  Tom and Dolly were snoring soundly.  I looked over at Betty and her eyes were wide open, not blinking.  'Betty' I whispered 'Are you ok?'  'I'm a bit scared' she replied.  'It's ok my darling, it's just a bit of wind and rain' I told her.  My heart was pounding, I was sweating like a pig, I was terrified.  I kept thinking about my friend's 12 ft trampoline, and how just a few weeks ago, the wind managed to blow it clean over her garden fence and onto the main road some distance away.  I imagined our tent being the trampoline (with us in it) and the main road being the sea.

I lay there, holding Betty's hand, and trying to think of a survival plan, if the tent indeed took off and landed in the sea, or collapsed and suffocated us all, or if the tent poles came free and knocked us unconscious.  I had just accomplished the first part of my plan, which was to find a form of light (my trusty mobile phone) in order to be able to see during the rescue operation, when a huge gust of wind swept under the tent and lifted us a couple of inches into the air.  Now convinced we were in a hurricane, I shook Tom awake, and told him he was to transport our children to the car.  'Don't be so ridiculous' he said, and promptly started snoring again.  I shook him again and aggressively whispered in his ear 'We are in severe danger, we need to get out'.

While Betty got more frightened, and I pretended not to be, Dolly slept on, and Tom was outside whacking tent pegs back in.  When Tom reappeared he coolly said 'It's all fine, go back to sleep'.

As we drove out of the campsite at 4am, with a befuddled Dolly, and a shell-shocked Betty, up to their ears in wet tent parts/sleeping bags etc, we saw many battered tents and campers dotted about the place.  We also saw that one family had given up on their tent completely and hurled it into the bins as they made a dash for cover.

Doctors and nurses

Betty's doctor's kit has been getting an airing recently, and she has spent many a happy hour fixing us all.

Betty to me:

'What have you hurt? Your ankle? Did you hurt your ankle in the desert or the woods? Is it the ankle on your arm or your foot? Did you fall over, or get a splinter from a tree? Right, take Calpol tonight and when you wake up. Stick this in your mouth and bite it [a thermometer] it will make you much better. I just need to count your teeth before you go. You have nine teeth, that is great. That's lovely, thank you - can you go home now please - go on off you go. N-E-X-T'.

Tom has also been treated by Dr Betty. They spoke intently for a while as Betty took Tom through the diagnosis: He had been doing Tai Chi balanced on the side of a boat and fallen into the sea, where 100 crabs had attacked him on the head and the knees.  Apparently Betty had treated his knees but said that his head would take a while longer to heal up.

Meanwhile 'Nurse Dolly', who was supposed to be assisting the doctor, was wandering around with an unidentified piece of furniture that looked like it had been ripped off a chair, and was bashing it against anything in her path.

One out of five

I have talked a lot on this blog about 'Duckie', Betty's longstanding cuddly friend.  I have written about the stresses of only having one Duckie, with no back-up to be found anywhere on the planet, despite my best efforts.  I have guarded that duck with my life for over four years, and despite a few minor mishaps, he has remained safe.  Half the Button household breathed a large sigh of relief recently when the duck went into semi-retirement, and was no longer a key player in Betty's life.

Determined not to make the same mistake twice, I watched Dolly like a hawk when she was a small baby, to see which of her cuddly friends she was forming a bond with.  It turned out to be Rabbit (pictured right).  I was thrilled as I knew exactly where I could buy more rabbits who were exactly the same, and I did just that.  We now have five identical rabbits in our possession.  One would think that this would solve all the problems and disperse the usual anxieties of Rabbit either getting: lost, covered in food or chicken shit, singed by the fire, mangled by the lawn mower, painted blue, left out in the rain in the back of a toy tractor, or stolen by a bird of prey.

Things inevitably failed to go to plan. I think it all went wrong when she discovered that there was more than one rabbit knocking around the place - she spotted three lone rabbits whizzing around in the washing machine on a 90 degree wash one fatal breakfast time (this was not very well executed on my part). She refused to go to sleep with fewer than two rabbits in her cot, then upped the stakes to three, until I sat her down and gave her a stern talking-to.

Things continued OK for a while until Dolly decided that there was only one particular rabbit that she was happy with.  She can tell from a million miles away if I am enthusiastically wielding the wrong one at her.  You might be forgiven for thinking that THE rabbit would be the original rabbit that she formed that bond with in the first place, but it's not. She is inseparable from her rabbit of choice (it is the most-used, worn one, the one that most resembles a rag).

So, it turns out that I continue on this journey of guarding a child's comforter with my life, and have four redundant rabbits, all of which permanently live in the washing machine in an attempt to wear them out.

All by myself

After our holiday I needed a break, so as soon as we arrived back home I booked both kids in for an impromptu day at pre-school.  This was Dolly's first time going for a full day (and my first day on my own for several years), and so when I dropped them off, I was apprehensive; but by the time I had reached my car, having left them stabbing some play dough with scissors, I was over it.

I sat at the wheel, engine revving, MY music playing, and my mind racing.  Desperate not to lose a single minute, I frantically went through all the exciting things I could do for the next six hours - it felt like the sky was my limit.  Some time later, realisiung that I was still sitting in the pre-school car park, I aimlessly drove away.

I ended up at Sainsburys, half an hour away.  I glided into the parking space, turned the engine off and sat in my own thoughts, for about twenty minutes.  I then simply got out of the car, locked it, and effortlessly walked to the shop entrance, with my tiny bag over my shoulder, my arms swinging freely by my sides, and the Postman Pat ride not even getting a sideways glance.

Once inside, I slowly ambled up and down the aisles, with the trolley so light and undemanding, it practically pushed itself.  I saw things on the shelves I had never noticed before - lovely grown-up treaty things, all of which seemed to jump onto the conveyor belt at the till, and I casually browsed through a magazine while I waited my turn to pay.

I got back to my car, and with just one door to open, in I got, as quickly and as easy as that, and popped my little bag of shopping next to me on the passenger seat.  I sat for another twenty minutes in silence, just because I could, and then drove away calmly.

This time I ended up back at home.  I wandered freely round the house for a bit, and then I had chocolate for lunch. It was all very liberating.  I wrote a few tweets, sent a few emails, and then sat on the sofa and read a magazine.  Then I did a bit of hoovering.

Celebration Sunday

Sundays have always been, and always will be, a slightly odd, lethargic day of the week, with Monday looming, and you still hankering after Saturday. You wake up and try and have a lie-in like in the old days, watching telly in bed and eating peanut butter on toast, while flicking through Heat magazine looking at pictures of size 6 celebs banging on about their berry and cider vinegar breakfasts. Then the miniature beings appear on the scene, in their pyjamas, bright eyed, and say 'What are you watching this for? Come on, let's put CBeebies on'. Then they start jumping up and down on your head, shouting 'We want to go to the playground!'

What a contrast with your fomer life, being able to do whatever you liked with your Sunday. Most weeks, of course, you would eat cold sweet and sour pork in bed, with a hangover, watch Friends til lunchtime, and wonder what virtuous thing to do for the rest of the day. Often the best idea you could think of, with your wine stained lips and MSG dripping down your chin, is a trip to the local swimming baths, followed by watching the omnibus edition of Eastenders, and eating an entire box of Maltesers.

It's true, you rarely get a 'real' lie-in these days, but your kids make Sundays go round. They say, and do that funny thing, and they have such energy and enthusiasm. They make you think that Sundays aren't so bad after all, in fact it becomes a day to be positively celebrated.
 
Now please excuse me while I get back to drinking my tea in bed, and having my arms wrenched out of their sockets by a two year old.

My new baby

I have got a new phone. From what I can work out it can do virtually anything - even things I previously only ever thought possible in my wildest dreams. It is a far cry from those jolly little Nokias we all seemed to have about ten years ago, where texting and phoning were the only things on offer (that, and the thrills of Snake of course). I am obsessed, blown away, in love...

Gone are the days when I would happily let my kids use my phone as a toy just to get some peace, and then not be able to find it for days. This phone gets locked away in a cupboard during the day - I cannot take any risks - specially with Dolly who would track it down and sabotage it within seconds.

Tom asked me if he could look at it the other day. I reluctantly handed it over, but experienced the same feelings as when I handed over my precious newborn babies to visitors for the first time - I didn't take my eyes off it for a second and all I wanted to do was grab it back immediately and clasp it to my bosom.

Tom is concerned, and had to phone me up the other evening just so that he could get to talk to me. 'I think you are spending too much time on that thing and not getting your priorities right' he said, his voice trembling with emotion. 'Yes I know' I agreed, feeling a little bit annoyed that he had interupted me from an international GPS experiment, 'I feel like I have been really neglecting my laptop since I got this phone'.

Souvenirs

The following items did not come on holiday with us, but came back with us:

Tom:

• Several bamboo canes dug up (by him) from the roadside near a cheese-making shop
• A ridiculously massive slab of cheese, from the above shop
• A mint plant, secretly dug up (by him, using Betty and Dolly as diversion aids), from a herb garden open to the public.  He said something like: 'Well if they will charge £6 entrance fee...'
• Two big sacks of dried seaweed from the beach [for the chickens apparently]
• Three large potted plants of mint of different varieties - paid for this time
• A large potted black bamboo plant which cost 30 bloody quid, and was placed in between Betty and Dolly on the way home, and when it wasn't poking them in the eyes and making them cry, they were tearing it apart.
• A job lot of tent pegs
• Some cuttlefish shells
• A book entitled 'Why office work is bad for us and why it's good to fix things'

Betty:

• A red spade
• Shells
• Stones
• Sand

Dolly:

• A blue spade
• A toy truck
• A stick

Dictatorship

At the beginning of our holiday, I felt quite smug, thinking that we Buttons were becoming a functional family at last. By that, I mean that we have now left the baby days behind us: no more being bound by milk feeds, nap times, early bedtimes, regular meals, random unfathomable crying, incomprehensible chatter, and cumbersome baby equipment/toys/babies.

While packing up the car before we left home, Tom remarked that the car seemed unnervingly empty: suitcases check, kids check, food check, buckets and spades check, and ready for the off, just like that, easy.

On the holiday, instead of putting the kids to bed at their usual time, and then spending a bit of time whispering to Tom in the sitting room next door, getting bored and going to bed at 8pm ourselves, we spent long evenings in the beer gardens of Pembrokeshire. Betty and Dolly happily ran around and played together, with only half the time being taken up with fights breaking out between them, while Tom and I were able to kick back with our drinks, and have a conversation, or just stare blankly into space. We were beginning to feel far more free, in that if we wanted to all sit round the kitchen table eating fish, chips and mushy pea at 10 o'clock at night, then that's what we did (only on holiday mind).

However a few days in, it became abundantly clear that the kids getting older doesn't necessarily equal things getting easier. With their blossoming maturity also comes them having their own (very forthright) opinions about, well, everything: what they wear, what we eat, where we go and what we do. Where we used to be able to bundle them in the car and do what WE wanted to do, and they would be none the wiser, we now have a little dictatorship going on in the back seat of the car yelling 'WE WANT TO GO TO THE BEACH', and they whinge and sulk and say 'I'm booored' if the beach hasn't been factored into our immediate plans.

Don't get me wrong, I love the beach, but by the fifth day on the trot, being in the rain and wind, watching them get cold and wet and dirty, with Tom next to me annoyed that he's going to have to carry an angry, shivering Dolly, two buckets and spades, and four layers of discarded clothing up a slippery cliff path back to the car, things start to get a bit wearing.

A far cry from feeling more free, Tom and I have been feeling pretty trapped; trapped at the beach, trapped in pasta and sausages, and trapped in 'let's not let Mummy and Daddy even go to the loo without having an opinion about it'.

I tried to have a reasoned conversation with Betty about the whole thing, and she replied: 'But Mummy, I know that this holiday is for grown-ups too. And I really don't mind you taking me to grown-up places and things, like churches or houses. I will let you do that Mummy'.

No prizes for guessing where we ended up this morning.

I am a finalist!

It's 4am and I am sitting in the kitchen of our holiday cottage, in the dark. The rain is lashing outside and I can see the flickering of the lighthouse - it is all very romantic. I am writing this post now because it is the only chance I will get, in peace, to do it - Tom disapproves of me having my laptop (and phone) on holiday, Dolly would want to break it, and Betty would want to use Paint. Up here in the Welsh hills there is no internet connection so I will have to wait until the morning to publish it (when we all go to a cafe I sussed out earlier, that has Wi-Fi, under the pretense of having a full English, to keep Tom happy).

Yesterday we all went to a museum. A little bored with looking at Welsh farm machinery, and clocking two whole bars of signal strength on my phone, I had a sneaky look on Facebook. I noticed that the MAD blog award finalists had been announced, and was interested to see who they were. I clicked on the link, but my phone started wavering in and out of signal, and Tom was heading my way with a child under each arm, shaking his head. The odds of successfully getting onto the website were against me. However, a few more hasty clicks of my phone, and there I saw it - my blog in the list of finalists! I wasn't sure if my phone was playing mind games with me - these new phones can pretty much do anything nowadays - and if it was real or not, and then my signal completely disappeared again.

With mixed feelings of nerves and excitement, and still unsure what was going on, I told the other three Buttons we were leaving to find a Wi-Fi connection immediately (it so happened that I had my laptop in the boot of the car). We screeched into the carpark of a very posh hotel and in I charged, looking slightly crazed, clutching my laptop, leaving my bemused, slightly irritated family in the car.

Back in civilisation, I was now able to get onto the MAD blog awards website with ease. And to my absolute genuine astonishment, there I was, listed as a finalist in two categories: Family Life, and Pre-School Fun.

I would like to say a huge big THANK YOU!!! to all those who nominated me - I am so totally thrilled, and touched, and it was totally unexpected!

Now there is just one last thing to do... I would really LOVE it if you could now go and vote for me to win in one or both of the categories!

VOTE HERE!

I really do need to go back to bed now, where Betty is lying star-shaped across the mattress, after waking from a bad dream (about a 'rusty old light') in her own bed.

The ace of spades

Every single time we go away on holiday, we forget to take the buckets and spades for the kids. Their sandpit at home is now jam-packed with all the ones we have had to buy, in every colour and size. This time I was determined not to forget, so asked both girls to go into the garden and choose a bucket and spade each, from their collection, and leave them on the doorstep; which they did.

Our first afternoon on the beach yesterday, we realised that we had packed the buckets but not the spades. 'This is progress' Tom said. I took Betty and Dolly to the carpark beach shop and they chose yet another spade each, and while we were there, on a whim, I bought a massive toy shovel for Tom.

For the next couple of hours, Betty and Tom happily dug and built, Dolly carried unnervingly large rocks around the beach, and I took photo after photo of them all without them even realising, with my large zoom lens - a purchase necessary to get nice photos of my kids, and my husband. Tom accused me of 'papping my own kids' and later when he looked back through the photos he despairingly said it was like watching the afternoon in real-time.

Towards the end of the afternoon, I put the camera away and took part in the beach activities. I noticed that when Tom wasn't doing his Tai Chi to the sea, he had been busy building an extraordinary sand construction- it was a large elevated star shape, totally symetrical,and with cleverly balanced rock towers at each point - a man with a large spade on the beach, and a personal rock carrier (Dolly) is unstoppable. He remarked on how much he loved his new spade. Meanwhile Betty had dug an impressively large hole.

I decided that as the beach was deserted, I would go for a 'run'. But as I headed off towards the shoreline, I heard two hysterical children (mine) running behind me, laughing at my 'funny running'; and they soon over took me, still laughing. The three of us stood at the edge of the sea in the soggy sand. Tom was drawing giant letters in the sand with his giant spade. A gentle wave came towards us, about an inch high, and while Betty let it ripple over her toes, I saw the look of panic on Dolly's face (normally the action hero). And instead of turning around and walking away from the wave, she just fell backwards into the water. A cross, soaked, fully clothed Dolly with a sea-drenched nappy hanging down to her knees, marked the end of our afternoon on the beach. When we arrived back at the holiday cottage, Dolly proudly produced the original spades from the washing machine.

http://www.tots100.co.uk/2011/05/16/tots100-blog-hop-become-a-worlds-apart-toy-reviewer/

Mother's ruin

Dolly has got her very first morning at pre-school tomorrow; these are the thoughts I have had in the last hour:

• Gin without tonic is hard on the stomach
• I've now got to make two packed lunches instead of just one
• My nose feels hot
• What the hell am I going to do tomorrow with no kids, for three whole hours?
• This sausage stew I just made is disgusting
• I hope Dolly behaves herself tomorrow
• Perhaps Tom and I could go for a long leisurely breakfast with newspapers
• I will find an empty house very weird
• I can so see why women keep having babies
• I need another gin
• I will need to start thinking about getting a job
• There are bits of dried mud all over the carpet
• Maybe I should have another baby
• I wonder if Dolly will miss me
• An iPad would cheer me up
• This gin is horrible
• Betty will look after her

Under investigation

One of the chickens' redeeming features was that they were producing delicious fresh eggs every morning - that, and the kids and Tom love them.  But they have now stopped laying.

Our farmer friend suggested that it may be magpies or rats coming in and stealing the eggs. He then went into animated detail about how to train rats to turn against each other, thus producing one killer rat who keeps all the other rats at bay.  'Oh right' was all I could muster in response.  He also suggested that the hens might be laying the eggs and then eating them themselves - and if that were the case he would 'wring their bloody necks' for us.

I wondered whether Betty and Dolly had traumatised them by trying to stab them with a garden fork (it's a game).  Or whether the culprit might be the bogeyman who lives in the hedge with his axe - you know, the one that terrifies me at night when I am home alone.

I was eager to set up my camcorder in the coop and catch whatever it was, but my mum told me it might scar me for life if I saw what went on in there, away from prying eyes.  I am unsure exactly what she meant, but I promptly shelved the idea anyway.

Yesterday (while Tom was out) I did an experiment and I kept them locked in their little house until lunchtime, so that, firstly they would get bored and lay some eggs because there was nothing else to do, and secondly we would be able keep the egg-stealer out, and thus work out whether it was someone/something stealing the eggs or if the chickens just were not laying.   When I let them out at 1pm there was one egg,  four really angry hens, and a very hot, smelly hen house.  I was none the wiser.

My friend came over to identify how old the chickens are - she can do this by looking at their legs - she said that the smooth, slender appearance of their pins meant that they were all quite young and should be in their egg-laying prime.

So, in a last ditch attempt to get to the bottom of what the heck is happening, I have just placed some shop bought eggs in their laying box - if they disappear then there is an egg-loving criminal mastermind at work, and if they don't disappear then the hens were never laying the eggs in the first place.  The suspense...

Never again

I recently convinced myself that taking our kids to a very large theme park would be a good idea, and on a bank holiday, what's more.  Tom was harder to convince, but we ended up going anyway.

Once on site, I insisted that Betty and I went on the first ride we came to.  We queued for an agonising hour and twenty minutes, behind a lady that Betty couldn't take her eyes off.  I feared she was going to give loud judgements on what this lady was wearing/saying at any given moment, and get us beaten up.  When we finally got to the front, I rationalised that to queue for this long, the ride must be bloody amazing.  'Hold onto your hat' I told Betty, as our carriage pulled away.  'Why are we going so slowly?' Betty asked, 'Is the ride broken?'  I was embarrassed, and even more so when literally 30 seconds later we were back at the beginning, and I had to break it to Betty that after all that standing in a line it was time to find something else to do.  'Isn't this all such fun' I said faux-cheefully.  Betty looked intensely annoyed.

From then on, the day just got worse: Dolly got bellowed at by another child who said 'I don't want you here, go away', Betty became increasingly frustrated/upset that she couldn't go on most of the rides, Dolly lost her sacred rabbit comforter, my new shoes were killing my feet, Tom had gone into a depressive state and wouldn't talk, it was hot, and busy, and Betty got temporarily lost.  It was at this point, once we had found her, all of us in tears, tensions at an all time high, we decided to throw in the towel and go home. 

As we sat in traffic on the M25 in uncharacteristic stunned silence, Tom announced: 'I am taking out that National Trust annual membership as soon as we get home'.

[This is not a sponsored post]

Defeated at this job

I saw a friend on Tuesday evening; she said: 'So... two things happened today...'  I asked her to write it all down and share it:

I keep waiting for the moment, like in a new job, when I feel I have cracked this little job called parenting.

The other day my two-year-old locked herself in our new-ish car. I say locked herself because that’s exactly what happened – she waited for the exact right moment and having wiggled out of her car-seat (courtesy of four-year-old accomplice), crawled through the gap between the front seats, pressing the all-lock button as she went.

I watched, dry throated, as the windows all shut too.

The keys were in the ignition and I was locked out of the house with the four-year-old.

We banged on the windows, gesticulating dramatically while Issy selected the CDs she had been waiting to listen to, unencumbered by other passengers' chatter. She appeared to be laughing at us.

Having locked myself out on previous occasions I have a spare key with a neighbour so we did manage to get into our house and find the spare car-keys.

Phew. I pressed the button but no ‘plip’ – the keys in the ignition obviously override any exterior instructions. My heart began to beat faster – we were now in an official pickle.

Back, more comfortable, in her own car-seat Issy was still smiling along to the music.

Inspired I rang the dealership from where I had proudly driven my car months earlier.

Spluttering over my words, I explained to the nice man on the end of the line my predicament.

“Have you tried using the key in the lock?” he asked calmly.

Embarrassed, I realised how quickly I had forgotten the purpose of an actual key. Of course it worked, the door opened and Issy’s face fell. Her game was over.

“Thank you,” I said to the man.

“Is there anything else I can help you with today?” he professionally followed up.

“Well there is this matter of trying to lose a bit of weight…” I ventured, having regained my sense of humour.

“That, madam, I can’t help you with,” he cheerfully replied.

While I recovered from this frantic half-hour (it had taken a while for my neighbour’s husband to find our key) and made myself a cup of tea I let both girls play in their room. I reconstructed Isabel’s opportunistic strike in my mind, and convinced myself she had been planning it for weeks – she loves the car, and being in it unrestrained.

Tea made I realised how quiet things had got – rarely a good sign.

As I turned the corner into our bedroom I saw Bethan in the process of bathing her little sister, quite well as it happens.

Of course my mind ran into over-ride – scalding, drowning or perhaps, worst of all, hypothermia.

“It’s OK Mum,” Bethan said, “I didn’t let Issy use the hot tap.”

Having calmly pulled the plug and explained in controlled tones the potential to drown in 3 inches of water (or is it less?) I let Bethan get her sister out of the bath and put a nappy on her (the bit I dread most).

I felt defeated and like I'd failed but at least it was nearly the end of my shift.