Espressos and "wild camping"

Today on Day 3 of the Summer Holidays (said Big Brother style) we went to the park. Usually it is full of Eastern European mums and I can't understand a word they say. Today we had Posh Mums and Posh Dad, sitting by the swings drinking espressos out of a fancy flask and discussing the merits of various coffee machines. It was hilarious. Then one mum said "oh we're off to Hampshire next week. We're going Wild Camping". This sounded exciting, Posh Dad even said so, imagining they were staying in a campsite somewhere with guided tours of the local wildlife. "Oh no," Posh Mum snootily said, "we go into the forest, find a good couple of trees, hoist up a hammock and then light a fire. It's Wild Camping!"

Actually I think she meant camping. Just camping. Sleeping in the woods with a campfire and various apparel. It's camping, love. Don't give it pretensions! But I suppose to the Posh crowd that were in the park today, anything less than a Centreparc or a week in Florida is dangerous in itself!

The summer holidays: Day 1.

These holidays are going to be veeeerrrrryyyy long. Today like a Good Mum, I took the boys out and got them a new paddling pool as the one they had was so small they could only fit one foot each in it. Then we spent ages filling it up with a watering can as the dog we had for 24 hours ate the hose. Ten minutes in, the youngest hit the eldest over the head with a bucket and that was the end of that. So by 11.30 on  Day 1 they were stuck in front of the tv! I am a terible mother. But at least it's quiet! What are we going to do tomorrow? I'll have no voice left by the weekend from all the shouting.

Facebook: only for the good times?

We had a bereavement in the family last week. It was a big shock and still hasn't sunk in. The oddest thing is that there is a Facebook account for the person, and it's still active, and it is compelling to keep looking at it. People have started putting up tributes and photos, which is nice, but a bit weird to me. And on my own account, I don't really want to mention it as firstly I don't want to look like I am fishing for sympathy, and I have a mixed collection of friends on there and I don't necessarily want them all to know. I didn't post anything for a while, but now I'm back to my usual pithy remarks and putting photos up of the Olympic Torch going past the bottom of the road. But then I think, to people that do know, I must look bad making jokes and going on as normal. But what else can you do? Even if I put something on there about what happened, eventually everyone would go back to the usual dross that we all like to stick online.

Social media vastly complicates the bad times. But it can also help, as lots of friends I didn't know have sent lovely messages. But some people also like to speculate about stuff, and really have no thought for the people that could be upset about it. And do you know how hard it is to close down an account without the password? Bloody hard that's what. And you can't even really close it down, they "memorialise" it so people can still see it.

I'm going back to pen and paper like a Luddite. Probably. 

If all else fails...

...tell your neighbours to F*** off when they yet again light a bbq while looking at your almost dry washing. Then don't put it out again at the weekend just in case as you don't know what the next step is! Probably guns...

Benjamin Banjamin or Benjanim?

If you want proofreading work, don't email the publishers basically telling them they are shit! You won't get a response...

But really, do I want to work for a company that ignores 5 different spellings of Benjamin?!

The Great Hamster Escape

We now have a hamster, named Hotdog by the boy, which is quite annoying to say, and she is a girl. But hey, at least he didn't go for the other option, Milkshake. Hotdog settled in well, every morning she was waiting by her food bowl for her breakfast. But one morning she wasn't. My first thought was that she was dead, and I was trying to think how to hide it from the boys. But then on further investigation we found one of her tunnels that goes round the outside of the cage had fallen off. Queue panic, there was a hamster on the loose!

Now if you could see my front room, you would appreciate the scale of the problem. Toys, books, boxes of lego. Shit. Everywhere. A perfect hiding place for a canny hamster with a wish for freedom. We had everything up off the floor, while cooing "Hotdog, where are you?" and Littl'un waving a peanut around in the hope she'd pop up and go "oh here I am!". No joy. My dad was due in the evening for the weekend and all I could think was that if we didn't find her then at some point over the weekend Dad was going to be surprised by a hamster popping up out of the sofa and biting him. Probably in the butt.

But the boy had to go to school so I had to abandon Operation Hamster and make breakfast. I went to get the cereal out from under the stairs, and saw something move out of the corner of my eye. The bloody hamster was sitting in a box of coke cans looking at me innocently, her expression was definitely "what?!". And I didn't realise she was so fat as she was pretty easy to spot! She went on quite a journey by the looks of things.

Now she's back in captivity she spends a lot of time looking forlornly at us through the bars, she had a taste of freedom and I think she liked it! I am watching for attempts on the tubes again, she is so fat now she could probably break through them if she had the inclination...