Oh and another thing - arsonists!

So me saying I had nothing to blog about was a big fat lie. Since we moved, the park down the road was a bit run down so we never took the kids. Then recently they rebuilt all the play area, and added a skate park. There is supposed to be a new café too soon. It opened 3 weeks ago, and was really cool, the kids loved it. We went after school last Friday, it was lovely in the sunshine, full of happy kids. Then the next morning I get a text...

 

Some bloody scumbags burnt it down the same evening!!

 

How do you explain to a 4 year old that the park he was in the day before is no longer there? And why do people do these things?! All the kids were heartbroken. Luckily the council say they are going to replace it, with gates and extra security - which begs the question why this wasn't done before they fitted the expensive play equipment? Hopefully it won't happen again but you can't stop some people.

Agaton Sax!

For years and years, I've been trying to remember a series of books I used to read in our local library about a detective. I tried googling what I could remember with no success. Then the other day the boy who tried to have me and his dad killed off was talking about school - they're looking at Quentin Blake's work - and he couldn't remember one of the authors they had been talking about who Blake illustrated for. So I got on the net, and on one page there were some books Blake had illustrated years ago - about a detective. Agaton Sax!!!! Of course! Now I just have to try and get hold of them, they seem quite hard to get hold of. But at least I know what I'm looking for now!

 

So the boy is useful sometimes...

Windows and pushy salesmen...

We're getting new windows and doors soon, am very excited, our current ones are crap. But of course it wasn't a smooth process being us! I arranged 3 appointments - one with a big company, two with local companies, and we said that we'd listen to them all before we decided. The big company was first through the door, and he convinced us so much that we signed up with him straightaway! Ridiculous. It all seemed ok until I went online - and it turned out everything the salesman had told us was basically a lie! How did he sucker us in?

 

Firstly, he quoted a massive price which nobody would ever pay. Then did a whole spiel about a new promotion and the company wanted 5 houses in the area to use as advertising for the new products and luckily - luckily! - we were eligible. Then he knocked 12 grand off the price. Then when we still didn't look convinced he rang his boss who confirmed that the promotion was still valid and he then knocked another 3 grand off. So in all the price has gone down a lot and it sounds great. He says all they want is a few photos and a board outside for a few days, and this deal is a one off, just for us, we'd never get the same price elsewhere. BUT we had to sign that evening or it was gone.

 

I know, I know, after the event you can see how stupid we were. But he really sold it, and told me a friend who had recommended them would get £50 if I filled a form in with her details. He even said "go and get as many quotes as you like, waste all your evenings, you'll never get a better deal."

 

So, the next night we had one of the local companies round as I thought we might as well speak to him. He was absolutely lovely, took half the time, and said "I won't bother you now with prices, I'll email you tomorrow so you don't feel pressured". The quote when it came was £5 different to the "you'll never get an equivalent quote" from the other company, and for a better front door.

 

Needless to say, we cancelled the first company and are going with the lovely local one. I am just so angry, how can they lie so easily to every customer? I looked at the recommendation card, and in the small print, it said it wasn't valid if an order had already been placed, so that was also a lie. His "never be matched" price was a lie. The timescale was a lie - he said they could do it super quickly just for us due to the promotion. The other company are doing it the same week. And they do the "promotion" sell to every customer looking at online reviews. Also, after telling us the price was "rock bottom, they wouldn't make a profit" on it, when I phoned to cancel the man said "well we can talk about the price if you like and get it down a bit". Really?!

 

Hopefully we'll learn for next time, but we always get suckered! Luckily cancelling was easy, got my deposit back without an argument, they must do that a lot...

Tall tales...

My eldest is a very clever boy, always makes me proud at report time, and I have no concerns about his schoolwork. But recently I have had cause to wonder about his behaviour...

 

I was called in after school, and told that the boy had told his dinner lady that when he was 3 (he's now 7) his parents were stabbed to death by burglars, and he was now in foster care. The dinner lady was obviously disturbed by this, and when she told his teacher she said, "well I'm sure I saw his mum this morning!" but they called me in to discuss it. First off the boy denied all knowledge, said that the dinner lady had got the wrong boy, and he was SO convincing. It didn't sound like him so I thought he was probably telling the truth. 2 hours later at home, of crying and saying "why don't you believe me, you're my mum!", the little sod admitted it! I was shocked!

 

So he had to apologise to his teacher and his dinner lady. Little sod. But what if they had taken it seriously, and thought we were abusing him or something so he wished we were dead?! I am a bit worried about how clever and convincing he is - he's got to channel it into something productive like writing horror stories, or acting, before he goes to the dark side completely!

 

And I always said I wouldn't be one of those mums who think their little angels could never do anything wrong - that's a lesson and a half for me!

To blog or not to blog...

Well, my attempt to write more regularly is going swimmingly. I think I feel that now I don't work I have less to write about that is interesting, who cares about school runs and scary school mums? Actually, I do, so someone else might! My friend today said she really likes reading my facebook comments and I should do a blog or something, and I thought how much I miss ranting online! Updating twitter and facebook isn't the same really. So I'll blog about what interests me, and at least I've got it out of my system. Starting with a corker of a tale...

Months go by...

Blimey, I haven't posted for a while have I?! Lots has being going on, we still have the dog amazingly, lots of decorating has gone on, and lots of buying accessories for the kitchen!

 

And my inappropriate relative made the best (well worst) comment last time we saw her. She walked in and within seconds had told me that she was due on and the dog could smell it on her, and that's why he was jumping up at her. So many awful images were created, and I wish I had said something like "how could you be so stupid AND disgusting?" Yuck.

 

I've infiltrated the school mums and they are all really nice, and we even had a night out, and a lunch out. Moving was definitely the right move!

I'll try and post properly soon, before a year is out hopefully!

A very grown up 6 year old

My eldest was still going to his old school for a few weeks after we moved, as changing schools is very complicated. Then at 2pm before they broke up for half term I got a phone call asking if he could start at the local school after half term. So I had to ring his old school and tell them he was leaving that day so he could say goodbye to everyone he had known since nursery. I was really worried how he would take it, but he was SO grown up about it bless him! He said goodbye, I got some flowers for his teacher, and that was it. After half-term he went to his new school and was absolutely fine. He looked a bit worried when we left him on the first day, but apart from that, it was like he had always gone there. I think kids deal with change better than we do!

 

His new school is lovely, it has lots of outdoor space which his old one didn't, actual grass and everything! He seems to have less homework but he's ok with that! I haven't managed to make friends with any mums yet, it's quite bizarre, the parents stand all over the playground in random groups so when the kids are let out it takes the teacher a while to spot the parents, some of whom are right at the other side of the playground. So I have no idea who is in the same class, but I'm hoping when the youngest starts at nursery in September I might meet someone to talk to!

Life in Essex

So I must be finally becoming assimilated into being an Essex mum! I found myself shouting at another mum outside the youngest ones pre-school this morning. Go me! But she had it coming. Why? Let me tell you...

 

The school has a teeny tiny car park, so parking is often a tight squeeze. She parks right in the middle of the car park blocking everyone in and no-one else can get in or out. She swans into school pushing everyone else out of the way, and then she'll take forever to get back to her car, and then sits texting for a good while. Everyone has to wait till she's finished, like no-one else has anywhere to be.

 

This morning she was doing the same. Even though there were 3 parking spaces, but nobody could get to them as she was parked in the way. Finally I managed to park, with difficulty. I got my boy out of the car and then she decided to move her car. She reversed over the pavement and nearly took us out. Which was the final straw. I gave her a mouthful about her driving and she just looked at me and drove off. I really hope she complains about me to the school, then I'll tell them exactly why I shouted at her! Stupid self-centred woman.

A lot has gone on...

So since I last wrote, we moved house, got the boys into the local school, and less than 2 weeks after we moved we got a puppy. So life has been a bit mental. Though I love our new house, it's like it was made for us and we are so much happier here. I finally have my big kitchen, and although it smells a bit doggy it's still lovely! Having a puppy (Archie the bulldog) has been very trying, I never really thought it through - that although it was the other half's dream I'd be doing all the looking after! I would have given him away in the first couple of weeks but now we're getting there, and the kids love him (when he isn't nipping them).

 

The main difference with this house and our old one is that I actually find myself actually sitting relaxing and doing sod all! Our old house always needed something doing, or maybe it was me, couldn't relax and always had to be doing something. Now we sit out in the garden listening to the birds in the forest at the back, and go for nice long walks in the forest when it's nice. We don't have to listen to sirens every 5 minutes or drunk people staggering past. I don't know why we didn't do it years ago. And the funny thing is, I wouldn't have even looked at this house if the estate agent hadn't suggested it.

 

Oh, we also had our first car crash! Woo! A farmer in a pick-up truck took the back of the car out at about 5 miles per hour, which is ridiculous. But it could have been a lot worse, and he admitted it all and it's all fixed now.

 

And now we have moved we actually have more money, the house was more expensive than our old one, but the mortgage is cheaper! So for the first time in about 7 years I have some new clothes and we can treat the boys to things like ice creams which we never could before. It's all good, fingers crossed I haven't cursed it all now!

Slow slow quick quick quick!

And the house craziness continues. After weeks of nothing much happening, yesterday my solicitor said "can you move next Monday?" You can guess the response he got...

Ebay woes

And in the midst of all this stress, I've been ebaying everything we can possibly sell in our downsizing/decluttering period. We listed some old computer games, and had a bidding war going on. As they were heavy I specified that they were for UK bidders only. Then a bloke from Italy won. Idiot. It cost £28 to post them. He said "that's very high" and refused to pay. I said "that's why I said only UK bidders!" and had to cancel his bid. Idiot!!

House buying - lessons I have learned...

So we are almost ALMOST within sight of moving house. We found a house that we all liked and that wasn't too far away from our current house, and it all seemed rosy. Then proceedings got started. These are the lessons I have learnt thus far:

1) When you make an offer on a house, don't worry about asking rude questions like "are you bankrupt and being made to sell the house?" Otherwise you'll find out when you're too far down the line to turn back. We didn't ask being silly like that. Turns out the lovely lady and her 2 kids who live in the house are being thrown out by her ex-husband who has been made bankrupt. They aren't very happy about it.

2) When the estate agent says "it's a perfect house, needs absolutely nothing doing to it" don't be surprised when the survey comes back and says otherwise.

3) Expect stress for weeks and weeks and weeks, until you start to appreciate your current house and wonder if you're doing the wrong thing. Get used to living with the stress that it could all fall apart any day. We started this journey back in September and it's still going...

4) If you want a nice peaceful afternoon, don't check your emails.

5) The one good thing about it is that you will finally get rid of all the junk you have kept in cupboards and never looked at for years. If it does all go tits up, at least you've minimised a bit!

Stop with the detail...

Inappropriate relative was here again this weekend. Within 10 minutes she had let slip that she was ill the week before. Without even being asked why, she told us that she had a cough and a stomach bug: "So everytime I coughed it was coming out of both ends".

Lovely. Really lovely. And then I heard her recounting the story to another relative 2 hours later. Have some pride woman, we don't want to hear about your nether regions every single time we see you!!!

More houses...

Tell me if I'm boring you yet! This house malarkey is taking over my entire life. Hours on the net searching for my perfect house, only to go and view them and find out they are half the size of my current house, are built on a fly tip, or are 10 miles from the station. Photos are very deceiving, estate agents have the use of the wide angle lens down to a fine art. And I learnt after last week to read the room dimensions, so many 3 bed houses have less floor space than ours, it isn't worth it for an extra bedroom.

But in positive news, even if we don't sell, we'll hopefully be getting an extension so I can have my lovely kitchen diner that I dream about. Even if I have to build it myself!

Kids

Sometimes my kids surprise me in a good way. At Christmas we got my eldest a Nintendo DS, got it off Ebay as they are really hard to get hold of these days, and 10 days after Christmas it stopped working. Then it turned out it was fake, Ebay were shit, and the seller had done a bunk. The boy was upset, but came up to me and said "don't worry mummy, I can get another one next Christmas". It broke my heart bless him! Luckily we managed to get a replacement, and everything is rosy, but I never expected him to be so grown up about it.

Houses

So 4 months on and LOTS of viewers on, WE SOLD OUR HOUSE!!! Well, this is all subject to the survey so I'm holding my breath and preparing a big bung for the chap who comes and does the survey to ignore our dodgy wiring. Selling a house is SO stressful, you spend weeks constantly tidying and cleaning, for strangers to tramp through your home and then turn it down over some stupid thing like the roof tiles being the wrong colour. And it was only when I shouted at our estate agents, told them they were rubbish, and we were instructing someone else that they actually got their arses in gear and sold it a week before we were changing! Ha! The threat of losing 3 grand in fees works wonders I find.

Now we have to find somewhere. And I am finding it quite stressful too. I quite enjoyed the weeks of surfing the net looking at people's kitchens and scoffing at their green bathrooms. Now we have to actually narrow them down and go and look at them I've hit a brick wall. You would think the option of tramping round other people's houses and moaning about the colour of their kettle would be fun, we could look at all the houses around and have some fun. I don't know why I'm worrying!

And the thing I am really worrying about?! Moving day. How do I make the house nice and clean for the new owners while moving out all our stuff, moving it to another house which will probably also need cleaning, and then find the kettle?! The stupid things we worry about, honestly.

Viewer #8

Seemed to like the house, but then I heard myself telling him about the ghosts. Haven't heard anything since...

Very spooky goings on...

So I have been selling things on ebay that belonged to a relative that passed away recently. It's weird, but the stuff needs to go and the family told me to do it. And a few items finished at the weekend, and when I went to get the buyer's details they had the exact same name as my relative, and came from the place where she was cremated. That is a very strange coincidence isn't it?! I would have told the buyer how strange it was, but I didn't want them to think they were buying a dead person's stuff!

House still for sale...

Oh, and no we haven't sold the bloomin' house yet. All that's happened this week is that a different estate agent at the firm of monkeys we hired insisted we redo all the photos. They do look better minus the toys everywhere but it annoyed me as originally the girl who took the photos said I didn't need to move them after I offered. And we paid for a fancy brochure that now has old shitty photos in. We were broke for 2 months after that, and it was only after I paid it I realised it wasn't compulsory! Damn them all.

Pft!

A relative asked for a list of what the boys wanted for Christmas and birthday presents, as they are very close together. So I spent a lot of time considering it, asked the boys what they would like, and sent a list of 2 items. One for birthday, one for Christmas. Job done. You would have thought.

Then I get a phone call telling me they got something completely different. At half the price. Not that the original present idea was expensive. And Littl'un thinks he is getting what he asked for! I give up.

Trick or treat...

I took the boys trick or treating for the first time this year. It wasn't altogether successful. First of all it was bloody freezing and the youngest spent all his time shivering and saying he wanted to go home. But we went to the neighbours we knew, and most of them were lovely, pretending to be scared of the monsters at the door, and giving them sweets. One old lady we knew had lovely prepared bags of sweets that looked really posh. Until we got home. They were chocolates from at LEAST last Christmas, and some were caramels and nuts which I had to take away, and then when they opened the ones they had left they had gone all white and manky and had to be thrown away too! But she did give them 50p with it too so it wasn't all bad! Then I decided to help the boys with the sweets they could eat and ended up at the dentist the next day! That was an expensive Halloween for sure...

Rhino hide

We had yet another visit from our thick-skinned relative last week, man it was hard work. Still, after all these years. I will now present you with the reasons why I turn to alcohol while they are here:

• They drive a good 4/5 hours at least to get here. Then spend the majority of the time on the sofa with a cob on as "something" unspecified is wrong with them. Every single time.
• They ignore the kids apart from to tell them off or force feed them sweets (then later they will announce that they have had too many, hence their excitable behaviour).
• They fall asleep on the sofa.
• They force everyone else to watch rubbish tv they like, despite the fact that they are taping it at home.
• They help themselves to drinks, without offering one to anyone else, including their partner.
• They announce when they arrive that they are spending an extra night, without warning. 
• They only come to life after a drink, which they like A LOT. 
• They spend a lot of time complaining that they are on a diet and that they can't eat fat. They poo poo every meal suggestion I make as it "upsets them", so we have very bland meals. When we go out for a meal they pick something healthy and sit there with a face like a slapped arse. Then proceed to spend the rest of the weekend eating sweets, fried food from the takeaway, crisps, and snacks aplenty, and then 2 hours later moaning about their gut.

And I could go on. It is getting beyond me why I put up with it. I do make the occasional sly dig here and there but as with everything else, it goes over their head! Pass me the gin...

Viewers #6 and #7

No. We haven't sold the house yet. But I've never cleaned it as much! #6 was a friendly man who came to view with about 20 minutes notice. He seemed to like it even with mess everywhere, but was undecided where he wanted to live, he had our area and somewhere about an hour away. So he wasn't that serious in my opinion. Then #7 was at the weekend and I had high hopes for him. He was a single bloke, seemed to really like it, and won the award for the first viewer to open the cupboards (and nothing fell out on him!). I was convinced he would make an offer, but silence. Our estate agents are supposed to ring with feedback, but they haven't bothered. As I am doing all the tours, I fail to see exactly what they are doing to earn £3000 if they manage to sell the blessed house. People can find the details online, and all the agents have to do is ring up and check I am in. They are not doing a lot more. I should have just put the house online myself, I might as well have!

Viewers #4 and #5

So we had a busy weekend. Cleaning for no apparent reason that is! The first lot of viewers were a young couple, looking to buy their first house. They were lovely and seemed to like the house, I was very positive about them. But then I asked what else they were looking at and they showed me a picture of a new build house which was pristine and very very shiny. So that's that then! The next viewer turned up with half an hour's notice, an Eastern European, very tall gentleman. He wanted a buy-to-let, and he looked at my bedroom as if he was figuring out exactly how many families he could fit into it. He also asked if the loft was high. I said "not high enough to live in" but I fear he thought otherwise!

And now I am being doorstepped by all the other estate agents in town. Which is positive as apparently there are lots more people registering to buy. But we are trapped in with our current agents for a few more weeks, but I have lots of promises of reduced fees and am getting lots of free advice just in case we decide to change agents when the time comes.

Even if we don't sell, I am actually starting to enjoy it now! I'm treating tours of my house like I used to do library tours, though I fear buyers aren't really interested in the book collections and size of my bed. Which I have managed to point out to every one so far. But it IS big :)

Viewer #3

Today's viewer didn't like the garden. It's too long and needs too much maintenance. I said he could always concrete it over :) I am getting more laid back and cynical with every viewer we get. We have another one tomorrow, she'll probably not like the fact that the carpets are green. But one day, one day far off in the distant future, someone will come in and like it. I hope!

Selling houses

Ah, I knew there was a reason we decided to put our house on the market. It is so I have a fresh batch of material to blog about, raising kids isn't really that exciting/rage-inducing. House selling/buying is. You think I would have remembered all this from last time round, when I accused our solicitors of being trained by monkeys.

But no, after 5 years of solicitor and estate agent free bliss we signed up for the rollercoaster again. And I have to say it's going marvellously! No, really! First of all, the valuation. The estate agent we picked to sell the house was super lovely, SO enthusiastic about the house, she had "at least 5 viewers lined up already", was positive about what we could get for it, and how quickly we could sell it. For definite. It would be sold in about a day. Then we signed on the dotted line. And it all changed. In the 3 weeks it has been on the market they have got us the grand total of 2 viewings. The first lot didn't like the fact we didn't have a proper hallway. And they didn't have a deposit. And the second was a doctor who basically wanted a crash pad for when he was doing long shifts at the local hospital and couldn't get to his Hertfordshire mansion. Which begs the question: "DID NEITHER OF YOU EVEN LOOK AT THE DETAILS??". The details clearly show the lack of hallway, and the fact that we have a 100ft garden. I don't suppose a doctor on 12 hour shifts is going to want to start on that when he gets in. And he didn't like the car garage on the corner. Honestly.

I am cleaning like a thing possessed before we have viewings, just in case the dust on the lightshades puts people off. But it is turning out that people are weird. Bloody weird. And they walk around with poker faces and don't say much, and I wish they were just honest and said what they did or didn't like at the time. When it is our time (ha I saw "when", this may never happen) to look at houses I am going to sniffily say that the lack of helicopter pad put me off, or the fact that it had a front door. There is no rhyme or reason to people, but at least my house is super tidy at the moment!

And I haven't even got to any serious dealings with any solicitors yet.

I''m starting to think it would be easier to just get an extension on our house. Then I can do a blog on "dodgy builders" instead! Or just sell one of the kids...

Still don't like school!

A week later we have progress. Of a sort. Littl'un walked into his class without screaming or having to be carried in. He then looked at me sadly and went and sat down at a table with tears coursing silently down his cheeks. I think I preferred the screaming on the whole! He just looked resigned to his fate today bless him.

Don't wanna go to school today...

So the 2 year old started pre-school this week. 3 mornings a week, just to run around and play in messy things he isn't allowed to play with at home. His older brother was fine, went in without a problem when he started. No tears, nothing. Not this one. We have had tears every day, screaming and pleading not to leave him there, it's been a tough week! I thought he'd be fine, he's been asking to go to school for about a year already. I hope he gets used to it soon, you do start to wonder if the minute you leave they lock the kids in a cupboard or something when they really don't want to stay.

So for the 2 days a week he isn't at school I am making it REALLY boring, cleaning and shopping and stuff, in the hope he'll be running to school next week. Shame he enjoys a good polish really...

More bad parenting!

And not from me this time! At a kids party yesterday, two parents turned up with their son who was invited to the party, and also their much younger daughter who wasn't. The host said to them that the girl could stay and play if they paid for her entrance. Then all the kids went off to play and nobody thought anymore about it. Then when the kids were called to come and eat the girl came along too and started tucking in, so the host took her off to find her parents. And came back 5 minutes later to say the parents had buggered off and left the kids unsupervised! So the host of the party had to pay an extra £15 for the girl to eat. And they are really not well off, they struggled to have a party at all. It made me so mad. And at the end, the parents reappeared and smiled and left. No wonder they were bloody smiling! I wonder if they do that at all the parties they are invited too, sneak an extra kid in so they don't have to feed them later. The cheek! But I know who won't be on the list if my boys have a birthday party!

Banks

I want to open bank accounts for the boys. You would think this would be easy. But no. The bank I chose as they had the best rate couldn't see me for 5 days (they "didn't have anyone in" to do it apparently) and now they are demanding to do a financial review about my account which is with a different bank before they'll do anything else. Why my financial affairs are relevant I don't know. If I was an aunt or something they wouldn't want to would they? I feel a row coming on. And when I told the man that I didn't bank with them, he looked disgusted. You would think they would welcome new business and be very nice to me, or else I'll go elsewhere. Which I might just do. I feel like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. When we win the lottery I'll go in there and show them my wads of cash going "you could have had this". That would be brilliant.

What is "piss off" in Lithuanian?

Ah another trip to the park, another row! I really shouldn't leave the house these days. But this time I had proper grounds. We went to a little park up the road and there were 3 other kids in there, 2 boys and their older sister. Littl'un was playing nicely with the middle boy, despite the other boy not knowing a word of English. Then I noticed that the boy and his sister were sneakily pushing Littl'un whenever they got the chance, and when the girl chucked him off the swing the minute he sat on it that was it. I asked her to leave Littl'un alone and let him play, and she started arguing back, she could speak English well enough to argue. Then the kids carried on playing. Littl'un then asked for his crisps and before you could blink the 3 kids had surrounded my buggy clearly begging for food. Their mum sat there oblivious. It was quite sad, they had expensive bikes with them, so why were they so hungry? Or were they just rude? Littl'un was nervous and dropped his crisps on the floor, and the 3 kids leapt on the crisps on the floor like scavengers. So we left. Not before I'd told their mum what I thought of her, not that I think she understood a word. I wouldn't have minded sharing with them if they hadn't been so mean and aggressive to my boys.

Why are people so odd?! If my boys had behaved like that I think I would have done more than just sat on a bench watching them! Or is it me?

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...

New neighbours: an update

So this week son #1 came running in saying "Emily has just weed behind a bush and she does it all the time, and I am going to marry her". Whoop whoop, just the sort of classy girl I had in mind for a daughter-in-law.

The big fences have gone in, but they are not high enough for my neighbour who is really annoyed by the new neighbours, and he is planning to add trellises on top for maximum height! But to his vast annoyance Emily now hangs out of an upstairs window shouting at my boys, or she has figured out if she bounces really high in her trampoline she can still see them. The fences do help a bit but now we get shouting of "what are you doing? I can't see you?" which is still annoying!

Now the sun is out we are being treated to really loud Lithuanian europop, which while not being as annoying as hippety-hop or gangsta rap, is still annoying. Our neighbours were all really considerate of each other, while I would have loved to have a stereo in the garden blasting out music I never did as I know the neighbours like their peace (apart from the boys which I can't do much about!). But this lot don't give a hoot for anyone else. Living so close to other people is difficult, in London you can never get away from them, and if you get one lot of neighbours that are like that it really ruins your quality of life. I'm just thankful they aren't right next door. Our road had a load of elderly people living on it when we moved here and now they are either moving to retirement homes or off the mortal coil altogether, and I think we were a bit spoilt. I think we might move to a retirement complex next, who can turn down organised bingo and coffee mornings?!

New neighbours: the "highlights"

1. 1 week after moving in, 7 year old girl flashes her boobs at my 5 year old.

2. The weather is nice, all the washing is on the line, practically dry. They light up an extremely smoky bbq apparently directly aimed at our washing. Husband goes mental at them. They just look at him (probably didn't understand a lot of it, from Lithuania, but they definitely got the jist).

3. Week later, washing on line again. Bloke looks directly at it, then at me, then lights very smoky bbq. I say "are you having a bbq?" He grunts. I say for the second time "would you PLEASE tell me next time so my washing doesn't get ruined?". Another grunt which I take for "not on your nelly, I don't give two hoots for your washing".

4. Caught girl encouraging my 2 year old to let himself out of the garden and go to her house, only as he couldn't actually open the gate and was trying to climb over it. I said he was far too young and could she please not encourage him to leave the garden, to which I got loads of arguments. 

5. Now it's nice, the kids are out in the garden lots. Catch the girl telling my 2 year old he is a liar and encouraging him to repeat it. I ask her not to use words like that. Now I have to monitor the kids in the garden constantly, she is always saying things to them that aren't quite appropriate. She is older so my boys are in thrall to whatever she says. 5 year old now has constant attitude too.

6. Ask 5 year old if the girl has shown him her boobs recently. He pauses. "No," he says, much to my (short-lived) relief, "she showed me her bum".

The long and short of all this is that I can't leave the boys in their own garden unsupervised, and she keeps asking the boys over to her house, and I look like the bad guy when I keep saying no. Luckily the neighbour in the middle of all this REALLY hates them and is having 6 ft fences put up on their side this week so at least they won't be able to see her anymore!

You are allowed one phone call...

The school rang me up today to tell that me that Littl'un had bumped heads with someone else at lunchtime, though he was fine, no need for me to go in etc etc. I was sorely tempted to say "well, the last 5 times he bumped his head or came out with a random bruise on his cheek, nobody felt the need to ring me or even tell me about it". I wonder if they have some system, after you've had 5 accidents in 1 term you are allowed a phone call. A bit like criminals and lawyers...

Can you be too obsessive?!

So finally I managed to get a publishing house to let me do some proofreading for them. Not paid yet, it's a test to see if I'm any good. So I spent hours trawling through the proofs, it was supposed to be a straight reprint of the hardback so they weren't expecting many errors. I found quite a few, that had also made it through to the hardback. I am so obsessive it scares me sometimes. So they'll either hire me on the spot or say I'm too picky and would cost too much with all the errors I pick up! I just hope the person who proofread the hardback isn't the one who sent me the test or they'll really hate me! I am so made for this job. Fingers crossed!

Perfect boy

Litt'un #2 had his 2 year old check up today. It went very smoothly, apparently his height and weight are "perfect", his development is fine, no problems. This worries me more than the time they said he was deaf. They must be missing something...

Don't wanna go to school today...

It's all going down at school this week. Since a new head started back in September, the unrest has been growing steadily. A total new system of learning was implemented overnight, everything was changed, teachers started leaving, parents started complaining. Then the head was removed overnight, and escorted off the premises. Nobody knows why or what happened. It is so frustrating! We had to put up with all the upheaval and upset kids and teachers being off sick as they didn't want to come into work. Trying to guess what happened is hilarious though, we've gone from pagan rituals in the staffroom to sleeping with someone inappropriate. It's probably a lot less interesting. If we ever find out!

I like to move it move it

I think both my kids have OCD. The amount of times we have watched Madagascar since Christmas is ridiculous. And they show no signs of moving on to anything else. I know it word for word. And at zumba she has a new routine to "I like to move it move it" which is just taking the piss.

Pity party for one

So recently me and Mr Babs brought up the subject of having another kid. Yes we are crazy to even consider it. 2 is ok, 3 is a lot of arguments waiting to happen. And while the thought of having another little baby is tempting (until they start talking they are generally lovely) I realised that I was actually quite looking forward to getting back to work. Being a stay-at-home mum is fine, it is lovely to spend time with your kids growing up. But I've done it for 5 years now and it's getting a bit stale. I don't talk to anyone apart from other mums who only talk about their kids. Or shout at my own kids. That is it. I don't even talk to Mr Babs anymore as I have little to talk about. And we are super broke.

But then wondering what work I could go back to is also hard work. Ideally I need a part-time, term-time only job, but library jobs are SO not like that! And I miss libraries. What DO people do with their kids in the summer holidays!? I have no idea. My mum stayed at home until we were in secondary school so I have nothing to compare with. Working in a school would be the ideal option but I don't want to be a teacher or a dinner lady. I could do shifts in a supermarket but then I feel like I've wasted all my education and library qualifications.

So what does an out of work librarian with 2 kids do?!?! Having another kid seems the easiest option at this point!

School

Our school is in trouble. On special measures for probably 2 years now, but now we have a new head and everything is looking up finally. But this improvement brings lots of paperwork, questionnaires, letters galore, ofsted reports etc. Yesterday Littl'un brought home a questionnaire about what we think of the school. The questions go something like this:

"My child is taught well at this school"
"My child's lessons are not disrupted by bad behaviour"
"My child is making good progress at this school".

Now how am I supposed to answer those without having a spy camera in Littl'un's bag?! It's hard enough to get out of Littl'un what he did in a day (mainly "nothing") without asking if he feels he is being taught well! He is 4. The most I know is that in his reading book at home I have to write detailed comments about how he is doing when we read every night. The teacher puts a sticker in his book when they read at school. No comments about progress or anything.

But I have to return the form to his teacher so I can't put anything too damning in case they take it out on him! And I doubt if I wrote a 1000 word essay on what I thought needed improving they would do anything about it.

Click and collect

Littl'un turns 5 next weekend (how did THAT happen?!?!) and I ordered his present from a well known supermarket. I decided to do that new click and collect service they offer, to make sure I didn't waste a trip to the shop only to find it wasn't in stock. The premise of this is that you pay online, and they contact you when it's ready to collect. I've done it a few times with other shops and it's been really easy. This time I realised I hadn't been contacted in well over a week, so I rang them up to check. "Oh yeah," the lady told me cheerily, "when it arrives in store they usually don't bother to scan the packages so the emails don't get sent". And this is normal?! Oh and it gets better. I asked how long they keep them in store before returning them, as if you don't know it's there you aren't going to go and collect it are you? Other stores have a 7 day policy before they refund you and return the goods. Not this one. "Oh, one time someone's stuff was in the store for over a month before we realised!" giggled the lady on the phone. And this is funny?!?! Honestly.

Happy New Year!

Ah New Year's Eve. What am I doing I hear you cry? Well shortly I will be getting the kids to bed, then ordering a takeaway and opening a bottle of fizz in honour of the occasion! And I am really looking forward to it. Hell, I might even go to bed before midnight :)

Happy New Year to you all! I hope you are having a much more rock and roll New Year's Eve than me. One year I might even make it out of the house to an establishment that plays music and dance the night away! You never know what's around the corner!

Happy Birthday!

Littl'un #2 turns 2 today, I have no idea where the time has gone. He celebrated with a packet of Magic Stars! We had the family over at the weekend for his birthday so today seems a bit flat - but I'm sure he doesn't know! He got so many presents I have no room for them, and we still have Christmas to get through. I might have to rewrap them again :)

And talking of the weekend, tell me this. If you were invited over for a child's birthday, and to stay the night, would you come and not even bring a card?! One of my relatives did, didn't even say Happy Birthday. Hell, they could have drawn a card if they didn't want to buy one. It's made me really angry but obviously I can't say anything as in our family we are all so polite to each other it hurts, then the minute we say goodbye we start ripping into each other! I might write a sitcom about it, you couldn't make half of what we have to go through up!

Jingle Bells

I just went to see Littl'un at his christmas singalong at school. He was so good bless him! He's spent the whole of the last week insisting he didn't know any of the songs, yet he was right up there at the front singing his heart out! Most of the other kids were looking at their feet shuffling and half-heartedly singing, not my one! He'll be on the X Factor this time next year! I don't know where he gets it from, I refuse to sing in front of his dad due to some random paranoia that he'd leave me if I was a terrible singer, so the stage presence must be from his dad!

Chocolate santa

In a fit of helpfulness I wrapped 40 selection boxes for the school PTA last weekend. I am very sad and love wrapping and I enjoyed it! It's for the Santa's grotto at the school fair. Littl'un wants to go to the fair and I said "yeah but we don't need to go and see Santa do we?" as they want £1.50 per kid! "Oh yes we do," said Littl'un, "I want my chocolate". The boy ain't silly!

Sparkly!

A new phenomenon has appeared in Celebrity World. Crystal white sparkling straight as you like teeth. It is quite disconcerting. It totally takes your attention away from whatever they are trying to sell you as all you can do is gaze at the lovely sparkly things. Cee Lo Green was the latest I noticed, he started singing and that was it. Never heard a note. But his teeth are lovely. I think it's going over the top now, it totally takes any personality away, what's wrong with slightly off white a bit wonky teeth I ask you? And they are SOOO perfect,  it's like the very expensive celebrity dentist actually got a spirit level in there while he was at it. As soon as any wannabe makes it (ie they have enough dosh to sort them out or the management insist on it) it's out with the normal teeth and in with the SPARKLY teeth. How long till they start sticking things on them again? Diamantes or teeth tattoos? You watch, they'll be advertising their latest single/book/film on their gnashers before long so all they actually have to do is open their mouths...

Ruining the joys of childhood

Littlewoods has a lot to answer for. As does Littl'un's teacher. Firstly, Littlewoods. Someone who is probably being paid an extortionate amount of money for making ads thought that re-enacting a school play where the premise is "mum buys all the Christmas presents" was a great idea. And to show it at all times of the day would be a marvellous idea. Is there no respect for anything anymore? Small children deserve to believe in Father Christmas without the massive corporations treading all over the magic to make a bit more money. It is really shocking to me, is nothing sacred anymore?

But apparently it's not just the big money making firms who like to spoil the dreams of the young. Littl'un told me his teacher told them Father Christmas wasn't real. He is 4. Luckily he believed me when I told him his teacher was basically a big fat liar.

Oh the irony...

The other day I noticed an NHS van being driven erratically down the road. This was what drew my attention. Plastered all over the side was "Smoking Kills" and other scary messages. The driver was driving erratically as he was trying to light a fag.

Gatecrashing and fireworks

Bonfire night round our way is taken very seriously. Friday night the local scouts at the bottom of our garden had their "do" which was very noisy and at one point I thought they were blowing up gas canisters from the noise of the explosions, the windows were even shaking! Then when they finished a pub up the road started off which were even bigger, if possible. Saturday night carried on much the same, fireworks everywhere you looked, which is good if you don't want to pay to go to a display! Littl'un #1 seems to have got over his fear, the past 3 years he has screamed every time a rocket went off. Littl'un #2 seems to be made of stronger stuff, he didn't even flinch. And we got to gatecrash the neighbours' fireworks party as he saw us standing at the back door and invited us over. This included a big vodka and 2 very tired little boys by the end of it, so it was marvellous! And the next day we got to play "how many bits of firework are in our garden" which is quite entertaining, though the wind must have been going the other way this year, last year they were all by the back door and some had even gone over the house! This is no mean feat as our garden is 100ft, those scouts sure know how to throw a mean firework display!

Car journeys with kids

One of the most challenging things you can do as a parent is go on a long car journey with your children. By the end of it they are extremely fractious, grizzled, hungry, thirsty, and there is a good chance one of them will have wet themselves. You will be lucky to have retained your sanity.

On our last trip to visit the olds, it was about 5 hours each way. This involved the following incidents.

1) An hour into the trip Littl'un #1 pipes up with the usual "I need a wee!!!". Queue stop off at next service station for toilet break.

2) Five minutes later down the motorway Littl'un #1 pipes up with "I need a poo!!!" Queue stop off at next service station for yet another toilet break amid furious mutterings of "couldn't you go last time we stopped?" "But I didn't NEED to go then"...

3) Littl'un #2 then clearly feels that he has been left out of the equation for too long and starts whining. Luckily he is still in nappies so that is one problem avoided. (We did consider putting a nappy on his brother after point 2 but there you go). So then we start the great Feeding of Children to Keep Them Quiet part of the journey. Sandwiches, biscuits and crisps are passed to the back of the car and now the car looks like it needs a good hoover. Littl'un #2 is covered in jam and just out of reach, but he can still reach to smear jam all over the interior of the car. Littl'un #1 moans that he didn't want jam and complains mightily for at least 20 minutes.

4) Kids are sated for a little while. Mum decides to put some music on to keep them happy. Littl'un #1 has developed a taste for Meatloaf and after listening to "I would do anything for love but I won't do that" five times in a row, mum is ready to bail and hitch a lift for the rest of the journey. What started off as cute, Littl'un #1 singing along to Meatloaf, is now very annoying and when we try and put something else on he complains loudly that it is rubbish and "can we put Meatloaf on" over and over and over and over...

5) Finally we get to our destination. Kids get out of the car, and immediately say "can we go home now?". We have yet to face the journey home, and are considering ways to drug the kids to sleep on the return journey. 

Clocks

The clocks went back an hour today. In his wisdom Littl'un #2 decided to wake up at 6.15 yesterday's time which is very early for him. This means we have been awake since 5.15. I am refusing to change the clock's yet in a futile attempt to pretend it is still yesterday. Whoever invented the time change was a sadist or didn't have kids.

Strictly

So who WAS that bloke who got voted off Strictly at the weekend? I literally have no idea. Is he like that Andrew Castle who was famous for tennis or something then just famous for being annoying?

Spiderman

We went to the tip over the weekend to get rid of all the bags of garden waste I normally leave in my shed for about 6 months. The boys were in the back seats, the rubbish in the boot. Ten minutes into the trip the youngest started moaning. Me and Mr Babs ignored him for a while, it's quite common, but then when it got louder Mr Babs turned round to look at him. In that short period of time a cunning spider had come out of the boot and spun a web all over his face!! Ha ha. It was funny! Littl'un was not impressed. If we'd left him any longer he'd have probably been woven into a cocoon!

School stress

Littl'un is in Reception now full time. He's only done 2 full weeks and I am so stressed about it! Firstly I have no idea what they do all day, the odd crumbs he mentions when he gets home may or may not be true, for example, "we went to the park and climbed a tree and got stuck and had to get the firemen out". Oh righty. Then he has been on the "time out" spot at least 3 times, well these are the ones he has told me about. He said it was for fighting. There is another boy in his class who is a little shit, to put it politely. So I asked the teacher who claimed to know nothing as she "wasn't there" but it was "probably something to do with not doing what he was told". Gee thanks, if the teacher has no idea what is going on, who does?!

And this is Reception! Wait till he's in secondary school! I really want to get involved and make sure the boy behaves and doesn't start getting in bad habits, but the teachers' don't really seem to care. The only thing that made me feel better is that apparently most of the kids ended up on time out. I think they are just really harsh with their punishment. "You didn't put your chair in correctly, time out for you!" - maybe it gives the teachers a rest if 27 kids are all sat on the time out spot!

Strictly bye bye

Ha I was right! Edwina was the first to go, poor Vincent, I think he knew that when they got put together. I am still on Team Jason, he is so cool! Can I start a petition for next year? I want Dermot O'Leary and Greg off Masterchef please? And Philip Glenister, ooh, imagine him doing a foxtrot!

Strictly Come Dancing

But I am loving Strictly! They managed to make Holly Valance look quite ordinary and a bit chubby, and Jason Donovan rocked! Yeah for men who are "getting on a bit"! But that Edwina has to go, politicians and dancing really don't mix, especially when in your head you've got her getting it on with John Major every time you see her. It's putting me off my wine!

X factor again

Against my better judgment I've been watching the latest X Factor. It's more interesting now with different judges, though Gary Barlow obviously has the Simon Cowell hat on. But what's bugging me is all the messing around they are doing with the groups. The judges keep taking one person out of one group and then putting them in another, and most of the groups that actually auditioned as groups are sent home. Why bother auditioning as a group? You might as well audition individually and then if you don't get through on your own merits they may well call  you back and put you in a group with 4 other strangers and then flog you to the media. Doesn't matter that you don't know each other or even like each other. Well if it worked for the Spice Girls...

A 4 year old expert blackmailer

So Littl'un has been trying to get me to play Monopoly with him for ages. I keep saying "no", mostly as when he asks I am making tea or something, but I do feel bad! Anyway, yesterday I had just sat down after hours of gardening, ready to just sit and do nothing with a cuppa. He asked again, and automatically I said "no". "Right," he says all dramatically, "if you don't play with me I am NOT your boy anymore and I am going to go and live somewhere else".

Well, if you put it like that I suppose I'd better play!

Men and money

You know when you have a certain amount to spend every week and it is all accounted for? Mostly on food and a ridiculous percentage of it on beer. So you get the beer, and then the other half drinks it in 2 days and then goes out and buys some more. And has also developed a nicotine habit that is getting worse and more expensive! How can I be expected to keep to the budget?! But why do I feel guilty when we don't?!

And the depressing thing is, he would happily have us all live on frozen sausages every night as long as he has beer and fags in.

Doing two things at once...

It seems the new trend is that you can't just do one thing at one time anymore, like watch tv or go to a party. You have to sit watching tv while posting pithy tweets at the same time, the amount of times I've gone onto Twitter and it's all about last night's Dragon's Den or Strictly. I feel left out, at the time I had a brilliantly sarcastic one liner I could have shared, but my computer doesn't load up quick enough! (It is 7 years old people, practically prehistoric) And now there is a program (the Million Pound Drop) that actively tells you to log on and play along and you might get selected to be on the show next week and win shedloads of cash. And what is developing? A nation of people watching tv while on their laptops or fancy phones and not really relaxing as they never switch off. What happened to relaxing with your feet up and a cuppa?! The most advanced technological thing I ever did was a textathon when the Eurovision was on, Mr Babs doesn't get the comments about crazy hair and weird European lyrics!

Technology is great but it is stopping people interacting in real life. Next door had a barbecue last night (get them, October 1st and all!) and I watched them over the fence sitting round drinking and all on their phones texting other people or on the internet. It was quite sad really. If me and Mr Babs ever entertain I will have a dish to put phones in, a bit like the old car key trick :)

And if you ever don't want to know the results of a program or anything important, you can NOT go on the Internet. I used to have to avoid the news channels if I hadn't seen the last episode of Masterchef or something and didn't want to know who won until I saw it. Now I'd have to avoid Twitter, probably Facebook, and the news, and email just for safety.

Maybe I'll go and live in a cave with a tin foil hat on, it's probably safer...

Breakdown cover if you want it or not

My breakdown cover for the car ran out at the beginning of the month. The AA now cannily renew it automatically, which to be honest I had forgotten about, but I got a letter telling me that as I had a new bank card this year they hadn't got my details and I would have to ring up if I wanted to renew. I was very glad about this as they doubled the price since last year, and I didn't want to pay it. Imagine my surprise when I checked the bank last week and they'd taken the money anyway! You know when you are so angry you can't speak or breathe? We didn't have the money to spend on stupid things like super expensive breakdown cover, we needed it for food. So when I could speak I rang them up. Luckily the man I got put through to in the end agreed to refund the money, but it would take up to 21 days to get it back. Then he generously said "oh and we won't charge you the £20 admin fee for cancelling". !!!!!!!

I am still really angry! Luckily it didn't take the whole 21 days to get the money back. And the other thing was that he asked at the end of the conversation if I had any breakdown cover. I said no, I was going to the RAC as they do the same thing for £28 (not £54 as the AA quoted). "Oh, we can match that!" he blithely announced, which begs the question why quote me £54?! They are banking on people not checking and just letting the renewal go through, and it's ridiculous! You can't opt out of the automatic renewal either so you have to be on top of your game in 12 months or you're in for it. I wasn't, and luckily for me they cocked up at their end.

And the cover they would have given me wasn't coming to my house if the car wouldn't start, or towing me home, it was literally coming to the car if we break down somewhere and then towing us to a garage. I only go to the shops once a week, and I think my brother-in-law would tow me home for free. Sod you breakdown cover, I'm going solo!

Books

You know when you are reading a book and you just can't get into it? Is it worth struggling on or should you just stop? I got John Irving's Last Night in Twisted River out of the library weeks ago. I have read all of his other books, and I was looking forward to it. I'm only a third of the way in and I am trying to decide if I should carry on. It's really hard work, all the characters have really complicated surnames that you can't just read, you have to actively spell them out in your head, and it is hard going. Maybe it's my baby brain that has stopped me from being able to concentrate properly but I feel I'm not giving the book the attention it deserves. Maybe I'll get a Jackie Collins instead and try this again in a couple of years...sorry John!

The state of things

I was reading the paper yesterday and got to the end and realised I was thoroughly depressed. All it had in it was bad news. Train fares going up again to pay for the bloody olympics, bills going up, the price of food going up, houses getting smaller, random murders, dead babies, parents bullied into buying expensive brand names to keep their kids happy, school standards dropping. Jeez. England is going to the dogs. The only reason I can think of right now to stay and not elope to Spain or somewhere is the NHS and free prescriptions for Mr Babs. I know we would have a better quality of life living anywhere else, living in London is becoming a luxury at the moment. And not a nice luxury really with all the crime and pollution and noise and people and cars everywhere. Maybe we could move abroad but close enough to come back for doctor's appointments?

Books and films

So after years of umming and ahhing I finally watched the Time Traveler's Wife on dvd. I loved the book, I remember bawling outside Tescos when I finished it. I was actually looking forward to the film after reading a few reviews about it online. But no. It was terrible. I'll have to read the book again so I forget the film. It totally took the heart out of the book and I have no idea how, but it lost the love between the two main characters. In the book you can understand why the woman waits so long for the Time Traveler to reappear throughout her life, it is totally believable as they are so much in love. In the film. he was angry all the time, I couldn't understand what she saw in him really, and she seemed like she didn't care either way if he was there or not. Even when he died I didn't sob buckets like I thought I would.

Mr Babs who was forced to sit through it too was not amused. Lesson learnt, no more movies of books for me!

Stupid ideas I have had

I had the most stupid idea the other month. I blithely announced to my dad that I would take the boys up to visit him before school starts. On paper that sounds great, we can have a few days oop north, see the olds, and Mr Babs doesn't even have to come. But on a recent trip to visit some friends this was shown to be a completely head in the clouds idea. The trip was only an hour and a half, and it was a nightmare. The boys constantly asking for things, having to pass food and toys over my shoulder while driving, having to turn round to stop Littl'un #2 wriggling out of his seat, it probably was quite dangerous. We had to stop 3 times for a toilet trip. The trip to dad's is at least 5 hours. Each way. And that is without stopping.

Much as I would love to do it, I think it is going to be too dangerous. Until Littl'un #2 is bigger and can actually ask for what he wants without screaming at me in gibberish I think Mr Babs is going to have to come too.

Unless we sedate the kids...

Anyone have any sleeping pills?

Monkeys

Mr Babs wants to watch the new Planet of the Apes film. I can't think of anything more scary than a film full of angry monkeys! Don't get me wrong, I love monkeys, I used to collect toy monkeys when I was little, and forced my whole family to visit a monkey sanctuary. But nice cute ones that eat nuts out of your hand are a bit different to full size apes chasing you round a shopping mall. Does someone else want to go with him? Please?!

Ring shopping

So we went back to the pushy salesperson shop yesterday to have another look at the rings. Went for one, came out with two! Result!! The pushy lady actually did us quite a good deal, couldn't decide between the two rings, one was much cheaper than the other so she said she'd resize them for free if we got the two, which worked out cheaper than just buying one and paying to resize it. Well, not so much for Mr Babs. But I have two lovely new rings now, I'll have to wear them on alternate days!

Pushy salespeople

It's my, ahem, 21st birthday next week. I decided I want a new ring, we have been watching a lot of Gems TV recently and I like the pretty stones. So I went to our local jewellers where I got a lovely moonstone pendant last year and looked at the rings. I forgot about the odd lady who works there. She did exactly the same thing she did last year. While I was trying on rings, she got one out that was "perfect" for me, and while it was nice, I wasn't that excited about it. But her tone of voice was like "you have to get this one, there is no option". I felt pressured, every other ring I tried on after that caused her to frown and even walk away at one point in disgust! So I made my excuses and legged it. It's like she thought she knew the perfect piece of jewellery for every customer, and she really didn't. To give her credit, it wasn't the most expensive piece they had, so she wasn't doing it for the money, but her sales technique needed a lot of work bless her! I might go back with Mr Babs as back up and get the one I actually liked, even if she tuts at me!

When does summer get here?

I realised the other day that I was mentally making a list of things to do when summer gets here. This includes weeding the garden (again), sorting out the shed, washing the sofa covers so I can get them dry the same day, painting the outside tiles. Then it hit me. It is September next week. I think I missed summer somewhere. I just hope that we get an indian summer in September then we can pretend we had one after all...

You know you are a bad mother...

...when your child thinks the local charity shop is a toy shop.

Tattoos, landfills and falling trees

This week Littl'un #1 has discovered an interest in EVERYTHING. This has resulted in very complicated conversations, you know, the ones you wish you had never started...

Mr Babs has a few tattoos and Littl'un #1 is fascinated by them. He had a fake tattoo and when it washed off he wanted to know why his dad's hadn't. Took a little bit of explaining. Then we asked him what he would have if he was allowed to have a tattoo. "A dinosaur. On my bottom." was his carefully thought out response.

Then when we were changing his brother's nappy he wanted to know what happened to the dirty nappies. I always try to answer him honestly as far as I can. I explained about rubbish bins and landfills and recycling. "And does the poo get recycled?" he wanted to know...

Yesterday the neighbours had some tree people in cutting down their trees. Littl'un wanted to know why they hadn't cut the trees down themselves, after watching me and Mr Babs attacking our trees with a rusty saw and a pair of secateurs last autumn. I thought this would be an answer in itself, but no. So I tried to explain about bigger trees and the danger of them falling over and squashing houses and possibly people. I think I explain a bit much sometimes. So Littl'un then looks at some massive trees at the end of our garden and asks about them falling over. They wouldn't reach the house, I assure him, so we'd be ok. "But they will fall and skid, and come through the window and then through the car" he told me with a look of morbid fascination on his face.

Next time I am going to tell him to google it...

Failed zumba party

Tonight I was supposed to be going to a zumba party. 2 hours of zumba with disco lights. Woo hoo. I was quite looking forward to it. All that had to happen was for Mr Babs to get home before 8 and the boys to go to sleep before 8 too. None of this happened. Any other day of the week, the magic ingredients of no nap in the day, a big dinner, a nice bath, and a bottle of milk would send Littl'un #2 off to sleep in no time. Not tonight, oh no. He was still jumping round the living room half an hour after his bottle. And Littl'un #1 knew that I wanted to go out, so he whined and cried, and basically got his own way as I had to stay in. And Mr Babs rolled home at 8.30 drunk as a skunk, he'd come home via the shops and his brother-in-laws house. This was not in the plan.

So my life as we know it continues. It is all about the boys and poor mum doesn't really get to do anything she wants. And to top it off, I had chinese and wine instead of zumba and now feel really bloated and guilty. But man are those boys going to suffer tomorrow...

Mayflies

For the past few nights my kitchen has been invaded with a mystery flying bug. They sit on the walls and don't move, and look really odd. I ended up taking a picture and submitting it to the Natural History Museum website where there is a forum for bug identification. 5 minutes later an expert on bugs told me they were mayflies, usually found around ponds. That is the best service ever, and who knew there was a bug forum?! I might go out in the garden and find other bugs to submit. But I don't know where they are coming from, we don't have a pond. Now I'm worried we have a subterranean pond under the house and the kitchen is going to fall into it. I shouldn't watch that "Help my house is falling down", it doesn't half make you paranoid!

Bread and fishes

We took the boys to the seaside today, we went to a little fishing village I read about that sounded lovely. It was quaint but a bit strange. I was a bit worried that there wasn't any sand, as son #1 equates "seaside" with "sand" - it all looked a bit stony to me when we first got there, but we asked a local who assured us there was a sandy beach just down the hill. When we found it, it was indeed sandy, And for a Monday lunchtime, extremely busy. It looked like Majorca on the tv when there isn't a patch of sand left for people. But there was also a lot of bread which was very strange. Bread rolls everywhere. And the occasional custard doughnut. You would have assumed for the amount of bread lying around abandoned that there would be seagulls everywhere, divebombing people close to the treasure. But there weren't any to be seen. And all the people were sitting nonchalantly on the sand eating sandwiches, seemingly oblivious to the bread rolls. I really wanted to shout "don't you see them?!" but I didn't. It was like they had all just had a massive bread fight and the minute we rounded the corner gone, "quick, strangers!" and all sat down like they had been there all along.

Riots and rumours

Crikey it has been an odd week here in London. Scary too. Where I live luckily there wasn't really any trouble, a couple of shop windows got smashed but that's not really unusual at the weekends round here! But watching shops burn down in Croydon, minutes from where I used to live, was awful. On Monday night rumours started online that trouble was planned in our town, and then one of our neighbours knocked on doors saying that gangs were roaming round the shops and a shop had already been looted in the next town along. In real time it was terrifying. The only thing we could do was stay in, watch the news, and try and find out what was going on online. Twitter was obviously the main source, but in hindsight it was impossible to tell at the time what was true and what was rumours, and what was just made up. There were reports of Primark being on fire, shops five minutes up the road being looted, lots of things being on fire. The only thing that made me question it was the lack of sirens, and it not being on the news.

The next day it turned out that nothing serious happened, a few idiots breaking a shop window and nicking a bin. It could have been much worse. Then Tuesday afternoon more rumours started. As we had "got away with it" on Monday night, more trouble was planned for Tuesday. We were so worried we didn't go to zumba, the next day I felt really stupid for believing it all. But it is hard to know what to do for the best, go out and get caught in a riot leaving your young kids at home? I think we made the right decision at the time.

But although all this real time communication we have nowadays is brilliant in some ways, in others it makes things worse. Stoking rumours, nobody knowing what to believe, the way the rumours caught on was unbelievable. And once lots of people start reporting the same thing it makes it much more believable. But I think I've learnt a lesson about not always believing what you read, when I was at library school it was one of the basic lessons we learned - check your sources!

Dress disasters

After years of wearing jeans and erm, jeans, I finally bought a dress. It is very pretty and I like it a lot. The first time we go out to a birthday party, I walk through the door and my friend is wearing the same dress. Crap. This comes of only shopping in supermarkets, soon everyone will be dressed exactly the same and there will be no other shops in the world...

And I will still be wearing jeans.

Bubbles

We discovered today that bubble mixture makes marvellous conditioner. This was after son #1 decided to pour his bubble mixture all over his brother's head. Once he had stopped screaming from the soap in his eyes, and his hair was sud free and dry, it was super soft and lovely! I might try that next time I wash my hair. Can I patent it do you think?

Really big inappropriateness...

And you know, I forgot the MOST inappropriate thing my Inappropriate Relative did recently. We had a family funeral and were just about to leave the house to go to it. In a room full of male relatives, a few women ones, and her 18 year old daughter, she came out with "does anyone else need a sanitary pad, I just gave one to Poppy". Not only mortifying all the men in the room, and grossing out the women, but her poor poor daughter! What an age to be paraded round the room for having your period. She might as well as put a big red cross on her top. But then every time we see her she has to mention periods. I tell Mr Babs that it is her way of telling him that she is still fertile if he feels like impregnating her. He isn't amused...

Chilli peppers in awkward places...

We had the Inappropriate Relative down again. This time I thought we had got away without any offensive conversation. I did as I was putting the boy to bed. Hubby didn't. As he told me afterwards, with a look of horror in his eyes...

Chatting about cooking with chillies, Inappropriate Relative came up with this little gem. "Be careful when cooking with chillies, if you touch your eyes it hurts. It's even worse if you touch yourself DOWN THERE."

I cannot imagine what Mr Babs face looked like at this!! The poor man will have nightmares for weeks.

Olympics

Does anyone want to rent my house out for an exorbitent fee while the Olympics are on? Only a 15 minute train journey to the games.

I am so sick of it already I'm moving to Timbuktoo for the duration.

Music for boys

So recently Littl'un has developed an interest in music, displayed by random dancing to adverts and humming when the radio is on in the car. His favourites so far are:

Foo Fighters - Walk (he calls this the Wee Wee Song as on the video someone wets their pants)
Neon Trees - Animal
Automatic - Monster
Killers - All the things I've done

It's hard to know what to play for him, this is basically my taste. Someone up the school said to buy him one of those awful Now compilations (must be up to 603 by now?!) but I don't know if I can stand years of listening to Beyonce or Justin Bieber. Oh he likes the Darkness too, but he knows that from the womb!

It is so sweet when he's sitting in the car and suddenly starts singing along and actually knows the words! Remind me of this when there is godawful music coming from his bedroom and I'm moaning about the guitar being played badly :)

Zumba!!!

At zumba last night we had some new people. Waiting outside in line were two middle aged couples, who clearly didn't know what they were getting into. Most people are in sweat pants and vests (though one girl was in a most ill advised bikini top and wrap around skirt - with THOSE thighs?!), and it's mostly girls. One of the men was in jeans, a clean white shirt and smart white trainers. The other man had made more of an effort in jogging pants and a t-shirt. The women had sandals on, which aren't great for leaping around. Anyway, they followed us in and stood at the back. The man in the shirt legged it half way through the first song! The others made a game attempt and did last the hour, and one of the women told me afterwards that they'd dragged their husbands along in an attempt to "do something together". I thought you took up line dancing or salsa lessons if you are trying to spice up your marriage, not sweaty jumpy zumba! The poor bloke, I suspect he will be having zumba dreams for quite a while to come :)

Nature corridor

Apparently the roundabout at the bottom of our road, which is in the midst of an extremely busy 5 way intersection, is now classified as a "nature corridor" into town. This is because they have planted some pansies on it. Hilarious!

Money money money

[Sorry this is probably an angry ranty post, ignore if you like!]

I am SO sick of not having any money. Every month the prices of food, bills, running a car etc etc go up and up and the money hubby brings in doesn't change every month. It is getting ridiculous. I am so sick of never being able to treat the boys, we had to think long and hard about taking Littl'un to the cinema which he really wants to do as he's never been before. It only costs £1.25 on a Saturday morning! And yes, I know it's all self-inflicted. I gave up work to have kids, if I was working full time we'd be fine. But I'm not. And if I was, all our money would go on childcare. Thinking long term, it's only for a few years, in 3 years Littl'un #2 will be in full-time school and I can go back to work. But then I've got to try and get a term-time only, school hours job and there aren't many of them around. I can't go back to being a librarian easily, unless I find a school librarian job.

I have no idea how my parents coped, and my mum isn't around to ask. When we were kids we went on holidays to Cornwall for 2 weeks every year, and got ice creams when we wanted, and I don't remember ever being turned down when I asked for something. Maybe my dad had a side job as a hitman or something! Or maybe they budgeted better than I seem to be able to. We barely get to the end of the month before running out of money. And that's just buying food. And beer for hubby but he can't give everything up! We never go out anymore and the likelihood of a holiday in the next 5 years is very remote.

It's just so miserable. I don't want my boys' main memory of being young being asking for things and being told "we don't have enough money" constantly. Most of our money goes on the mortgage and then bills which are going up constantly, soon I'm going to throw the gas cooker out and cook on a bonfire outside. And we are keeping the car going at the moment but that might have to go too, and then we'd never have the cash to buy another one. Crap. Maybe I should start a job as an online psychic or something. Something I can do from home. What is the most money in? 

Sorry for moaning. I feel much better now. I'm going to go and spend 50p on some sweets for the kid!

Single mums

Back in the park again over the weekend I had the pleasure of overhearing these conversations. To set the scene, there were 2 girls, probably about 17 or 18 at a guess. One, let's call her Tracey, had 2 kids, one new baby about 3 months wedged into a swing in full view of the sun, another older kid asleep in a buggy. Her mate, let's say Britney, had a toddler, who for most of the time was running around being totally ignored by her mother.

Tracey, when first encountered is on the phone: "Alright babes, how's it goin? Yeah? Sweet. Listen, it's a luvverly day 'ere, 'ow about we meet up tomorrow, have a day of it like a real family? No? You're real busy? Alright, no worries....erm....do you fink you will want to stay over tonight? ...No? No worries, see ya".

Then Britney comes over. Tracey says to her: "ow's about we meet up again tomorrow? Be nice for the kids, 'eh?". Britney pauses and says, "Oh I dunno. I've never spent a whole day wiv me boyfriend before and he says he can see me tomorrow." 

Poor Tracey looks crestfallen. Those poor kids have no chance. No chance at all. And I really wanted to turn round to them and say "your boyfriends are just using you for sex whenever they want, and you keep getting bloody pregnant, what is wrong with you?!?!". 

Maybe it's me who is wrong? This world is going mad. We went to a different park yesterday and I had to intervene three times with kids who kept pushing in and wouldn't let Littl'un take his turn on things when he was patiently queuing up. And there was no sign of the parents, probably a good thing or I would have got in an argument probably :)

Girls with big knickers

I went to the park after school yesterday with the boys and their mates, they ranged between 1 and 8. We went in the swings which is supposed to be for kids aged under 10 to be greeted with some older school girls. I would hate to try and guess how old they were but with the language and the general attitude I would hazard they were over 10. Anyway, they were on the big swings when we first got there so we ignored them and the boys were playing and having fun. Then next time I looked the girls were sitting on the roundabout legs akimbo flashing their knickers to everyone, and they weren't little girls if you get my meaning, jesus one of them had to be about 14 stones. It wasn't very nice but they obviously thought they were the bees' knees and were giving us all a treat to be allowed to look at their chubby legs! Nice. Then the babies wanted to go on the baby swings only to be confronted with one of the girls wedged into one of them and another sitting on one which was creaking alarmingly. 2 babies with us went in the remaining swings and my littl'un stood looking beseechingly at them to let him have a go - the clue was in the name, "baby swings". I was mentally preparing myself for an argument when fatso prised herself out of the swing (it took a while) and they loped off to lounge about on something else. 

If my boys go to school and there are girls like that there I don't know what I'd do. I might have to home school them. I never swore in front of little kids or stopped them playing. And what is going on when me and the other mums who are all at least 15 years older than the girls worry about saying anything to them?! They probably had knives in their big knickers. Hell they probably had a whole cutlery set, there was room :)

Teacher can see EVERYTHING...

It appears that Littl'un has an unholy fear of his teacher catching him doing anything naughty. He came home from school with a cake that was supposed to be for Mother's Day. When we got home it looked a bit manky so I generously said he could have it. Next time I looked round he was sitting squashed under the window stuffing the cake as fast as he could. When I asked what he was doing he said "I don't want Mrs Smith to see me!" like he really thought she would be looking through the window to check! Apparently at school they planted a seed of terror in the little mites should they attempt to eat the cakes made for their mummies! This fear of Mrs Smith works wonders, anytime he does anything naughty I threaten to phone her or tell her when I see her next and he really doesn't want that! I wish I could wield the power of a teacher, he doesn't listen to me at all!

Gardening and ghosts

Most of the last month has involved fighting the weeds in the garden (again). It took 3 weeks but it looks lovely now. The highlight was when I was bent over weeding and heard a loud noise and then a pigeon landed on my back! I really can't have been working hard enough if it mistook me for a bird table!

Both the kids have been loving running round the garden (quite often in the buff) but Littl'un #1 has decided to start seeing things in the garden too. The other day I was in the kitchen and he started screaming his head off like he'd broken his leg. I rushed out to be told "there was a ghost all in white walking between the sheds" and he was literally terrified. I thought it might be a random carrier bag blowing in the wind, but there was nothing there. Not that I could see anyway! His imagination has gone wild recently, he's seeing things everywhere. And it seems we have ghosts upstairs and now in the garden. Lovely.

Littl'un #2 loves the garden too. His idea of heaven is to sit in the soil and throw it over his head until he looks like a soil monster. Every day. He eats it too. This may explain why he has gone off his food recently...

Rubbish blogger

Jeez I haven't posted for ages. I am sure something exciting must have happened in my life since the last post. Erm let me think...

Ah yes! The house 2 doors down was busted as a cannabis factory. They gave it away as we were all getting high in the back garden. It was VERY exciting, my neighbour phoned the rozzers who turned up in lots of vans and took the perp away in handcuffs. Now there is nothing going on really, the house is empty and unloved, even from crims.

Life sorting out 2 small boys goes on much as usual except the smaller one is getting bolshier and even though he can't speak he is doing a fine job of pointing and grunting to get what he wants, and attempting to beat his brother up. This is hilarious at the moment but I have a vision of the future and it mainly involves black eyes and fisticuffs. And the small one will be the one giving the black eyes.

We all had a super lovely day on the beach with Lady Librarian. It was so hot and the beach was lovely and we had a beach hut and everything. That may have been our holiday for the year sadly, but it was so worth it!

After 6 years we repainted the kitchen and realised just how grimy 6 years of pretty poor cleaning can make a place look. It looks lovely now and I am determined to degrime the kitchen at least once a year, not every 6!

I entered a kids' story competition which is now being judged and I veer between extreme confidence and extreme pessimism. If we win we are so going on holiday. And I may even buy new shoes! Whoo!

We met a horse who had a thing about baby buggies. The cars shooting past him were fine, the buggy was a problem. I dread to think what caused this phobia!

Bloody hell I can't remember what the hell we have been doing. The drugs bust is the news of the year so far! Oh that, and the possibility that a house down the road is also a bordello. Life in Essex is never dull...