Is it any wonder ?

In a country where the headline 'Omaha Mall Massacre Leaves Nine Dead' receives equal top billing with a story about whether Scarlet Celebrity Somebody has had a nose job or not ... is it any wonder that the world finds it difficult to take America seriously?

Oxymorons

The words 'men' and 'Christmas shopping' don't belong in the same sentence let alone the same universe. It was therefore with trepidation that I awoke this morning to remember that the annual ( or seeminly pent-annual or whatever means once every five years) Christmas shopping with the husband event loomed ahead of me.
As it happened we didn't brave Oxford Street or even the local shopping centre. Instead we set the Sat Nav to Reading and traipsed down the M4 to Costco. No Tiffany baubles for me this year then but at least I can be grateful that this year's stocking won't be bulging with the tell-tale shapes of a teapot , a bread-bin or a pair of salad servers ( there's a theme emerging here ). After cruising around the male heaven TV aisles , a quick diversion through the tools and heavy industrial machinery section, finishing with a slow peruse around the beer and booze emporium, we finally made it to the till. I left him to pay unable to face the 'How Much ???' look of astonishment on his face. Two hot dogs later ( in lieu of a more expensive lunch) which cost the princely sum of £3 and we were back on the motorway heading for home. I could tell he was feeling as pleased as punch having executed his duty within a record 3 hours . Next stop Argos on the way home where I'd reserved a couple of video games for the boys for Christmas. He threatened to wait in the car until he realised that he would come in for some major stick here if he didn't enter into the Christmas Shopping spirit and actually get out of the car. I suppose we could call the day a sort of success and he's off the hook for another 5 years.

Parallel Universe

This morning I found myself in the company of women who compared notes on not whether but when they would be skiing, how their daughters HAD to have Ugg Boots ( not much change out of £200) , how 3 bathrooms in a house was the bare minimum and what canapes they'd be serving at Christmas. There was much guffawing about what they used to get up to in the dorms at their respective boarding schools and how they'd been stalking high street shops to nab this year's Must-Have Christmas gift - a Nintendo Wii.
I felt as if I'd been transported to some kind of parallel universe. At intervals they would break away to take a call on their mobiles, barking instructions at the caller with a kind of nasal indignation. I dared to mention the fake Ugg lookalikes that BHS are selling - a snip at £7 at which point someone asked what BHS was . It clearly didn't feature on their radar. It's where people like me shop I dared to answer.

The colour grey

I love the colour grey in all it's hues and shades , I'm even wearing it today but then so is the sky and it doesn't suit it so well. Something happens when the sky clouds over that has an immediate effect on my mood . No matter how many lamps I turn on to counteract the gloom , nothing seems to be able to brighten my mood. No amount of Scissor Sisters does the trick either and that's worrying. Talking of the fabulous SS , I caught the tail end of that brother sisiter duo on the X Factor attempting a cover of I don't feel Like Dancing . Some things in life are sacred and that song is one of them. Don't even try to ape the maestros. On the other hand the ridiculous Rhydian was magnificent which I never thought I'd hear myself say . Think it must be the quirky British nature that's enabled him to get this far ... well that and his voice . I'm warming to him.

Scrap Revolution Retreat

Remember that feeling when you were just about to finish a wonderful book that you'd hoped would never end ? A sort of self-induced depression that rendered you helpless and as each page passed the inevitability of the end would finally engulf you and you'd be left mourning it's passing ?
Well I just had the same feeling , but following a 48 hour period of blissful scrapping at a retreat in a gloriously rural part of Hertfordshire. I just didn't want it to end. Friends , fun , a lot of laughs , a lot of chocolate and the best part ... all meals cooked for you and no kids. I never thought I'd hear myself say that .. the bit about no kids but who am I kidding ?

Too many Christmas's ?

Around about this time of year the shops begin to launch their Christmas ranges. Sadly these normally comprise useless 'gifts' that turn up at car boot sales the following year. Multi-tools with 7 types of blade, pig shaped shower radios and grow your own millionaire being tyical examples. Game show tie-in board games, anything pink and miniature garden tool sets feature strongly as do hideous confectionary concoctions the size of a small child. Over the years I 've become wiser and resist these tawdry offerings in favour of something a little more aesthetically pleasing . Pure luxury features hevily in the top priorities although I still can't bring myself to pay over 40 quid for a bottle of Jo Mallone (sp?) bath oil ... see I don't even know how to spell it yet alone justify ithe expense although I do still covet it.
I'll have to buy my own gifts again this year to avoid getting some ghastly sequined red satin bag from husband containing foul smelling cheap nastiness which is all that M&S will have on it's shelves by Christmas Eve, or worse a kitchen gadget ( previous years have included bread bins , salad servers , teapots). This would be funny if it weren't so sad that he doesn't know me so never knows what to get me. I have to buy his mother's gifts too because he doesn't know what she likes either and the childrens too. Although I think he knows them , well on occassions. I'll get the ususal barbed remark about the cost of these. It's all a bit of a charade really. And yet despite the hideous annual ritual of shopping centres becoming no go areas from November onwards , the ever increasing proliferation of variations on Christmas Pudding ( sticky toffee chocolate for goodness sake , what's the matter with traditional plain old fashioned christmas pudding ?) and the turning down of every invitation to some tedious 'Christmas Do' that involves a black dress and a pair of tights ... I still quite like the idea of Christmas. It's just getting harder each year to work up any enthusiasm.

Geo- caching

One of my team-mates on UKS posted me to a link about this latest craze. Hardly daring to check it out , given my adictive nature, I immediately logged on and found that there are nearly 5000 caches or treasure sites within a 50 mile radius of me . Early days , but I think the idea is that you trek off into the great outdoors with a sat nav thingy in your hand and put in the co-ordinates that you've found online . It usually comes with a quiz type clue that you have to decipher to pinpoint the exact location. Once you've found it you open up the container, sign in to say you've visited and take a little reasure token or sime such and replace it with one of your own. It's all I can do to wait for the boys to come home from school before dragging them off to locate it ! I'd never heard of it before this morning but it sounds like great , wholesome, family entertainment that uses technology ( which the boys love) but which doesn't involve them sitiing in front a screen for hours ( which I loathe) ...so everyone's happy ! Thanks Elaine !

Making up for lost time

Never dressed up dolls when I was little . Don't think I ever owned anything pink . Didn't have anything glittery. So it was all the more exciting to be crowned Scrapping Princess at the Swansea Retreat!
My tiara has pride of place in my scrap room. Just making up for lost time.

Irrational Fear

It's what paralyses us . It stops us from acheiving , coping, reaching goals, making progress, overcoming difficulties. Given such a bad press why do we allow it to dominate us ? There's the rub . We have no choice. When it came to handing out bravery I must have been last in the queue. You know when people say , when faced with extreme danger , that somehow they just did what they had to do and didn't consider the consequences ? I worry that I don't have that gene in me. I'll be a blubbering wreck with those jelly legs you get in dreams when you try to run and can't. Fiight or flight ? I'd go for the latter every time.

So what's brought this on ? Fear of the unknown. The worst type. My youngest son sat in the dentists chair today at the Eastman Dental Hospital whilst they told me that sadly he'd lose his front tooth having knocked it out last week in a swimming pool accident. It had been expertly re-inserted by our lovely dentist and given every chance of recovery by being stapled to the adjoining tooth for extra stability . But the gum hasn't healed as it should and the tooth itself has dropped considerably , is still wobbly and worse, the gum has clearly started to recede which they can do nothing about . All this means is that we now have to go through the laborious and possibly painful process of having a plate fitted to his upper jaw with a false tooth attached as he's too young to have an implant yet.

And why does this worry so much ? It's not as if his leg's dropped off or they've just diagnosed a life threatening illness. I'm embarassed by my extreme reaction to something which is clearly, on a scale of 1 to 10 of worst things that could happen to you in life, probably only rating around a 2. It's because I don't know what the outcome is going to be . I can't anticipate how much discomfort he will have to endure. I have no way of measuring how this will affect his confidence nor how long the process will take nor wheter it will work. That's why. Fear of the unknown. The worst kind. I'm one of those awful people who has to know how things are going to work out. I can't deal with all the uncertainty.

Nearly There

If half term only lasted a week, I'd love it . Five consecutive weekdays minus the early morning rush and the scrabble for undone homework. But no , ours lasts for a hideous 3 weeks. As I write this I worry that my childern will read this and hate me , unless of course they're all grwon up by the time they see this, with kids of their own , in which case they'll understand.The trouble is they're at different schools with different holidays that each last a fortnight but on;y overlap by one week. Our relentless half term has gone something like this.

Day 1 - managable,limitless patience plus a spot of shopping
Day 2 - hideous swimming pool accident
Day 3 - recouperation
Day 4 - beoredom with recouperation
Dat 5 - trip to dental hospital
weekend - obligatory family outing, manageable
Day 6 hideous
Day 7 worse
Day 8 defies words
Day 9 actually OK
Day 10 trip back to dental hospital
yes and there's still another week to go.

Here's what we haven't done...
Theme parks - can't whilst recouperation underway
Museums - central London - you've gotta be kidding
Homework - can't face it during term time let alone during holidays


Here's what we have done
Shopping - lots
Eating - even more
Bickering - endless
Shouting - yep
Guilt - by the bucket load

Real Knowledge

My 8 year old has just told me that a great white shark can measure up to 6 metres in length . Now that's what I call a fact. So does it really matter if he struglles with 8 x 9 ? If you're surfing off the coast of Queensland (and lets hope he is rather than sitting behind a desk in some seedy suburb in later life ) I reckon it's better to know about about your predators than your 9 times tables. It's week 2 of half term and i could hug him. he's watching a National geographic DVD about Sharks but then I suppose it's only a matter of time before the Spongebob loop goes on.

Teeth

Teeth have always been a big part of my youngest son's life. He chipped his baby front tooth as a toddler. Sucking 'thumby' made them stick out at a jaunty angle and now at the age of 8 he's managed to knock out his front tooth completely on one of those wrteched swimming pool tube slides. The phone call from my husband went something like this ...
Husband : Max has had an accident
Me: Oh My God !
Husband: Don't worry he's alright
Me: Thank God
Husband ... but he has knocked out his front tooth
Me: Jesus Christ

With the tooth slopping around in a polystyrene cup of milk they legged it back home and straight to the dentists where I was waiting , pacing the floor. Our brilliant dentist looked noticably shocked when he saw the extent of the damage . Never a good sign. The impact had managed to wipe out most of his front gum leaving a large black hole where his lovely big teeth used to be. One hour later we left the surgery with a large metal staple holding the dddislodged tooth back in place . No tears , no fuss and this from a boy who would weep as a single droplet of blood would emerge from a tiny scratch. I was dumbstruck by his bravery as was the dentist.
I had always wondered how we'd managed to raise 2 boys to the respective ages of 12 and 8 without a trip to A&E so I suppose it was only a matter of time. I wanted to line the walls at home with feather cushions , every movement brought the possibility of dislodging the tooth again painfully nearer, but so far so good.
There is nothing more painful than the sight of your own injured child. It leaves a resounding impact on your sense of security and an intense desire to trade places to save them any pain. It will be slow progress now for the next few months and I don't think we'll forget this week in a hurry but at least we can look back on the evnt knowing that we both managed to survive.
As with all such events there is always a moment of lunacy and this was no exception. As my husband left the swimming pool scene of the crime ,clutching a blood soaked towel to my son's face, the manager pressed a couple of complimentary tickets for a return visit into his hand.

The Battle of Hastings

You have to wonder at grown men and women who spend their weekend dressed as mediaeval foot soldiers playing out a reenactment of The Battle of Hastings dressed in shapeless sacking and in need of a good haircut. Having said that , we wandered around the boot camp stroking the fur pelts and poking the arrow heads to test their sharpness for a good hour, after which I was more than ready to swap my jeans and crocs for a linen tunic and rustle up a simmering pot of rabbit stew with the rest of them. Whether it was the jolly cameraderie and the jocular banter or just a desire to escape the dreariness of the school run and the misery of the supermarket was difficult to discern. I have to hand it to them though . No nylon sleeping bags or plastic groundsheets for this lot . Proper carved wooden beds strewn with soft downy rabbit skins under oily canvas with a real fire belching out delicious woodsmoke - now that's camping in style.
The audience comprised mostly ambitious parents dragging along their key stage 2 children who'd just got to that bit in their history curriculum. The parents watched the battle with interest whilst their children pushed eachother into the horse pooh and beat the hell out of eachother with wooden swords happy for the opportunity to infict real damage on their siblings under the guise of a bit of living history.
A good day was had by all and I couldn't help thinking, as we pulled into the Wild Bean Cafe petrol station cum M&S food mini store just off the A21 to buy a plastic wrapped pizza for the kids tea, that the option of a night under the stars with a steaming wooden bowl of vegetable broth would have been a far better option.

Spooky or what ?

England have just beaten France in the Rugby World Cup semi final . I love the way that tripped off the tongue as if I knew what I was talking about . With about 15 minutes to go , England were trailing by one point and David began to get distraught at the prospect of us losing . With unwavering certainty , I reassured him that we would score in the final 7 minutes to win the match . And we did . How weird is that ? Wish I could predict more useful outcomes like how many GCEs my boys might pass or when interest rates are going up again. Still , should be grateful for albeit limited psychic powers. I wouldn't mind but I've never watched a rugby match in my life. Something similar happened once before . I went to see Man Utd play Arsenal on some corporate hospitality jolly never having seen a match in my life . The opening bars of the Match of the Day theme tune on the telly used to send me into a comatose deep sleep. We all had to bet on who would score the next goal and at what time and I guessed at Thierry Henri. Well he only went and scored the next goal . It was rather nice pretending that I had a bit of flair for these things especially as all the men present claimed to be footie experts.

My Apple iMac has changed my life. I've discovered iTunes - the soundtrack to my life.Enough already , don't want to turn into an apple bore.

How's it possible to fill the hours from 8.30am until 4pm with just 'stuff' and have nothing to show for it at the end of the day ? I've turned into a homebody. Nothing wrong with that. Saves me a fortune , not going into town to do some shopping. Home made tea costs pennies , think of the pounds I'm saving on those designer coffees. I love my scrap room and spending time in it so much that I'm terrified I might one day go off it and then what will I do ? It would be far worse then any ended affair, cut adrift with nothing to fire me up. Better not go off it then . But what is it in me that has to explore the possibility that I might ? Am I the only one that has alternative endings in my head , examines every 'what if' , allows such thoughts to even exist ? Or am I just a fanatical contingency planner ? The latter I hope.

Junk In , Junk Out

Car boot sale this morning. Not me but my husband. Up at 6.30 am to go haggle with the sleazy dealers. Not me . Another hour in bed at least. I had to admire the fact that he worked like a dog to load up the van then spread it out on an old duvet cover and take 50p here and £1 there for a lifetime's collected rubbish. You have to lay bare in front of everyone the kind of pottery vase with a picture of a cat you thought was cute a couple of decades ago. But then so does everyone else. One thing struck me was the myriad of unwanted gifts still in their packaging. The jokily titled books that no-one ever reads, the terra cotta tagine, the wok set with the out of date sesame oil. I must hold that picture in my head when I'm out Christmas shopping in a few weeks time. A word of warning . Never let your children loose with a fiver . They'll come back with a jokily titled book and an old wok.

Holidays From Hell

.. and we haven't even left yet. A word of advice from personal experience NEVER EVER decide to clear out your teenage son's bedroom the day before you go on holiday ready for re-decorating. For a start you'll find things that scare you and you'll find out things about him that you wish you hadn't. You'll also find several years worth of sweet wrappers , a dozen pairs of used underpants behind the chest of drawers and looking on the bright side possibly everything that had ever gone missing in the house. There will also be broken toys that will make you weep, homework that had never been handed in and things you thought he'd treasured that he clearly didn't. Another caution - don't stay up til midnight doing this as you'll lose the will to live and everything will seem very very bleak.
Of course I didn't heed my own advice and as a consequence it's now -8 hours til departure to the ferry and I'm only just starting the ironing and digging out the swimming goggles. Another midnight weep is on the cards I think.
And whilst I'm on the subject of holidays , the kind of people who say they loved their holidays are either gluttons for punishment or very rich and have just returned from a fortnight at a 5 star resort in Mauritius having chilled papaya juice ferried to them under their thatched beach umberella. They won't have endured a carful of bickering horrors or another day of rain... or else they're just lying which is always possible.

I'm just un unpaid babysitter. Always available 24/7 . Usually get the phonecall about half an hour after he said he'd be home. It usually begins with something like .. some of the lads are going out for a meal or ... we were just going to go for a couple of pints ... or thought I might just join a few of the guys for a quick drink ...

Ironically I don't really care whether he comes home or not but here I am sitting on my own again. Can't remember when I last when I went to see a film I wanted to see or did anything spontaneously. I wonder how it feels just to go out on a whim at the drop of a hat and know that someone back home will just be there and take care of everything. I can't imagine how that would feel .The freedom.