Blighty

Boy 1 The Teenage Years

2012-01-29T15:41:00.000Z

Dahlings, long time, no blog! Disgraceful!

Here events have taken a strange turn and Boy 1 seems to have entered the teenage years, even though he is only going to be 11 when his birthday comes next week..

There were a few warnings signs - increased interest in personal hygiene for a couple of weeks which meant showers in the morning/pool of water on bathroom floor and a desire for body spray products. I even caught Boy "I don't need a bath my knees are only a bit muddy" 2 surreptitiously spraying on some Lynx Africa under his pjs the other day. (A friend who used to be in the Navy told me that the application of deodorant onto unwashed body is know as a "submariner's dobby", that's the kind of info my brain retains).

I could launch into a rant about childhood ending too early and the evils of advertising and consumerism and children being made to feel they need deodorising when they are not even whiffy...but the blog couldn't cope with an outbreak of earnestness...and thankfully both boys aren't really that bothered, with body spray coming a long way down a list of activities where Warhammer, computer games, football, totally unfunny jokes about cheese and whacking each other on the head with Nerf guns take priority.

I did, though, find myself in Hollister in the Westfield Shopping Centre, London yesterday with Boy 1. And what an unsettling experience it was!

We were on a mission to buy Boy 1 a T-shirt for his birthday. We located the shop, which was all decked up on the outside to look like a house with white shutters and tiles. Inside we found a warren of tiny little rooms overstuffed with kit. And Boy 1, as if a switch had been flicked, got very grumpy and teenage with me. He was so obviously finding me a total embarrassment. Can't think why, I only said things like:

"Ooh, it's sooo dark in here, I can't see what colour that is, or the size, can you see the size?"
"Oooh, it's so cluttered up, did you see I almost fell over that rail? It's a deathtrap!"

He almost died of shame when I pushed the stockroom door ajar to see what colour the T-shirt was I was holding..
And he got really narked when I said for the 50th time, "If you're too hot, poppet, you can take your hoodie off."

The shop was full of teenage girls and boys, both customers and sales assistants. The average age was about 16 ( and that's only because me and a couple of other wrinklies pushed the average up by 10 years).Gosh, I felt so old baggy and witchy, faced with a very pretty sales girl wearing a tiny little broderie anglaise top - why are teenagers so attractive these days? What happened to acne and gawkiness and greasy hair? (oh, that was just me - thanks Grandma Whacker). I saw another mother exclaiming about the bad lighting, and a very cross father shouting, "Right, that's enough, I'm leaving!" It's the sort of shop that makes parents very grouchy.

But despite or possibly because of the parental disapproval, the stuff was flying off the shelves and I guess teenagers would be too embarrassed to return a T shirt which they thought was grey and then in the daylight turned out to be fluorescent orange...

It wasn't all bad. We scored a couple of cool T shirts.
And I got to take this chap home.

To be honest he is not really my type, I hate a man whose chest is better developed that my own.

And as Boy 2 has just pointed out, he looks a lot like Grendel from Boy 2's Beowulf reading book.

Little know fact: Grendel only angry because someone nicked his surfboard and his agent never got him any really good modelling jobs.

In Which I Get A Dog

2012-01-11T11:18:00.001Z

Calm down Grandma Whacker, it's not quite what you think!

Funny how things go.

Today is the first day back to school after Xmas for Boys 1 and 2, finally.

But don't feel too sorry for them, they are on half term soon (give it a couple of days max)...

So this morning the house is quiet. Too quiet.

But I start doing Useful and Pro-Active Tasks ~~like reading the Daily Mail celeb gossip~~ like attempting meal planning (day 1 - spag bol, day 2 - chille con carne, day 3 - what else can I do with mince? day 4 - zzzzzzz) and making the Shopping List From Hell (go to supermarket, buy entire contents of supermarket, get home, unload entire contents of supermarket, find have forgotten mince).

The doorbell rings - it is my neighbour. "Do you know anything about this dog?" she asks, indicating an incredibly cute, sandy-coated scallywag (ok, you guessed, I have n't a clue what breed he is). Who gambols into house and runs around a bit. I chase after him, retrieve him, and say "No".

My neighbour is late for an appointment so I offer to take him in.

I close the door. I look at the dog. The dog looks at me, and then rolls over to have his tummy tickled. He knows a soft touch when he sees it.

I inspect his collar and see he is called Alfie and ring the accompanying mobile number. I am not cool in a crisis and this is not even a crisis - I get in a terrible muddle trying to get my glasses on, read the mobile number and stop Alfie play biting my hands. I leave a breathless, flustered message...

Alfie and I look at each other a bit more. I am not sure what to do with dogs - should I offer him a cup of tea? Would he like to do the crossword?

Alfie then makes a joyous break for it up the stairs.

I retrieve him.

He goes into the kitchen, jumps on the sofa and gets excited about the dog he can see in the big mirror. And then launches himself up the stairs again.

It reallys speaks volumes. I have only just met Alfie and he is already behaving as naughtily as Boys 1 and 2. Children and animals just know...

Finally I work out the best thing to do is to contain Alfie in the study, which is where we are now. He has now gone to sleep, just like a worn out toddler.

And hurrah - his owner rings up and tells me her au pair is on the way to collect him. He has escaped by digging a hole under the gate..I suppose he just fancied some company.

She tells me not to worry about puddles, he is past that stage.

So I won't mention to her the yellow patch on the rug...

Alfie really enjoyed my amusing anecdote about what I once said to the double glazing salesman....

2012 and the Entente Cordiale

2012-01-05T16:23:00.000Z

Happy New Year Dahlings!

2012 is already off to a really good start - Grandma Whacker has decided to take Boy 1's French language skills in hand. For Christmas she got him this.

Bless him he was so thrilled with it on Christmas Day, he was speechless, just threw it over his shoulder and carried on unwrapping Warhammer and Lynx body spray.

What prompted this grandmaternal purchase was my surprise when I found out that Boy 1 had been learning French at school for the past 2 years...and also that there were lists of vocab he should have been learning each week. I can honestly say there was no sign whatsoever of any Francophone goings on in Boy 1's busy schedule of activities. He also steadfastly denies any knowledge of French, merely repeating his chosen mantra of "The French are a load of cheese eating surrender monkeys" which he has picked up from Jeremy Clarkson's Top Gear . I had a little chat with Boy 1's French teacher (now I know she exists) about this and we both agreed that we could quite happily throttle Mr Clarkso. In the circs I feel that Boy 1's score of 3 and a half out of 11 for his French test is - well, not as bad as it could have been.

So this morning at breakfast Grandma W decided it was a good time to debut the language CD. She would brook no discussion. She was on a mission.

I did try to point out that perhaps the boys were not in the right frame of mind as they had just been watching snippets of "Come Fly With Me" on YouTube.

But to no avail - on goes the CD. Off sloped Boy 1 to the other room. Leaving Boy 2 who at first appeared to be making a fair stab at repeating the phrases on the CD - "Bonjour, comment allez-vous?, je suis en vacances, je suis de Londres", etc

It was just a minute later than both Grandma and I realised he was now happily repeating the phrases- IN ENGLISH. The nice lady on the tape was instructing cheerfully, "Now it's your turn, say you are on holiday" - and Boy 2 piped up : " I am on holiday"...now urged the lady, "Say you come from London" - "I come from London" chirrups Boy 2.

Final score - Grandma W/Carla Bruni - 0
Boys 1 and 2/Jeremy Clarkson - 1.

Happy New Warhammer

2011-12-31T18:46:00.001Z

Er hello, it's Boy 1 here, I am doing a post for Mummy as she is very ~~fried tried~~ tired after Christmas, she is asleep on the sofar with lots of ~~rappers~~ wrappers from After Eight choc mints and bits of tinsel in her hair.

Every few minutes she half wakes up and shouts "Does anyone want a mince pie?" Daddy says she has Post Christmas Hostess syndrome..

Most important is I got some Warhammer for Christmas. It looks like this.

You buy the figures.

Then you spend ages painting them with special paint with cool names like Goblin Green, Devlan Mud and Skull White and oooh, Bleached Bone. Nice.

And then you play complicated battles with them, there is a long rule book and you have rulers and stuff to measure the distance that your weapons can fire.

Mummy got quite interested in my Ork figures, I showed her all the paints they needed and explained at length their weapons and armour and boots and stuff..

When she saw all the paints, Mummy stomped off muttering that she could not believe that an Ork has more nail polish and paints and accessories than she has..
Mummy is back on the sofa now...

"No Mummy, I don't want a mince pie.."

Christmas Almost Here And Other Worries

2011-12-22T22:04:00.000Z

Dahlings, finally we are getting a bit Christmassy at Blighty HQ.

Here is an action shot of Boy 1 decorating the tree (Boy 2 had already bunked off, bored with this interior decoration nonsense cutting into his Wii football game time).

You know how dear Faux Fuchsia holds that "Nothing says legal advice like pink tinsel" which is the most beautiful and profound statement ever to grace the internet, in my humble opinion...

Well, to me, "Nothing says Christmas like a sozzled fairy lashed to a Christmas tree": meet Esmeralda, fairy, former good time girl (I can't confirm or deny those rumours that she at one time dated Warren Beatty) and moderate dipsomaniac (sherry mainly). She is a family character and as old as .....oh never mind..

Here are some more tree shots. The decoration by Boys 1 and 2 was initially enthusiastic then a bit slapdash....small boys don't bother with the hooks and loops to hang stuff from branches, they basically throw items at the tree and see what sticks...

In other news my Maternal Bosom (junior size) swelleth with pride. The other night at supper Grandma Whacker (again in residence for Christmas riot control) mentioned that according to the Daily Mail (right wing rag which regularly froths at the mouth over political correctness gone mad) children were now banned from making the star shape with their hands when singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little B list Celebrity" as the star shape in signing for the hearing impaired means lady er parts..

Quick as a flash Boy 1 starts doing some very authentic looking signing...where has he learnt this? What a talented child!

Boy 2 is laughing like an unblocked drain.

In fact, Boy 2 is laughing just a bit too much.

"What does that mean? Is that real signing?" I ask.

Through fits of giggles Boy 2 explains that Boy 1 has just spelt out "Go Forth and Multiply!"
"You see, Mummy, X (name of adorable, shy, butter wouldn't melt little friend ) showed us how to do it ages ago."

Cue Maternal Bosom deflation.

In another worrying development, I was very taken with a most pleasant Christmas song I heard on the car radio yesterday - you know the type of thing, some one's nuts roasting over an open fire etc..what a very nice voice that chap has, I thought to myself....

THE HORROR! It was none other than Justin Bieber!
AAAAAAAGH!
I am now a Belieber, the oldest Belieber in the world...

Please don't tell anyone....

Last Week

2011-12-15T10:33:00.001Z

Not Linda in Chile but Caroline of Brunswick, wife of a King George; she was so badly behaved romping around the Continent in a "bawdy manner" she got herself tried for adultery...note to self: probably NOT suitable role model but do have some Euros left over from last hols...

Dahlings, last week was both lovely and exciting, as Linda in Chile was in London town and I got to meet her in Real Life. Linda is a loyal and eloquent commenter on Faux Fuchsia's blog, and when I started this blogging malarkey, Linda kindly followed my blog too.

Mr Blighty is also a big fan of Linda, as he approves of her erudite, balanced and beautifully written comments:

these are the qualities for which Mr B as a parliamentary draftsman, looks in a woman; I am feeling a bit insecure right now:
can you:

~~guess~~ discern?

So I hotfooted up to town, met Linda at her hotel on the Strand and we toddled off to the cafe called The Crypt under the Church of St Martins in the Fields. We had so much to talk about - all the big issues like nail polish, shoe buying, husbands v credit cards and how the Chileans speak Spanish without the lisping - the latter was a big shock to me, where's the fun if people around you don't need to pop on raincoats? I was brought up on Nigel Molesworth who opines that "..you have to lisp when you speke Spanish which make it all very difficult.."

Nigel gives this helpful example:

thene: A hathienda. Enter don jereth de la frontera molesworth.
A thervant: who ith it?
Don Jereth: it ith only me ith ithabel ethpecting me?
A thervant: yeth.
Don J: O thuper!*

Linda and I then gambolled around the National Portrait Gallery, among the Tudors ( "You can say what you like about Henry VIII but in his younger days he had great legs") and then looked at Caroline of Brunswick and some Georges, which shamingly Linda knew much more about that I (I spent my entire secondary school career struggling with "The Dissolution of the Monasteries: Was Henry just jealous that Cardinal Wolsey looked fab in red?")

We also saw this lady.

But the fun did not stop there! Mr B and I had the pleasure of going out to dinner with Linda later in the week. We went to Odin's, which I visited years ago and loved because they have lots of lovely pictures on the walls (though none of Henry VIII). A good evening was had, (I particularly liked the figs in wine pudding) and we saluted Marylebone High Street and the Malene Birger shop (which is just opposite Odin's) in homage to Faux Fuchsia .

Taken from Odin's/Top Table website

Linda, it was so lovely to meet you. And don't hold back with the lisping, you know you want to really!

*From How To Be Topp by Geoffrey Willans and Ronald Searle, quite possibly one of the most important books ever written.

Cyber Sulk?

2011-11-23T10:43:00.000Z

Well as cyber sullks go, that was quite exceptional.

Except I wasn't sulking. Honest.

I just seem to have been soooo busy.

So I hired Top Management Consultant Anders Hoch to review operations at Blighty Inc and make recommendations on how to improve productivity.

Here are excerpts from his report, with my reaction in italics.

Taking Blighty Inc. Forward Into the 20th Century*

* Anders old chap how much wine did you have at lunch exactly?

Scope of Review

We were asked to review all domestic operations of Blighty Inc. We observed operations at Blighty HQ and interviewed key personnel in Catering, Procurement, Staff Training, Laundry Services, Hygiene and Health Services, Transport, Policing and Judicial, Social Activities and Sport (which in this report will be collectively referred to as MUM).
Er, that's me I think...

We also spoke to the Chief Executive Officer and Finance Director. So Mr B gets the fancy job title, typical

We had a brief interview with the junior members of the Blighty Inc. team but they were very busy watching telly and were unwilling to fully enter into a dialogue you mean they ignored you completely as they were watching re-runs of Top Gear on Dave TV

Scope of Activities

The breakdown of MUM activities during a typical working day are:

23% reading gossip on the Daily Mail website
27% drinking tea, reading fashion blogs
2% furiously carrying out domestic tasks in state of guilt and quiet frenzy
12% looking for reading glasses
5% reading thrillers and detective novels
5% answering cold calls on telephone from insurance companies and acting delightfully dizzy and charming while telling them to get lost
4% ringing Grandma Whacker back and apologising for being so rude under misapprehension that she was selling car insurance and of course you don't mean her to do that with her insurance policy

5% watching X Factor with Mr B and putting on silly Northern accent and exclaiming "oooh Gary has such kind eyes, I really feel he understands me and my journey" and falling off sofa with laughter inventing sob stories for contestants: "It would mean the world to me to win X Factor as I have a conjoined twin who is currently in prison and a granny confined to a wheelchair by terminal flatulence..."
77% watching junior executives playing rugby in a light drizzle
86% watching junior executives playing football in a light drizzle
34% attending to sports related injuries
36% sports psychology counselling
7% cobbling together costumes for school theme days (" I know it's a fitted sheet but well- to- do Romans would definitely have worn fitted sheets, honest!")

10% watching The Killing, exciting Danish police thriller
45% providing taxi services to Blighty junior executives
42% struggling to help with Maths homework

Key Recommendations

MUM is a very inefficient member of the Blighty team; her role needs to be more focused, and preferably carried out by someone else with better motivation and better skills re work product delivery do you mean get a cleaner? Yay!
MUM to attend management training course and be reprogrammed
MUM must be denied access to the Internet
MUM to give up tea and novels
MUM to stop watching X Factor But Gary is the only man who really understands me
junior executives to give up rugby and football and instead take up needlework at home
MUM to accept that never going to get through 100 hours of The Killing so return the DVD the library NOW
junior executives to learn to drive They are only 9 and 10 so this might be a bit tricky

So there we have it. I am going to be re-programmed. I will be dynamic, efficient and focused.

Just as soon as I've had a cup of tea and a little sit down.. and a look at the Daily Mail website...

I'll Be Back

2011-10-24T11:03:00.000+01:00

Oh dear, have really fallen off the blogging wagon recently...but in the words of the Terminator*, I'll be back!"

Dahlings, I leave you with a Public Education Announcement. I know which category I fall into.

* excellent new role model for dealing with obstreperous offspring (and try saying that after a gin and tonic) who are now on holiday from school AGAIN...yep, 2 week half term..

Mrs Blighty, Rock Chick

2011-09-29T13:45:00.000+01:00

The other night I went with Mr B to see his old favourite group Echo and the Bunnymen play.

When I mentioned this recently to anyone, they looked a bit blank and then said, " Oh, yes, Echo Beach."

Nooooooo! That was quite different, that was Martha and the Muffins.

The Bunnymen are a rocky, moody, sort of post punk band with a charismatic Liverpudlian lead singer called Ian McCulloch.

Their best known song is "Killing Moon", featured on the soundtrack of the film " Donnie Darko".

Must admit, prior to the event I was not terribly enthusiastic as I knew Mr B used to go to gigs wearing a greatcoat and pointy shoes and with his hair all spiked up, and it all sounded a bit goth and gloomy to me.

In fact, it was brilliant!

It was a thrill to skip off up to London on a school night and meet up with Mr B. And the concert was at the London Palladium, a theatre I last visited for my 8th birthday to see Cliff Richard (bless Grandma W, she organised that for me, what a nice mummy). So it was great to see the inside of the Palladium again and bang on to Mr B about seeing Cliff and Olivia Newton-John, while Mr B carried on a parallel monologue about last seeing the Bunnymen at the Glasgow Barrowlands in 1984..not quite sure whose anecdote had the most street cred, mmm, tricky one..

The Bunnymen were good, really good - a very tight band - and Mr McCulloch can really sing. And what confidence, arrogance, to sing in front of all those people ! He was a real character - he took a lot of liquid refreshment between, even during, songs, we were a long way from the stage but the bets were on ~~Guinness, with whisky chasers...~~ a soothing vitamin drink and mineral water.

Here's them doing The Killing Moon back in the 80s. They did it brilliantly last night too, they just look a lot less boyish!

And now dahlings, I am off for a cheeky nap on the sofa - it's very tiring being a rock chick at my age.

Mrs Blighty, Literary Stalker

2011-09-27T10:29:00.000+01:00

As I mentioned in my last post, I am completely caught up in the Gus Dury novels of Tony Black - hardboiled Scottish detective novels set in Edinburgh with gritty characters and punchy dialogue.

I dropped old Tone a line, a bit cheeky, telling him how his readership included none other than Grandma Whacker (who quite frankly at her age should be reading The Lady and, maybe for a bit of excitement, The Radio Times).

Well, look back at the penultimate comment on my last post - the author himself commented! How very nice of him. So impressed he did that.

Here is Mr Black, talking about the latest Gus Dury novel.

Mmmmm, he's a bit of a dish, isn't he? And that accent! But I am not going to push my luck. No more cheeky comments. Otherwise I might get a visit from a couple of heavies...

A Worrying Pair

2011-09-22T14:29:00.000+01:00

Dahlings, there are two members of Blighty Limited who are giving me cause for concern.

First, Boy 2.

I was prepared to overlook this (and blame it on all those wildlife programmes he watches).

Mummy: Can you stop playing now and get out of the bath?
Boy 2: OK, Mummy, the killer whale just has to finish off the seal..

I decided this was just a sign of his keen interest in History and not a warning of Hannibal Lecter tendencies.

Excerpt from Boy 2's school report - proof that teachers do have a sense of humour or evidence of something more sinister?

But this.

Boy 1 was being particularly noisy and annoying the other evening when Boy 2 was doing his spelling homework. I do vaguely recall Boy 2 saying something along the lines of "Mummy can't we tape his mouth over?" It was only later I noticed he had got the electrician's tape from the toolbox in the garage...

So the youngest in the Blighty family is a worry. But so is the more senior end.

I thought Grandmas were supposed to sit serenely doing sewing and smelling of Parma violets and face powder, and for excitement might listen to The Archers.

Not so Grandma Whacker. During her recent stay she was engrossed in these rugged detective novels set in Edinburgh, which she has recently discovered at her local library*.

The dialogue is, to put it mildly, quite robust. You know you are in trouble when Grandma is reading lines like this, spoken by our hero after he has visited a very rough council estate :

WARNING, THIS IS VERY CRUDE, NOT FOR THE EASILY OFFENDED
"Later, eh. I've just escaped Deliverance territory and I'm mightily relieved not to have a length of hillbilly parked in my farter..."

Should I contact the library and ask them not to let her have any more books by this author?

Must go. Have to hide the electrician's tape again.

*Gutted;
Loss;
Truth Lies Bleeding; and
Long Time Dead, all by Tony Black.
I have now read Gutted and must say it's excellent, and a refreshing contrast to the whimsical Corduroy Mansions of Alexander McCall Smith

Mrs Blighty Turns Over A New Leaf

2011-09-20T15:50:00.000+01:00

Enough of this obsession with animal print fripperies. I am a mature woman of today, I will stop yearning after silly frocks in dodgy prints. Instead I will engage in spiritually enriching activities like ~~learning to mix up killer cocktails~~ playing the harpsichord and pickling -er - ~~squirrels~~ pickles and reading Tolstoy in the original Russian ( note to self: take evening class in Russian for Beginners). I will devote myself to Mr Blighty and Boys 1 and 2. Where are they actually? Oh I forgot, they are in the office/at school. Well, anyway, I will make sure they always come home to piping hot underpants and a freshly laundered Chicken Kiev.

Ooh. Look at this, this is nice....

From Next

A couple of thoughts -
I am terrified of snaks, so would this dress give me the heebie jeebies? Would it squeeze me tight and then swallow me whole?
Why am I looking at patterend dresses when my current uniform seems to be navy blue jumper/cardigan/trousers? yes, I have turned into Sensible Navy Blue Mummy.

LA Woman

2011-09-15T10:48:00.000+01:00

Hello, my name is Mrs Blighty and I am addicted to all things leopardy, and that is why I have come to Leopards Anonymous.

The shops continue to act as enablers: everywhere I look there is leopardy goodness to be had.

I bought these little leopardy numbers as I JUST HAD TO. (Note to Mr B, Head of Austerity Measures, Blighty HQ - they were from New Look and therefore Cheap as Chips, so would have been a Crime not to buy them).

And I NEEEEEEED this cardi from Pure. Need. It. Badly.

(Note: I think the other hand in the above photo is that of the chap the model is with; at least I really hope it is...)

And look at this dress from old Toppers (TopShop).

Right. I WILL be STRONG. I am off for a lie down and a look at the school fees invoice.
That'll calm me down.

Mmmmm, could really do with some leopard print silk lounging pyjamas. RRRRRRRR!

Sussex-Full Weekend*

2011-09-13T17:10:00.001+01:00

A couple of weeks ago we spent a lovely weekend with our lovely friends in their lovely house in lovely rural Sussex (can I write for Hello magazine now please?)

Their house which dates from medieval and Tudor times is full of interesting and eye-catching details.

Like this chimney and half-timbering.

And there are lots of beams inside.

This is the sitting room. Our friends lived in Shanghai for a while, hence the striking Chinese art.

I love the colours of this vase.

And these tiles around the fireplace in the guest bedroom are charming.

The basins are from China too.

This is an old bread oven.

The fireplace in the sitting room gives away our friends' past in the Royal Navy. ~~I used the sword to force Mr B up the aisle at our wedding~~ Mr B and I used the sword to cut the cake at our wedding.

This made me laugh - on the wall in the loo.

K and S, thank you for a great weekend and thank you for letting me show bits of your home on the old blog.

*Not, Sex Full, no, that would be rude, Successful, geddit? Yes I know these puns are just ghastly but it's my blog and I'll pun if I want to.

View From My Kitchen Window

2011-09-12T10:46:00.001+01:00

A while ago Hostess invited other bloggers to post the view from their kitchen window.

I like to get in on these things. So here is my view.

Complete with one of those cute but annoying muntjac deer.

Annoying, first because I can never remember how to spell their name, secondly because they chomp off bits of plants - they neatly decapitated my hostas, thank you very much. Also late at night they sometimes go in for this weird barking to each other, sounds like a hacking cough, possibly a mating call, most unattractive to me (but then I am not a deer, or a smoker).

And this was the view from my kitchen window yesterday.

Grandma Whacker gambolling about, trying to fly a kite. What is she like? It was lunchtime and I was calling all children to the table and there she is, still outside playing. She really is most wayward and Sets a Very Bad Example. She never got the memo that Grandmas should sit quietly inside reading an old copy of the Radio Times while having a little drop of sherry.

Must go. Some one needs untangling.

Mouth Guards And Other Daphnes4Boyz News

2011-09-10T13:02:00.001+01:00

Just two days ago Boys 1 and 2 returned to the country club cunningly disguised as a school, known as Daphnes4Boyz*. Of course, now it's the weekend, so we are having a well-earned break..again..don't want to burn ourselves out too soon..

To keep us poor befuddled parents on our toes there have been a few changes:
The Library is now the Drama room/second dining hall;
The Drama studio is the now the Library;
The School Uniform Shop is now the Geography Room;
The Store Cupboard is now the School Uniform Shop;
The Headmaster has swapped offices with the Bursar;
The Bursar is now a man**;
No motor vehicles*** are allowed to drive through the school, except the school minibus which will bear down on you unexpectedly just as you are bending down to tie up Boy 1's laces;
Mr Gummage the Science Master's hair has changed colour., to darkish brown with alarming gingery undertones.

Other things remain the same:
the Changing Rooms remain on an entirely different Time Zone to the rest of the school - 5 minutes inside their humid portals equals 1hour 10 minutes in the outside world; for example, Boy 1 "pops in" to collect his kit mid-September and comes out just in time for Christmas...
the amount of kit required by each boy equals body weight of boy x 5 kilos + 2 bricks + weight of one medium sized classmate gagged, bound and shoved in bag but deduct engine size of Range Rover or other deluxe 4x4 but add on weight of 1 cement mixer if you walk home..

Here at Blighty HQ we have been thrown into despair and dismay by the non-fitting of Boy 2's fancy schmancy bespoke mouth guard****, needed for that violent mudfest called Rugby. The mouth guards arrived, moulds having been taken of small boys' mouths - quite which small boys I know not.. Cue application of boiling water (to mouth guard of course), attempts at remoulding (mouth guard, not Boy 2), wailing, shrieks of agony, predictions of thwarted rugby glory etc.

Never mind. Another change is that there is now a MAP, yes a MAP of the playing fields which will be written up to allow parents to work out exactly which pitch their son is playing on.

No longer will I have to wander around the entire playing field trying to spot my offspring - let's face it, they all look the same in the mud, all arms and legs and pinky-white and jiggling about...

Damnation! I can no longer claim to having arrived on time for the match but to have been terribly delayed by not being able to locate the exact pitch..

*formerly known as Daphnes4Boy$ but rebranded over the summer hols due to the US debt crisis and the loss of that country's AAA credit rating, payment of school fees can now be made in gold or copper.
** result of new appointment, not gender reassignment.
*** legacy of Archgate - when delivery lorry over-optimistic about height of arch linking school buildings so took a few important bits of the arch with it on its way through.
****it seems this blog is in danger of turning into an outpost of the British Dental Association.

Mrs B Armed And Ready To Save The World

2011-09-09T10:54:00.002+01:00

The other day I dropped by Lisa at Privilege and read a post on something mysterious called an Arm Party. I got the wrong end of the stick and thought it meant you had actually to get together with friends and all show off and clank your bangles and bracelets and other arm accoutrements - handcuffs, electronic tags, blood pressure monitors. bits of string off the Sunday joint (roast meat, ok) etc.. I was a bit worried about the Elf and Safety implications of such a gathering - what if I got over-excited mid-conversation, swept my hand back theatrically (as I am wont to do), and knocked out the teeth of the person next to me with an arm bulked up with bits of metal, leather, spikes and painted enamel? .... But, as Lisa explains, Arm Party is a term invented by a feisty young New York fashion blogger called the Man Repeller http://www.manrepeller.com/. And it simply means having lots of jewellery decorating your wrists, in an artful and eclectic manner.

Lots of the bloggy fashion girls seem to go in for arm parties. For some, the party never stops and I applaud their ability to get out the house on time and to get through airport security unmolested.

Here is Miss Atlantic-Pacific.

Here is Miss Sterling Style

Having read Lisa's post, I knew that the world would not be safe until I had really got to grips with the whole Arm Party concept...and you know me, so selfless...so I spent a lovely half hour or so ~~saving the Universe~~ looking at bingly bangles on the internet...

I saw this,

TopShop bracelet

And this.

TopShop bangle

And this

TopShop charm bracelet - guess which website I was on!

In the end I bought this, I mean I did not want to, but the entire galaxy was at stake. It reminded me of those Hermes ones but was just a little bit cheaper. (And as it's just going to get covered in Nutella and toothpaste anyway....)

TopShop imitation leather bracelet £8.50

Hermes leather bracelet, a bit more than £8.50

Another Hermes leather bracelet

Phew, the world was a safe place again.

And now I know why Wonder Woman wore those cuffs.

Fangs Are Not What They Used To Be

2011-09-07T18:57:00.000+01:00

Boy 1 is losing teeth at an alarming rate.

In the space of a fortnight he has lost 3 teeth.

He lost 2, 2 days in a row.

I feel I am being SHOWERED with teeth.

Every time I look in my purse, there is a tooth....

Some thoughts on this:

If he carries on at this pace, I will have to sell the car just to finance the "Tooth Fairy"
Could he be pulling them out himself?
Are they in fact his teeth?*

*note to self: check Boy 2 dental situation

Mrs B Manages To Mention Her Pants Again

2011-09-06T16:26:00.000+01:00

So the other day I was banging on about my holiday reading.

The book that kept me sane on the plane was Corduroy Mansions by Alexander McCall Smith. Light and frothy, with short chapters, so you can dip in and out, in between handing out chewy sweeties to small boys and sighing loudly as the man on the other side of you digs you in the ribs as he reorganises his trousers...

So I was lucky enough to scoop up the next two Corduroy Mansions books from the library, The Dog Who Came In From the Cold and A Conspiracy Of Friends.

However, I must confess to have been distracted from Mr McCall Smith by a very wicked man called Roger Lewis and his "Seasonal Suicide Notes". A comic diary - very rude, very funny, not for the easily offended.

And, I also grabbed a pristine copy of September's Harpers Bazaar (when did they stop calling it Harpers and Queens? And why? No, don't answer that)

I adore the gloosy ads but look what they have done to Helena Bonham-Carter.

She is such a beautiful woman. (WARNING: PATHETIC CELEB SIGHTING ANECDOTE COMING UP. Years ago I saw her at a film opening, my friend went to say hi to her as she had been at school with her; and Helena was really, really beautiful, just enchanting; I of course stood there gawking like the village idiot.)

And in this pic she looks like the indomitable Mrs Doyle from Father Ted. And she seems to have a teacake on her head. But what do I know about fashion? Apparently it's all about Old Lady Chic now. Hooray, at last my big Mummy pants and broken veins will come into their own!

Abolish the Polish?

2011-09-05T17:36:00.001+01:00

Dahlings, something deeply traumatic happened to me recently, of which I hardly dare speak..

Oh ok, then...here goes..

I just couldn't get the interest up to paint my nails....(quivering voice, loud sobbing, hiccuppy noises, honking of nose etc.)

If this were a nail polish blog, I would caption this as: "OPI Flower to Flower from their 2009 Summer Collection, 2 coats, with topcoat", but it's not a nail blog and I can't actually remember exactly, though it is OPI

It just seemed soooo unimportant, trivial, needlessly time consuming, pointless....

For a couple of days (WARNING: EXPLICIT DETAILS COMING UP) my nails were bare. Unpolished. Au naturel.

This is my lovely friend D totally rocking red nails in her elegant French way

Above Barry M (I know because it says so on the bottle) and below some OPI which I think is called Catch Me InYour Net or it could be Take Me To The Vet, you know how they love their weird names...

But then I realised something really cathartic. And profound:
Painting your nails IS unimportant, trivial, needlessly time consuming and pointless.

Some Nails Inc bluey/purple which Lovely B gave me, and just look at how my paw is clamped onto the choccie box

And that is what makes it such an enjoyable, worthwhile and therapeutic activity.

Here I am showing how your polish can match random household objets ..or am I about to throw the vase at Mr B???

Also, I realised my OPI Conquistadorable Colour matched my new hot lips top....

Hot Lips top from H&M, not in any way suitable for a woman of my age which is of course why I had to buy it..

Mrs Blighty, philosopher extraordinaire.

Eat your heart out, Bernard-Henri Levy*.

* As I am sure you all know already BHL is a French philosopher, recently rumoured to have been dating Daphne Guinness; I just had a most interesting read of Wikipedia where I was most amused to see he had once used the works of one Botul to refute the arguments of Kant; it turns out Botul is a spoof, cooked up by some French wag; the giveway is that his philosophy is know as Botulism...

Mrs Blighty Does A Spot of De-Cluttering

2011-09-02T09:42:00.002+01:00

It seems de-cluttering is all the rage at the moment, and apparently it's not just a one off thing, it's a journey. So I thought I'd take a trip.

Just look at what I found lurking in my cupboards.

Now I have to assess each article and ask myself some key questions:

Do I love it?
Will I wear it?
Does it suit me?
Why are there always at least 3 Christmas puddings in my cupboards at any given time?
How much bouillon does a girl really need?
How many years past a Use By date can you go?
What on earth is that white stuff in the plastic sachet?

I think the blue of the breadcrumb packet really brings out the blue in my eyes..

Please do NOT send in suggestions on what to do with the stuffing..

Holiday Booked

2011-09-01T08:41:00.000+01:00

So I took a great pile of books on hols, although this picture exaggerates, as it includes Mr B's books as well. Ali of Hestia's Larder asked whether I read all of these. Sadly no, my eyes are always bigger than my...book processing capacity..

Below are the ones I did read.

Now, to make sure you all pay attention, there is a nifty quizz:

Which of these books helped preserve my sanity on the tiresome charter airline flight to
Greece?*

It may help if you imagine the following scenario:

"We are sorry but we have identified 2 suitcases without labels which are unaccounted for, so 2 very surly members of the groundcrew will now unload all 304 pieces of luggage from the hold, chucking the cases from a great height onto the tarmac (ha! that'll show you); after a couple of hours we will only have to spend another hour or so trundling along the airfield while the Captain grovels desperately for another take off slot, meanwhile, sit back and relax as the Man Mountain in front of you whacks his seat back against your knees and you wonder if you really did turn the iron off at home.."

The Snowman by Jo Nesbo - this was a stonking good read, Nordic detective Harry Hole in a serial killer saga, gripping;
Hunting Unicorns by Bella Pollen - this was a very entertaining story about an American journalist sent over to England to make a documentary about the aristocracy; I can imagine it filmed back in the day with Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts;
Notes from an Exhibition by Patrick Gale - this was heavier, more serious than I had expected; it explores the links between artistic talent and mental illness, and the tension for a woman in reconciling her role as a mother with her need as an artist to create; brilliantly constructed it goes backward and forward in time and swaps between the viewpoints of different characters;
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold - this was a book everyone raved about a few years ago; I was reluctant to read it as I thought it sounded heart-breaking - the story is narrated by a young girl who has been murdered by a neighbour and looks at how her family is affected by her death. I did find it very sad but it was well done;
Twelve by Nick McDonell is a book I had hanging around the bookshelves for quite a few years; the author was heralded as the new Bret Easton Ellis/Jay McInnery; it follows a few eventful days in the life of White Mike, a yuppie drug dealer in New York; I liked it, it had some really good characters, including two guys who try to talk like black dudes (they are white) and of course come off completely ridiculous;

Finally, there was Corduroy Mansions by Alexander McCall Smith - if you have read the 44 Scotland Street books by him and liked them, you will also like this; like Scotland Street, it also began life as a newspaper serial. It is based in Pimlico, London. One of the characters is a wonderfully odious MP called Oedipus Snark, whom even his own mother cannot bear.

* no, it wasn't the onboard shopping brochure or the snack menu; I'll tell you next time if you're good!

Mother of two held for attempted murder

2011-08-31T08:36:00.001+01:00

Buckinghamshire housewife Mrs Bledwina Blighty has been arrested in the Peak District on suspicion of the attempted murder of her husband.

According to our sources, Mrs Blighty had been acting strangely, recently increasing her husband's life insurance cover. It is also reported that relations between the couple had been strained in past weeks due to what Mrs B described as "that bl**dy motorbike film".

Witnesses told police that Mrs Blighty insisted her husband accompany her on what she described as "a lovely, peaceful hike".

In a bizarre twist, it appears Mr Blighty is standing by his wife and will help her to clear her name.

Speaking to reporters outside Chesterfield police station he said, " I am confident this misunderstanding will be cleared up soon. Bledwina only insisted that I wear a tweed deerstalker decorated with a number of feathers is so that I would fit in in the countryside; I was a little taken aback when she opted for a flak jacket and a tin hat but I respect her sartorial choices."

Dropping by Debo's

2011-08-30T10:59:00.003+01:00

Dahlings, this post is dedicated to my first and favourite Blog Crush, the lovely Faux Fuchsia.

In her honour I attempting it in the style of the FF blog. But remember, at best this is Faux Fuchsia Lite, do not settle for imitations, get the genuine designer article here.

So when ole FF came over to these here parts last year she and I took a little road trip to Swinbrook in the Cotswolds. We checked out where the Mitford sisters grew up, the churchyard where Nancy Mitford is buried and the pub that Debo (the youngest and only surviving Mitford sister) owns.

Here's a visual of Nancy's gravestone.

Ole FF wanted also to hotfoot it up to the Peak District for the day, to see Chatsworth, the estate of which ole Debo became chatelaine, when she married the Duke of Devonshire.

But I had to explain it was too far. I know. I was disappointed too.

But during my recent trip Up North, the Universe directed me to Live on the Edge and go to Chatsworth. I do what I am told.

Here's Debo when young.

Here's Debo painted by ole Lucien Freud. 'Spensive.

Here's Debo photographed more recently. She now lives in the old vicarage on the Chatsworth Estate and is over 90 and quite frail. The house itself is now run by her son the Duke of Devonshire and his wife. They have an appartment on the first floor.

Here is a Singer Sargent portrait of an earlier Duchess of Devonshire, think she was called Eveyln.

Modern portrait of the Duke's daughter in law, Laura, Lady Burlington - reminds me of FF's pic on her blog

This wallpaper was handmade in China, based on measurements for the room and then sent back in huge rolls; it is apparently the Devil's Work to fit as it is a continuous, not a repeat, pattern

You can walk up these steps if you want; like most stately homes these days there were lots of modern sculptures scattered about the traps

This is the Imperial Fountain, one of the Dukes wanted a fountain higher than that of his friend, the Russian Tsar. His friend refused to come see it.

The house was sumptuous.

This is what the outside looks like. Don't look at the scaffolding people, imagine it's not there. That's what I did.

They have lots of bits. I was ready to question their comittment to De-Cluttering, what with Clutter being the Devil's Work. But I got talking to the waitress in our hotel and she told me they had had teams from Sotheby's worldwide staying with them for months, preparing a sale - the ole Duke and Duchess had decided to clear out one of their 5 attics. The sale was a Big Deal. Jerry Hall and Madonna came. Exciting. So glad they action de-cluttering too.

I was shocked, shocked I tell you at the Undercushioning on this bed.

Look! Ginger jars, just like FF has in the Fuchsiadome!

There you are People - Chatsworth.

Run, don't Walk!

Important Parenting Advice from Mrs B

2011-08-29T11:41:00.000+01:00

Dahlings, I need to share with you all a Parenting Top Tip.*

Here it is:
When you take small(ish, now getting bigger and even more bumptious) boys on hols, you MUST do your research thoroughly beforehand.

You MUST vet all names of local sights.

You may think a visit to Speedwell Cavern in the Peak District is a safe bet. What you have overlooked is the existence of a combo ticket covering another cavern...with an unfortunate name.

Mmmmm, queueing for about 35 minutes with Boys 1 and 2 jubilantly shouting "ARSE!" every couple of seconds.

Pure class.

It's a good job they had hard hats on; it wasn't low overhanging rocks they needed protecting from, after their exuberant display of parenting failure..

Eventually the ArseFest stopped and we went down the cavern, a former lead mine.

I cheered up at tales of the child miners (a 4 year old worked the bellows providing the miners with air and other children dug for lead with candles clamped in their mouths; candles made with tallow that rotted their teeth and eventually their stomachs. The average life expectancy of a miner was 27).

But it wasn't all doom and gloom.

There was something in the tour for everyone, even Mrs B.

* This Parenting Top Tip will rank alongside my other PTT which you can find here

Dates, Sticky and Otherwise

2011-08-28T12:04:00.000+01:00

Morning Dahlings!

Before I forget, the lovely Annie from Queensland has started her own blog, it is fab, very inspiring, check it out! http://redrosesandcrystal.blogspot.com/

I am attempting a new approach to bloggitisation*! Little and a bit more often. We'll see how long this lasts!

A couple of weeks ago at Blighty HQ we were all about dates.

First Grandma Whacker was en residence to celebrate her Birthday.

You might think this is a pic of the Birthday Cake but in fact it's a life sized model of Grandma Whacker herself.

I dare not tell you how old she is now. 372. Remarkable.

Then it was our Wedding Anniversary, with the usual gloomy comments from Mr B about serving less time for murder.

The card read: "Happy Wedding Anniversary Mrs B, can I have my passport back now?"

And then very excitingly, Mr B took me on a surprise date. I did not know where he was taking me. I was All Agog and Stuff.

He drove me to Berkhamsted, to an old Art Deco cinema called The Rex.

The seats are big and plush, or if you sit lower down, you can eat and drink at tables while watching the film.

I knew they were showing a French film "Potiche" - with old Gerard Depardieu and Catherine Deneuve.

I don't know quite how to break this to you all. Here goes.

Mr B had selected a film about motorbike racing on the Isle of Man.

I am NOT making this up.

It is the first time I have been speechless for years.
(Maybe that's why he did it).

Happy Wedding Anniversary Mr B. Hope you sleep well in the spare room...

*ok, I made that word up, I just enjoy winding up the spellcheck gismo. In the same way I enjoy deliberately going the wrong way in the car and listening to Tim the Sat Nag going bonkers - "Turn around when possible. Turn around when possible. I SAID TURN AROUND NOW, YOU HAVE RUINED EVERYTHING!!!!!" What can I say, I am a natural rebel and Tim is such an uptight little fusspot).

Shock horror skool hols rampage parents beg UN to intervene

2011-08-27T19:33:00.000+01:00

Dahlings! Boys 1 and 2 are STILL on holiday but I am bearing up well ~~though I can't wait for the little blighters to go back to school~~ and every moment spent with them is precious ~~especially when one of them (or if I am lucky, both) shout "BOGEY" at the top of their voices in the middle of the street.~~

This is what I look like now, thanks to the whole skool hols experience.

Angry Gorilla Mummys says: "No, I do NOT bl**dy well have PMT, now clear up your toys !"

But there is hope. We have been Oop North to Newcastle to visit Lovely B. Every one should have a Lovely B in their lives, thank you B, we had a smashing time. Also thank you to Lovely B's Daughter and her hubs whom the Boys both adore.

It seems they are very enlightened Oop North re the whole childcare issue.

And yes, I have thought about adoption. But only about 25 times. A day.

With Knobs On

2011-08-08T18:07:00.000+01:00

George Constantinosopoulososos
Manager
Hotel Bunion Beach Resort
Greece

Dear George
First thank you for the most enjoyable holiday experienced by the Blighty family. We really did have the most super time.

We are sorry about the small plumbing issue we caused; as I explained at the time, we did make Boys 1 and 2 aware that they were not to throw toilet paper down the loo as per the notice in the bathroom*; unfortunately we did not expressly ban the flushing of other foreign objects, so Boy 1 was convinced that it was ok to try to flush Boy 2 away. Hopefully the repairs to the U-bend will not prove too costly. And please apologise again to the lady in room 128, I can only imagine her shock at the sudden appearance of Boy 2. Boy 2 is recovering well, he is now able to approach the bathroom without screaming.

Now, I thought I would just raise one small issue with you, as I do believe feedback is important in helping you to provide your excellent service. Many service providers have thanked me for my tireless devotion to pointing out any deficiencies in their service, for example, they write back to me using words like "harassment" "tiresome" "legal department" and, on one memorable occasion, " old bat."

What I should like to raise with you is knobs. This is an issue which needs a firm hand, it needs grappling with. (note to self: please stop this now, this is awful..)

I attach below 3 pictures of knobs.

Exhibit 1 - the knob of our room, room 127

Exhibit 2 - knob of Room 128

Exhibit 3 - knob of Room 126

As you cannot have failed to notice, the size of the knob on our door was considerably smaller than that of the knobs on the adjacent rooms. This is not acceptable - it caused my dear husband Mr Blighty to feel he was deficient in the knob area, thus reducing his full enjoyment of the whole door opening and closing process. In fact, he became so ashamed of the diminutive size of his knob, he would only use it when no one was looking, which made the whole business of getting into and out of our room very tiresome.

I therefore urge you to upgrade and harmonise your knobs, so no one else will have to suffer this indignity.

Yours sincerely,

Bledwina Blighty**

* I remain mystified as to why you can't put the loo paper down the loo in Greece even in modern hotels, I am sad enough to want to know and will no doubt Google it shortly

** I was inspired to write this when I heard that the manager of our hotel in Greece reads out customer comments every week to his staff, and sometimes there are some really silly ones, like the chap who claimed the engine of the waterski boat was too small to pull him out of the water....

Greece is the Word

2011-08-07T15:14:00.000+01:00

Dahlings, I am back from the beach and keen to share with you ~~my latest deranged ramblings~~ my recipe for a successful holiday.

First, it's worth travelling a little bit out of London to ensure better weather,

Somewhere with blue skies and sand is good.

But you have to take sun protection seriously. Take enough to sink a small battleship, to be on the safe side. You can always hide behind it if you don't want to be photo'd in your swimcossie.

A hat is important, and also serves to underline the fact that you are a mad old trout.

There is no point these days in loading yourself down with piles of books. Go hi-tech and get yourself a Kindle.

Be sure just to eat salad, veg and fruit, to avoid tummy bloat and swimsuit over-stretch...

Keep your exercise regime going.

And avoid puddings with dubious names. (And next time try not to fall about laughing in v childish way...)

Get to know the area by taking a stroll.

Keep your brain ticking over by being ritually humiliated at chess by an 8 year old.

Failure to follow hotel rules could be painful.

Try not to cry upon reentry into Real Life (and English Weather).

This was a Public Service Announcement brought to you by the Elf and Safety Directorate of Blighty Inc.

Trouble

2011-07-17T17:50:00.002+01:00

You know you're in trouble when....

.... you watch Black Swan on DVD and you then find yourself skipping about the kitchen, pointing your toes, and humming that music (Tum, tum ti tum ti tum, ti tum, ti tum, ti tum ti tum ti tum..) and shouting, " I'm a prima ballerina and I'm absolutely bonkers..."

and you are growing feathers and stuff...

(you also know you are in trouble when you spend time trying to fashion a tutu out of paper tissue for a small stuffed animal...)

..............small boys dress up Mad for a school charity thing and you can't tell the difference from their normal off duty attire..

.... you find a card to send Louise of InTownsville (Louise has just had a big operation on her back, wishing you Up and About soon Louise) and you are convinced this card is just the thing, telling yourself it depicts, left to right, you, Linda in Chile and Louise (you have a very jolly email playgroup going with these two ladies), and you are able completely to overlook the fact that it is, ahem, quite some time, since you were school girls...

.....you start your holiday packing* and put in 4 towels and an educational game which no one will play and then your suitcase is full and you are so done with packing and need a cup of tea...

......you reinstate the Wii which has been banned for 6 months and now Boy 2 has his mitts clasped to the controls EVEN WHEN IT IS NOT ON...

.....Mr Blighty discovers an ant infestation in the cupboard and spends the weekend in there dealing with it...

(by the way, those red boots do not have anyone in them, despite appearances - I have not, for example, been overcome by the sight of my spouse being all manly and fainted....they do look odd though...)

......................this is the scene after you have, in a weak moment, bought Boy 1 a new grip for his cricket bat*; and he has come home and ripped the old one off, and you hear wailing and after 10 minutes of panting and puffing you realise it is impossible to get the new grip on...

*why the bl**dy hell did they not warn me in the shop, do I look like the sort of woman who knows what she is doing? Of course not!

If only I had paid attention to those saucy articles in Cosmopolitan about how to . .....never mind..with your teeth...no, that's enough

This particular spot of bother was resolved by a visit to yet another sports shop, it turns out you need a wooden thing to roll the new grip onto, inside out and then you roll it onto the bat....*

* Some of you really have filthy minds. I like that.

Major This and That and We're All Going to the Zoo

2011-07-11T20:57:00.000+01:00

Boys 1 and 2 have been on hols for just one day, and already I am in this sort of state:

Also a couple of Major things:

I made a Major Omission from my last post about meeting up with the lovely S. Here is a pic of S to remind you.

What I forgot to say was, S is a HUGE FAN of Faux Fuchsia, she cannot get through the day without checking on her latest post. While we were chatting for England and shopping, S spotted this decoration and declared it would be just the thing for FF and her Christmas tree, so she purchased it.

FF, it will be on its way to you, once I get to the Post Office.

Second Major Thing: Daphnes4Boy$ had their Speech Day on Saturday and the guest speaker was an Army Major in dress uniform with a CV that read like a James Bond novel. Just too, too exciting for a woman at my time of life. He had those trousers on with a red stripe down the side, so so flattering and dashing. Never have I been so interested in Speech Day!

Luckily, a really lovely mum I know reminded me that
a) I am married
b) dribbling is not attractive
c) she herself had in fact been a Major in the Army so there! ( in fact recently I went on a bicycle ride with her, she is super fit and I was terrified in case she shot me for lagging behind/desertion...)

So today, the official first day of the Summer Hols, I took Boys 1 and 2 to London Zoo.

Look, you would think this was somewhere deep in the countryside, but it's Regents Park, which we stomped through on the way to the Zoo.

And here is the Regents Canal, also very picturesque.

I must admit to reservations about zoos, do we need them when we have all this great video footage of the animals in the wild? But London Zoo take great pains to stress all the conservation work they do, funded by the zoo entry fees. Boy 1, though, who is a very kind chap when not bashing his brother, remarked constantly on the smallness of the cages. I imagined that some of the animals looked a bit depressed, like the tigers:

But some of them looked quite chipper, like the penguins and the meerkats.

The ardvark just looked weird.

But my favourite was the sloth; this is how I would like to spend the holidays!

The boys were also less than amused when I told them we were going because of the Chimp Adoption Programme - I hoped they would be eligible. They countered with a Feed Mummy to the Snakes Initiative, which shut me up ( I had to stay outside the Reptile House, such is my serpent phobia).

And just look who we saw in the Zoo Shop (where we spent a disproportionate amount of time lusting after the furry toys, I had no idea Before Children that boys could love those things with such fervour..)

Not Just Cricket

2011-07-09T21:33:00.002+01:00

Here I am watching Boy 1 play cricket in the glorious English sunshine.

I thought the match would be abandoned when the downpour really got going, but no, these people are hardcore, they just waited till it subsided to a brisk drizzle and back onto the pitch they went.

But it's not all cricket. The other day I hopped up to London, to my old stamping ground of High Street Kensington. You can see the spire of St Mary Abbotts; the school of the same name is next door and is very sought after at the moment, as Mr Cameron's daughter goes there.

Below is what used to be the department store Barkers. My mother remembers going there as a little girl. A couple of years ago it turned into a huge Whole Foods. Personally I miss the cosmetics counters and the abundance of stuff you didn't want to buy. Oh, and the grumpy shop assistants.

I like all the plane trees in Kensington, they give much needed greenery.

I felt a bit nostalgic being in Kensington again, as this is where I lived with Boys 1 and 2 when they were babies and toddlers; and oh the memories! The time Boy 2 let his scooter slide into the Round Pond and our dismay as it disappeared under the murky waters ( I managed to hook it out with a long pole I begged off a radio controlled motorboat enthusiast); Boy 1 stomping along the street trying every car door to see if they would open (and his shock when one did); riding on the top deck of the bus with two very wriggly, over-excited boys, who did not understand why they should not scooter inside the bus... I do think London is a good place for babies, as you can walk for miles with them in their pushchairs, I could never get my head around country lanes with no footpaths..

Now, brace yourselves: here is what I look like in Real Life. (I was actually buying this for the boys as they needed to Dress Mad for Charity at school, it had been almost a week since the last charity dress up).

And here is my lovely ex-neighbour, S. Isn't she a doll? She is very definitely Good In Hats. And look at that blondey blonde hair. S lives in the flat below our old flat. It is amazing she is still talking to us after the noise that must have been coming from our flat day-in/day-out - the crying, screaming, banging, crashing - and that was just me trying to make a cup of tea, let alone the row the Boys created. S is American and really funny - her anecdote about seeing Hugh Grant is an All Time Classic:
Her hubs spots our Hugh sitting at a table outside a cafe in South Kensington.
He tells S to walk by, discreetly, to check him out; "But honey, be discreet ok, be cool!"
"Of course I'll be cool!" huffs S.
S arrives at Hugh's table.
Suddenly alien forces overwhelm her.
She stops slapbang in front of Hugh.
And shrieks at the top of her voice:
"HUUUUUUGH GRAAAAAANT!"

S and I gossipped for England and the US combined, and pottered round the shops. We had a good rummage round Accessorize, S was buying presents for her son's teachers. I liked these pretty rings - my precious..

I finished my little Kensington jaunt with a look round TK Maxx but was quite frankly overwhelmed by the sheer volume of stuff...

Faced with a sea of sartorial flotsam, I suddenly found the idea of watching cricket much more relaxing....

Medallion (Wo)Man

2011-07-04T20:41:00.000+01:00

Necklace from TopShop

Dahlings, how are you? Here I am modelling my new lionhead medallion, so very 1980s Versace. Grandma Whacker, who is a Leo, is after it. But I really think you have to be a deranged marsupial to carry off this look.

This post has been brought to you through considerable adversity. In the middle of a vital step in the artistic process (eating crisps while prodding at the computer keys), the phone rang;
"Hello" says I.
"Hello" says a male voice.
"Hello" says I again (I am good at this kind of sparkling repartee).
"I'm phoning about your steam rally" says the voice.
"Er, I think you must have the wrong number, I don't think I am having a steam rally...in fact I'm not."
(At this point I have the almost overwhelming urge to go "WooWoo" and make puffing noises but manage not to).
The caller seemed very unconvinced, as though he thought I was holding out on him and really did have some sidings and a nice steam engine hidden away in the garden, but reluctantly he agreed to go away..

During this telephonic interlude Boy 1 has been poking at the computer and has lost all the uploaded photos.

Boy 1 is now in a Witness Protection Programme ....

MD Formulations - when I used to go for facials at Harrods during an ealier, pre-children skincare phase, they were very keen on this brand..it's got some sort of alpha-hydroxy whatnots in it that resurface and fill potholes

In other news I am having a Skincare Moment. They happen occasionally. So I have purchased this attractively named Adult Anti-Blemish Kit. It could be worse, they could have called it "Spots and Wrinkles Aren't You The Lucky One?" What a loss I am to the marketing profession!

There are a lot of lotions and potions to apply and lots of steps and instructions. And numbering and cross-referencing. I am starting to wonder if I clicked on the wrong item and popped the Build Your Own Large Hadron Collider into my internet shopping basket by mistake.

Oh well. At least I can tell Mr B hand on heart that there is no way I can rejoin the world of work as I am busy full-time with my skincare regime...

Now, just look at this Leopardy Goodness! Yum! When I took my decluttering into the local charity shop these winked at me - they are from TopShop and for only £8 it would be a crime not to.

I do seem to be getting more and more leopardy; if I buy a leopardy sofa and rig myself up in all my leopardy items, I would be completely camouflaged...and could read novels undetected by others at Blighty HQ..

I always take great comfort in Faux Fuchsia's maxim: leopard print is a neutral

This last photo is Shocking. Faux Fuchsia and her followers may wish to prepare themselves emotionally (copyright FF 2010/11). My Parlux has just spluttered into non-existence. It is an ex- Parlux etc etc. Here it lies in the garage, waiting to go to the Big Hair Salon in the Sky. I have a bad track record with hairdryers. Perhaps using them to blowtorch the creme brulees was a mistake.

Must go now dahlings. I have some shunting to do.

Letting Go

2011-06-30T11:37:00.001+01:00

I knew the time would come when I would have to let go of my blue-eyed boy, he has to move on with his life...

Whoops! Wrong blue-eyed boy. ( According to The Daily Mail, Tabloid to the Stars and Grandma Whacker), old Danny Boy has just married Rachel Weisz, but only because I am already married and am always too busy cleaning the floor of the downstairs loo to give him the attention he needs, as a Top Thespian).

I really meant I have to learn to let go of Boy 1 who is growing up fast and who has gone on his first residential trip with the school, for 3 days and 2 nights. Somewhere mysterious called PGL which Boy 1 unreliably informs me stands for Parents Get Lost. The trip involves lots of outdoor activities like abseiling, trip wire malarkey, den building and not opening washbags to use toothpaste or soap.

Boy 1 has been away from home before but only for one night at a time, on sleepovers with friends. And sleepovers work like this:
6pm You drop off Boy 1 and hover nervously in kitchen of host family before being persuaded to leave
9pm Back at home you walk past Boy 1's empty bedroom and go all teary and sentimental before happily settling down to watch a romcom without being disturbed by Boy 1 shouting from his room that he has a sore/throat/arm/foot/toe/unmentionables* and could he have some ointment/Calpol/soothing drink/herbal sleep drops/ lavender oil sprinkled on tissue/ mallet to head?*

*delete as appropriate

Next morning -
6am You wake Mr B and ask him if it is too early to go collect Boy 1; Mr B asks "why, where is he?" and goes back to sleep
8am You arrive at host's house to find host parents bleary eyed and in pjs, assuring you it went really well, the boys got to sleep by 11.30pm after having been told to be quiet for only the 54th time and they did not get up until 5.30am when they woke the whole household while playing a newly invented game of Toilet Cricket Ball Torpedo but were really good and watched a DVD till 6.07am when they demanded pancakes, egg and bacon and popcorn...you quickly remove Boy 1, thanking host parents profusely and handing over bottles of wine, self-help books on Post Traumatic Stress and the phone number of a good plumber
8.10am In the car on the way home Boy 1 informs you he hates his family and would like to be adopted by the host family and he would like Boy 2 to be sent away either to boarding school or preferably for adoption as he is ruining his life etc etc
10am Mrs B has to be put back to bed as overtired and fractious due to sleepover- related lack of sleep...

Boy 1 took packing for the school trip very seriously and started assembling the essentials.

I was glad these were the teddies selected for the minibreak.

Earlier Boy 1 had announced he was taking the imaginatively named Big Bear.

When I pointed out that Big Bear took up the entire suitcase, Boy 1 then suggested he take Domino Dawg instead (fancy, a child of mine not taking things seriously!)

When I came to pack, I did notice a certain bulkiness in the front pocket.

This is the infamous Bertie, Boy 1's beloved sheepskin (in fact he has 3, all of which get dragged to bed with him but for travel purposes he has decided just to go with one.) From lying on the sheepskin in his Moses basket as a baby, Boy 1 progressed to cuddling it, coveting baby Boy 2's sheepskin (there was a worrying moment when Boy 1 tried to pull it out from under newborn Boy 2) and now he is Lord and Master of no less than 3 Berties...

And he going to kill me if he finds out I have blogged about Bertie, as a man's Bertie is a private matter...

All seems to be going ok so far - I dropped Boy 1 off at school (Mummies have been banned from hanging around waving the boys off in their coach to avoid unnecessary tears and wailing, no one wants a lot of soppy, soggy mothers hanging around..). Then I dropped off the suitcase which Boy 1 had forgotten...

Meanwhile Boy 2, who is tremendously cheerful now Boy 1 is Out of the Way so leaving Boy 2 as Top Dog, had his own excitement: his English Speaking Board Exam( reading chosen passage from book; talk on interesting hobby; say a poem by heart) . Final prep went quite smoothly - Boy 2 found he had lost his copy of the book excerpt; reverted to calling Chess "CHEST" throughout his talk; poem now recited at breakneck speed and final word fatally mispronounced so does not rhyme..

After all this I tried to do some much needed and therapeutic de-cluttering, FF style. Now the charity shop bag full of de-cluttered clutter sits looking at me accusingly.

Think I am having trouble letting go of that as well...

Rain, Sun, Tudors, Teddies

2011-06-27T11:29:00.000+01:00

Recently it's been doing a lot of this.

So I bought one of these.

Cagoule from New Look

If I had to choose an item of clothing to sum up my character, this would have to be it - leopard - desire to be adventurous, a bit flighty, glamorous; cagoule - basically sensible, cautious, practical.

Dahlings, what item of clothing would you choose to illustrate your character??

Immediately after the raincoat purchase it has started doing this.

And I have been doing lots of this (like mad 50s housewife).

Now it has hit about 80F I have reluctantly removed my cagoule. But it's ok, I can now wear these.

Cheap as chips from New Look teen girls section and extravagant, compulsive Mrs B in evidence

I like them as not too high and super comfy (practical Mrs B to the fore)

In other news we are rocketing towards the end of the Daphnes4Boy$ summer term - just 2 weeks left and then 8 weeks hols. A lot gets packed into these last few days -

cricket,

cricket party,

tennis,

charity wear the colours of the Libyan flag day ( Mrs B got a bit worked up about this until Mr B explained it was the rebel flag colours, we were not subbing Gaddafi)

Boy 2 history trip

Boy 1 trip to Tudor theme park in his Tudor costume

Boy 2 art outdoors trip

Boys 1 and 2 Swim Galas

Lunch at school for mummies to see what lunch is like for their little darlings ( "But Headmaster, surely you don't give them a Bordeaux with the Poulet au Dettol?")

Boy 2 Open Afternoon ( "oh poppet, you have another 23 exercise books for me to look through, how lovely!" (thinks: where is my hip flask when I really need it.")

Boy 2 residential trip away (expect tears and sobbing from Mrs B - "No Mr B, I have not lost my credit card, I am actually missing the little boggler..."

Speech Day (note to self: stay awake, and do not fantasise about suddenly shouting out "ARSE!" in a lull)

Parents Party

Boys Party.........

The Tudors were big purchasers of Ford motor cars

Meanwhile Boy 2 has been getting in touch with his caring, feminine side, which is quite frankly a shock as his other hobby is bashing stuff.

Thwarted

2011-06-22T13:31:00.000+01:00

PIC 1 MRS B LYING ON COUCH LIKE THAT CAMELIAS WOMAN BUT WITHOUT THE GALLOPING CONSUMPTION AND WITH A PACKET OF WALKERS PRAWN COCKTAIL CRISPS* CLUTCHED TO HER CHEST

So the other day I had a post ready. And then Blogger ate it up, photos and all, burped and sighed happily to itself, leaving me tempted to whack the computer lightly with a brick. Since then I have been lying on my couch all melodramatic artist-like, now and again announcing that I can't work under such conditions. Until Boys 1 and 2 asked me to move, as they wanted to sit on the couch to watch their current favourite TV show, "60 Deadly Animals Wot Will Bite Your Head Or Other Important Bits Off" and eat crisps.

PIC 2 BOYS 1 AND 2 SITTING ON COUCH WITH PACKET OF WALKERS CHEESE AND ONION CRISPS EACH WITH TV IN BACKGROUND SHOWING CUTE LITTLE MOUSE THINGIE BITING THE HEAD OFF A CRICKET*

But here I am again, defiantly trying to post.....bad idea, now I can't get the photos to load...but as you will have already observed, I have helpfully included in CAPITALS a description of the visuals you are missing.

Humph! It's pouring with rain here again and poor old Boy 1 has gone off with the school to do some sort of outdoor organic eco build your own den team building day - complete with waste free lunch - a bit of a challenge - I guess we were supposed to do brown rice wrapped in cabbage leaves but we've gone with a ham sandwich in Tupperware..

PIC 3 BOY 1'S WASTE FREE LUNCH - ONE APPLE, ONE HAM SANDWICH AND 2 CHOC CHIP COOKIES EACH IN INDIVIDUAL TUPPERWARE BOXES BUT NO WALKERS CRISPS WHICH IS A SHAME AS WALKERS WORCESTER SAUCE FLAVOUR WOULD HAVE REALLY JOLLIED UP THE LUNCH

So now I'm off to watch The Big Easy ( a young Dennis Quaid, cute) which always cheers me up.**

What do you all do when things don't go your way?

* This post was not sponsored by Walkers Crisps but if there is any chance of a year's free supply of crisps..
**Which reminds me, the other day Mr B and I watched "Sex, Love and Other Drugs" and may I just say what a very fine actor Mr Gyllenhal's upper torso is (also his left buttock is quite talented too..)

PIC 4 PIC OF JAKEY G'~~S BUTTOCKS~~

WOT I DONE IN ME HOLIDAYS AND OTHER NEWS

2011-06-12T17:06:00.001+01:00

Dahlings, I can't believe how long it is since last I blogged. Disgraceful! I really would not want this blog to fall into desuetude.* Although (much to Mr Blighty's amusement) during my breaks in posting I always gain more followers. Paradoxically*, frequent posting causes me to lose followers - what me, offend people? Shocking!

Well life seems to have been coming at me like a hyperactive toddler covered in melted chocolate when you are wearing a cream suit, and there has been the small event of Boys 1and 2's half term hols (now safely over, though Boy 1 did manage to wangle a day off "ill" last week - "ill" as in, I feel a bit tired and don't really much fancy it today). AND THEY HAVE ONLY 4 WEEKS LEFT NOW OF SCHOOL BEFORE THE LONG SUMMER HOLS NOT THAT I AM PANICKING OR ANYTHING WHERE IS MY PASSPORT STUFF IT I WILL LEAVE ALL MY CLOTHES BEHIND YES I WANT TO CLOSE THE ACCOUNTS AND TAKE THE WHOLE BALANCE IN CASH TAXIIIIIIIII! WHEN IS THE NEXT FLIGHT LEAVING? WHERE? NEVER HEARD OF IT GIVE ME A SINGLE TICKET CAN I PAY CASH? ETC ETC!..

So in this post I am just going randomly to paste pics from the last couple of weeks and make it up as I go along (so actually no change whatsoever to my usual modus operandi*)..

Above, 3D glasses -Mr B has just taken the boys off to watch Kung Fu Panda 2. During the hols I took them to Pirates of the Caribbean 34 and would like to point out that the actual running time of that film is in fact 2 and a half days, never mind what they claim on the cinema website. I can also confirm that the correct mathematical formula for popcorn consumption by Boy 2 is : bodyweight x 2 + total arm reach x fist capacity - trouser coverage - time popcorn removed by Mummy who is no fun at all. All rigorously scientifically tested. Another interesting statistic: number of times Mummy said loudly in a quiet bit "Does anyone need a wee?" = 7 ( Oh and I would just like to say well done to the man at the back who very obediently did as he was told..)

Cinema today is a good idea as it has been raining nonstop and cricket has been cancelled. Mind you, cricket is not what is was, thanks to a teenage pyromaniac who did this to the cricket pavilion just a couple of months ago.

Grandma Whacker came to stay to help me with the boys during half-term. She brought these lovely roses from her garden.

With my mother around I regressed to my teenage self, wore ripped jeans and painted my nails an alarming colour. Grandma pronounced that "You bloggy girls have very frightening nails!"

I tried to be a bit Faux Fuchsia so wore this purple rock arrangement (copyright FF 20110).

The colour is OPI Summer 2010 . I am thinking that soon I will get my alter ego Sindy Lemon-Grass-Snoddy (beautician and research chemist) to do a guest post on nail polish.

I played chess with Boy 2 (aged 8). He beat me. Easily. I can't actually play chess and so Boy 2 has been teaching me, but he only tells me certain things, bit by bit. The book is for me, not him. I'll show him!

This thing below is Mr Snoodles. Boy 2 has been going on about buying him for ages, he is a Moshi Monster character. Apparently. I must admit to being somewhat underwhelmed when I finally came face to face with Mr Snoodles. He is basically a yellow pig with green ears. Boy 2 of course adores him and will do for at least the next 10 hours, before abandoning him on his bedroom floor forever. Poor Mr Snoodles.

This is, according to Mr Blighty, the most expensive property in the UK - One Hyde Park. The penthouse flat sold for about £140 million last year. Gulp! We went past it on the way to a football birthday party in Hyde Park a few weeks ago.

They must get a nice view of the park.

And at the bottom of the building is a handy convenience store, for those last minute essentials.

Once the boys went back to school Grandma and I hit up John Lewis, that purveyor of all household wares to middle England. Look at the price of this baby! Does it go buy the ingredients for you, load them in the car and unpack them when it gets home? For this price it's the least it can do.

I liked the colour of this Kitchen Aid. But Grandma reminded me that I did not really cook plus there is the evidence of prior gadget abuse in the form of my breadmaker (last used in 2007), slow cooker, rice cooker...

Loved the cheery colours of these gadgets. I could wear matching nail polish (not now Sindy).

Grandma and I endured the Horror of Sports Day - from 9am to 5pm on a windswept sports field bordering the motorway, total time spent by Boy 1 and Boy 2 doing an event 4 mins. I particularly enjoyed the hail stones at about 2.30pm, though the drizzle at 11am was good too. And readers of Faux Fuchsia will know that just the other day she locked her keys in the car and had to get the emergency rescue man out. Well, ever keen to emulate Faux I locked Grandma in the car at the start of Sports Day. For 20 minutes. By accident. Honest. Result: one Very Cross Grandma; the RSPCA are never going to let me have a dog; and Grandma will never get in the car again without the keys and an emergency flare.

Here is Boy 2 taking it all very seriously, keeping his pompoms dry. At least I think it is Boy 2 - as usual I was cheering on a boy with the same red trainers - who turned out not to be Boy 2.....And I can never remember the house names and colours - "no Mummy, green is Ringworm, Yellow is Impetigo, Red is ChickenPox, Blue is Verruca" (Daphnes4Boy$ Sports Day, sponsored by Clapxx Pharmaceuticals).

Yesterday we went to a lovely party, and the boys did lots of this, having investigated the chocolate fountain and the ice cream van first.

Finally I found these in the cupboards, sweet little baby plates which a Swedish friend gave us when Boy 1 was tiny. I am wondering whether a certain little Australian baby might like these. I never really used them as I favoured bowls that could be stuck down by suction pads onto the high chair.

Even so, this happened far too often...

* I would like to dedicate these items of vocabulary to Louise InTownsville and Linda in Chile.

Mrs Blighty's Inner Strength

2011-05-30T21:05:00.001+01:00

People often ask me what gives me the strength to keep going, when the going gets tough. They say to me, "Mrs Blighty, what gives you the strength to keep going, when the going gets tough?"

Right now the going is just a little bit tough: instead of being in the United States of Americaland as a judge on X Factor Who's Got Talent Celebrity Bootcamp Get Me out of the Dragon's Den, I am here facing a week of ~~those little blighters~~ my beloved Boys 1 and 2 on ~~parole from the young offenders' institute~~ hols from school and having to keep them ~~from breaking the furniture~~ motivated and inspired with educational activities.

So how do I keep centred, calm, in balance and grounded in these circumstances?
The answer is: murder.

I explained this with a happy grin to the lady standing next to me at the library the other day. She quickly moved away. Can't think why.

But it's true, in trying times I take refuge in novels and DVDs featuring murder and other torrid crimes.

Here's some I read recently:

" A Field of Darkness" is the first of three novels featuring WASP outcast Madeline Dare and in this one she sets out to prove her cousin was not involved in the murder of two girls years earlier. It's good, but I like her second book, "The Crazy School" best.

"The Last Fix" by K.O. Dahl is one of those Scandanavian detective novels. This one is Norwegian and as usual features a depressed detective ( this one talks to his goldfish) and his mixed up sidekick (relationship issues). The success of Henning Mankell's Wallander has led to an influx of Nordic detectives onto the bookshelves. I prefer Arnaldur Indriðason's Icelandic Inspector Erlendur - he is marvellously miserable.

"From The Dead" features Mark Billingham's detective, Tom Thorne. He's quite depressed, has relationship issues but no goldfish. Thorne gets to go to Mijas and Puerto Banus in Spain so I guess Billingham is already thinking about the TV adaptation.

And now some DVDs:

Hmm, Silent Witness. I watched half the first episode and I am sorry, personally I find this a bit pants. It insists on spelling everything out VERY CLEARLY in a very BBC sort of way so the viewer cannot fail to get what's going on :

Scene 1

Military helicopter crashes.

Top pathologist : " I can't believe they said it was pilot error when they don't yet know the cause of the crash." Cue atmospheric music.

Scene 2

Government Minister attends scene of crash and says to Press:

"We believe it is Pilot Error."

Scene 3

Top Pathologist (getting angry) says: " I can't believe they said it was Pilot Error when they.. etc etc

Mrs Blighty nods off for a bit, goes to make a cup of tea, fills in her tax return etc. before catching up with

Scene 28

Top Pathologist (angry and emotional and really doing Acting on full throttle):

" When a crash happens it's only too easy to push responsibility down the Chain of Command and say it was Pilot Error, particularly (pulling out all stops and going for Major TV Acting Award) if the pilot is not in a position to answer back as he is DEAD.." Cue dramatic music etc etc.

Actually, as I type this I realise I have in fact enjoyed Silent Witness tremendously, but for all the wrong reasons. My enjoyment is increased by a quick read of the plot synopses on the DVD case:

"Nikki clashes with DCI Whatnot ...."

"Harry tangles with a Russian oligarch.."

"Harry....clashes with the police..."

"Nikki clashes with Zambian police.."

What a lot of clashing ( and a bit of tangling)! Excellent!

And I do so love "clash". Have you noticed it is only ever used in the newspapers or in plot summaries? When was the last time you asked your hubs, "How did work go today dear?" and he answered, " Well, I clashed with my boss first thing but....."?

"A Touch of Frost" - this was more like it. I have always liked Frost as he wears an anorak and a pork pie hat and has a boss called Inspector Mullet who always gets involved on a case if there is any chance of a TV appearance. Frost is based in fictional Denton, a town near London. I love the episodes where there is a psychopath at large and young policewoman/dog handler/nun/nurse etc decides it would be a great idea to go for a midnight stroll in Denton Woods.. "What do you mean, you saw Amy/Suki/Immaculata/Wendy going into Denton Woods?"

Among all the murder and mayhem, I read "Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad", as I heard a piece about it on the radio. It's the real life email friendship between a BBC journalist (Bree, married, 3 young children) and May (an Iraqi academic living in Baghdad after the toppling of Saddam Hussein). As I am horribly nosy, I loved reading the emails between the two women and getting a view into both their lives. It's also very clear that May (and so I assume many of the Iraqi middle class) resent the invasion and hate the ensuing chaos, bloodshed, militia groups, tribal score settling and lack of basic amenities like power, petrol and rubbish collection, and actually found life much better under Saddam...

But don't worry - I have got myself a far more soothing read for tonight...

All book and DVD pics whipped from Amazon - did you guess??

All Normal Chez Blighty*

2011-05-27T20:45:00.000+01:00

Boy 1 ready for some disco action

Dahlings! A quick post while I have the chance - Boy 1 is at yet another disco and Boy 2 has (illegally) reconnected the Wii and I am pretending I haven't noticed...

This time the disco is at the girls' school - St Britneys. When Boy 1 learnt the venue, he nodded sagely and muttered, "Enemy territory." Should I have asked Mr Cameron for a spare Apache, for air cover? What if the mission goes wrong and Boy 1 goes native, and is found years later on the netball court, wild eyed and covered in hairclips, bangles and glitter?

Highlights of this week have been Boy 1's new cricket bat and cricket wheelie bag, and Boy 2's wounded foot - caused by an attempt to scale his wardrobe one night after lights out, for reasons known only to Boy 2 and assisted only by a rickety chair. Result - terrific thump, wailing, school attendance wearing one school shoe and one bright red Croc and mad hoppy-skippy walking (to emphasise the incredible pain and amazing braveness of the Afflicted One).

This is so totally rad and happening, Boy 2 like totally owns this look and rocks it like majorly

The combination of the new cricket bag and the foot incident really made me wonder about the Blighty gene pool. Picture the scene: I decant Cricket Boy and Hoppalong Cassidy from the car after school; Hoppalong gets to the door first but wobbles at the threshold; Cricket Boy, fresh from a cricket match where his team triumphed over the Weeny Tweenies under 5s, pushes past in a manly, sportsmanlike way, his new cricket bag slung over his shoulder; unfortunately he has not worked out that the bag is wider than the doorway.....so he wedges himself in the door and practically knocks himself out, and narrowly avoids bringing down old Hoppalong who is tottering behind him...
I didn't help by dissolving into mad laughter but really...what a pair! !
Is there any hope for those two I wonder?** Could they perhaps play Thompson and Thomson in a Tintin adaptation?

This is wider than the door apparently, it should have an Elf and Safety Notice on it and so should the door frame

My handydandy calendar which has funny quotes for each day (and quite frankly is getting on my nerves with its relentless jollity) featured this the other day:

I like a challenge so I whipped up a cake - yes, Mrs Blighty, Having It All. But I had a chocolate fudge icing malfunction - it was so runny, not only did it run off the cake but the top of the cake started to slide off the bottom, in sinister slo-mo. You never see Nigella's top sliding off her bottom, as it were. (Although no doubt some tapes will surface at some point).

And of course, the main news is that, having managed a few days at school, the Boys are now on holidays AGAIN. You know how fashionistas do that "Cost per Wear" calculation - if you buy a dress which costs £800 and wear it 10 times it only costs you...er....(but why not buy a dress that costs £10 and wear that 10 times and it will work out even cheaper???)...well, I hate to think of the Cost per Wear on a Daphne4Boy$ uniform...but don't worry, I am doing my best to bring the cost down by forcing Boy 1 to wear a blazer whose sleeves now stop just below his elbows... I tried to do the same with the PE shorts until the music teacher took me to one side and explained that there wasn't a part for a falsetto in the school choir...

* I have to thank Debs for this title; Debs is a loyal and witty commenter, who made me laugh by commenting recently that everything seemed "normal as usual" in the Blighty household.
** Should Boy 1 take up the double bass? I have to come clean and fess up to similar door width/turning in corridor/ misshaps with a cello in my yoof..

Rubby and Chest

2011-05-24T17:35:00.000+01:00

Not Mrs Blighty! From Hello.com

Dahlings, I do apologise for the lack of posting. I have been prevented from Telling All due to a Super Injunction - Mr B****** obtained a court order stopping me from publishing details of our relationship and family life, including our d***** p****** . But the gagging order has now been lifted, following a further hearing at the High Court where I represented myself and gave an exhaustive 4 hour presentation, at the end of which the judge woke up and ruled no one was the slightest bit interested and he now wanted lunch.

So on I go, doing freedom of speech and whatnot.

Now we all know small boys move in mysterious ways, and Boy 2 is no exception. If he decides something is called something, that is what it is called, despite all evidence to the contrary and despite the entire world calling it something else.

For example, rugby, that game played in winter, the object of which is for boys to get covered in mud and mothers to get hypothermia. Boy 2 insists it is called Rubby.*

And now Boy 2 has joined Daphnes4Boy$ Chess Club. He maintains it is called Chest.

He is very keen on Chest these days. I can't actually play, but Boy 2 has been teaching me.

He expertly took me through each piece and how they move:
"And this Mummy, is a prawn."
"Er, sweetie, they are pawns, not prawns. Prawns are a kind of seafood, like shrimps."
"Yes, they are small like shrimps, they are shrimpy, that's why they are called prawns."
"Darling, they really are pawns."
"I call them prawns". End of discussion.

Oh well, I am just thankful that Chest and Rubby don't get combined, if you see what I mean.

In other news, Boy 2 has to do the dreaded English Speaking Board exam. He has to recite a poem learnt by heart, read a passage chosen from a book and give a talk on an object or game

Boy 2 has chosen a bit from "Mr Gum and the Power Crystals" by Andy Stanton

I have already suffered through the English Speaking exam with Boy 1. Fairly traumatic due to Boy 1's refusal to learn his poem properly, and the deliberate substitution of the wrong words (mainly butt and willy). But we managed. Just.

So, no worries, I will just recycle Boy 1's talk again for Boy 2.

Now what was it? OOh, I did visual aids and everything, I remember now!

Ah. The talk. It was on Chest.
And the different pieces.
Including prawns.

Maybe time for a rethink.

Good posture is important when giving a presentation

No, not like this Boy 2!

* These days I am watching a lot of cricket matches, I feel just like Liz Hurley watching old Shane Warne, she wears slinky jeggings and a little corsety top, I wear 3 jumpers and Boy 1's cagoule; at the end of the match Liz puckers up and gives old Warnie a kiss; I chase Boy 1 round the field trying to get him to give his nose a good blow...

Shoptastic

2011-05-24T15:55:00.001+01:00

Unlike Daphne, my hair is naturally this colour..
Wearing my new spotted silk scarf from Phase 8 and leopard print belt from Zara

Dahlings, I really feel I have been neglecting my role as ~~deranged marsupial~~ style icon to the masses. One cannot just leave it to Daphne Guinness. But recently I have been sooo occupied with riot control, kettling and star charts that I have scarcely had time for matters sartorial. Do forgive me.

Things have not been going that well on the clothes front. Remember the terrible skirt I bought on-line (now safely returned to the Big Warehouse in the Sky)? Well I have experienced another Nasty On-line Buy - ("Nob") - yes, I have had to invent a whole new word to cover this recurring nightmare. I present my latest Nob.

Dress X- Small from Gap, shurely shome mistake, which explains why I am doing the Monty Python Mr Gumby stance.
Nobs - will the nightmare never end?

Last week I went for a little light shopping with two Mummy friends. We hit up the local Happy Valley Shopping Centre.

Of course, union rules provide that no mother of male children can pursue retail activities without buying some sort of sporting equipment for said male child. So we found ourselves in the Sports Shop discussing the merits of size 4 bats versus size 3, octopus grips, knocking in (isn't this what got us into the union in the first place?) and oiling your bat.

Look at these prices - but these are for adult cricketers who take it Very Seriously

I wondered whether I should get one of these hats - who knew Philip Treacy sold off the peg numbers like these?

Things hotted up when we went into House of Fraser. Look at these shoes! When did shoes get so high? And so fetishistic?

These and the shoes below are Kurt Geiger

The leopard and red ones are very understated I feel, for Minnie Mouse

Look close - these are bugtastic

The result of a plot between orthopaedic surgeons, insurance companies and personal injury lawyers?

The girlfriends and I had a laugh trying on lots of clothes and coming out of the changing rooms in fits of giggles - it was like being a teenager again... I did not buy anything except for the spotty silk scarf I am modelling in the first pic in this post.

But you can't keep a shoptart down - this week I popped up to London and had a toddle round Oxford Street, ending up in Selfridges. I spotted this chap by the Creme de la Mer counter, probably about to spend the fee from his latest movie on a pot of skin serum.

Mr Clive Owen

He ~~looked at me~~ ~~with ill-concealed lust~~ failed to register my existence and so I had a good peruse of the OPI stand and bought this orange polish from their Summer 2011 Texas range.

On the right is the OPI polish, on the left a polish from Accessorize in Starlet, cheap as chips but my goodness, it stays on like a dream

When I had finished annoying the OPI ladies by putting the polishes back in the wrong place (nail polish, bringing people together) and walked back past the Creme de la Mer counter Mr O was still there - bless, either he was lurking, hoping to talk to me or there was some terrible shortage of premium unguents for Hollywood A listers.. He was very tall, tanned and striking, in a dark suit. But I just know he wouldn't have Mr Blighty's drafting skills...

I faced the ever hectic MAC counter at Selfridges and bought a lipstick called Vegas Vamp.

I hear that lipstick sales are up, an indicator of economic downturn; hear that Mr B? I am not spendthrift, I am an important economic indicator...

I like MAC - they don't take themselves too seriously. I picked this lipgloss up a while ago - it's got a pic of Cruella de Ville on it, a true style icon indeed, though not dog friendly..

A few other things winked at me and asked me to take them home:

Orange belt from Zara

Dress from H&M - I took Piglet and his knitted vest from Winnie the Pooh as my style inspiration

Silk dress from Zara

In fact it was only Mr Owen who did not to wink and beg to come home with me.

Just as well.

He would have hated my moisturiser.

Droopy Peonies

2011-05-19T22:13:00.001+01:00

We are currently suffering from a nasty case of droopy peonies here at Blighty HQ.

Perhaps I should re-phrase that: my peonies have gone all floppy. Look.

I must admit I am not really a gardener. I find it annoying: things won't grow where they are supposed to, and then pop up where they are not meant to be.

And you do a couple of hours weeding, and bingo, you need to do it all over again before you've even had time to get the dirt out from under your fingernails.

Guerrilla pansies, surviving against all odds

No idea what this is but I haven't killed it yet

And the grass. In the summer months it needs mowing every week. This gives rise to the Blighty HQ mowing ritual:
Mr Blighty: I really ought to mow the lawn this weekend.
Mrs Blighty: (pausing briefly to remove her head from her crisp packet) Yes dear.
Mr Blighty: But it might rain.
Mrs Blighty: It's not raining right now.
Mr Blighty: It looks like there could be a light drizzle.
Mrs Blighty: No, that's just bits of crisp hitting the windows.
Mr Blighty: I haven't really got time to do it now, it's almost lunchtime.
Mrs Blighty: I think you can just about get it done before lunch, dear, it's only 10.15.
Mr Blighty: Well, if it's ok with you, I'll go and do the lawn then.
Mrs Blighty (settling down with the newspaper) Yes dear, what a marvellous idea, DEAR.
Exit Mr Blighty in direction of garden shed.
4 minutes later Mr Blighty re-enters kitchen.
Mr Blighty: Slight problem - I've just realised that Toad is in the Ascendant with a Half Crescent Bagel, while the outlying Moons of Bathmat are orbiting the...
Mrs Blighty: JUST MOW THE BLOODY LAWN!.....
Mr Blighty (in hurt tone): I was just trying to explain that the mower won't start...

I know what this is, it's a...wait a minute, I know this one...

The other thing about gardening is that Grandma Whacker is always being encouraging about it:
Phone rings, it's Grandma.
Grandma: Shall I bring you some rulywumpos and some climbing fingbottles for the terrace? I won't if you don't want me to.
Mrs B: (thinking to herself: Christ, that's the last thing I need) Oh Mummy, how lovely but no thank you, I don't think I'll bother this year, they didn't do very well last year.
Grandma: Are you sure? They would look so jolly in pots.

Very bad photos of a muntjac deer in our front garden ( and lovely shot of our bins too). Muntjac are originally from Asia and started off in a zoo at Wooburn Abbey in the 1900s, escaped and then spread all over the place; they are called ASBO Bambis - (Anti Social Behaviour Orders given to delinquents) - they look cute but are very destructive, eating plants, saplings, and they make odd barking noises particularly late at night

Mrs B: Yes, it's not worth it, last year I completely forgot to water them for 4 months which wasn't really a problem as the deer had already chewed off the shoots, and the Boys' Ultimate Tennis finished off what the deer missed, and then what with the slugs, the greenfly and the mixup with the watering can and the weedkiller...
Grandma: I''ll bring them then...in fact I might get a few hundred more and bring in a lorryload of topsoil.

No idea what these are either but have vague memory of buying them in fit of Garden Centre Madness

Anyway, I have hiked up my peonies with a stick and some twine. (Made my eyes water a bit).

Wonder whether stick and twine would work on Mr B and the lawn mower?

Discotastic

2011-05-07T21:16:00.000+01:00

Boy 1 attended his school disco last night. This highlight of the Daphne4Boy$ social calendar includes girls (or grils as they are known in our house) from two local girls' schools, The Katie Price School for Young Ladies, and St Britneys. It is an established myth among the Daphne boys that the Katies are total babes while the Britneys make the school dog look good; I have already given a stern lecture to my boys about kindness and not making horrid comments like this, but this silly folklore persists. I feel sure the Britneys will have the last laugh and will no doubt break many a former Daphne's boy heart in later years.

The build up to this event was quite something. A few days ago Boy 1 requested that his favourite shirt be retrieved from the bottom of the laundry basket, washed and ironed. It's got a sort of Miami Vice vibe to it. Bound to impress the girls.

Then, a couple of nights ago at the dinner table Boy 1 announced that in Science that day they had done " Pollination and (pausing for effect and then in over-enthusiastic tones)..Fertilisation." "You know, Mummy, mammals, er, like humans, and Mr Grummidge drew a big picture on the board of a penis and testicles and we all giggled and....."

"More pasta anyone?" I squeaked.

Boys 1 and 2 looked at each other conspiratorially and then Boy 1 said, " I'm going to get the Big Book of Sex" and shot off into the other room.

Now, I am worried on at least 2 fronts:

the timing of this biology lesson seems a bit unfortunate, what with the disco and girls being there and all, we really don't want any pollination;
what the heck is the Big Book of Sex? And have Boys 1 and 2 being telling all their schoolmates that they have such a book at home and have their schoolmates told their parents and do they think we have a copy of the Karma Sutra hanging around the place or some sort of scary manual thingie ? (if we have it's news to me, though we do have a DIY manual which I find quite exciting....)

Boy 1 reappeared with this. It's a jolly book to explain things to children which has been lurking on the bookshelf for years and which the boys have never taken much interest in.

Though they do like these pages, which I agree look great fun.

I asked Boy 1 if I should get him a space hopper to take to the disco and he got VERY CROSS.

I do wonder if this book has affected them at a tender age and if they will forever be doomed to need a minimum of 20 ballooons before they can .....or the opposite - what if they can't even walk past a partyshop without .....?.right, I'll stop now.

On the night of the disco we had a last minute panic about what trousers to wear.

And Boy 1 took a shower. I feel we have moved into teen territory.

Boy 1 swiped Mr Blighty's deodorant, I am not quite sure to which bit of himself Boy 1 applied it, the other day I saw him rubbing it on his wrist. Apparently all the boys in Y5 (9-10years) are obsessed with Lynx deodorant, to such an extent that asthma attacks in the changing rooms are up 100%.

Mr Blighty collected Boy 1 from the disco when it ended at 9pm. I could not get anything out of Boy 1 about what had happened. But later Mr Blighty told me that Boy1 had confided that he had danced 56 times, 28 times with a girl called Catherine. Later enquiries reveal that "dancing" means holding hands and jumping up and down on the spot.

Well, this is all very unsettling stuff. But I am pleased to report Boy 1 is back to normal today.

Here is me trying to be all Homes and Gardens with an little blue and white arrangement in the living room.

And here is Boy 1 with his own decorating finishing touches: an improvised pingpong table with a net built with cereal packets. If you overcook your return of service, Mummy's ornaments are toast.

Maybe if I play pingpong with him again tomorrow, he will tell me more about the Big Book of Sex...

Square Eyes, Star Charts and Parenting Challenges

2011-05-06T10:41:00.000+01:00

With our guests last week we caught up on some films on DVD.

Mr Blighty has been wanting to see "Inception" for ages.

He loves a bit of sci-fi action.

He also likes films with vampires in them. (They often feature Kate Beckinsale but I am sure these two things are unconnected).

And Fast and Furious type car films.

When I first met him he pretended to like arty French films. Ha! What some chaps will do to get a second date!

WARNING - THIS NEXT BIT CONTAINS A SPOILER RE THE DI CAPRIO INDEX ("DiCex")

I can report that "Inception" is quite baffling and about going into people's subconscious via their dreams. More importantly I can tell you that old Leonardo does not take his top off. Not once. This film scores 0 for DiCex. I guess the producers weren't willing to stump up the extra $2 million dollars for Lennie to hit the gym...

Anyway, the characters kept going to different levels in the dreamworld and I kept shouting "Yeah Leonardo, let's take it to another level" until Mr B took me out of the room and threatened me with the naughty step. Anyway, it was actually a right load of old tosh and at the same time v exciting and engrossing

"Grown Ups" promised to be dire but was surprisingly good. High art it is not but it is very well done and funny. Old school mates who played in a basket ball team are reunited. Some of it was a bit too close to home: Sandler has to carry his kids outside to get them off the Xbox gizmos and enjoy the fresh air and games outside - and his kids reaction: "But there's nothing to do out here!"

Nasty murder stories are one of my guilty pleasures, so for a couple of days after our guests left I was glued to Thorne. This is based on a series of books by Mark Billingham, some of which I have read. Not for the faint hearted.

Just last night I watched "Julie and Julia". I loved it, which is high praise from someone who basically hates cooking. I had to grin at Julie's mother's reaction to her starting her blog: "But why? Who's going to read it? Why give yourself more work? You'll make yourself ill, you'll get ill from blogging.."...... and then a few months later her mother saying: "Why haven't you blogged? What's the matter? What's going on? You must keep going!" Oh the wonderful loving unpredictability of mothers!

I must admit the films (particularly the gruesome murder ones!!) are a welcome distraction from the fact I am struggling at the moment with this parenting business. It's probably that Boys 1 and 2 have just got back to Daphnes4Boy$. I miss them during the day but when I get them back after school and before school, they are over-excited, fractious and highly combustible....in short, horrid. They are either shrieking at each other or me, or both. It's like living on the set of the Jerry Springer show with two rednecks endlessly slogging it out but with no hope of a commercial break. But what really makes it harder to bear is, that when Mr Blighty is around, they are angelic.

It goes something like this:

7am - Mr Blighty is leaving for work.
Mr Blighty : "Goodbye boys. Have a nice day."
Boy 1, looking up from his stamp collection which he is carefully sticking into his album: " Goodbye Papa, I trust you will enjoy a productive and fulfilling day at work and can return home safely to your family who do love you so dearly.... (and other Dickensian type drivel)..
Boy 2, pausing from writing a letter sending money to the poor children living in deprived areas of London such as Eaton Square, " Au revoir Pater, and Godspeed your return to us, I shall remember you in my mid-morning prayers and shall think of you fondly while I help dearest Mama with her welding and bread baking...."

5 minutes later, Mrs Blighty is in the shower, wondering whether to apply conditioner for "hair that's a bit lacklustre and droopy" to her entire body, when 2 screaming banshees burst into the bathroom, giving Mrs B heart failure..
Boy 1: AAAAAAAAEEEEEEEEEEE! I'm going KIIIIIIIIIL you, you fat pig toad penis etc etc I HAAAAAAAAAATE you you're gonnnnnna DIEEEEEEEEEEE!
Boy 2 : MUUUUUUUUUUUMMY heeeeeelp! He's gonna kill meeeeeee!
Mrs B (trying to dry off with tiny hand towel/ rag for cleaning the windows: "Just stay away from each other and stop winding each other up, stop provoking each other..."
Boy 2: " He's being provocative, he's a big stooooopid gorilla dick face flower bottom who wears girls' pants......."

Exit Boy 2 hotly pursued by Boy 1, they reconvene for bare knuckle fighting and pingpong on the kitchen table etc etc etc until Mrs B looks wistfully at the gin bottle/brochure for one way air tickets (at 7.25am) OR Mrs B loses tempers, starts shrieking at them to "Stop shrieking" and chases them round and round the table as in bad Franch farce till they fall to the ground moaning "Oh, head hurts, my vision is blurred, Mummy you have broken my leg/arm/glasses etc....".

But never fear, in this type of situation what you need is to spend 30 mins constructing yet another Star Chart. With a point and reward system so complex, it makes Mr Blighty's tax legislation look easy. That will show them!

Predictably within 5 mins they have tested, refined, driven a coach and horses through, and generally exposed, all the conceptual and drafting weaknesses of said Star Chart, so that I end up lavishing points on them despite, or even because, they have reenacted the Battle of Trafalgar (with live ammo and real water) while singing rude limericks at the top of their voices....

And now this note has appeared on the bedroom door of Boy 2, aged 8. What is going on in there? Will the worry never end?

The Wedding and Beyond

2011-05-03T21:07:00.000+01:00

During a short visit to school Boy 2 did a Royal Wedding Special Edition for Hello
Magazine

Boy 2's mag involved sticking pics in the right order,
he is so going to be headhunted by OK magazine soon

Well, I enjoyed the Wedding. Lots of bling, glamour and good looks, and that was just old Prince Harry.

But I must admit Boys 1 and 2 weren't quite so captivated. There wasn't much in it for them - no Wii allowed as TV commandeered for Wedding viewing; no sign of any aliens, Ninja turtles, Pokemon, Puffles or Dr Who type monsters, though I did hope the assortment of weird hats might prove an adequate substitute.

And I kept saying the Wrong Thing as a mother, like "OOh, look there's Elton and his husband!"
Boy 1 "What, is he married to a man?"
Mrs B, "Oh yes and they have just had a baby."
Boy 2, " How did they have a baby?"
Boy 1 sniggering, to Boy 2 ".....out of his...giggle, giggle"
Mrs B, " Err, they got a lady to have one for them and..."
Mr Blighty: " That's enough, look at the policemen with machine guns.."
Boy 1: "Are they snipers?"
Mr Blighty: "No, you can't see the snipers but they will be there, on every roof top."
Mrs Blighty: "They will take out any kid who starts wailing in a quiet bit...we had them at our wedding.."
Boys 1 and 2 "Really Mummy?"
Mrs Blighty: " No, only joking. The snipers were there to stop Daddy escaping."

And like:
Mrs Blighty: "Good to see old Tara's snozzle is holding up ok."
Boy 2: "Why? What's wrong with her nose? What did she do to it?"
Mrs Blighty: "She did too much....
Mr Blighty: "Look at the policemen with the machine guns!"

To keep the boys amused we also played a game called Spot the Coachman. At pre-Boy 1 ante-natal classes I met a girl whose husband was a Royal coachman.They lived in the Royal Mews next to Buckingham Palace. Baby Boy 1 used to go on "playdates"* there with their new baby. (* mothers drink tea and chat while babies lie dribbling and blowing bubbles). After that we lost touch, what with Boy 1 being a boy with the boy toddler interests of bashing things, smashing stuff and knocking anything else over, and their baby being a girl who therefore quietly and with the minimum of fuss taught herself to read Proust (in French) and took up needlepoint, harp, watercolours, quantum mechanics, Ancient Greek and chess..

We concentrated hard on Spot the Coachman, he would have been one of those riding on one of the carriage horses...we never saw him, and I must say, the BBC's coverage of the coaches and horses was really rather poor, the camera kept switching back to that girl in the white lace..

We had house guests, Lovely B's daughter and her husband who are a very cool couple and Boys 1 and 2 adore them and totally want to ditch their boring parents and go live with them instead. So after we had watched the Wedding we dragged Boys 1 and 2 out to a street party in the old part of town.

It was all very jolly.

This is NOT Grandma Whacker

English people going wild and letting their hair down

At last, a bus

My sentiments exactly

After a bit of mooching about, a chat with some school friends and a refreshing beverage, we returned home and started the important business of discussing the Wedding in detail.. Boys 1 and 2 slunk off, relieved to be released from Wedding duty.

The Royal Wedding - The Excitement Grows

2011-04-28T12:31:00.001+01:00

Catherine Deneuve's dress and knickers (and David Bailey)

We are all very excited here about the Royal Wedding - I did a quick survey round Blighty HQ and here is the resulting Vox Pop:

Kate Hudson's dress and some long haired chap

How do you feel about the Royal Wedding?
Mr Blighty - what wedding? These 3 day weeks are playing havoc with my Important Legislative Colon Control activities.
Mrs Blighty - why do they need all those trees inside Westminster Abbey? What about squirrels? And dogs?
Boy 1 - can I get FIFA 11 for my iPod? I've been really good, I only hit Boy 2 a bit yesterday and I was only closing the wardrobe door on him cos he asked me to, he was being Provoc - Ative...?
Boy 2 - is it why we get more days off school? Good. Can you help me get my leg out of the wardrobe, it's stuck.
Grandma Whacker - 5000 police on duty! 5000! The expense! And guess who's paying? Not the Royal Family etc. etc.
Guest 1 (female) - I want to see what she's wearing.
Guest 2 (male) - zzzzzzzzzzzz

Katy Perry's dress

To be honest the whole Wedding has been overshadowed by a far more important Social Event: Boy 1's School Disco.

There will be girls there from two nearby girls' schools (Katie Price's School for Young Ladies and St. Britneys).
But on the plus side there will be snacks and jumping up and down frenetically to Tiny Tempah and other teen favs.

The sort of outfit and moves guaranteed to wow at the disco

Hoodies and slouchy jeans will be worn by the boys, white leggings and frilly tops by the girls. The boys will get very sweaty. Someone will be rumoured to have snogged someone else but it will all be made up (by the alleged snoggee). Boy 1 will eat the entire buffet, pogo around and then feel sick....Happy days!

Good Books, Fab Shoes and an All New Fashion Disaster

2011-04-27T21:02:00.000+01:00

Dahlings, hope you all had good Easters!

Thought I'd mention a few completely unrelated things: books, shoes and my All New Fashion Disaster.

Books: I've had a really good run recently, largely thanks to recommendations taken from the Read All Day lady ( I know I've mentioned her before, she has her own book coming out soon, recounting how she came to read a book a day for a year and how it affected her).

http://www.readallday.org/about_tolstoy.html

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson was about an uptight retired English major who falls for an Indian lady who runs the village shop.

The Crazy School by Cornelia Read was a dark and gripping thriller set in a school for troubled teenagers. It's part of a series featuring the same female character.

If you like dark and gripping, then you will love Sacrifice by S.J. Bolton, a completely over the top, twisty-turner thriller set on a island off Scotland.

Old Filth by Jane Gardam reminded me a bit of Major Pettigrew, just because both main characters are widowers I suppose. Old Filth is sad in parts, as it features Raj Orphans - children sent back to England from India by their parents during the days of the British Empire

One Day by David Nicholls was an engrossing read: a young man and woman get together on their last night at university; the book then follows their lives on the same day each year. I think Faux Fuchsia was reading this book during her trip to the UK last year. It kept me sane on the journey back from Barcelona!!

Finally, a literary detective novel with a twist at the end which had me going back through the book trying to work out the significance of the last few sentences...

In other important news, I have found these fab shoes from super cheap shop, New Look. As recommended by the girl at Wearing It Today.http://wearingittoday.blogspot.com/search/label/New%20Look

And they are only £7.99 a pair - cheap as chips! They fit the Blighty daisy tramplers like a glove. I definitely have cheap shaped feet - years ago I had some Ferragamos and they were totally the wrong shape for me - they were meant for narrow footed Italian heiresses. I also bought, in my dark, tangled retail past, some ballet pumps from French Sole - 8 times more expensive and they never fitted comfortably. These plastic numbers are much more suitable!

So I got them in red.

And in turquoise.

And in purple.

And in black. (Blighty's motto: if a thing's worth doing, it's worth overdoing..)

If they had them in orange I would have got them too! Oh Happy Feet!

SSSSSh! Don't tell Mr Blighty. He won't notice ~~unless~~ even if they all fall out of the cupboard onto his head....

Now the fashion disaster. I was very taken with the Whistles Carrie skirt everyone has been blogging about, including Notting Hill Girl who has it in bubblegum pink and looks very fetching in it.http://nottinghillgirl.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2011-04-06T13%3A45%3A00%2B01%3A00&max-results=7

Notting Hill Girl in her Carrie skirt

I ordered a similar skirt on-line from Zara in what looked to be a soft peach colour.

The horror! It's nylon tights brown, as worn by bankrobbers..on their heads.

But worse than that: this skirt has CELLULITE!!

I have no room in my life for clothes that mimic bodily imperfections. I can do those by myself, thank you very much.

Goodbye skirt! And get yourself some of this when you get back to Zara.

The Easter Blighty

2011-04-24T12:53:00.000+01:00

Happy Easter Dahlings!

Barcelona - Retail Possibilities

2011-04-23T11:05:00.000+01:00

Hermes on the Passeig de Gracia in the Eixample

Well, I have certainly got my money's worth out of our Barcelona minibreak, blogwise!!

What with riding on buses, dodging pickpockets and doing Culcha, there was no time for shopping. But this did not stop me from keeping an eye out for retail temptations.

Mrs Blighty: Oh look, Zara, can I go and check out if they have better stuff here than at home?
Mr B and Boys 1 and 2 in unison: No!

Hermes window

Mrs Blighty (tantruming) : wah! wanna look! wah! why can't I?
Boy 1: Mummy, stop that, otherwise you will lose a star from your star chart.
Mrs Blighty: Don't care about a stooopid star, wanna go in the shop!!
Boy 1: Right Mummy loses a star.
Mrs Blighty: Nooooo! please nooooo! gimme star back!! no fair!!! will be good, will go to football stadium and take an interest....
ETC.

Good choice of Barbies

Soap shop near the Placa de Sant Felip Neri (church with bullet holes)

Soap petals

Rose petal strewn shop in the Barri Gotic, Boy 1 marches right in

Leaf lady outside rose strewn shop

Las Ramblas, with stalls selling palms for Palm Sunday

Glove makers near our hotel in the Eixample

Loewe

More Loewe goodies

Lovely vintage shop in Barri Gotic

Think that dress at the back might be Pucci

The two girls on the left were Japanese and were so cute and stylish, they went with the shop perfectly

Boy 1 excited that his Nikes are featured in the window of the Nike shop

Boy 1 rearranges the display in the Nike store while Boy 2 thinks about his next ice cream

Finally I did sneak into a Zara.

Guess what?

They had exactly the same stuff as in our local Happy Valley Shopping Centre here in Bucks.

Zara top, available at Zara Barcelona, Spain and Zara High Wycombe, UK

Humph! That my friends is globalisation....

Exciting Royal Wedding News for Mrs Blighty!!!!

2011-04-20T19:36:00.001+01:00

Dahlings - just have to share this with you!
After the Royal Wedding was announced, the weeks went by and nothing came in the post.

To be honest I did not really expect it, but on the other hand (and I do hate to boast) we are actually quite well-connected: Mr Blighty is a Top Civil Servant (with responsibility for the proper placement of semi-colons in Her Majesty's Acts of Parliament - Unit L00 - Colon Control) and our next-door neighbour is an influential local Councillor.

Well, today a very important letter arrived. What I had secretly been hoping for.
Please see below the wonderful missive.

Yes! There will be a Refuse Collection on 29th April, the day of the Royal Wedding!
I feel so honoured.

I know I shan't sleep a wink the night before and will be up early getting ready...

This is a Royal Wedding I shall never forget!

What's So Special about Barcelona?

2011-04-18T21:51:00.000+01:00

So what's Barcelona got that we don't have at Casa Blighty ?

Photo courtesy of Boy 2 and his New Camera which is already a bit not working, no idea who that lady is in the corner

Well it has the Bus Turistic. An easy way to get round the city. And great fun, what with me sitting on the top deck and flinching every time the audio guide mentioned Gaudi - the cue for Boys 1 and 2 to jump up from their seats and shout "Gaudiiiiiiiiiiii!" at 7000 decibels. (Pretty soon I developed a nervous tic below my right eye and roared "Sit Down!" at frequent intervals...a bit embarrassing when you're not even on the bus anymore) . And just when I was getting all interested and cultural as the audio guide burbled on about Miro or the Sagrada Familia or Park Guell, Boy 2's infernal twitchy fingers would switch me to Japanese....which was nice. In the end no member of the Blighty family wanted to sit next to Mr Twiddle Fingers on the bus, such was his dedication to channel jacking. However, reports of small boys being catapulted off buses are vastly exaggerated.

But when we visited the Gaudiiiii designed La Pedrera, I really could not see much difference between it and our own dear Blighty HQ or should that be Blightiiiiiiiiii?

Ok, so maybe the outside is a lot bigger and more impressive than Blighty HQ

But the maid's rooms were very similar.

La Pedrera maid's room with Consuela's uniform (Consuela is Faux Fuchsia's Imaginary Maid)

Maid's room at Blighty HQ

La Pedrera Ironing Room

The Blighty Mountain of Ironing - do not attempt without oxygen

The childrens' bedrooms at La Pedrera/La Blightera were virtually indistinguishable:

Boy 2's room with his darling little sailor outfits

Some Spanish kid's room

But some things were a bit different. La Pedrera boasted the very latest iPhone.

This looks like it should be Faux Fuchsia's room

I have to admit Park Guell (another Gaudi design) was a bit different than your average park - this looked sort of North African:

And to us English seeing oranges growing on a tree, rather than in nets at the supermarket, is exotic and exciting.

Barcelona has the Fundacio Miro - entrance below. Reminds me, Boys 1 and 2 need baths.

I got all earnest middle class mummy in the Miro place - saying to Boy 1: "Darling, you know that picture you used to have in your room at home? That was Miro."*

It amused me No End when I saw that Miro had a friend called Prats. Prats had a hat shop in Barcelona. Prats Hats?

Pictures below are of another Gaudiiiii building, the Casa Batllo. Ok, I admit the tiling is a lot fancier than chez nous.

This is Placa de Sant Felipe in the Barri Gotic and is a sad reminder of the Spanish Civil War. The outside of the church is pitted by bullets and shrapnel from bombs: during the Civil War people were executed by Franco's men against this wall, and a number of refugee children died when the church was bombed.

And oddly, Gaudi was on his way to this church when he was was knocked down by a tram, and later died.

I can't end on a sad, reflective note, that would not do at all. So here's a picture of Las Ramblas with stalls selling palms ready for Palm Sunday. And Mr Twiddly Digits himself, planning his next move.

When we get back on the bus I'll turn the volume right down on Mummy's audio thingie and then switch her to Swahili...

*Of course when we got home I discovered said picture was in fact Klee. Guess I don't know my art from my elbow.

Barcelona offers hope for Moana, and some Important Advice

2011-04-16T18:54:00.001+01:00

I underwent a bit of a style transformation while in Barcelona, I really wanted to catch that contemporary Spanish vibe

Dahlings, still quite not up to speed, what with the unpacking of suitcases and putting Boys 1 and 2 in the washing machine...

In the meantime, I have encouraging news for Moana.

Whaddya mean, who is Moana? Come on people, stay with it! Moana is the latest alter ego of Louise of InTownsville, my blogosphere soulmate and partner in ~~crime~~ really dodgy jokes.http://fromnorthqld.wordpress.com/

I met Louise in Real Life a few months ago - you can read about the meeting of the Superpowers here.http://blightyworld.blogspot.com/2011/01/when-blighty-met-lousie.html

Thanks to the evil cyclone Yasi, Louise broke her back. Since then, due to terrible pain, Lou sometimes transforms into Moana, very understandably.

Lou and I have been joking about getting her a new back somehow....

So, look what I found in a small restaurant/bar in Barcelona on our first day:

Item 3: Back with Egg and Chips.

Lou, the Back is on its way to you, but I am afraid Boy 1 ate the egg and chips.

(I would like to apologise to Janet of Gardener's Cottage and any other vegetarians/vegans for the extremely carnivorous nature of this menu; I think perhaps the translation is a bit over-enthusiastic.... )

Now, you know how I like to perform a public service role in this blog (I guess I am just sooo pro-active and caring). Well, I am able to pass on some Important Advice we received on arrival from our receptionist at Juan Towel Hotel. The receptionist handed us a piece of paper warning us about the danger of pickpockets in Barcelona - the paper listed various scenarios such as:

if someone tell you in street that you have stain on your clothes do not stop, they will steal from you
if someone tell you something is wrong with your car do not stop, they will steal from you
if someone is playing a game of dice do not play, they will steal from you
if someone approaches you in the street, run away screaming, it will be Boys 1 and 2 whining for more ice creams
if you want to be robbed in broad daylight go to the Barcelona football team stadium Camp Nou and hand over your credit card plus remaining Euros in the gift shop

Gift shop at Camp Nou, background noise is Mrs B weeping into her wallet

Camp Nou stadium

In Barcelona they speak Catalan which to me seems like a mix of French and Spanish...this is the Barcelona club motto: More Than A Club (damn right it is, it's also a brilliant vehicle for the sale of nylon T shirts at extortionate prices...the concentration of man made fibres in that gift shop surely contravenes Elf and Safety rules on fire hazards)

Having rendered us pleasantly neurotic, the receptionist then came out with her coup de grace:

"Is no good putting rucksack in your backside!" Those fiendish pickpockets will stop at nothing ...

So there you have it, the most useful piece of advice I can pass on to other travellers.

DON'T PUT YOUR RUCKSACK IN YOUR BACKSIDE

It will only make your eyes water anyway.

You can thank me later.

Barça Barça Barça!

2011-04-15T14:56:00.001+01:00

Hello Dahlings! I've been on a mini-break to Barcelona. Special report: Blighty in Barcelona coming soon!

Apparently they have quite a good football team - with dedicated TV channel, such a comfort to know one needs never miss any footie highlights.......

Eggscentric art

2011-04-07T21:22:00.000+01:00

Hello Dahlings! It's been a while since I put a pic of gorgeous old moi on the blog, so thought I would remedy this tout de suite.

Well, I have to report that Boys 1 and 2 are once again on hols from that august country club with side order of lessons, otherwise know as Daphnes4Boy$ (you will recall that it was recently rebranded to encompass the dollar sign, to make clear its commitment to accepting all hard currencies and to make it more down with the boys, yo etc.).

Boy 2 went in on the last day of term armed with a hardboiled egg, apparently required for Easter egg decorating that day. It looked like this.

Imagine how impressed I was when he came home with this.

With this inside.

Yes, a completely undecorated egg.

IS THIS THE SORT OF ART I EXPECT TO GET IN RETURN FOR THE EYE WATERING SCHOOL FEES?
YES, YES, AND THRICE, YES.

Don't you see? That school is DOES NOT MISS A TRICK. It has cunningly turned Boy 2 into a Britart Damien Hirst type. His finished egg is a brilliant artistic conceit, an insightful post-modernist comment on the entire bourgeois egg decorating Zeitgeist, quietly devastating in its ironic banality.

Indeed, in reviewing "Egg" by Boy 2, the art critic for the Independent said it was "a brilliant artistic conceit, an insightful post-modernist comment on the entire bourgeois egg decorating Zeitgeist, quietly devastating in its ironic banality."

In short, Kerching (sound of cash registers merrily chirping): we all know how much old Damien got for his bits. And you know how his shark had to be replaced as the original one started to go a bit off? Well, I feel sure that quite soon Boy 2's egg is going to start ponging too. But no worries, I can just whip down to Tescos and get another (half dozen).

UPDATE:
I have received a number of comments on the photo of moi above, expressing the view that I have had some work done on my face. I would like to make it clear that, although I have in the past used Botox, I have stopped. I did not like the way it made my face look, it made it impossible for me to frown and I once hiccuped and almost popped out an eyeball. As a ~~woman~~ crazed marsupial I embrace the expression lines that living life to the full brings, and to prove it, here are photos of me 10 years ago and today. I have also never had hair extensions.

In 2011

In 2001

Any rumours that I have had a tail tuck or lift are totally unfounded too.

Mothers' Day Out

2011-04-02T19:07:00.000+01:00

Last week me and some Mummy friends went up to London on the train to do lunch and a spot of shopping. We launched ourselves on an unsuspecting Marylebone High Street. Here are some snaps, taken in the brief moments when I was stopping to draw breath in between my chatting!

We went past the very attractive window of Designer's Guild.

Then we had a good browse and restorative tea in a foodie emporium called Natural Kitchen.

Some of this Pukka tea was purchased; I am a big fan of Tick Tock Rooibos tea

Next we checked out Agnes B. Very French, very stylish but heart-stoppingly expensive for What It Is.

Agnes B laidback cool

I liked this Agnes B toile de Jouy dress

With this dress you get scarves attached - but too frightening to think of dishwasher related accident

Below, Daunt Books is one of the nicest bookshops in London - originally specialising in travel books but now does all sorts, worth going inside just for the building.

I insisted we went into Malene Birger, so I could pay hommage to one of Faux Fuchsia's favourite shoppes. I last went here with Faux herself when I met up with her last year.

One of the Mummies - my friend K, isn't she cute? And sooo tiny! A real doll! Can you believe she has 2 boys same ages as mine and a little girl too!

The decor in Malene was very fancy but it just wasn't the same without the supreme glamour of the Faux Fuchsia.

Malene seems to have gone all hippy-boho for summer, lots of maxi dresses, no good for shortie me.

I liked this, not least because it was 70% off but I saw nothing as nice as the dress Faux bought.

Next we went to Matches. Nice but full of super expensive designer kit.

Dummy with hand out is saying, "No, Mrs Blighty, do not come in here, you are not a high net worth individual and you shop at Tesco"

Chloe bag, did not bother looking at price as shouting out "Good God, what a price!" not cool

Pretty cups at Matches - we did not get offered any beverages, you probably have to spend lots of money whereas I kept cracking jokes about how I would need a lottery win first...strangely the sales assistants did not find this funny...

Marc Jacobs dress at Matches, about £3 trillion

After Matches we staggered into Cologne and Cotton, a nice homeware, bed linen shop.

And finally we perused Whistles where I liked this dress, not least because Grandma Whacker often accuses me of Doing Too Much and, an even more serious accusation, Galloping Around.

The time honoured response to a charge of Galloping Around is to neigh, shout "Clip Clop" and demand a nosebag for all meals

Grandma W has been following Louise of InTownsville's blog and is very concerned about Louise's poor broken back. Recently G pronounced that Louise was Doing Too Much and Galloping Around. So Louise - behave, otherwise I will send you this dress!!

And then we went home and the other Mummies reminded me that I needed to collect Boys 1 and 2 from school. It's really important I go on trips with responsible adults.

Woof woof

2011-04-02T18:04:00.000+01:00

1st April 2011

Dahlings, this post is a day late - sorry!

Just wanted to let you know we have a new member of the Blighty household, an adorable little dog. I am going to call him Thatcher after Mrs T's most notorious accessory.

Isn't he just too much?

Some of you know that I have been considering getting a dog for a while now and this little chap seemed to fit right into my lifestyle.

Must go, we need to do walkies.

"Dog" - Fendi at Bicester Village, £4000 reduced to £2000, good luck to Sally who is shopping at Bicester today, Sally, I am sorry I did not get back to you but am sure you will have a nice day there!

Relax Mr B, of course I did not buy this thing but Lovely B and I had a great giggle over it!

Louise of InTownsville - you might want to print a big copy of this picture for Siggi, sort of chihuahua doggie porn...

Getting back in Touch

2011-03-28T15:44:00.001+01:00

Who knew Blighty was a National Humorous Weekly for only 6 pence?

Dahlings, so sorry to have neglected you for so long but life has been busy and filled with glamour.

Like this.

Mr B: the hairdresser won't do Boy 1's hair - he has Nits!
Mrs B: at least Boy 2 hasn't got them. Oh, yikes!

And this.

1.30am: Mummmmmeeeeee. I feel icky-sicky
Mrs B: just don't throw up on the new carpet, there's a dear

Then Lovely B came to stay (cousin to Mr Blighty, partner in retail crime to Mrs Blighty) and Things Went Rapidly Downhill. We shopped for England. Our timetable went something like this:
Day 1: trip to picturesque Old Amersham, coffee and shopping ( more about this later)
Day 2: trip to Bicester Village (retail outlet and my spiritual home), coffee, shopping, lunch, more shopping
Day 3: trip to Eden Shopping Centre, High Wycombe, shopping, coffee, lunch, shopping
Day 4: no shopping, dvd of "Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" (brilliantly summarised by Faux Fuchsia as "I have a big tattoo, I have been abused, I want revenge").
Day 5: no shopping whatsoever
Day 6: Lovely B departs and credit cards cool down

So obviously I have had No Time for blogging.

On Day1 Lovely B and I popped into a brilliant shop in Old Amersham called Touch*, which belongs to Annette, a very pretty and stylish mother of one of Boy 1's schoolmates. Lovely B and I had the best time chatting to Annette and ~~perusing~~ grabbing and poking at all the fab stuff in the shop: new and vintage clothes, jewellery, shoes, gifts...the pictures will give you an idea of the retail temptations that are available:

* did you see how I worked that into the title of this post? good eh?
Note from Mr B: no, not good, really a bit painful to be honest

70s glam rock type dress next to Mick

Should I buy this hat for The Wedding even if just watching it on TV?

70s peasant number (yes B, I am talking about the dress)

Vintage Cerruti

I loved this

Serious shoe lust for these

I pounced on unsuspecting customer and made her model the hat, sorry Annette if I have so traumatised this nice lady that she never comes back again....

My precious!

I came away from Touch with this silky tunic, the material is lovely and the details are nice, like the turned back cuffs and the brown leopardlike trim; Lovely B has advised leggings to go with.

Top - pic taken from Touch website

So if you live near, go visit Touch. Old Amersham is a great place for some light shopping, coffee and lunch! But give those Blighty Boys a wide berth. At least until they stop scratching.

http://www.touchlounge.co.uk/index.html

No rewards or inducements or stuff were given to me for writing about Touch but I am hoping that if Annette's son gets nits too, she will think twice before running me over in the school carpark