Something Nasty in the Field

Dahlings did not expect to blog again so soon but had to share this as part of my personal trauma therapy.

I have a phobia about snakes.

I just saw a snake in Real Life while walking Monty Dog.

Serves me right for my post about the deadly yellow tree snak http://blightyworld.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/hi-boy-won-here-i-am-doing-writing.html

So I am plodding along and suddenly notice right next to me by the hedge a grey snake coiled up in a figure of eight asleep in the sun. It's all a bit dreamlike. I don't scream or react, my mammalian brain thinks oh snake and I keep walking and keep walking and hope to goodness the dog does not decide to play with his new friend but luckily he does not even notice and I keep walking and walking and then start saying yuck, yuck, yuck.

When I have put a couple of fields between me and the Thing I phone Mr Blighty who is at a football tournament with Boy 2 and tell him and he says it's just a grass snake and I say, no it was grey and huge, it must be an anaconda, and Mr B gets all technical and nitpicky and points out anacondas are not native to Buckinghamshire and I say, well, there are lots of cheap flights these days...

And I carry on walking and feel better and then I see a red kite drifting on the warm air currents and I remember what the window cleaner who talks more than cleans told me: they like carrion, so if they swoop down and pick something up and it's alive, they drop it and once they dropped a snake on his patio...so now I feel much worse, am convinced the red kite is going to drop the snake on my head, so I walk along hunched over with one hand round the back of my neck to stop it going down my back and one hand on my head and taking tiny steps, so I look like a hundred year old woman...

And I am grateful the annoying teen Boy 1 is not with me because if he had picked it up or poked at it, he may be my dearly loved first born but I would definitely knock his teeth out...

And no, I did not stop to take a photo!!


So, it's important not to over react.  Here's the plan:

We sell the house and buy a tiny flat in Marble Arch London which should be suitably urban so as to avoid any snakes in the wild (note to self: check situation re London Zoo escapees)

Boys 1 and 2 to attend inner London comprehensive

Monty Dog needs the country life so he will go to Eton

I know all the lovely Aussie ladies will think I am a total wuss, which I am.  I can still remember their serpenty anecdotes on Faux Fuchsia's blog along the lines of   " so I was in the car with my baby and opened the door and a black mamba slivered in so I chopped its head off with an axe" and, my personal favourite, " I saw a massive rattler next to the gas cylinders outside and I was about to shoot it when my dad said geez, you shoot that cylinder, the whole house will go up.."

But here in our cosy little pocket of rural England this is what passes for peril.

Right, if you need me, I be indoors, in my wellies with my anorak hood up, looking at London flats and the Eton entrance requirements.

Mrs Blighty Turns Over A New Leaf

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.

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

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..)

Muuuuum can i have a snak?

Hi Boy Won here, i am doing writing today. Guest posts is cool.
Here is a pic of me. I cut out the Dennis the Menace mask, it came with my Beano comic.
I am going to send off pic and get a prize, a Nintendo DS or a helicopter or a speedboat or some stickers or other cool stuff.

I don’t like pink stuff and dresses and shoos and grils so I did not think FoeFoosha was cool. Till yesterday. Yesterday FF was cool. The pic of the snak was awsum. It made Mum shreek. Cool. Dear Missus FF plese can you post the snak to me, I will give you Mums credit card number. I will keep it in my room and feed it stuff like crisps and my brother Boy Too. I would realy like a pyton, can that other lady send me one, thank you.
We have snaks in our garden to. Mum does not belive me but we do.

This is dedly yella snak.

This is dedly tree snak

I want to get some of that net stuff for windoes and doors, it could keep snaks and my brother out. He always makes it back into the house. He is a po bott face smelli.......

This is my brother's sunflower. Mum said it was eaten by the dear that come into our garden, but I think my brother eated it as he is a compleet wirdo and chews stuff.

Oh no its Mum, look all cross.

“What are doing on the computer?
I asked you to get dressed hours ago!
Go now!

Wait! How long have you been wearing those pants?
Euch!
Put clean ones on, you can’t wear the same pants for days, it’s horrid.
No, I don’t want to smell them.
Take them off your head!

Upstairs now, get some clothes on!
No, don’t lick the mirror as you go past!
Stop swinging on the door!
Don’t you dare put those Nutella paws on the walls.....

EEEK, I’ll get the cloth
GET DRESSED NOW”

Better go, Mum has gone all shouty and horid she is a meenie, why she not just ask me nicly stead of shouting?

P.S i like that other ladie Janit too that does Tie kwando, cool