Snow Fun Anymore

Yet another photo of the garden in the snow, so lovely that all the weeds are covered up

We have been having a bit of snow here recently.  The Daily Mail on-line (top internet resource of celebs and Grandma Whacker) keeps quoting a town in Buckinghamshire near here as the coldest place in Britain - minus 18 degrees last night, says the Daily Mail excitedly, even colder than Moscow. No other news sites award this town the lowest temp, so I guess someone at the Mail has an auntie living out there with a thermometer in her freezer garden....

Mr Blighty is a very happy man.  He is overcome with a powerful sense of vindication.  Back in August last year he talked through at length the pros and cons of having winter tyres fitted to the car.  This was following Drivegate, when for 3 years in a row it snowed heavily and we couldn't get our car up the drive...and we were down to our last 22 tins of soup and 52 packets of biscuits so things were getting pretty desperate. I did suggest we ate Boy 2 but he wasn't keen, the youth of today have no sense of self-sacrifice or duty.

In August I must admit I did not engage fully in the discussion as it was hot and I was trying to remember whether I had put suntan lotion on  Boys 1 and 2 before their cricket matches..

But Mr B forged onwards, got the tyres fitted in October and then sat back and had the rip taken out of him as we experienced the mildest of winters. But now snow is here, and we are able effortlessly to drive out onto the road without shovelling snow...I was enjoying a smugfest just the other day as I drove the boys to school, overtaking my neighbour who was trudging on foot throught the snow, Russian peasant style...(I am not uncaring though, I did stop and tell her how good my tyres were and how warm it was in the car...).   Smugfest of course brought to abrupt end by arrival back at home after school drop to discover Boy 1's games bag still sitting on the back seat...

Mr B has succeeded where even Napoleon failed - For wont of a horseshoe - fascinating piece about how Napoleon's horses in the Russian campaign did not have winter horseshoes, I am always interested in descriptions of disastrous military campaigns, particularly since many similar debacles during my years attempting to arrive at and then withdraw from toddler singsong playgroups with my own ill-disciplined troops and logistical shortcomings ("If only the Blighty Army had had strait jackets instead of flimsy infant car seats, the Holland Park Mother and Toddler Campaign would have ended very differently..")


So we have snow.  Which to me means happy games in the snow, and some gentle sledging.

Like this.

Snow angel - parentally-approved snow-based activity (Elf and Safety Directive Winter Games 2006874/11)

Yah, Klosters is really fun

Er, steady on, this is not sledging, this looks a bit risky..

Boys 1 and 2 had different ideas.  They managed to find a sheer drop to go down.

Tremendous fun: early on in descent, boy and sledge would part company, boy would shoot down slope ahead of sledge, sledge would then join boy at bottom, clonking him on head...excellent..
Soon, possibly because their heads were getting sore, the boys dispensed with the sledges and just hurled themselves down the slopes..


And imagine my delight when I found there was barbed wire at the top which they were crawling under to get to the edge of the precipice...

Anyone know if you can fit winter tyres to kids?  Or straitjackets to mothers?*


*Think we know the answer to that last question...doctor, doctor, can I come out now?? 

Boy 1 The Teenage Years

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

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

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

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

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

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.