Poison, Running Through My Veins.....

Conversation between my mother and I:

'Mum'

'Yes?'

'What's that bush outside by the dustbin? The tall sort of pointy one in a pot?'

'It's a Bay'

'Oh. Right. As in 'bay leaves' you put in your cooking?'

'Yes'

'And that's what a Bay looks like is it?'

'Yes'.

'Nothing else?'

'No'

'Oh'

'Why?'

'Well I don't know what the hell I was putting in our cooking for the 8.5 years we lived in our old house though but it sure as hell wasn't that'.

'Sorry?'

'There was a bush in our garden, sort of yellow and green and it smelled quite strong - the one the rabbit used to hide under (god rest is angry soul) so I sort of thought it was Bay and used to put the leaves in my cooking. I think I got the idea off Jamie Oliver but I didn't really get a good look at his bush - I just got the idea of the smell'

'Good god! It could have been poisonous!'.

'Well nobody died (apart from the rabbit) so hopefully it wasn't'.

'I suppose so - or maybe it was just mildly toxic and you were very lucky!'.

'Yeah - maybe'.

'What did it taste like?'

'I don't know! I just used the odd leaf to impart a hint of (toxic?) flavour! It wasn't like I was chucking huge handfuls in salads'.

'Well it's a good job you weren't'.

'Yeah. I'm not that mad......'

Mother sighs and turns back to the daily Su Duko.

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Christmas: the report

A few individuals have inquired how my Christmas went - clearly fearful that my father may have spontaneously combusted when the gravy was late to the table or had a seizure over the use of the wrong type of parsnip.

Well the marvelous news is that he was on best behavior. The whole day passed with no over the top shouting, no threatening to strangle anybody because they put a log on the fire using the wrong lifting method, no tirades over cutlery. Nothing - nadda. Just a whole lotta love in the air and a very good meal indeed.

Wow.

I almost thought he'd turned over a new leaf but then it was Boxing Day.....

We were all invited to a drinks party at some friends of theirs and so off we trotted. Well me and mine walked - he went in the car.

The drinks party passed reasonably well (at one point he dragged my husband backwards by the neck of his jumper for 'standing in the wrong place' which had the potential to turn 'interesting' but luckily my husband is a mellow man.....). There were various other slightly disturbing scenes including a cocker spaniel on the table licking a game pie as someone carved it and a man below the age of 35 in mustard coloured cords and braces - but all in all it was 'fine' and the kids were suprisingly well behaved ( although I do confess to feeding them both trifle which I hadn't tasted - I LOATHE trifle, any food involving soaked foam should be banned - anyway it turned out the trifle contained something like 3 bottles of sherry and a slug of port so maybe that the secret?).

The afternoon wore on and my dad got to the point where he suddenly wanted to go home (he feels safest at home - he has complete control of the cutlery for a start) and, like a Roman Emperor moving his army, everyone had to pack up and go NOW.

I pointed out that I was just starting on a cup of tea (yeah - how rock and roll am I?) and as we were walking we would follow on in 20 minutes or so.

Ohhhh that set him off. Red rag to a bull.

He has a 'thing' about people walking once dusk nears. He is convinced they will (even if totally sober, very alert and very sensible) stray into the path of a passing boy racer and that will be that.

'IT WILL BE DARK IN HALF AN HOUR' he bellowed'.

'HALF AN HOUR!!! YOU HAVE 10 MINUTES TO FINISH THAT CUP OF TEA AND LEAVE! UNDERSTAND!?'.

Yeah - I understand. If we don't leave within 10 minutes you will come back and find us with a fistful of Asda bags and make us wear them home.

I kid you not.

One of the most excruciating moments of my adolescence was when a group of friends came to stay at my house so that we could attend a local beer festival.

Just as we were about to leave my dad appeared in the driveway informing us that if we set foot outside the gate without some kind of Hi-Vis gear on we would all be roadkill. He now owns a fine set of reflective clothing that wouldn't look out of place landing planes at Stanstead but this was in the era before that arrived so - having scared us all half to death - he went back into the house and emerged with.....


....a selection of Asda bags.

He then informed a gaggle of teenage girls, all done up to the nines and wearing their finest frocks (a Beer Festival was about as exotic as it got in our local vicinity) that they would make a hole in the bottom of the bags and wear them like tabards over their heads because the white plastic would 'save our lives - and ensure drivers had several seconds less thinking time before they braked'.

I''m not sure if that's totally true - I would think that seeing a selection of teenage girls dressed in supermarket plastic bags and high heels may well slow the braking of some drivers but hey, I doubt anyone's run trials.

I need not say anymore. I never lived it down. Social suicide in one easy fix.

God knows what he'd do now in the days of 'Bags for Life' - I don't think a hessian weave number with ladybirds on from Tesco has quite the same reflective powers.

Anyway (I'll get back to Boxing Day now) his agitation at the imminence of dusk was a sign that his mood was on the turn and as we arrived home, sure enough, he was throwing a tantrum because he'd asked for a cup of tea 10 minutes earlier and it hadn't arrived proving his theory that he's the least important person in the house and now EVERYTHING WAS RUINED AND IT WAS TOO LATE.

At this point we left. Fast. And thus preserved our memories of a very lovely Christmas.

I hope you all had a good one - nice and chilled out and nobody was forced to go out wearing an Asda bag......

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Feedage

WTF?

Ok, I just Googled the name of my own blog (hark at my huge swelling head - but in my defense I was trying to do a link and it was quicker to type 'Slightly South of Sanity Christmas' and cut and paste than figure out the exact URL from my Eggnog/Strongbow fuddled brain) and Google came up with the fact that my blog is listed on some weird page called 'Feedage''. Feedage basically tells the world what your blog is about by the most common 'themes' (i.e. tags) you write about.

I've seen these kind of 'walls of words' for other people's lives and they always look incredibly interesting and glam and sort of 'cool' (god I sound like some mad old dad woman now, using words like 'cool' about the 'new cyber world'). But you know, even if someone spends their life in a bungalow just outside Slough breeding hamsters, their 'tags' read something like:

City Roses Stallion Brioche NEW YORK loving doves temple OF YOUR EXISTENCE gig DENIM ALIVE CORNUCOPIA sloth ecstasy BEYOND self

Oh. Dear.

You see, at the end of the (very long) day, I like to think of my existence as rather put upon and slightly mad but yet, at it's core, strangely glamour strewn (there is a reason this blog is called Slightly South of Sanity.....).

Feedage tells me otherwise.

Feedage tells me that my 'wall of words' is not as above.

In fact Feedage tells us all that my blog is about:

back children day don erm find good guinea home house life mother people point poo small time toddler

I could write a long and witty response to that (because at the end of the day Feedage is WRONG on many levels - especially the toddler bit, he is in now no way 'small time', he's maxed out..... and if it was accurate it would have words like:

Gay cocks CHEMICALLY Charred pubic hair gIN Strongbow RAT moist BALLS SUCKED Mother soMERSET OH.MY.GOD M&S Mannequin tesCO sucks TOILETS too much POO guinea pigs dead and BURIED TAKE A BREAK.... emblazoned all over it)

but:

a) I've mixed half a bottle of Advocaat with 3 pints of cider (so I won't be seeing you in the morning then.....).

and

b) In a way it all makes perfect, non-sensual, sense.

So there we are, the truth of my life, in tags.

How very 2010.

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Knife Crime

Well here we go... the Eve of Christmas Eve and everyone is revving up for the big one, one last push and over the top we go.....

Well actually in my case I'm sat at home with a stinking cold, iced in (we have no snow but it's rained hard, on ice, and then frozen ice on ice and nobody can actually go anywhere), struggling to find the energy to wrap presents (wrapping presents is hard when your life is in boxes - 20 minutes to find the paper, 20 minutes to find the sellotape, give up on the gift tags so try and find a Biro instead to just write on the paper - can't even find a Biro - end up scrawling on present with a green permanent marker.... you get the idea, long, painstaking and scruffy) and sitting in the 2 square foot of my living room that you can actually sit in.

You see - in preparation for Christmas I decided to get my damp patch seen too.

Most people start baking cakes, ordering turkeys or deciding how to dress their mantle.

I invite a man round to address my damp patch and thus end up with my carpets rolled back, my Christmas Tree in the middle of the room and my furniture and TV (and me) in 2 square foot of space. I didn't think this would be a problem as the damp proof course was 3 days of work.

Yes 3 days of work and (at this rate) 300 days of drying time...... The plaster is not drying. Well actually it is drying - if you filmed it in time-lapse photography you might actually be able to see the dry bit creeping across the wall at the rate that grass grows - so at this rate it will cover the room by about June. Lets just say, conditions remain moist.

But it doesn't bother me because (as usual) we aren't spending Christmas Day here amongst the wet plaster and misplaced greenery. No no - we are (once again) going to my parent's house. Which is all very lovely and very very generous (the food will be amazing, they love us to bits, we are very lucky etc etc) BUT we are already bracing ourselves for this year's 'Seasonal Rage'.

To get the gist of from whom this Seasonal Rage eminates you need to understand that:

a) my dad is 6ft 7"
b) my dad is around the 30 stone mark
and
c) my dad is basically what would happen if you mated Gordon Ramsay with Brian Blessed.



If you are not already au fait with our family's Christmas Traditions I suggest you look here for evidence that, considering everything, I turned out rather sane.

If you look at Point 3 you will note that it involves a knife being incorrectly used. Crime of the Century kids - CRIME OF THE CENTURY.

Knife Crimes are a running theme and last Saturday this theme reared it's ugly head again.

We house-sat at my parent's and my father (very generously) left us a large ham to eat for tea (although I do sometimes ponder wether leaving these cold meats out is actually an act of love or some kind of test. You know 'SO you think you are man enough to enter my home? You think you are man enough to take on my daughter!? WELL PROVE IT AND CARVE THIS GODDAM MEAT TO MY SATISFACTION. And I will smile as you fail, boy, smile as you fail.......').

This of course meant that we would need to CARVE some of the ham.

Gulp.

However, my OH did a very good job of carving it. Nobody could complain. Surely?

Ah but they could.

The next day my mother called.

'Darling'

'Yes?'

'You father has asked me to call....'

'YES!?'

'and I have to ask you how on earth you managed to carve the ham because (brace yourself) you used the WRONG KNIFE'

'What?!'

'You used the wrong knife - he found a knife in the dishwasher with ham on that proves you used the wrong one'

'Okaaaaaaaaaay. Right. Let's get this straight. Is the ham carved well? Yes! Is it damaged beyond repair? NO! Did we manage to eat and enjoy it!? YES YES YES!! Okay so therefore, in answer to the question, how did you cut the ham - I would say the answer is SUCCESSFULLY!'

'I know darling, I know (this bit is now whispered 'he's driving me bloody insane').

You and me both mother. You and me both.

So Operation Knife Crime is already underway and we haven't even reached the Big Day.

I shall keep you informed on how it all goes but one things for certain, I won't be offering to help myself to turkey....

Have a great one folks! See you on the otherside......

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'Tis the Season to....

....deliver your child to school stinking of booze.

The child that is, not you (although if I didn't have to drive it would be a distinct possibility).

Oh. Dear. God.

Let me start at the beginning (I think).

Last night was my eldest's Nativity Play.

Now Nativity Plays are (sadly) not what they used to be (a few old tea towels and a 15 minute slot on a damp Thursday afternoon).

No.

They are now full on 'stage-productions' involving ticket allocations, lighting, stage-school like theatricals (and that's just the parents), evening shows that go on for HOURS and DVD sales.

This is all very well if you've got, for example, a 7 year old who loves to sing and dance and you want to have a 'night out'. It's not so good if you've got a very tired 5 year old who thinks the very concept of 'dressing up' belongs only in Japan (along with earthquakes, ball lightening, deadly jelly fish invasions and anything else which could signpost the end of the world - like choirs......and Nativity Plays).

He had to be the world's saddest looking cow sat beside that manger (mind you I'd be pretty sad if I had to wear a costume made out of an Asda Smartprice Black towel.......).

Anyway - it was a late night and I also had to drag the toddler along.....

Now the toddler was actually very very good. With the help of copious crisps he did no crying or running around but he did talk a little bit. He kept saying 'my brudder! MY BRUDDER! HE GOT EARS! HE GOT HEAD!' and at the end when Santa came on he yelled YEEE HAAA! - which made everyone laugh.

Everyone that is except perhaps the world's snootiest mother who was (of course) sat right in front of me. With a flick of her glossy bob and a pout of her red shiny mouth she shot me a look of pure evil, put her finger to her lips and went 'SSSSSHHHHHH' in a really rather aggressive manner. She then tutted, rolled her eyes and went back to watching a load of 5 year olds in bits of tinsel and a 'donkey' that was actually dressed as a bear sing words nobody could understand.....

I was, to be frank, rather annoyed by this - it was a children's show, siblings were INVITED (it said so on the letter) and there were plenty of other kids there, including older ones fighting with each other. The lad behind me was playing with a beeping games console and a mad old bloke at the back was going 'get on then, I've a pint a cider waiting back 'ome' while one of his relatives kept yelling at him to 'get in Jim! GET IN!' (as if he was actually some form of stray sheep wandering too close to a busy road).

If the toddler had done anything heinous like thrown a tantrum I would have carried him out of there before you could say 'pass me the gin' - but he didn't.

Much as I wanted to put her in a headlock and give her a good kicking I just sat there and seethed.

Anyway roll forward several hours and we all over-slept so this morning was even more chaos than usual.

Today is the last day of school and I realised I hadn't taken the presents in for the teacher and her assistant so I (very) hastily wrapped them and off we sped.

'Mummy what are those presents?' inquired my eldest (clearly hoping they are actually for him).

'They are for your teachers'.

'But why?'

'Erm, because all the other mothers take gifts in and if I don't it marks you down as the kid from the cheapskate family who never say thank you and what with your brother as well I've got 9 more years of dealing with that school. You need all the help you can get.....'.

'What?'.

'Sorry darling, it's to say thank you and have a Happy Christmas'.

'But what IS IT?'.

'Wine'.

'But MUMMY, teachers don't drink WINE!!'.

'I can assure, they do' (well all the ones in my family do......copiously).

'Mummy you don't drink wine do you?'.

'Erm, yes' (surprised he hasn't noticed this....).

'But mummy you shouldn't'

'WHO told you that!?'

'At school'

'Let me get this straight - school told you, specifically, that mummies shouldn't drink wine!?' (I'm already penning an angry letter about indoctrination of small minds and the nanny state to the Headmaster).

'No Matthew told me. He said mummies mustn't drink wine because of his mummy and the bad things'
(Mental note: work out who Matthew his and, more importantly, who his mother is).

'Riiiiiggggght, do you have any more details on this situation?'.

'No'.

Somewhere around this point a car shot round the bend of the narrow country lane doing about twice the speed it should have been doing.

There was a screech of brakes, a scrunching of hedgerow and a loud 'TING' noise shortly followed by an overpowering scent of summer berries, mellow spice and...........oh sh1t......alcohol.

The 2 bottles of red wine that were sitting on the passenger seat were now sitting in the footwell and bleeding heavily into the carpet.

We screeched to a halt in the school car park (which ironically enough is also the pub car park....) and I leapt out, grabbed the fractured bottles (still clad in their jolly snowman wrapping paper) and started to leg it (to where I don't actually know, I was heading for some flower beds).

My path was interrupted by a bemused looking mother and her rather alarmed looking daughter.

'Are you OK? Oh my word! What a mess! Is it the children's drink bottles?' (sorry but WHAT!? You think I send my kids to school with MERLOT in their lunch boxes!? My budget doesn't run that high).

'Errr no - it's wine'.

'Oh'

'It's for the teachers, well it was for the teachers.........'

'Oh how awful. You'll have to have a valet done'.

'Errrr yeah, I guess I will' (my first thought was actually I'd need to buy some more bloody wine and what a bloody waste but clearly she values her car interior more than I do).

'Or have you got a dog?'

'No' (sorry but is she suggesting that a DOG will do the same job as a professional valet!? Do dogs have a reputation for being incredibly good at sucking wine out of carpets!? I must investigate this further.....).

'Well we (smiles across at smug looking daughter) made the teachers biscuits they can hang on their Christmas trees! Much safer! Teee heeee'

'Well f'ck you' (no I didn't really say that, but it would have been fun.....).

And it was at that point, as she and her daughter trotted off across the gravel with her glossy hair swinging in the winter sunshine, and I stood there with red wine running down my wrists and wine soaked sweet wrappers stuck to my feet, that I realised it was 'her'. The 'sssshhhhhhhhh'er from the Nativity Play.

Figures.

Anyway it wasn't just the carpet that got soaked in wine, it was also my son's book bag..... Biff, Chip and Kipper certainly are having 'Fun at the Beach' - they're absolutely sozzled.

So I delivered my wine-scented, presentless, rather late son to his class, got back in the car and wondered just how much merit there would be in sucking the carpets dry myself?

I then went to Asda and bought two Christmas Cactuses in jaunty wicker baskets.

Let's see if I can actually get them there.....

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And Now We Are One

Well here goes folks...... it appears that this time last year I was bathing a cushion in milk .

Crack open the Strongbow - the blog is a year today!

And what a year it's been. From stolen balls to deceased guinea pigs to gay cockerels to rat infestations to jumbo dogs to Mr Squirrel to too many toilet incidents to name to mangy muffs to moving house and now - starting again in Somerset. Phew.

There are people out there who had been badgering me to write a book or at least start a blog for a LONG time and I'm so glad I finally managed the blog part. It's been an absolute pleasure - I've laughed along with you, I've cried along with you and I'm now the proud owner of the number One Google Search result for 'Worst Iggle Piggle Birthday Cake' (seriously - try it!).

Gulp.

This blog started with just my OH and a couple of friends reading it and has grown through word of mouth to have had over 18,000 hits, almost 100 official followers and many many more who just 'pop in'.

Thank you to all of you - I seriously couldn't have done it or kept it up without you. Every single kind comment, belly laugh, little smile or request to someone else to have a look is very much appreciated.

Having said that, it is kind of strange having people sidle up to you at buffets and say 'I've read about you...... I know about your balls!' or being grabbed by people's mothers who declare 'I love your blog! Especially the gay cockerels!!' and knowing that they probably know more about me than my own mother - but I don't mind, honest (well as long as you're not the person who got here by searching for an image of 'sucked balls'. I can only hope they were somewhat disappointed.....).

Anyway - to all the people who really did want to find out how to bake an Iggle Piggle Cake (or in fact, look at sucked balls......), I'm sorry. Click again.

To everyone else - hang on to your seats, here comes The Terrible Twos.......

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Tattered Dreams

Now I am no Domestic Goddess. only recently I, mistakenly, used my husband's toothbrush, to clean the green goo out of the guinea pigs water bottles (this only came to light when I later saw him using the thus same toothbrush.....a toothbrush that I thought was an old one to be used for light domestic cleaning purposes.....) but at least I've never used a domestic appliance to shred a child's dreams.

Oh yes.

My husband was Hoovering (I know, I know, give him a medal) and doing this (rather irritating) 'joke' thing where he pretends to Hoover up the children, getting the Hoover to suck their trousers and chase them round. This kind of 'fun' is irritating because it is the second fastest way of sending small boys into a frenzy not unlike poking a sharp stick in a hornets' nest... (the fastest way being to turn the Christmas Tree lights on - as I've discovered to my cost).

Anyway while he was pretending to Hoover up the toddler he, unfortunately, strayed slightly too close to the toddler's beloved 'blue rag'.

The blue rag is an irreplaceable tatty bit of pale blue muslin which is, to be frank, more loved than I am. His blue rag is actually part of his very being. It is his soul mate. The cry of 'blue rag BLUE RAG!' goes out about 200 times a day. It is blue rag that is there for him at 3am when he cries out, it is blue rag that dries his tears, it is blue rag that smells of love and home (and, unfortunately, humus), it blue rag that he falls asleep stroking and muttering sweet nothings to........

... it is blue rag who shot down the Hoover pipe at 90 miles per hour.

Oh. Dear. God.

My OH froze.

I froze.

The eldest son froze.

The toddler (surprisingly) froze.

We all looked each other.

The toddler looked at his (now very empty) hand and back at me and then at his hand again.

He furrowed his brow.

A hush fell over the room.

I collapsed into hysterical laughter. The look of horror on my OH's face was beyond priceless. The image of a million tears, a hundred sleepless nights and a never ending tantrum of sorrow followed by years of therapy was clearly flashing before his eyes.

My OH frantically took the Hoover apart.

He found - NOTHING.

I told him to fetch some scissors - we were going to have to dissect the hoover pipe and chop it up in order to get some part of the blue rag back (I may have been slightly too keen to do this - I had my eyes on a new Hoover). We could stop at NOTHING. Without the blue rag our lives were, to all effects and purposes, going to be hell.

To cut a long story short the blue rag was retrieved without amputating any Hoover parts and it's dusty, even more shredded, slightly smaller self was returned to it's rightful owner.

All in all it has made me feel slightly better about the toothbrush incident so every cloud and all that.....

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The Truth About Garden Centres

Garden Centres.

What are they all about?

I mean there was a time when the Garden Centre sold things for, erm, YOUR GARDEN! You know like plants, shrubs, compost and maybe (if they were bold) a shed or two.

Now the greenery seems to be swamped by things you would be ill advised to place in your garden - things like crystal figurines of mating swans, lavender-filled panty scenters and £7 jacket potatoes.

The £7 jacket potato was the stuff of legend where I used to live. A certain Garden Centre (which shall remain nameless in case you all rock up to gasp at the array of £7 jacket potatoes and the mugs eating them) used to charge SEVEN WHOLE POUNDS for ONE jacket potato.

You can buy 25kg of spuds for under a fiver if you know where to look.

That is one hell of a mark up.

Oh and that is without fillings. They're a pound extra. Each.

I discovered the £7 jacket potato when I was pregnant and had an awful 'I'm going to be sick if I don't eat NOW' moment. I raced to the cafe, chose a jacket spud with not one but TWO fillings and almost collapsed when I got to the till and the lady said '£9 please'. Unbelievably, such was the my need for instant food, I paid it! Even more unbelievably the cafe is always full - and many of the patrons are tucking into jacket potatoes..... 3 years on I'm still smarting at the cost of that spud but I digress, why am I talking about Garden Centres?

Well today, on the way home from school, I drove past one and thought 'oh how lovely, I can take the kids in to look at the lights and Grotto (they have one with live donkeys! ) and it's free!'.

Only it never is is it?

I'm sure they do it on purpose.

Lure you and your small children into their 'Garden' Centre and then place you and your highly charged children amidst acre upon acre of highly over-priced, highly breakable giftware surrounded by Britain's most judgemental people.....

The stress mounted, warnings were given, a fall was taken, a set of fingers almost broken (the toddlers - surprise surprise) and then there was a 'scene' involving a box of Japanese Organic Seaweed Crackers (WHAT was I just saying about non-garden items of an overpriced nature?) and huge amounts of crying followed by my eldest son bellowing 'MUMMY A POO IS COMING OUT NOW!' and me picking up the pair of them (no mean feat) and sprinting through the chintz and china and into the toilets.

The toilets.

Hmmm.

Clearly they were expecting a stampede of women wanting Poinsettia's or something because those in charge of the Garden Centre have taken a very small toilet area and crammed in no fewer than TWELVE toilets.

This means each cubicle is very slightly wider than a slimish woman.

Try getting in there with 2 children plus bags plus coats and THEN try squatting on the floor holding your son so he doesn't fall down the toilet while he sobs 'please shut the door' and THEN try staying in that position while the toddler (locked in the 12" space with you both) starts throwing a tantrum and you can't even let him out because it's straight out the door and back into the (highly breakable) giftware (which is where he wants to go, thus the tantrum).

Sigh.

I'm not sure what happened next.

I know I got very very hot and very very claustrophobic and I know both children were crying and the eldest one wasn't actually doing what he should be doing on the toilet and the younger one made a launch for the 'Sanitary Disposal Bin' (which was about 3 inches from my face at this point - yippeee) and at that point I lost it.

I know I roared very very loudly.

I know there was a kerfuffle.

I know the toddler banged his face on the sanitary towel bin.... (gulp).

I know everyone started to cry harder.

I know that there were 'nice old ladies' in some of the other cubicles.

I know that I then had to stay in my claustrophobic crying filled cubicle for quite some time to make absolutely sure that all the other people in the other cubicles had finished their business, washed their hands and left before I dared show my face. This was not the mother I planned to be. Hiding in the toilets with her crying children after an altercation with a Panty Pad bin.

I know that by the time we got out we were all rather in need of a sit down, a slice of cake and something to drink.

So off to the cafe we went.......where we had to sit, in total silence, amongst a scattering of elderly people dressed in muted tones of peach and beige and eat our £3 slices of cake in silence.

And that, my dears, is why they lure you in with 'free' grottos and the like. The Truth About Garden Centres is that they are actually just portals which suck you, vortex-like, through the gates of giftware-hell and into the world's most expensive cafes.

Sod the cafe, I think they need to open a cocktail bar.

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Star of Wonder.....

Star of Light....

Keeping 5 Year Olds Up At Night.

Who would have thought it?

The Star of Bethlehem - light of life and signpost to the sweet Saviour Jesus Christ or (in fact) sinister harbinger of doom with dark and evil overtones?

Well if you are 5 it appears that the later is the case.

My eldest is in his first year of proper school (Reception) so the preparations for the Christmas Nativity are in full swing and it's the Tale of Bethlehem a Go Go.

He was quite into it all until they got to the bit with the star.......

'Mummy?'

'Yes'

'Stars only follow you around if your baby, don't they?'.

'Erm what!?'

'If you are a baby a star goes over you and shines, yes?'.

'Oh I see - well yes if you were the Baby Jesus then yes, apparently so'.

'So that's not going to happen to me?'.

'Erm no. You have nothing to worry about on two counts there. 1. You are no longer a baby and 2. You are not, by any stretch of the imagination, the Son of God'.

'Who?'.

'Nevermind - but no - there will be no stars following you around'.

'Or just hovering over my bed?'.

'No'.

'Are you sure?'.

'Very sure. Look even if you were Jesus you don't sleep in a stable, you aren't in Bethleham and there is nobody hanging about on a camel. It's from the olden days. The VERY olden days'.

'Like steam trains?'.

'Kind of'

'Good'.

And then, the very next morning, he opened up his advent calendar and there, lo and behold, was a large, very pointy, star with a dagger like point facing downwards.

'Ahhhhhhhhhhhh - THE STAR!'.

'Jesus! I mean, yes for the Baby Jesus - ONLY'.

'But why? Why does he make a star come?'.

'It's, erm, magical'.

'Is it aliens?'.

'Well interesting point but allegedly no'.

'I think we need to shut this door of the advent calendar. And keep it closed'.

'OK. If that makes you feel better'.

'Yes. And I don't want to hear ANY more about it'.

And here endeth the lesson.

Could be interesting.

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The Romance Continues to Thrive

Having greeted my husband with chemically burnt pubic hair, this Friday I up the stakes even further and greeted him with the urgent need to change my trousers.

Oh.

Dear.

The dreaded Diarrhea and Vomiting has come to our doors - thus my absence.

What I'd like to know is why, when my son gets this he is sick ONCE and shows no fatigue whatsoever (in fact he had to stay off school for the following 2 days and spend 99% of them climbing the walls and sobbing that 'life is so boring'). When I get the same bug I feel like I've been tied to the wheel of a steamroller and bumped along the ground for a week or so.

Anyway - I'm (sort) of better now so on with the festivities (well if I actually find the energy to change out of my dressing gown).

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