It's not just embarassing, it's M&S embarassing

Those of you who regularly follow my daily grind will be aware that the last time I ventured into M&S I took a woman's leg off. Albeit an artificial leg on an artificial woman - but all the same - I wasn't in a hurry to repeat the experience.

During half term (which, praise the lord, ends tomorrow - or at least I think it ends tomorrow. If it doesn't it won't be the first time I have returned my son to an empty school) I found myself back in M&S. I can't even remember why. I think I spent most of half term wandering round in semi-crazed hormonal fog - but anyway I was in there and I was in there with two highly excitable children who, despite being constrained in a double trolley (the older one is SO over the size/weight limit and I do get very funny looks from people as a I shoe-horn him in muttering 'I know your thighs sting and your legs have gone fuzzy but you'll forgot about it soon'), were very much making their presence known.

The smaller child has this thing he does where he makes a noise not unlike a pterodactyl in full flight. EeeeeeeWaaAAA EeeeeeWaaAAA. The larger one then copies him. Only louder. So the smaller one does it even louder. And so it escalates. I do my best to shut them up but it's very hard to stop children under two making a noise if they want to (older ones can be threatened into submission).

And so it happens that as we cruise serenely down the 'Italian' aisle in the M&S food hall a sudden EeeeWaaaaAAAAAAA pierces the silence and elderly people clutch their hearts and fall into tubs of Ricotta. Thus we leave the Italian aisle in search of untainted shopping space and during a break from the Jurassic Park re-enactment I made the mistake of perusing the pot plants.

What I had failed to notice was that stacked next to the pot plants was a mountain of meringues. On turning back to the trolley my precious infant (hu hmm) was in the joyous possession of a large box of meringues. I don't know how he knows what a meringue is but clearly he does know and he knows that, when it comes to sugar intake, they are a very valuable commodity indeed.

A battle ensues. The battle for the meringues.

I would like to say the only casualty of the battle was the meringues but sadly not.

He clearly took the line of 'if I can't enjoy these, NOBODY WILL' and hurled them, with surprising force, across M&S and directly into the trousers of an elderly man.

They split open (the meringues that is, not the old man's trousers) and shattered all over the floor.

The old man looked at his trousers, looked at the meringues, looked at me and then looked back at his trousers again before fetching a shop assistant.

The shop assistant came over and asked me if I'd like to have a free Bag for Life in order celebrate 50 years of M&S. Not quite the reaction I was expecting but then again this is M&S. You can probably piss on the grapes and they will simply smile and ask if you would like them weighed.

I look my 'Bag for Life' and my box of a meringue dust and my pterodactyl children and my burning cheeks and left.

It may be a long time before I go back. Next stop Asda.....

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Side Effects May Include.....

Someone close to me (who shall remain unidentified to protect him and his nether regions) is recovering from surgery to a rather precious part of his body and last week he informed me that rediscovering this blog (rediscovering? REdiscovering? He should have been supporting the home team and reading daily - tut tut) made him laugh so hard that he feared he'd burst his stitches.....

The next thing I heard he'd been re-admitted to hospital and now has his arse packed with seaweed.

Seriously.

Apparently this is a very expensive special kind of a seaweed the NHS occasionally fork out for in order to create miraculous healing. It's not just a handful of kelp gathered from the Bristol Channel (well hopefully not).

I've heard the expression 'side splitting' but 'bum splitting'. Oh dear, oh dear.

Anyway - seriously mate - get well soon. We are all thinking of you - and your arse.

And to any of you carrying any physical complaints that won't withstand much pressure - you have been warned......

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A Child's Eye View of Half Term

Eldest Son: Mummy

Me: Yes?

Eldest Son: I do like you.

Me: Erm, good (I think).

Eldest Son: But....

Me: But what?

Eldest Son: But I've had enough of you now.

Oh.

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Take a Break as Therapy?

I shamefully confess that I read Take a Break.

Sometimes.

If you don't know what 'Take a Break' is, it is a weekly women's magazine (although quite a few older chaps seem to write in too) of the very non-glossy sort, mainly read by ladies called things like 'Barbara' or 'Joyce' who seem to all live in Grimsby, Rotherham or Weston-Super-Mare and have sold the story of their misfortune for circa £300 and had it published in the mag.

The stories tend to be one of a number of staples.

There is always a story about 'love deceived' (often a tale about some poor unfortunate who really did believe that 17 year old 'stud-like Miguel' was after their 78 year old portly frame and just could not believe it when he disappeared with the £70,000 they lent him so he could get his hair cut....).

There is a story (or 4) with a moral lesson to learned ('I glanced at an on-line Bingo ad and the next thing I knew I'd pawned my entire home and was working as a call girl to fund my habit').

There is a story involving a pregnancy ('I was told I'd never get pregnant, my dog died, 2 days later I was pregnant, I saw the image of my dead dog on the ultrasound scan, I named my baby Mitzi after the dog and Mitzi loves to sleep in the dog's old basket.....).

There is a story about a birth ('I reached into the deep freeze in Kwiksave and my baby shot out! We called him Nugget').

There is a story about a death (always a tragic tale about a child or young mum getting very ill and dying - I skip this bit).

You get the gist.

So why do I buy it?

Well sometimes I fancy a mag and I point blank refuse to fork out £3.50 on a great big glossy thing which is 40% adverts and aimed at women who appear to inhabit another universe (one with career ladders and dates and time to shape their bikini line). OK the women in Take a Break also appear to (mainly) inhabit another universe but at least I'm only charged 78p for the privilege. I'm not really into 'celebrities' so I that rules out Heat! and the like (and those mags give me flashbacks of my time living in the mental unit) and that doesn't leave much else in the 'light reading' category apart from Take a Break.

And besides - however nuts my life is - the lives of those in Take a Break are considerably more nuts. They are like 'extreme-nuts' (oh god - I shouldn't have typed that - how long before people are finding this site via Googling 'extreme nuts'? We've already had someone visit via 'KY Jelly Fun'.....).

The most nuts bit of Take a Break is the bit called 'The Brainwaves Roadshow'.

This is a page where various 'geniuses' (i.e. nutters) write in with amazing 'brainwave' ideas which will transform your life...... They get £30 if the tip gets published and SIXTY QUID if they include a photo. You can imagine this prompts some rather spurious 'brainwaves'.

I've never read this page and not laughed long and hard.

Here are 3 examples from this week's mag:

Julie from Rotherham wants to tell us all about her amazing 'brainwave'.

'I was fed up of losing my flip-flops around the house but couldn't find a small enough shoe tidy for them. I took an old cardboard bottle carrier (on closer inspection this is the cardboard wine holder you get in Asda when you buy 6 bottles - Julie clearly likes a bit of Blue Nun) and painted it with left over emulsion. It looks pretty and my shoes are always together!'.

The accompanying pic is captioned 'Toes company!'.

And I'll tell you now Julie - it does not look pretty. It looks like a cardboard box from Asda painted a dodgy shade of silver with several pairs of flip flops shoved in the top. It looks demented. Words fail me. Why not just put your flip flops in a box? ANY box?

On to Kim from Harlow:

'When you are being photographed, flatten your tongue against the roof of your mouth to minimise a double chin'.

Sadly there is no photo of Kim so we can assess her tip and her double chin but I've tried it and it makes feck all difference unless I force my tongue upwards with great effort and affect a kind of insane grimace complete with bulging eyes. My chin may be lessened but I look like a frog.

Finally we have David from Stourport-on-Severn. David really is VERY creative:

'I wanted new garden furniture but could find nothing I liked in the shops (judging from what you go on to create David - I'm not surprised). I painted my old table and chairs and covered them in bubble wrap (what?), then put a shower curtain over the top (A SHOWER CURTAIN!), held it in place with drawing pins and tape (wow, now that's what I call craftsmanship...). As well as being stylish (!!!) my seats are so much softer (do you not mean 'so much more crinkly and sweaty to sit on?)'.

David - please - if you are not deliberately taking the piss then you need to seek medical help. I wish I could describe the accompanying photograph of David's patio furniture, but there are no words. And what about the popping when someone sits down? Bubble wrap tends to do that when you apply pressure.

'Oh Joyce, DO sit down while I fetch your tea...... BANG...Joyce? Joyce? Oh my word - it's her Angina.....'.

This edition also feature someone who uses pipe lagging to protect her baby's legs and a man who makes bird boxes out of tea caddies.

I feel so much saner now.

Take a Break = Therapy.

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Bored Gays and Baby Bowling

Well here we go - first day of half-term (yes I know it's a Friday but an 'Inset Day' just adds to that holiday feeling).

Already we have a new question:

Son 1: 'Mummy?'.

Me: 'Yes'.

Son 1: 'What is a bored gay?'.

Me: 'A WHAT?'.

Son 1: 'A BORED GAY'.

Me: 'Where did you hear that?'.

Son 1: 'On CBBC'.

Me: 'Really?' (I very much doubt that the BBC's children programming includes an item on homosexuals looking for something to do on a dull Sunday afternoon - but who knows? Stranger things have been aired - Carrie and David's Popshop for a start).

Son 1: 'Yes, look these children have to invent a Bored Gay and be the winner. Those children have a bored gay with Pyramids on! And you have to put a key in the bored gay and open it up and get the treasure out'.

Me: 'WHAT?' (go and inspect said programme).

Me: 'Ohhhhh - I think you mean a BOARD GAME'.

Confusion solved.

Other than bored gays we also have a new game of our own. Sadly not a board game.

No this game is called 'Baby Bowling' and it involves the toddler standing on my bed (which I had stripped so all the pillows and duvets were piled up on the floor) and the older child crashing into him at high speed so he flies through the air and (hopefully) falls into the pile of bedding. This is, apparently, hysterical and both of them are roaring with laughter and can't get enough of it. All I can see is in my mind is broken limbs and the damage being done to my feather filled eiderdown.....

I dragged them downstairs and made them sit through 'Real Rescues' on BBC1 and witness several injured toddlers as a form of aversion therapy but to no avail. Two minutes later they were doing it again on the sofa.

This could be a long week.

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Slightly Surreal

There is definitely a touch of the surreal about this week. Well there is a touch of the surreal about most of my life, but this week it seems to be a bit more odd than usual.

Two examples:

1. On the fence of a house down the road from me, someone has pinned a note. Attached to this note is a plastic bag containing a birthday card. On the note it says:

'FOR THE ATTENTION OF MARGARET: Joan no longer lives at this address. She has passed away. Please take your card'.

I'm not really sure where to begin with that one other than: why!? WHY would you do that?

Was the card bothering them THAT much that they felt the need to pin it to a fence? Is there a hidden story? A need to name and shame Margaret - who is obviously not "that" good a friend if she doesn't realise that her so-called-mate Joan, is in fact, dead? Will Margaret ever see it? If so will she leave a tit for tat note? Could this be the start of a new sort of graffiti between Pensioners? Watch this space....

2. Whilst wandering round Tesco last night for a bit of R&R (it really comes to something when you consider a 'jolly nice break' consisting of going to Tesco without the kids and actually ENJOY spending 2 hours comparing the price of apples, squeezing melons and sniffing various hand creams, And to think, I used to be a player...) I came across a new 'playset' aimed at very young children. It was called something like 'animal adventure' and encouraged 'role play and acting out 'scenes from the natural world'.

The playset consisted of a large Daddy Emperor penguin, a fluffy little tiny baby penguin and.......... a killer whale.

Erm, Ok then.

I've seen the nature shows, I know what happens next.

The Killer Whale launches himself onto the ice shelf and snatches the baby penguin from beneath the daddy one and drags him down down down into the icy depths. Then they play sad music, a red patch appears in the sea and David Attenborough solemnly declares 'the whale has fed and will live another day. The chick's father turns and starts his 2,000 mile walk back to the mating ground, ALONE'. At this point I sink to my knees and howl and wonder what the point of life is before swearing I will stick to watching Gok's Fashion Fix in the future. As far as I'm aware, nothing fluffy gets ripped apart by a Killer Whale in that.

Anyway - I'm sure many of you are looking forward to buying the playset and acting out that very scene at bath time with your 3 year old. You could even add a dash of red food dye for good effect.

Who thought up this concept? It's like something from The Apprentice.

There are more, many more, but I shall have to come back to this as duty calls and I need to spend the next hour standing on a step ladder trying to knock moss off my conservatory roof with a telescopic mop.....

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Kerb Appeal

My latest project (I like to have an ongoing project to ensure my life is filled with stress and various bizarre incidents) is to sell my house. And then buy a new one.

This should be interesting.

It has just gone on the market and that means that total strangers are being invited into my home, my first proper home where I got married and had my babies (we shall leave the not so pleasant bits out I think - just in case any of you are potential buyers and have been put off by the man-eating dog, drug factory or neighbour wrapped in chains who burst through the living room window), and basically they get to slag it off.

It feels so personal that it's a bit like inviting people in to critique your husband.

'Hmm we liked his outside appearance but on closer inspection there are signs of damp and things downstairs are a little smaller than we were hoping' (I hasten to add that is just an example - there is nothing damp or disappointing about my long suffering husband).

First there was Agatha who liked the house but not the view. Seriously - what was she expecting? The rolling Serengeti? The sun going down over the Grand Canyon? I found it hard not to take Agatha's comments to heart.

Then there was someone who wanted exactly the same thing but BIGGER for exactly the same price. That old chestnut.

And then?

Well then there was a lady who was very interested but I only had an hour's notice before her arrival.

Now as any of you who have sold houses with small children in-situ will know - this is a freakin' nightmare.

As I told the Estate Agent 'yes of course she can come round, I would LOVE to see her' I surveyed the chaos and shuddered. There had (according to my eldest son) been a tornado which 'left 68 people deaded' in the living room. I'm not sure about the deaded bit but it had left the cushions off my sofa, 3,000 Lego bricks, toy cars, model trains and soft toys spread around the lower floor of the house and filthy hand prints on all the windows. Then of course there is the ever present (even 5 minutes after you've hoovered) carpet of toast crumbs, rice cake crumbs, biscuit crumbs and bits of sweetcorn. And the laundry hung all round the place. And the washing piled up. And the dirty pots. And the mucky bathroom. And the unmade beds. And... well you get the picture.

Tidying it up (well shoving stuff in cupboards and under beds) was doable but not with the children there tipping everything out as fast I put it away. So I needed to get rid of them and that only left me with one (legal) option. The garden. So out they went, with a pile of toys and I got busy.

Selling houses these days isn't what it once was. In the days of a million property shows everyone is 'property savvy' and knows about things like 'dressing your home', 'decluttering' and, the vitally important, 'kerb appeal'.

The lady was due at 5.30pm and I hoped that she would sashay round the (now) immaculate house and then smile warmly at the two cherubic boys playing nicely on the freshly mown lawn. Kerb appeal? Oh yeah baby. I wasn't going to just sell her my house, I was going to sell her my entire lifestyle. She wouldn't just be buying a home - she would be buying a way of life. She would WANT IT ALL. A life of serene motherhood, tinkling laughter, freshly baked scones and dogs called Timmy (Ok scrap the last bit but I have a guinea pig called Rex - does that count?).

But it didn't quite happen like that.

At approximately 5.28pm an outraged howl emanated from the garden. It appeared that my children had decided to water the plants with the hose. And then they'd decided to water eachother. The baby in particular was soaked from head to toe in freezing water and it was a freezing cold evening so he was not exactly happy.

For a few moments I contemplated just leaving him out there but I thought the sight of a screaming, seemingly neglected, slightly blue child might give the potential buyer bad vibes so I fetched them in, forbade them to leave the conservatory, stripped them down and then I had to stop them crying. Two children howling in tandem is not music to anyone's ears. But how to stop them crying? This would need something seriously impressive but I had no 'treats' in the house. The only thing that came to mind was a box of expensive Belgian chocolates someone had given me as a gift and I'd been saving for the last 6 months. I wasn't saving them for the bloody kids to eat but hey ho - this was an emergency so out they came and the children's jaws dropped open in disbelief as a praline noisette was stuffed into each hand with the assurance that they could have 'more!' if they JUST STOPPED BLOODY CRYING. This of course, sent them bonkers and they started squealing with joy and wrestling boisterously.

At that moment, she arrived.

I'm not sure what she made of the sight of two semi-naked wet children bouncing off the walls whilst munching a £14 box of chocolates but she hasn't been back.

I think rather than selling her a lifestyle I just providing a brutal reminder of the fact that parenthood 'ain't like the soap powder adverts'.

Next time I might put them in the cupboard under the stairs.

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