Monday, November 03, 2008
Small Sprogs Surprise
Bless him! I brimmed over with pride. He has a very generous and loving heart. He was born with it and would always share his last sweet with you even when he was really little.
However...
Once home he pulled the bag from his pocket and waved it in front of her nose singing "I've go you a present and you can't have it (yet)!" over and over! She was not amused.
Later, at bed time, I suggested that he gave me back the money I lent him for the present. Surely this was not unreasonable as it was a present from him that he wanted to buy, not one from me. He was shocked! Why did I need him to pay me back? I tried to explain. I'm not sure I did a very good job. "Polar bear will pay you in fluff mummy" he said, with a twinkle in his eye brandishing his favourite soft toy. So I explained that fluff wasn't the going currency of the day, but then again...............
Sunday, November 02, 2008
Make a wish
So, the day before yesterday, I put all the dried fruit to soak in brandy. I tend to not measure the brandy, as the recipe suggests, but instead just sloosh it in. I love the smell and just can't resist smuggling a bit from under the cloth during the soaking process (cooks rewards!).
However, (luckily) today there was enough left to make a cake with!! Tall Girl came down from the sanctuary of her room to help beat the eggs, stir in the milk with the black treacle, rub in the flour, butter and brown sugar, pour in the walnuts and steal the cherries! I have to say I don't keep to the recipe with this bit either, adding extra bits as I go along but that's all part of the fun. Then, as part of the tradition, we all stir the cake mixture and made a wish. Tall girl wanted first wish, which was made, short and sweet before padding back up to her room. Small Sprog was next. He always wishes hard and long, with eyes screwed up tight shut, if any ones wish should come true it should be his. I suspect it had something to do with what he wanted for Christmas!One of the nit children from down the road was here and he had a stir followed by Husband. Husbands wish was long like Small Sprogs and I wondered what it could have been, he said he had a lot to wish for, I shall never know. Mine was the last wish. There was just a little stirring left to be done but I found it hard to think far enough ahead to wish, there is a future out there, but I am still not sure what it will be. So 'health and happiness for everyone I know' is the standard default! There, have I spoilt it now? I didn't say it out loud so I don't think it counts as telling!
What would you wish for?
Saturday, November 01, 2008
Tag!
Kitty has awarded me this lovely Domestic Goddess Cake Woman Award! This award is named 'The One Sweet Blog' and features a blonde lady either in a frock resembling a cupcake, or else she is actually sitting in a giant cupcake. I wouldn't mind sitting in a giant cupcake - I can see the potential for fun in that situation.Anyway, the award comes with a tag for a meme - a '7's meme.
Here we go:
7 Things I plan to do before I die:
See my children grow to a healthy, happy, fulfilled adulthood
Find some contentment
(The two above were Kitty's but I couldn't have put it better myself!)
Write a book (there, I have to do it now because I've written it down!)
Have no regrets
Get out more!
Live glamorously
Find myself
7 Things I do now:
Love my children lots
Attempt to keep everyone happy
Try and fit more things into one day than is physically possible
Write lots of lists
Listen to music VERY LOUD when every ones else is out of the house except when I......
Dance in the kitchen with the children
Blog and check my e-mails far too often!
7 Things I can't do:
Say no!
Get my children to be tidy
Leave a bottle with just a little drop in the bottom!
Swim
Spell
Forget my past
Stop Blogging!
7 Things that attract me in the opposite sex: (in no particular order)
Kindness
Passion
Sexy voice
Humour and wit
Intelligence
Sociability
Good taste!
7 Things I say most often (to the children!):
"Have you washed your hands?"
"Go and do it again"
"Are you sure?"!"I can't hear you both together..... one at a time "
"Honestly?"
"I love you"
"What did I just say?!"
7 Celebrities that I admire:
What, precisely, qualifies someone to be a 'celebrity' I wonder? I have no idea who are considered 'celebrities' or what they do or did to make them celebrities. There are famous people I admire for their talent or work, here are some:
Doris Lessing
Paul Weller
Shami Chakrabarti
David Attenborough
William Morris
Banksey
Phillip Pullman
7 Favourite foods:
Chocolate
Anything spicy
Rare Steak
Any fish (as long as it's dead before I eat it!)
Homemade cakes
Soft fruit freshly picked
Chips from the paper with lots of salt and vinegar
Did I say chocolate?!
7 Bloggers who need to do this:
Nobody needs to do this, but I'd like to pass the award to, and would be interested in the answers from:
Rose
Liz
Mean Moody Middle-aged Mum
Scarlette
Saz
Jenny
Soo
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Post holiday post!
After a while he turned to me and said "This is one of the best days of my life!"
Now he'd come to mention it, it was one of mine too

Wednesday, October 29, 2008
ABC Wednesday
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Friday, October 24, 2008
Schools out!
"Mummy, why do we have so much plastic?"
I'm not good at this first thing in the morning!
"I don't know Small Sprog, why do we have so much plastic?"
"No! It's not a joke" He shouts, offended
He has been nominated as an 'Eco Warrior' for his class next term. I obviously need to shape up a bit! But right now it's the school holidays. Am I ready for this?!
PS. Just realised Tall Girl has completed her first term of senior school. Where has that time suddenly gone? She has grown up and changed so much since the beginning of September. She certainly has more 'Attitude'!
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
ABC Wednesday
Such beautiful brightness.......
More can be found on the ABC Wednesday no-comment blog,
and on ABC Wednesday Mr Linky .
Please visit as many as you can and leave comments for us all!
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
The Visit
If you remember from the last instalment, I was free for them to come for tea and cake from 4pm but mum thought that was much too late. In the end so did I because it was parents evening which meant I had to feed the children and be out again by 6.30. So I called in a childcare favour from a friend (a favour, I might add, that I had been storing up for a proper emergency, like a Christmas shopping trip!) which meant that I didn't have to pick up Small Sprog at 3.15 or Tall Girl from the bus stop at 3.45. That gave me a whole hour and a half from 2.30 (when I wanted them to come) until I needed to retrieve the children from my friend at 4pm so that she could go out.
I called mum last night to tell her 2.30 would be fine. "Oh, I thought we'd make it 4 after all" She says. "For ****'s sake" I didn't scream! Instead I gently stated that I had sorted everything out and they would be welcome at 2.30 and I needed to feed the children by 5.30. "Don't worry" she warbled "We'll come at 3, and then you can go and get the children because Auntie would like to see them"
"I can't get them until 4 now, it's arranged"
"That's OK we'll wait" (Last night she said it would be too late to travel back!)
"And I need to get early tea"
"We'll sit in the kitchen with you while you prepare it"
There it was then, sorted!
They arrived at 3pm, busied in and settled with tea and copious amount of cake, in the living room. "Lovely cake"
"Would you like another piece?"
"Well I must think of my waist line"
"Sure?"
"Well may be just one more piece!"
I tell you, if I'd eaten that much cake I'd have been vomiting in the foot well of the car for most of the homeward journey!
We sat and small talked, me interspersing conversation with sneezing, sniffing and dripping into hankies! Auntie is a bit deaf now and mum can be embarrassingly bossy with her, but I don't think Auntie notices (or maybe she's just very polite!) After a while my mind wandered to thoughts of food preparation and wondering if it was bad manners to slip into the kitchen for a moment by myself as there was no way they were going to move off the comfy sofas this side of the weekend!! Just before 4 o clock (I discreetly kept an eye on the time via the DVD player) there was a brief break in conversation. I was about to say "Oh! Look at the time, I must go and fetch the children" when mum ( in the equivalent of a stage whisper) looks into her empty cup and then at me. "Would you like another cup of tea?" I ask (between gritted teeth!)
"Oh yes please" They chorused!
I rushed out of the door at 4.10, worried that my friend would be late for her appointment. Luckily I got there just in time and returned home 20 minutes later, by which time the cake plate was empty and they looked very happy!!
The usual conversations to the children about "Oh! haven't you grown" took place and Tall Girl and Small Sprog gallantly did their best to live up to the occasion. By a quarter to five we were all saying goodbye. We stood on the door step and waved. As mum reversed (at high speed) out of the drive she opened the car window and shouted "Lovely to see you! Hope we haven't delayed you too much!" And off they went in a cloud of dust!!
Well I've got it off my chest now! That's that. Until the next time!!
Monday, October 20, 2008
Poorly need sympathy!
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Exasperated of Bristol!!
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Poverty
However, one conversation will stay with me for sometime:
At lunch I was talking to a teacher who works in Wales. He works at a school for children aged 4 to 11. This is a school with a difference though. The children here have been excluded from all other schools in Wales. If they fail to stay at this school, their next stop will be a high security unit. They are damaged children. Damaged by life, parents and society. They are children of the 'Underclass'. You don't hear that word much these days but this is the word he used. There is one school in Britain of this sort and one in Wales. They are both full.
He has 5 children in his class and is supported by 2 other adults. Five is the limit. The children are abusive and violent most of the time. It is the only way that they know how to behave. They spit in their teachers face most days and he has bruises from their attacks. Would you do that job?
The children come to school every day. They are bused in from miles around. No one forces them to come. Most of them have no one in their lives who care whether they go to school or not. They come to school because it is the only constant in their lives. The only time that anyone cares about them, their only form of routine, somewhere that provides the safe boundaries that they need.
None of them have fathers that are constantly present. The parents are often drug addicts or in prison. When they get off the bus after school they live mostly on the streets until the next day. No one cares for them. No one, that is, except the staff at their school. No matter what they're faced with, the teachers care and look after these children. Trying to put something back into their lives. Trying to keep them out of prison.
The teacher I spoke to told me they have a role of ex pupils names on the wall in the staff room. It is updated regularly. The majority end up in prison for serious crimes, not just burglary but murder and worse (if there is worse). The school can only do so much. Once the children leave the little security they have there and move on, they become more disturbed. They follow the path of their parents and their parents parents. This is the society in which we live.
I have nothing but admiration for the man I met today. He was calm and had a wonderfully pleasant face. He talked from the heart and did the job because he cared.
There are children on our streets tonight who have their futures planned ahead of them, their whole lives mapped out. There are children out there tonight that won't have a bedtime story, who won't have a kiss goodnight, who may never know the comfort of a happy home.
It was blog action day for poverty yesterday, I wasn't sure I could take part or whether I had anything to blog about, but today is different. It's not that I didn't know this sort of poverty was there but perhaps I chose not to watch. Because it is poverty. Not just material poverty but a spiritually poverty, a poverty of care, a poverty of life chances, a poverty of hope. Not just their hope but ours, the hope that we can protect children and provide a life that is good enough. Our poverty and theirs, together. What can we do?
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
ABC Wednesday...................
So it just had to be My Moments
from Suburbia!
ABC Wednesday was created by Mrs Nesbitt.
More can be found on the ABC Wednesday no-comment blog,
and on ABC Wednesday Mr Linky .
Please visit as many as you can and leave comments for us all!
Monday, October 13, 2008
Shoppping with mother!
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Lost and Found
Some days do you get that feeling of well being? Just out of nowhere? I had it today, just for a while. It was absolutely brilliant! I don't know if it was the amazing blue sky, the unexpected warmth of the day or bouncing with Small Sprog on the trampoline. Or maybe it was none of these things, or all of them put together. It definitely wasn't cleaning out the rabbit hutch, sorting out homework or being at every ones beck and call! (they all want a piece of me at the weekend) Anyway I bathed in it and it felt good.Since Tall Girl has started senior school the whole family routine has changed. The changes have been subtle but, because I HATE routine, it has been quite liberating! For example (and I don't write those words on here normally!) since Tall Girl was a small girl, starting school for the first time, I have made packed lunches. For her and Husband, every weekday (although he did say he would make the sandwiches for both of them...once!). Then when Small Sprog started school I made them for him. Every day, five days a week.
Seven years I have been making packed lunches. Seven years!! But no longer. Tall Girl likes the independence of buying hers at school, and Small Sprog has found that school dinners 'hit the spot' especially as there is a roast dinner twice a week!
"Seven years I have been making packed lunch" I declare to Husband. He gave me a look of disbelief. I didn't say, you have to make your own now, but I think he got the idea!
Anyway, it may be a small thing but it is one of many small things and it has made the world of difference to me. And of course it's not just that. I feel I have started to take my life in both hands. I feel more in control, I am finding more time to do the things I want to do. I am feeling more confident. So today, for a moment, I was more than a mummy, a wife and a cleaner. I began to feel a little bit more like myself.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Dating skills
I have just let them loose in the garden and they were last seen bouncing on the trampoline together. I did a double take because Small Sprog appeared to have no trousers on but, on second glance it appears he has them pulled up to look like shorts. Phew!
Tall Girl has gone to see her friend. I called her on her phone earlier to check her lift had turned up. He phone was switched off. She's just like my mother! Both of them always have their phones off. What is the point of having a phone if you have it off all the time? I posed this question to my mum recently. "Well" She said "I have it for emergencies"
"What a bout my ****ing emergencies?" Exasperated of Bristol!
PS. Just for the record ( for BS5!) I didn't actually swear at my mum!
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Bits and pieces and dentist related items!
"Can I go to the sweetie shop?"
"No, we have too many sweets in the house as it is"
"Please can I go to the sweetie shop?"
"No"
Disappears for a while....
"Look I have my own money, can I go to the sweetie shop?"
"No!"
"But I really need some sweets"
"You have lots in your jar"
I open the cupboard to produce the jar. It is empty.
"Small Sprog, I'm very upset that you have eaten all your sweets at once"
Tall Girl pipes up "He hasn't eaten them all he's hidden them in his money box!"
Conversation with Tall Girl:
"Mummy my tooth came out"
"Thank goodness for that, perhaps you'll be able to eat normally again!" This after weeks of chewing on one side of her mouth and eating v e r y slowly.
"Look" She exclaims, pushing it up close to my nose.
"Yuck, there's still food in it"
Disappears for a while....
"Mummy!" Anguished scream "I've lost my tooth down the plug hole!"
"Oh dear" Laughing
"I want it back" Crying
"But you don't believe in the Tooth Fairy anymore"
"I want it back" Wailing
"Why?"
"Because it was my tooth!"
Drama Queen!
More bits:
Maggie May has commented that she wants to know the outcome of the dentist visit! I have been too ashamed to write about it because, after all the fuss, it was of little consequence. One small filling and no pain! So next time I get into a state of panic please feel free to remind me that I am being a baby!
Lastly:

Does anyone know anything about caterpillars?! These two are rather spectacular specimens from the garden that I have found over the last few days. The first one may be the Caterpillar of the Red Admiral butterfly but I have no idea about the second one. Any ideas?Wednesday, October 08, 2008
ABC Wednesday

More can be found on the ABC Wednesday no-comment blog,
and on ABC Wednesday Mr Linky .
Sunday, October 05, 2008
The Dentist
What I hate the most is having to sit there for, what seems like, ages with my mouth unnaturally wide open! And then there's all the equipment that they try to store in your mouth at the same time as drilling the tooth! Loads of metal stuff, drilling and sucking and.....I'm feeling a bit faint now. I need to go for a lye down!
Then there's the packing stuff that they put in the hole. It squeaks like cotton wool when you chew on it (not that I do chew on cotton wool often, you understand!) but it's one of those 'fingernails down the blackboard' noises isn't it?
And, after all the build up of stress (weeks of it you understand!) and the pain, needles, drills, squeaking, and the indignity of spitting with a numb mouth which inevitably means you dribble, all that and then they give you a bloody bill!
So as you can see I'm in for a sleepless night full of terrible chills and horrible thoughts. If I do sleep I shall be awake with the lark, feeling sick (that's about how every morning starts for Tall Girl at the moment, so it could add to my empathy level) and not want any breakfast. I shall probably need some 'Rescue Remedy' at about 8am and then again at regular intervals. Perhaps a whole bottle full by 9.15, which is when my appointment is! Have you ever tried it? It's just like brandy, no wonder it works!
Anyway, I'm feeling much better now I've offloaded! And I guess I could just ring up in the morning and rearrange the appointment?!!!
Friday, October 03, 2008
Small Sprog battles the credit crunch!
Small Sprog has a tuck shop at his new school. A 'healthy' tuck shop, selling fruit and fruit juice at break time. Every day I give him 20p to spend."What do you buy at the tuck shop?" I asked today
"Orange slices"
"Lots of them?"
"Just one"
"How much are they then?" I ask
"5p"
"So what do you do with the change?"
"Put it in my money box!"
"You put it in your money box?!"
"Yes"
"That's mummy's money"
And he runs off laughing!!
So Small Sprog is making a profit out of his tuck money! Does that surprise me? Probably not, should have guessed really.
PS. We have enough conkers in the house to feed all the squirrels in Bristol for a whole year (well almost!)



