The trouble with January is that it goes on much too long. This is my least favourite time of year - the days are way too short and the nights (which start at 4.30pm and end at 8.00am thus requiring me to take and collect my children from the school bus in the semi-dark) go on forever. Also, and I realise this may be personal to me, usually we are in that post-Christmas hangover - not literally - phase, and my beloved tends to be in the USA for a goodly chunk of the month, and, I am facing yet another birthday. None of this is good and there is seemingly nothing we can do about it. Or so I thought...
Here's the plan: without wishing to claim that this is an original idea - obviously someone in the Northern Hemisphere will have come up with this before - what we need to do is make January shorter. How would it be if we made January twenty eight days long like February (which is nearly as bad in my book but mercifully short) and then made three of the best months in the year which have only thirty days in them another day longer. Who doesn't love April, June and September? April, with all the anticipation of summer, long June evenings and September when the days are still fairly long and the weather tends to be better than August. Why not give them a day each and make January twenty eight days?
I've given this some thought and I realise that for a few people losing three days out of January may be a problem. Obviously for a start, people with birthdays on the last three days in January - but just think, you could have your birthday in April, June or September which is clearly a much better time for a party. And people doing their tax returns like my beloved who thinks he has got another eight days to do his, and mine, and to help child 1 with hers. He might be a bit stressed. But otherwise I can't see a problem, here at least.
The real difficulty, I suppose, will be the people in the Southern Hemisphere and I haven't come up with a solution to that. But then, global solutions are really beyond my mental capacity. It just works for me. So, all in favour - say "aye"!
Monday, 23 January 2012
Saturday, 14 January 2012
Counting down the days...
For the last week or so I have been trying my hand at single parenthood and I am now totally in awe of anyone who has to do this everyday. In fact, I was feeling quite sorry for myself until a friend came for coffee yesterday - her husband works in Kosovo and only comes home once every six weeks! And here am I chuntering about a week and a half!
However, this is the longest time we have been apart in the last twenty eight years and aside from missing my beloved (apart from the snoring, obviously) there would appear to a massive black hole of things that I rely on him for in a practical sense. This would include anything to do with cars - I have no idea what goes on under the bonnet and frankly, as long as he comes back, I don't intend to find out. Then there is the computer. At the back end of last year, my lovely mac crashed and in the words of Craig Revel Horwood 'disaster daaarling!' This may or may not be the result of people other than me using my super hi-spec laptop and I am therefore now very edgy about anyone else getting their paws on my keyboard! Mental note to self: must back-up, especially TFN which, had it been lost, would have been 30,000 words down the swanny! The mac made a full recovery but I am now very territorial about my office equipment.
Added to this, I know nothing about how the heating or indeed how anything electrical works. In fact - and I suspect this is true for plenty of people who perhaps wouldn't admit to it - anything that comes with a manual. Whenever a new piece of kit arrives in this house with a leaflet translated into half a dozen or more languages, I go into ignoring-it mode. My beautiful cooker which landed here in early December came with an epic tome. So I waited till my beloved (who is a much better cook than me) and child 3 (probably ditto but not such a wide range of skills and recipes yet) had used it and I could surreptitiously watch them at work before tentatively trying my hand when there was no-one to watch. Of course, I am now fully competent but I do suffer from techno-fear. Do people really read instruction manuals from cover to cover? Or do they wait till disaster (more from Craig) strikes and then try to find out why in a panic?
The one area where, if things go wrong I really want to cry, is laundry. Because we've been married for eons and have far too many children, we are on to probably our fourth washing machine and probably tumble dryer. If one of these breaks, I want to lie on the floor and wail. The new tumble dryer (yes, a lot of things had to be replaced in the autumn but luckily not me!) has a water reservoir which has to emptied after each load. This is something that child 2 couldn't get her head round and she has been bringing her laundry home from her flat since early December - because, strangely, her washing machine broke! Between Christmas and New Year, this ended in disaster (I am now saying this like CRH in my head - how sad!) and we had to get the man round. He kindly replaced something like a thermostat - well, I think that's what he meant - because if you don't empty the water reservoir every wash the machine heats up like a kettle. Then last week, whilst we are watching something gripping on television, children 2, 3 and 4 and me, I hear the tumble dryer going and say "Did you empty the water?" and just the look on child 2's face was enough to have me running to the dryer. Just in time if the temperature of the outside casing is anything to go by - you could have cooked an egg on the top. Crisis averted but obviously child 2 has inherited my manual-averse, non-techy gene.
The other thing is more related to the children than the practicalities of life. I have never been one of those mothers who says 'wait till your father gets home', not least because when we play good-cop, bad-cop, I always end up playing the latter. But presenting a united front on all matters child-related is important and paddling my own canoe with children 3 and 4 is much more tricky. At one point, child 3 (yes you know who you are!) told me this week I was a 'rubbish parent'. But at least I am here and I guess that's what lots of single parents say - it's too tempting not to.
Anyway, hopefully we will survive the last few days before my beloved comes home. I will not be presented with any more dilemmas relating to what the children want to do which may or may not be appropriate, no equipment - cars or domestic - will develop glitches and I will enjoy a couple more nights of uninterrupted sleep. And most importantly, I will have racked up a very serious number of brownie points to be reclaimed later in the year.
However, this is the longest time we have been apart in the last twenty eight years and aside from missing my beloved (apart from the snoring, obviously) there would appear to a massive black hole of things that I rely on him for in a practical sense. This would include anything to do with cars - I have no idea what goes on under the bonnet and frankly, as long as he comes back, I don't intend to find out. Then there is the computer. At the back end of last year, my lovely mac crashed and in the words of Craig Revel Horwood 'disaster daaarling!' This may or may not be the result of people other than me using my super hi-spec laptop and I am therefore now very edgy about anyone else getting their paws on my keyboard! Mental note to self: must back-up, especially TFN which, had it been lost, would have been 30,000 words down the swanny! The mac made a full recovery but I am now very territorial about my office equipment.
Added to this, I know nothing about how the heating or indeed how anything electrical works. In fact - and I suspect this is true for plenty of people who perhaps wouldn't admit to it - anything that comes with a manual. Whenever a new piece of kit arrives in this house with a leaflet translated into half a dozen or more languages, I go into ignoring-it mode. My beautiful cooker which landed here in early December came with an epic tome. So I waited till my beloved (who is a much better cook than me) and child 3 (probably ditto but not such a wide range of skills and recipes yet) had used it and I could surreptitiously watch them at work before tentatively trying my hand when there was no-one to watch. Of course, I am now fully competent but I do suffer from techno-fear. Do people really read instruction manuals from cover to cover? Or do they wait till disaster (more from Craig) strikes and then try to find out why in a panic?
The one area where, if things go wrong I really want to cry, is laundry. Because we've been married for eons and have far too many children, we are on to probably our fourth washing machine and probably tumble dryer. If one of these breaks, I want to lie on the floor and wail. The new tumble dryer (yes, a lot of things had to be replaced in the autumn but luckily not me!) has a water reservoir which has to emptied after each load. This is something that child 2 couldn't get her head round and she has been bringing her laundry home from her flat since early December - because, strangely, her washing machine broke! Between Christmas and New Year, this ended in disaster (I am now saying this like CRH in my head - how sad!) and we had to get the man round. He kindly replaced something like a thermostat - well, I think that's what he meant - because if you don't empty the water reservoir every wash the machine heats up like a kettle. Then last week, whilst we are watching something gripping on television, children 2, 3 and 4 and me, I hear the tumble dryer going and say "Did you empty the water?" and just the look on child 2's face was enough to have me running to the dryer. Just in time if the temperature of the outside casing is anything to go by - you could have cooked an egg on the top. Crisis averted but obviously child 2 has inherited my manual-averse, non-techy gene.
The other thing is more related to the children than the practicalities of life. I have never been one of those mothers who says 'wait till your father gets home', not least because when we play good-cop, bad-cop, I always end up playing the latter. But presenting a united front on all matters child-related is important and paddling my own canoe with children 3 and 4 is much more tricky. At one point, child 3 (yes you know who you are!) told me this week I was a 'rubbish parent'. But at least I am here and I guess that's what lots of single parents say - it's too tempting not to.
Anyway, hopefully we will survive the last few days before my beloved comes home. I will not be presented with any more dilemmas relating to what the children want to do which may or may not be appropriate, no equipment - cars or domestic - will develop glitches and I will enjoy a couple more nights of uninterrupted sleep. And most importantly, I will have racked up a very serious number of brownie points to be reclaimed later in the year.
Monday, 2 January 2012
Giving it the old Razzle Dazzle
I have just finished de-festivising (is that a word?) our house and am sitting finally amid a degree of order and serenity which I had thought a distant memory earlier this week. Now that it's all over for another year there is always a sense of relief (that we have survived, of which more later...) and sadness and a creeping sense of dread about January and February which are my least favourite months. All in all, the festive season has definitely had its highlights (and low points but I am not going there at all). Anyway I thought I would share my highlights and remind myself of some top moments so that I can re-read this when I am wondering how to dig myself out during the snow which inevitably arrives here as soon as my beloved has driven off to the airport in our only 4x4 on his way to Las Vegas. (Meteorologists amongst you, please note that the snow will arrive probably on Saturday or Sunday and magically disappear approximately ten days later on his return so that my beloved can say helpful things like: "I can't see what all the fuss was about." "You could easily get the mini up the hill." and best of all, "What black ice?")
Without dredging up every detail of Christmas and New Year, or being overly sentimental about how absolutely fabulous it is to have all four of my children home at once and nobody arguing (surely a record year this year!), it never feels like Christmas for me until we have had my oldest friend in Yorkshire and his wife (who are also godparents to number 2) over for supper. This year, they came without their children, one of whom is so grown up that he has got married (!) and we had a lovely supper with other godparents and friends. I met my friend on my very first day working for an advertising agency in Leeds 34 years ago today actually. He spoke English which was a huge advantage as everyone else I met that day spoke either Yorkshire (thraped, throng, snapboxes, early doors, growlers etc) or some sort of mid-Atlantic (the managing director rather fancied himself as Madison Avenue meets Merrion Centre.) Anyway we have been great chums over the years and he and his wife were instrumental in introducing me to my beloved - a rather complicated story and way too long to go into here - so they must take some of the credit or otherwise for our 27 years of marriage.
Christmas Day always follows a similar pattern - very lengthy stocking-opening which we now all do together rather than the younger generation doing theirs without us and then revealing to us what they have had later in the morning at which point I must look surprised/impressed by the ingenuity Santa puts into the job. Then, after a large breakfast (ballast to get us through the next bit) we head off up the hill to our lovely Irish friends who host a drinks party for half the village. Actually this year our delightful (in every sense of the word) recently-retired pub landlord was able to attend and commented that he had wondered why trade was always slow on Christmas Day lunchtime and now he knows where all the drinkers are! Everyone comes with whichever relatives they have in tow and this year there were folks in their eighties and tiny people who were even more unsteady on their feet having only just learnt to walk. I don't drink champagne because I like it but it doesn't like me so my dear friends have a bottle of red ready just for me and after a couple of glasses I was happily performing The Old Razzle Dazzle from Chicago with my doctor's mother - perfectly, or at least it felt like it at the time.
New Year's Eve has been a home fixture for the last couple of years so with tables and chairs borrowed from the village hall and wonderful contributions (nibbles, puddings, cheese, wine) from our friends, sixteen of us sat down to a magnificent curry cooked by my beloved and child number 3. We had a musical interlude from three fine upstanding men of the community who combined singing (with varying degrees of tunefulness) with cross-dressing. I am reliably informed that there is a video so no doubt that will come to light in due course. I was laughing too much to be organised with camera or phone. One of our neighbours produced fantastic fireworks which he let off just after the New Year began and then my husband decided to set himself on fire in a celebratory manner. Actually he lent back on a candle and ignited his shirt (new) and then his back. I was jiving with the doctor and only noticed the flames when there were shouts of "clingfilm" which is apparently what is required on burns. So clingfilmed in the manner of Mark Addy in The Full Monty, my beloved continued to celebrate the New Year.
Yesterday morning, our house resembled the Somme and my dear Irish friend arrived at 9.15am to help us wash up and clear away - above and beyond, in my book and she deserves a medal. It took most of the day to restore to our home to festive order and now today we are back to normal and ready for the fray ahead.
Finally, New Year's Resolutions: to be absolutely there for a dear friend who is having a big op soon, to get children 3 and 4 through 20 GCSEs this summer and to finish TFN (one of those initials stands for novel and you can work out the rest...) Happy New Year to you!
Without dredging up every detail of Christmas and New Year, or being overly sentimental about how absolutely fabulous it is to have all four of my children home at once and nobody arguing (surely a record year this year!), it never feels like Christmas for me until we have had my oldest friend in Yorkshire and his wife (who are also godparents to number 2) over for supper. This year, they came without their children, one of whom is so grown up that he has got married (!) and we had a lovely supper with other godparents and friends. I met my friend on my very first day working for an advertising agency in Leeds 34 years ago today actually. He spoke English which was a huge advantage as everyone else I met that day spoke either Yorkshire (thraped, throng, snapboxes, early doors, growlers etc) or some sort of mid-Atlantic (the managing director rather fancied himself as Madison Avenue meets Merrion Centre.) Anyway we have been great chums over the years and he and his wife were instrumental in introducing me to my beloved - a rather complicated story and way too long to go into here - so they must take some of the credit or otherwise for our 27 years of marriage.
Christmas Day always follows a similar pattern - very lengthy stocking-opening which we now all do together rather than the younger generation doing theirs without us and then revealing to us what they have had later in the morning at which point I must look surprised/impressed by the ingenuity Santa puts into the job. Then, after a large breakfast (ballast to get us through the next bit) we head off up the hill to our lovely Irish friends who host a drinks party for half the village. Actually this year our delightful (in every sense of the word) recently-retired pub landlord was able to attend and commented that he had wondered why trade was always slow on Christmas Day lunchtime and now he knows where all the drinkers are! Everyone comes with whichever relatives they have in tow and this year there were folks in their eighties and tiny people who were even more unsteady on their feet having only just learnt to walk. I don't drink champagne because I like it but it doesn't like me so my dear friends have a bottle of red ready just for me and after a couple of glasses I was happily performing The Old Razzle Dazzle from Chicago with my doctor's mother - perfectly, or at least it felt like it at the time.
New Year's Eve has been a home fixture for the last couple of years so with tables and chairs borrowed from the village hall and wonderful contributions (nibbles, puddings, cheese, wine) from our friends, sixteen of us sat down to a magnificent curry cooked by my beloved and child number 3. We had a musical interlude from three fine upstanding men of the community who combined singing (with varying degrees of tunefulness) with cross-dressing. I am reliably informed that there is a video so no doubt that will come to light in due course. I was laughing too much to be organised with camera or phone. One of our neighbours produced fantastic fireworks which he let off just after the New Year began and then my husband decided to set himself on fire in a celebratory manner. Actually he lent back on a candle and ignited his shirt (new) and then his back. I was jiving with the doctor and only noticed the flames when there were shouts of "clingfilm" which is apparently what is required on burns. So clingfilmed in the manner of Mark Addy in The Full Monty, my beloved continued to celebrate the New Year.
Yesterday morning, our house resembled the Somme and my dear Irish friend arrived at 9.15am to help us wash up and clear away - above and beyond, in my book and she deserves a medal. It took most of the day to restore to our home to festive order and now today we are back to normal and ready for the fray ahead.
Finally, New Year's Resolutions: to be absolutely there for a dear friend who is having a big op soon, to get children 3 and 4 through 20 GCSEs this summer and to finish TFN (one of those initials stands for novel and you can work out the rest...) Happy New Year to you!
Friday, 23 December 2011
Totes Emosh*
In the car yesterday with the twins on the way to our six-monthly check-up with the dentist (how's that for a festive warm-up?), they suggested that they should get me a t-shirt with the words 'Totes Emosh' on the front. Without boring you with my views on wearing things with words on one's chest when one is over 30, obviously this is a non-starter. But they are absolutely right about the sentiment at this time of year.
Already I have been T E about number 1 child reading a lesson in the Ripon Cathedral Carol Service, something, if you know number 1, you will realise I never thought would happen. Ditto, child 3 playing the trumpet at the same venue three days later. Not on his own, but carols played by a brass band get me every time.
Actually lots of Christmas carols and songs have that effect on me. The schoolgirl in me still wants to sing the descant in 'Oh Come All Ye Faithful' and of course, I sing the inappropriate words in 'While Shepherds Watched' and a real favourite - 'Most highly flavoured gravy' which doesn't get enough exposure these days. My chosen favourite songs this year have been Chris Rea's 'Driving Home to Christmas' which I am listening to as I type and the Military Wives which I have been crying along to for weeks.
Last night, we bumped into friends whom I shall call Udder Cream and the Bean without any explanation (because I am threatening Udder Cream who is a fellow blogger with a whole blog-expose in the New Year!) and we were talking about how excited we are at the return of all our offspring tonight. Did we ever realise that we were having that effect on our parents when we were in our teens and twenties? Or were our parents less totes emosh than we are? Anyway I am already ridiculously over-excited and can't wait to have them all here together (gritting my teeth whilst they make a most Biblical mess!) for a few days at least.
So wishing you all a Totes Emosh Christmas (in all the nicest possible ways) and a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.
PS My other Christmas favourite this year is 'Walking Round in Women's Underwear' which I heard on the radio yesterday for the first time and really made me laugh - excellent! Enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTVBYNHT-p4
*Totes Emosh was coined by the otherwise forgettable Two Shoes on X-Factor this year and was probably the best moment of the entire series - and I can't believe I watched nearly all of it!
Already I have been T E about number 1 child reading a lesson in the Ripon Cathedral Carol Service, something, if you know number 1, you will realise I never thought would happen. Ditto, child 3 playing the trumpet at the same venue three days later. Not on his own, but carols played by a brass band get me every time.
Actually lots of Christmas carols and songs have that effect on me. The schoolgirl in me still wants to sing the descant in 'Oh Come All Ye Faithful' and of course, I sing the inappropriate words in 'While Shepherds Watched' and a real favourite - 'Most highly flavoured gravy' which doesn't get enough exposure these days. My chosen favourite songs this year have been Chris Rea's 'Driving Home to Christmas' which I am listening to as I type and the Military Wives which I have been crying along to for weeks.
Last night, we bumped into friends whom I shall call Udder Cream and the Bean without any explanation (because I am threatening Udder Cream who is a fellow blogger with a whole blog-expose in the New Year!) and we were talking about how excited we are at the return of all our offspring tonight. Did we ever realise that we were having that effect on our parents when we were in our teens and twenties? Or were our parents less totes emosh than we are? Anyway I am already ridiculously over-excited and can't wait to have them all here together (gritting my teeth whilst they make a most Biblical mess!) for a few days at least.
So wishing you all a Totes Emosh Christmas (in all the nicest possible ways) and a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.
PS My other Christmas favourite this year is 'Walking Round in Women's Underwear' which I heard on the radio yesterday for the first time and really made me laugh - excellent! Enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTVBYNHT-p4
*Totes Emosh was coined by the otherwise forgettable Two Shoes on X-Factor this year and was probably the best moment of the entire series - and I can't believe I watched nearly all of it!
Thursday, 1 December 2011
It's all about tradition
I am not a great one for change and I admit to liking routine and being comfortable with things as they are. Surprisingly, my children (who at their young ages perhaps should be less change-averse than I am) also seem to like things to follow their traditional pattern and Christmas and the run-up to it is probably the most important time of all.
Firstly, to set the context, I have been berated (only mildly) for failing to buy pumpkins this Halloween for the first time, thus inadvertently cancelling the annual pumpkin carving competition in which children 3 and 4 are teamed with either children 1 and 2, or failing that, the Barnsley lodger if she is in residence, to produce the best Halloween pumpkin. In years gone by, I have expected to be dashing a small child to hospital to have fingers re-attached but this has never happened and, now that the danger has lessened with age, I completely forgot about the whole pumpkin thing until too late. Bad mother! When I have been the really-on-the-ball mother, I have kept all the pumpkin seeds and threaded them on to cotton and draped them onto the Christmas tree but I think I'm turning into Kirstie Allsop and that would never do!
So on to Bonfire Night... now I am married to a would-be arsonist who loves Bonfire Night best of any night of the year. However, this year he went to Valencia to the MotoGP on a work mission (ha! I have seen the pictures and it doesn't look like any work mission I've ever been on!) and so no fireworks here. One year, we had a group of parents from school including our illustrious headmaster and the chair of governors both of whom at the time we didn't know as well as we do now. Towards the end of the evening, apparently a box of fireworks was inadvertently (I am told...) thrown on to the bonfire. I wasn't alive during the Blitz (really!) but I imagine similar scenes. I am pleased to say that no-one was hurt and my beloved remains some sort of folk hero to the children who were here that night.
And now to Christmas... four children, two in their teens and two in their twenties, demand chocolate advent calendars (sorry not the religious sort, I have tried and I have failed...) which have to be delivered to the older two who no longer live with us (though that doesn't stop them bringing their laundry home periodically!). My first Christmassy thing tends to be my Christmas lunch for my girlfriends. Girls, we work so hard at Christmas to make it a lovely day for everyone in our wider families (and wider they definitely are by the time they've consumed all the Christmas fare on the table!) so my present to my girlfriends is to have them over for lunch which we are doing next week. Unfortunately, I can't shoehorn them all into my house so mostly it works in some sort of rotation because that's the only way I can do it. I shall be cooking them a nice lunch and if my beloved hasn't had all the pot holes in our lane filled, he will be cleaning the mud off their cars.
Then there are the various dinners... we've had the tennis club dinner in the pub and very good it was too and yes, after a modest amount of red wine, I made a speech but... I did not stand on a chair this year and my beloved described it as "fairly coherent and mercifully short" - bit of a result in my book! We also have the cricket club dinner coming up which involves more wine, much better speeches and a spot of dancing. This year, children 3 and 4 are coming - child 3 because he comes every year as he plays for the adult teams, and child 4 because she wants to. She will be sitting on a table with 11 boys and I am sure they will look after her... I think!
After that, more excitement as we 'spend' our winnings from the pub quiz nights which we have accumulated over the last few months and then we have the big charity bash in a tent which I have helped to organise.
So a quiet few weeks in the run-up to Christmas but mostly it follows the same pattern year-on-year and that's how we like it. No doubt I shall feel the need to update you before the big day - after all, we have two birthdays, two carol services, a party or two and a Christmas lunch and, (I am really excited about this...) Newcastle v Toulon with my most favourite number 10 in the world playing for Toulon to look forward to before then.
Happy Advent!
PS Just in case you are wondering how the X Factor sweepstake is going, I was annihilated when Jonny and Craig got ousted, ditto child 2 who drew The Risk and Sophie, though the Barnsley lodger has made a re-entry with Amelia Lilly and my beloved, child 3 and child 4 are still in the running with Little Mix, Marcus and Miss Mischa B respectively. Will keep you posted...
Firstly, to set the context, I have been berated (only mildly) for failing to buy pumpkins this Halloween for the first time, thus inadvertently cancelling the annual pumpkin carving competition in which children 3 and 4 are teamed with either children 1 and 2, or failing that, the Barnsley lodger if she is in residence, to produce the best Halloween pumpkin. In years gone by, I have expected to be dashing a small child to hospital to have fingers re-attached but this has never happened and, now that the danger has lessened with age, I completely forgot about the whole pumpkin thing until too late. Bad mother! When I have been the really-on-the-ball mother, I have kept all the pumpkin seeds and threaded them on to cotton and draped them onto the Christmas tree but I think I'm turning into Kirstie Allsop and that would never do!
So on to Bonfire Night... now I am married to a would-be arsonist who loves Bonfire Night best of any night of the year. However, this year he went to Valencia to the MotoGP on a work mission (ha! I have seen the pictures and it doesn't look like any work mission I've ever been on!) and so no fireworks here. One year, we had a group of parents from school including our illustrious headmaster and the chair of governors both of whom at the time we didn't know as well as we do now. Towards the end of the evening, apparently a box of fireworks was inadvertently (I am told...) thrown on to the bonfire. I wasn't alive during the Blitz (really!) but I imagine similar scenes. I am pleased to say that no-one was hurt and my beloved remains some sort of folk hero to the children who were here that night.
And now to Christmas... four children, two in their teens and two in their twenties, demand chocolate advent calendars (sorry not the religious sort, I have tried and I have failed...) which have to be delivered to the older two who no longer live with us (though that doesn't stop them bringing their laundry home periodically!). My first Christmassy thing tends to be my Christmas lunch for my girlfriends. Girls, we work so hard at Christmas to make it a lovely day for everyone in our wider families (and wider they definitely are by the time they've consumed all the Christmas fare on the table!) so my present to my girlfriends is to have them over for lunch which we are doing next week. Unfortunately, I can't shoehorn them all into my house so mostly it works in some sort of rotation because that's the only way I can do it. I shall be cooking them a nice lunch and if my beloved hasn't had all the pot holes in our lane filled, he will be cleaning the mud off their cars.
Then there are the various dinners... we've had the tennis club dinner in the pub and very good it was too and yes, after a modest amount of red wine, I made a speech but... I did not stand on a chair this year and my beloved described it as "fairly coherent and mercifully short" - bit of a result in my book! We also have the cricket club dinner coming up which involves more wine, much better speeches and a spot of dancing. This year, children 3 and 4 are coming - child 3 because he comes every year as he plays for the adult teams, and child 4 because she wants to. She will be sitting on a table with 11 boys and I am sure they will look after her... I think!
After that, more excitement as we 'spend' our winnings from the pub quiz nights which we have accumulated over the last few months and then we have the big charity bash in a tent which I have helped to organise.
So a quiet few weeks in the run-up to Christmas but mostly it follows the same pattern year-on-year and that's how we like it. No doubt I shall feel the need to update you before the big day - after all, we have two birthdays, two carol services, a party or two and a Christmas lunch and, (I am really excited about this...) Newcastle v Toulon with my most favourite number 10 in the world playing for Toulon to look forward to before then.
Happy Advent!
PS Just in case you are wondering how the X Factor sweepstake is going, I was annihilated when Jonny and Craig got ousted, ditto child 2 who drew The Risk and Sophie, though the Barnsley lodger has made a re-entry with Amelia Lilly and my beloved, child 3 and child 4 are still in the running with Little Mix, Marcus and Miss Mischa B respectively. Will keep you posted...
Monday, 14 November 2011
Lest We Forget...
It seems to me an extraordinary thing that we can, on the one hand, regard ourselves as the most sophisticated and advanced species on the planet and yet, on the other hand, still be fighting with each other all over the world. That said, at this time of year, I think a lot about the soldiers who have fought and died for this country since the Great War to the present day.
Usually on Remembrance Sunday, a group (I know, there will be a correct technical word relating to the number etc) of Army Cadets from the Apprentice College in Harrogate come to our village church. We look at them - their incredibly shiny boots, their immaculate uniform and most of all, their very young faces. I always wonder where they will be in twelve months' time - Afghanistan, Libya...? And my heart bleeds for these young men that they may not come home to their families, their mothers, their girlfriends. And when they read Laurence Binyon's words: "They shall not grow old..." I pray that my son will not hear the call to arms in his lifetime.
They read out the names of the fallen soldiers of our village. The numbers from the Great War are heart-breaking. Our village must have been quite small then, and every family will have lost someone close to them. How hard for that generation to pick themselves up and move on only to offer up their young men again just a generation or two later. Not young boys who wanted a career in the army but farm labourers, butchers and bakers who never thought that another war after the Great War could happen.
This year, there were no young cadets with their shiny boots as their commander had deemed it too expensive to transport small groups all around the area. We missed them and we thought of them nonetheless with their short hair and scrubbed young faces.
For the last four years, since child 3 was 11, he has played the Last Post on his cornet at the service. The first year he played, he was terrified. Afraid of messing up in front of soldiers and congregation, playing those extraordinary poignant notes that capture the emotions, playing the notes into the silence. Now he is still nervous on the morning but, I think, considers it an honour. And this year, without the young cadets, he no longer looked the small boy amongst young men but a young man himself.
When I sat down to write this, I looked up the whole of Laurence Binyon's poem. It still holds good for today and perhaps, those warmongers with young soldiers' blood on their hands should read this:
Postscript: Last year, my beloved and I went to Washington and it was hugely moving visiting the Vietnam Memorial. To see name after name after name etched on the stone only reminds me of the futility of war. How little we have learnt.
Usually on Remembrance Sunday, a group (I know, there will be a correct technical word relating to the number etc) of Army Cadets from the Apprentice College in Harrogate come to our village church. We look at them - their incredibly shiny boots, their immaculate uniform and most of all, their very young faces. I always wonder where they will be in twelve months' time - Afghanistan, Libya...? And my heart bleeds for these young men that they may not come home to their families, their mothers, their girlfriends. And when they read Laurence Binyon's words: "They shall not grow old..." I pray that my son will not hear the call to arms in his lifetime.
They read out the names of the fallen soldiers of our village. The numbers from the Great War are heart-breaking. Our village must have been quite small then, and every family will have lost someone close to them. How hard for that generation to pick themselves up and move on only to offer up their young men again just a generation or two later. Not young boys who wanted a career in the army but farm labourers, butchers and bakers who never thought that another war after the Great War could happen.
This year, there were no young cadets with their shiny boots as their commander had deemed it too expensive to transport small groups all around the area. We missed them and we thought of them nonetheless with their short hair and scrubbed young faces.
For the last four years, since child 3 was 11, he has played the Last Post on his cornet at the service. The first year he played, he was terrified. Afraid of messing up in front of soldiers and congregation, playing those extraordinary poignant notes that capture the emotions, playing the notes into the silence. Now he is still nervous on the morning but, I think, considers it an honour. And this year, without the young cadets, he no longer looked the small boy amongst young men but a young man himself.
When I sat down to write this, I looked up the whole of Laurence Binyon's poem. It still holds good for today and perhaps, those warmongers with young soldiers' blood on their hands should read this:
For The Fallen
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.
Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.
But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;
As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.
Postscript: Last year, my beloved and I went to Washington and it was hugely moving visiting the Vietnam Memorial. To see name after name after name etched on the stone only reminds me of the futility of war. How little we have learnt.
Tuesday, 11 October 2011
Sunday Night Club
Sometimes, weeks in this house are so hectic that I often say a prayer on a Sunday night before I go sleep that I will survive the week ahead without dropping the ball. Packed with commitments - work, school, sports, social - and all the time, I am somehow keeping a diary for everyone, ensuring that the resident children have the necessary kit for each day ahead - swimming things, tennis things, trumpet - with fingers crossed that they have assembled the correct homework.
When we get to Friday, exhausted, I think, 'ha! made it through again' and look at the commitments for the weekend - ours and the children's who still require ferrying about to work, cricket, golf, extra maths and their social lives. Each week, I promise myself that at the weekend there will be all manner of jobs done - in the garden, clean the car (actually that's not true - car cleaning, I would like to remind my family, is not and never will be in my job description), in the house, decorating and all the other stuff. Sometimes it gets done or at least part of it generally does but jobs are never finished which is why my house is like the Forth Road Bridge - always a work in progress.
And then Sunday comes, and once the ferrying about is done, weeds pulled and other jobs started (but not finished) and the ironing pile becomes less like Everest and more like Almscliffe Crag, my beloved cooks a very excellent roast and Sunday Night Club begins.
Now here are the constituents of what we now call Sunday Night Club - fabulous dinner (not cooked by me but probably involving Biblical amounts of washing up ... by me), red wine (no apologies for this, there is no Sunday dinner without it), children - resident and otherwise, a selection of friends and lodgers and games. There is also excellent and undemanding Sunday night television but we are a little confused at the man from The Post Office (as child 3 called Larkrise to Candleford) leaving his wife and a ridiculous number of snotty-nosed children to turn up as a hobbling valet at Downton.
A proper Sunday Night Club always includes games. This means that we have to be feeling not too tired and emotional from the Saturday night - this week I was just looking for a pile of leaves to sleep under until springtime but that's what being surgically removed from the dancefloor at 2am does for you. In the summer, we play outdoor games - croquet being a particular favourite. Of course, we don't play the conventional version; this is 'extreme' croquet with molehills, slopes, flowerbeds and water hazards. Child 3 is especially proud of his skill at attaching a hosepipe to a garden implement so that if your ball comes within five yards you are almost certain to get soaked. Croquet is particularly brutal and my beloved goes from mild-mannered and charming to a complete bounder the minute a mallet is put in his hand.
Now that the evenings are drawing in, we are playing perudo which, for the uninitiated, is a dice game unsurprisingly involving lying. Recently we were selected to play in the World Championships (at a lovely house near Bolton Abbey) so much practising has been taking place. We have a league table on a blackboard in the kitchen and child 4 is currently topping the rankings. You wouldn't know, of course, unless you understood that we renamed the children recently before England disgraced themselves in the World Cup. Child 1 is Shontayne (can't accuse her of disgracing herself as she scarcely played), child 2 is Courtney (suspended during the Cup for an illegal tackle - must speak to her about that), child 3 is Alfonso (I know, he plays cricket for Somerset but actually he probably would have been as good as some of the team we took to New Zealand) and Manu is child 4. Other key players are Uncle Max - my beloved and a keen fan of the Sound of Music and Arlidge - the Barnsley lodger. Arlidge is my favourite player in the World Cup so far as he played fly-half for Japan and looks every bit as Japanese as me! Anyway, he scored all Japan's points against the French and frankly I think he should try being English - like Manu.
So all are welcome here on a Sunday night, provided you don't want intelligent conversation. We'll be playing games, shouting at the television (well, X Factor and Strictly do call for a lot of shouting) and enjoying a big feed with lashings (as Enid Blyton would say) of red wine. Oh, and we recently had an American here for SNC proving that we are not just two countries divided by a common language to quote Winston Churchill but two countries divided by the knife and fork! I think I'll stick to our way.
When we get to Friday, exhausted, I think, 'ha! made it through again' and look at the commitments for the weekend - ours and the children's who still require ferrying about to work, cricket, golf, extra maths and their social lives. Each week, I promise myself that at the weekend there will be all manner of jobs done - in the garden, clean the car (actually that's not true - car cleaning, I would like to remind my family, is not and never will be in my job description), in the house, decorating and all the other stuff. Sometimes it gets done or at least part of it generally does but jobs are never finished which is why my house is like the Forth Road Bridge - always a work in progress.
And then Sunday comes, and once the ferrying about is done, weeds pulled and other jobs started (but not finished) and the ironing pile becomes less like Everest and more like Almscliffe Crag, my beloved cooks a very excellent roast and Sunday Night Club begins.
Now here are the constituents of what we now call Sunday Night Club - fabulous dinner (not cooked by me but probably involving Biblical amounts of washing up ... by me), red wine (no apologies for this, there is no Sunday dinner without it), children - resident and otherwise, a selection of friends and lodgers and games. There is also excellent and undemanding Sunday night television but we are a little confused at the man from The Post Office (as child 3 called Larkrise to Candleford) leaving his wife and a ridiculous number of snotty-nosed children to turn up as a hobbling valet at Downton.
A proper Sunday Night Club always includes games. This means that we have to be feeling not too tired and emotional from the Saturday night - this week I was just looking for a pile of leaves to sleep under until springtime but that's what being surgically removed from the dancefloor at 2am does for you. In the summer, we play outdoor games - croquet being a particular favourite. Of course, we don't play the conventional version; this is 'extreme' croquet with molehills, slopes, flowerbeds and water hazards. Child 3 is especially proud of his skill at attaching a hosepipe to a garden implement so that if your ball comes within five yards you are almost certain to get soaked. Croquet is particularly brutal and my beloved goes from mild-mannered and charming to a complete bounder the minute a mallet is put in his hand.
Now that the evenings are drawing in, we are playing perudo which, for the uninitiated, is a dice game unsurprisingly involving lying. Recently we were selected to play in the World Championships (at a lovely house near Bolton Abbey) so much practising has been taking place. We have a league table on a blackboard in the kitchen and child 4 is currently topping the rankings. You wouldn't know, of course, unless you understood that we renamed the children recently before England disgraced themselves in the World Cup. Child 1 is Shontayne (can't accuse her of disgracing herself as she scarcely played), child 2 is Courtney (suspended during the Cup for an illegal tackle - must speak to her about that), child 3 is Alfonso (I know, he plays cricket for Somerset but actually he probably would have been as good as some of the team we took to New Zealand) and Manu is child 4. Other key players are Uncle Max - my beloved and a keen fan of the Sound of Music and Arlidge - the Barnsley lodger. Arlidge is my favourite player in the World Cup so far as he played fly-half for Japan and looks every bit as Japanese as me! Anyway, he scored all Japan's points against the French and frankly I think he should try being English - like Manu.
So all are welcome here on a Sunday night, provided you don't want intelligent conversation. We'll be playing games, shouting at the television (well, X Factor and Strictly do call for a lot of shouting) and enjoying a big feed with lashings (as Enid Blyton would say) of red wine. Oh, and we recently had an American here for SNC proving that we are not just two countries divided by a common language to quote Winston Churchill but two countries divided by the knife and fork! I think I'll stick to our way.
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