Fourteen go mad in Edinburgh

Any birthday with a nought at the end deserves a really proper celebration so when our cricket first team skipper finally reached the same decade as me (at last!) and suggested that a team of fourteen head north to Edinburgh to mark the event, we needed no second asking.

So early Saturday morning, leaving children 3 and 4 home alone for the first time with child 2 in a remote (ie not actually on the premises but near enough to deal with fire, famine, bubonic plague etc) supervisory role, we drove to Darlington station to set off to the Scottish capital. The skipper and his wife, Mrs Broccoli have a lifetime's experience in the leisure industry so the organisation was seamless throughout. We were one of two parties in the first class carriage on the East Coast Mainline, the other being a hen party. They had a large stash of fizz, vodka and cupcakes and we had a similar stash of fizz and some sort of ginger liqueur but a distinct lack of cupcakes which they unsportingly refused to share. I had vowed not to drink in January in England so obviously I had to wait till north of the border but that didn't stop me singing the song about not flushing in the station when required. Actually I've just searched it on the internet and it has lots of surprising verses I never knew about! Hmm...

We arrived in Edinburgh in jolly mood and walked up a million steps to the Royal Mile and the Missoni Hotel - very swanky! Missoni goes in for a lot of primary colour stripes and the rooms were no exception. In fact, wearing the Missoni dressing gown, my beloved looked like a giant bar code. I was briefly worried about what the stripes might do to my vision when I had had a few glasses of red but as it turned out, things were no more blurry and confused than usual.

No time for lounging around, we were straight off in taxis on our mystery tour. All Skip and Mrs Broccoli had told us was that it was not sport - and probably for my benefit as I might have been excited by the prospect of some Heineken Cup rugby. The mystery destination turned out to be the Royal Yacht Britannia moored at Leith and we had a great tour with excellent commentary via handset for thirteen of us and my beloved deciding to do the entire tour with Japanese commentary. Why? Because apparently it helped his Japanese... what Japanese?! Anyway, because he had Japanese commentary, he got round much quicker and found the onboard tea room where a late lunch had been planned. He actually had lunch whilst we were still touring but he managed a second one when the rest of us turned up.

Then it was back to the hotel for some and shopping for others. In my world, a small sleep was required in my jazzy room because I am at an age where I need to pace myself. No such worries for my beloved as he headed out for a beer or three. Then time to get ready for the main event in the evening.

Skip and Mrs Brocolli had organised a wonderful dinner in the private dining room at Hotel du Vin which was just a hop and a skip round the corner. Drinks in the Whisky Snug followed by a fabulous dinner in the Burke and Hare private dining room. Absolutely perfect and I felt especially privileged to be sitting next to the Birthday Boy for at least part of dinner. And then just when we're feeling relaxed and mellow... we're off clubbing!

Le Monde on George Street and, in particular, the Shanghai nightclub, is the scene of a previous big lash in Edinburgh and so in we went, raising the average age by at least ten years and generally doing the kind of dancing which my children would prefer me to do in another country, or at the very least, when they are not present. Yes, behaving in an age-inappropriate manner is what we do best. So we did.

Just before turning out the light in our hotel bedroom about 2.00am, I feel the need to text my older children and having informed them that I had a nightclub stamp on one arm and a tattoo of the saltire on the other, I fell fast asleep. Waking the following morning (did my room get more stripey overnight?), my children had helpfully responded to my text as follows: "Please tell me it's not a real tattoo" - obviously not, it's a transfer but it was a hell of a job to scrub it off. And from the other one: "Every time you go to Edinburgh you text me embarrassing things." There's no answer to that one. It's too close to the truth.

On Sunday morning ... eventually ... we turned down the 'more culture' excursion in favour of a hangover-busting cooked breakfast and some rather good shopping. Of course, my beloved decided the full Scottish breakfast with champagne would suit him best and that put him in a very jolly mood for our brief retail outing before joining the rest of the team for lunch at Harvey Nicks and the train home.

It was epic, unforgettable (and at least this time I can remember it all, even gangnam style in the club and the young man who danced next to Mrs Broccoli and I and felt the need to take his shirt off) and as soon as I have properly recovered and restored my home to order, I shall be ready for the next one.

Special, huge thanks to Skip and Mrs Broccoli for their brilliant organisation throughout and for all their generosity. Fab, fab, fab!

Thirteen of us on the Royal Yacht Britannia - the fourteenth was enjoying his first lunch!

Celebrating The Sisterhood

I've had a complaint! "Where's the blog gone?" Well, nice to know it's been missed in the first instance and my excuse can only be that it's January. My least favourite month and one which, in an ideal world, would be spent somewhere hot watching tennis ie The Grand Slam Plan*. Alternatively, I would be happy to hunker down in front of a roaring fire and a big screen television and watch the Australian Open, the whole box set of Sex and the City and any film with the late, great Heath Ledger. But this is the real world and although a certain amount of tennis-watching has occurred (not as easy as it sounds with England also playing cricket in India and therefore a bit of remote-wrestling with child 3 going on), most of my life is carrying on as what passes for normal in this house ie children 3 and 4 taking their first AS modules in subjects I know nothing about - psychology, mathematics and economics, work and general domestic drudgery. So to help the month along, I have been giving myself a few modest treats of meeting up with female friends I haven't seen for way too long.

Actually I was very slow in realising how important the women in my life, or the Sisterhood as I think of them, are. Growing up with three older brothers and then going to an all-girls school did nothing to endear my own sex to me and then, being a rather ambitious twentysomething when twentysomething women seldom made it to the boardroom apart from when they brought in the tea, I was rather out of step with most of my female co-workers. So the penny didn't drop until my late twenties when I met and made friends with some amazing women and that in itself made me reassess the lovely chums I already had.

Now the thing about the Sisterhood is that they share - not in some weirdy, tree-hugging way, but in a practical, helpful way that is both informative and inspirational. The stuff that you really need to know about bringing up children, for example,  isn't written in books, it's acquired through the sharing of experiences. And then there's all the other amazing stuff they know.

For instance, in the last couple of weeks I have met up with two girlfriends who have explained firstly, in terms a non-skier can understand, the sport of telemark skiing, the social media trend of unboxing and how far pvc windows have progressed in both looks and energy efficiency. Seriously, the women I know are terrific. They can cook stuff that is far too complex and difficult for me and then explain it to me so I can cook it (or think I can anyway); they counsel me through angst about children of all ages; they found charities, run businesses, fight and win the battle against life-threatening illness and top that off with writing books, painting (and not just in the decorating sense) and have all manner of musical talent. Some of them are doing all the above and knocking off a Open University degree as well. And when they're not doing that, they are beating me at tennis and golf - and that really hurts!

Like all mums, there are so many things I want to tell my daughters and they probably don't want to listen and as in all things, we must find our own way and make our own discoveries. I just hope it doesn't take them as long as it did for me to discover the importance of The Sisterhood. Actually, because I have three very smart girls, I know they are way ahead of me.

Postscript: Finally, because it's the start of a new year, here are few serious and not very serious wishes of my own for 2013:

1    That the front half of the sports section of the newspaper isn't always about football.

2    That people who have no intention of playing any kind of sport (ever) don't wander round in tracksuits (although onesies are worse!)

3    That they stop digging up the same section of main road over and over and over again - surely they know if they're going to have to put another set of wires or drains in.

4     That struggling town and city centres offer more free parking to encourage rather than discourage people to shop there.

5     That this time next year we will still have some bookshops on the High Street - use them or lose them.


*The Grand Slam Plan is to see all four Open Tennis events around the world. Three down and one to go (Wimbledon, Roland Garros, Flushing Meadow and hopefully, January 2015, Melbourne).

Mmm... Heath Ledger

Not Quite According to Plan

I love Christmas! I do, I love it! And when I am in the early stages of anticipation, I think it's going to be perfect and then somehow it always seems to get derailed. Perhaps that's the joy of it - the fact that it isn't 'just so'.

This year derailment came early. Last Monday, after a brilliant weekend of carousing with our friends and a canter round a tennis court with Wimbledon Men's Doubles Champion, Jonny Marray, my beloved announced he was ill. He is never ill. He didn't want fuss, he just wanted to be left alone with his poorly tum.

On Tuesday evening, after a school run that involved home to school, school to tennis centre, tennis centre to school, school to home, home to tennis centre, tennis centre to home, home to school and back twice (phew!), child number 4 (the small and beautiful one) announced she was also ill. Both father and daughter had a bad case of Vomiting Veronica (neat reference to Four Weddings in case you plan to watch it over Christmas).

I am bound to get it, I think to myself. But on Wednesday I am fine and having tea with a lovely girlfriend who is very Bah Humbug about Christmas which obviously I am not and then another cup of tea with daughter 2 who is as Christmas-enthused as I am. On Thursday I am feeling fine and anticipating (now that my beloved and number 4 are on the mend) going to see The Hobbit on Thursday night en famille. I love those little guys with hairy feet so a first night cinema trip was a must. On the way to the cinema, minus number 4 who wasn't quite up to it, I started to feel a bit sick...

I never made it to the film, nor indeed all the way home without having to stop. And none of us made it to the supper party at the singing, dancing doctors on Friday which we had so been looking forward to. Of course, number 3 was fine throughout and he claims that we were ruining his social life by being the house of sickness all weekend and if we ate two dinners every night like he did, we'd have been fine all along.

Anyway we are all better now that it's Monday and I am off to career round a tennis court with my chums except that whilst I have been ill, my beloved has been busy - draft-proofing the front door. Brilliant, warmer house, except that now as I am dashing off to cheer myself up after a weekend to forget, the front door won't lock. Cue me ripping draft excluder off the front door frame like a thing possessed but still it won't lock.

Eventually I decide the only thing to do is to lock the inside front door and go out of the conservatory door except ... that won't unlock! Feeling more than a little stressed I decide that really the only thing to do is climb out of the window. Which is what I did and on the way to tennis, I left an expletive-filled message for my beloved who is away on business this week.

On my return, I climb back through the window as the phone rings. It is he. He calmly explains which bit of draft excluder I need to remove and that actually I could have gone out of my office door. I had forgotten that my office has an outside door which opens and closes, locks and unlocks and does all those things which doors generally do. I can only admit that sometimes I miss the obvious.

So Christmas is already not quite going to plan with preparations running somewhat behind schedule but it will be all the lovelier for it and now I am busy sticking draft excluder back on the front door frame - well, most of it anyway.

Happy Christmas!

I can't explain why I missed the fact that my office has a door but here's a picture of my new best friend, Jonny Marray.

Three Dog Night

Three Dog Night - now there was a band... but you had to be alive in the 1970s to remember them.

Anyway back to the present ...  we have had two three dog nights this week as we currently have Milton, or Milty Pig as my number 2 daughter calls him, in residence. Yes, in addition to Molly the grumpy mongrel and Bobbie the under-achieving cocker spaniel with an impressive pedigree and an IQ score in single digits, Milton, the very big chocolate brown spaniel, has been joining the canine gang at the little house on the prairie so it's been an interesting few days.

Milton normally lives in 'the mosque' or rather the house that number 2 daughter and her partner have recently bought in Harrogate. It's a lovely terrace house, handy for shops, bars and restaurants and, more importantly where Milton is concerned, the Valley Gardens. The reason why we call it the mosque is of course that it is carpeted throughout the downstairs in cream and therefore any visit is heralded with "Take your shoes off!" before you get past the doorstep. Anyway it is a perfect first proper home for number 2 and we are unreasonably proud to have a home-owning child and it feels like she has really really left home for good this time in a way that renting doesn't seem to.

Number 2 and her partner have both been away on business this week so rather than putting Milton into kennels, I rashly offered to have him here as he knows us pretty well now and I thought he'd feel at home. However, he spent the first two hours after number 2 had dropped him off looking for his mistress and prowling round the house and garden in the hope that she was hiding. No chance mate, she's gone to Kidderminster.

So there is a three dog walk morning and evening and we must be an entertaining sight making our way down the bridle path to the stream with two of the three dogs on leads and usually entangled and me hanging on as best I can. Of course, we stop for a gambol in the stream - them, not me - and once off the lead, with a stick in his mouth, Milton is trying to decide whether to go for a full-on swimming experience or just a paddle. Molly likes a bit of a swim but the water is running rather fast just now and she doesn't fancy it whereas Bobbie is not prepared to get wet, dirty or anything unladylike at all.

The other thing about Milton is that he owns a sweater. Yes, half an hour on Saturday morning was spent with daughter 2, reluctantly accompanied by yours truly, in the pet shop trying to decide between a Father Christmas suit, a reindeer outfit or the aforementioned sweater. This sweater has to be removed before any kind of dog walking because I am NOT prepared to be seen out with the doggy version of Colin Firth!

So Milton has now settled down with us, licked the floor clean under my office chair (why?), consumed one of number 4's Father Christmas slippers (perhaps we should have bought the suit to match after all) and moved all the dirty socks which are just about to go in the washing machine from the kitchen floor to various other places for us to find. And now he's working through the contents of my office bin in case there's anything edible in there.

One other thing: in Milton's world, settees are for sitting on and stairs for climbing. Yes, in my world, but not for dogs. Yesterday, Milton had licked the floor under my office chair clean (again) and then disappeared. He had discovered that I had lit the fire in the sitting room and was basking on the settee looking for the remote control in case there was some good daytime television to catch up on.

Just in case you remember Three Dog Night, here's their classic from 1970: Mama told me not to come: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKaQzQAlNn4. Mama might have told me not to come but she failed to offer any advice on large brown hairy house guests.









http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKaQzQAlNn4

Striking Parent or House Elf?

A couple of weeks ago, I read an article about some parents who were so fed up with doing 'everything' for their offspring that they went on strike. The parents continued to cook, wash up and do their own laundry etc whilst they did none of those things for their children. The house quickly turned into a health hazard and after a matter of a week or so, a rapprochement (such a great word, don't you think?) was reached between parents and children whereby the children cleaned the whole house to their parents' satisfaction and a more equal division of duties in future was agreed.

In the little house on the prairie, things are not in quite such a calamitous state but there's a lot of things that go on to which the majority of the residents are seemingly oblivious. And straight away, I want to point out that this is not because I am a hero, I am just a mum.

Most days start with me waking about half an hour before the alarm goes off. I have no idea why this happens but even at the weekends when a small lie-in of half an hour or so could be achieved, I wake up. And once I am conscious, my brain starts lining up the things that need doing. So most days, with very few exceptions, I hop out of bed (actually that's attaching more agility than I have in all honesty so let me just say heave myself out of bed) and start the day. And in that half hour or so, I usually manage to let the dogs out, feed them if it's daylight (our shed where the dog food lives is probably rodent-infested so I'm not doing that one in the dark with bare feet), clean out the grate and lay the fire, make tea and wash up. No, it's not that I don't wash up after supper the night before but number 3 gets peckish about 9 o'clock in the evening and makes himself another meal. And plump the cushions. I could write at length about cushion-plumping because I love cushions and my children don't see the point of them but I must have my small pleasures in life and cushions are one of them!

Sometimes all this makes me feel like Dobby, JK Rowling's house elf. We have friends whose two older children spend a lot of time playing tennis with ours. Their youngest son is not old enough to partake in sport at such a high level (!) and sits at the side of the court until one of the older ones hits a ball on to the cricket pitch, car park, playground etc. The cry goes up: "Dobby!" and off he goes to get the ball and throw it back on to the court. One day, someone will give him a sock (you need to read Harry Potter to understand the significance) and he will rebel!

At this time of year, the Dobby-type activity at the little house on the prairie is drawing towards its seasonal high. Already, in addition to the usual stuff, there is the whole pre-Christmas organisation going on: presents bought and wrapped (last year's wrapping paper has ironed up wonderfully for another turn), cards bought and anyone whose surname begins with an A or B is likely to be a lucky recipient. I can't at this point promise to complete the whole alphabet from the address book but it usually gets done - just in time. And I am about to write an enormous cheque for stamps at the post office because I have decided that although stamps are obscenely expensive, I like Christmas cards too much to be bah humbug about it.

And I know that all my fellow Dobbies will be doing the same. All the ones with high-powered, stressful jobs, all the ones who work tirelessly for charities and give their time for free enabling our cash-strapped economy to limp on, all the ones with small children who require even more time, care and attention than the hulking teenagers in this house - yes, we're all at it. And the ones who are dear to my heart will be coming here for our annual girls' Christmas lunch (I may decide to rename it after this in honour of Dobby) in a couple of weeks before we throw ourselves into giving everyone (and all our relatives) a wonderful Christmas.

So, no, we won't be striking - we will be doing it for love.

Dobby - I think we share the same knees!

The Big List (part 2)

As I suspected from the off, the Big List has to be a two part blog so here is the concluding segment. A friend of mine told me a while ago that she enjoyed my blog but that there was a little too much sport in it. Having just read part one, I think there was very little in that, but I am about to redress the balance!

6    All Gone to Look for America*

As soon as exams were done, we headed off to the States for our fabulous tour of Chicago, San Francisco, the West Coast and Las Vegas. Of all the amazing sights and sounds of that trip with children 3 and 4, the one that stays with me is the spectacular fountain outside the Bellagio in Las Vegas playing Viva Las Vegas sung by Elvis. Utterly brilliant!

7   Sporting Heroes

Well, you knew it was coming... The Olympics were, without doubt, the best ever held - ever. We loved every tear-jerking minute of it (except perhaps Russell Brand - could someone explain to me why?... no, don't bother.) Anyway Jessica, Mo, Andy, Bradley, Sir Chris, the Brownlee boys, the beautiful dressage horses and all the rest, right down to Ripon's Jack Laugher who had the worst day ever, we salute you.

8    I name this house...

Number 3's cricket obsession took an unlikely turn when he (and his delighted family) were invited to Guernsey to name a house after a fielding position in cricket. Cow Corner became Couin de Vacque (in Guernsey patois) and we joined in the naming celebration led by number 3 (unveiling the sign below with a Guernsey flag) who had come up with the name in the first place.

9    The C word

We've become accustomed in this house to summers dominated by cricket. Playing his way up the age groups as well as infiltrating adult cricket at the earliest opportunity, number 3's obsession (see above!) knows no bounds. If he's not playing it, he's watching it. But I never expected to see my beloved and child 4 (she of the big hair and too cool for school) don the whites to play village cricket. They did and they were absolutely marvellous, cumulatively scoring 13 runs at their first attempt. A repeat performance in 2013 is, however, very unlikely!

10    The T word

Scarcely a single mention of tennis. There must be something wrong with me! We played all summer (and I played all winter, come to that) but my best tennis moment, right up there with Andy Murray winning the US Open, was watching our junior tennis team retain their Black Sheep Trophy. For years, we (my fellow tennis club players and I) have coached and encouraged our juniors and last year we entered a junior team in a local league just for experience. To our amazement they won. And despite a slight changing of the guard as some players were too old this year, they won again. And throughout the whole process, they were an absolute delight.

*in the words of Simon and Garfunkel

The Big List

Every year or so, I trawl through all the photographs we have taken over that time and choose a selection to create a montage which hangs on the kitchen wall. For me, it's a way of reminding myself of all the fun we've had and how much the children have grown. Also our wonderful friends and wider family get their places too and it's so lovely to see these pictures every day rather than when I remember to open an album. The wall is now fairly packed but I've worked out that there's room for one more before I have to reconfigure, so last week I chose and ordered the prints and reminded myself that the last twelve months have been fairly epic.

Last week, I also discussed with a client the value of lists as a way of encouraging people to read articles. People love a list - top ten of this and that, worst places to go for dinner, best dishwashers, and so on. Lists are a brilliant shorthand for imparting information. Anyway, the combination of the list conversation and the selection of this year's photographs (yes, I know the year isn't over but it just feels like the right time) caused me to try my hand at the top ten bits of the year so far. Now there has been some cheating, or rather, some grouping because otherwise I can't find the discipline to make the cut at ten but here are (and already I am realising that this might be a two-part blog...), in chronological order rather than top to bottom, some of the top things from this year and a few pics for illustrative purposes!

1    Keeping it Live!
Live music, live theatre, cinema, sport - all of it best when you're actually there. Two top nights of live music - Coldplay with the singing, dancing doctors who took us to Sunderland for a brilliant night, despite the rain, and George Michael at Manchester with Basil and Sybil (of Fawlty Towers fame). Then there was the amazing One Man, Two Guvnors at the theatre in London with the intrepid granny starring the utterly brilliant James Cordon. Conversation beforehand went "You know, Smithy from Gavin and Stacey... A League of their Own... the fat one in The History Boys... " followed by the sound of the penny dropping! The hottest ticket in town and the funniest thing I have ever seen in the theatre. We laughed till it hurt!

2     Edinburgh for the Rugby
We went, England won (somewhat unexpectedly) and we partied like teenagers. The only thing I can think of that would have made my Sunday morning hangover worse would have been if the tapas bar (where we were asked to leave so they could close up) had sold grappa. Brilliant time with wonderful friends. Going back in January to do it all again (but without the rugby).

3     Horseriding in the Lake District
A day riding heavy horses with Basil and Sybil and friends in the spectacular Lake District. Three competent female riders, three incompetent men and six massive horses. The scenery was amazing but the best sights were definitely three men in the saddle for the first time. Hilarious!

4     A Birthday in Rome
Not ours, but we were invited on a birthday trip to Rome by a friend and luckily, exams had just finished so we could leave the children with a reasonably clear conscience and head for the sun. During the winter, ie now, I sustain myself with the thought of sitting outside a cafe somewhere hot with a cappuccino or, better still, a glass of red. We did that in Rome in June and it was... well... heaven.

(Don't normally include a picture of me but here I am with my glass of red!)

5     Three Weddings (and one to come, in case you wondered...)

Three lovely weddings, though we were only at the actual ceremony for one, the other two being in the States. My gorgeous niece who looked stunning with my other gorgeous nieces as bridesmaids, then my dear tennis chum who jetted off to Las Vegas to do the whole Elvis wedding thing and who absolutely deserves to be the happiest woman on the planet. And finally little Hollie who was the prettiest bride and had the wedding to end all weddings. This is setting the bar very high for parents of three daughters - help! Here they are:

To be continued...