Summertime and the living is... dead flies, hairy armpits and torrential rain

Happiness abound, it is officially summer in the UK. So we can start to enjoy all those wonderful things that we wistfully dream of in the cold winter months, the smell of freshly mown lawns, barbeques… blah, blah, blah.

Summer gets romanticised in this country (because we get so little of it), however everyone is so busy extolling its virtues that we come back to earth with a bump when reminded of the crap stuff. Always one to err on the side of controversial, these are my top 5 summer snags.

1. Flies, wasps and other winged things

My house isn’t that messy or dirty, nor is it filled with rotting rubbish, or other unsavoury things that flies are meant to be drawn to. So why then, does it become overrun with huge flies the size of small dogs, constantly buzzing and bashing themselves against the windows? The fly infestation is made worse by the man’s regular killings sprees, leaving the carcasses lying around for son number 2 to examine, or worse, smeared across the window. I’d rather listen to them crashing into the window than have to deal with dried up old fly corpse.

Trying to enjoy a picnic in the sun? The second you open a packet of crisps a swarm of wasps will start flying threateningly around your ham sandwich. And I don’t care how many people tell me to stay still, it’s a basic fight or flight response to run around wildly flapping my arms. You can’t argue with science.

Mosquitoes keep me awake half the night too, not with their pitiful little whining noise, but with the man’s almost OCD-like hatred of them. He will go from peaceful slumber to leaping out of bed with absolutely no warning to jump around the room naked to kill the tiny beasts, lest they eat him alive: “It’s gone behind the bed, help me get it out so I can kill it”. Anything with wings spells trouble, and they seem to triple in volume sooner than you can say “cold glass of pinot blush on the patio”.

2. Unpredicitable weather

Winter dressing is easy: layers, layers and more layers. Summer clothes are far trickier, flipflops and boob tube (to avoid strap marks) are great when the sun is out, but when you get outside you find the wind chill is minus one and the kids are getting hypothermia in their vests and shorts. Then, just when you think you are beating the system “Ha, it might look warm but you got me with that one yesterday, I’m wearing my winter coat and dressing the kids in their thermals” only to get outside and find it’s sweltering and everyone is melting. And what’s with all this rain? Squelching and flapping about in wet gladiator sandals does not a happy me make. Not to mention spending numerous hours everyday putting washing on the line then retrieving it when there’s a downpour.

3. Dirty Windows

As soon as the sun comes out everyone walking past my house can see that I haven’t had my windows cleaned since Christmas.

4. Holidays (Or Not)

Summer holidays with kids are stressful, packing enough stuff to survive two weeks in a hot country without CBeebies on tap takes weeks of preparation and military precision. Not to mention the complaints; “this doesn’t taste like a normal sausage”, “it’s too hot” and crying for some random toy that hasn’t seen the light of day for months but suddenly is the most important  thing in the world and has been left languishing in the toy box at home, hardly a relaxing getaway. But despite all that, I would love to have a holiday, although the man and me are never organised enough or have the spare money to actually get one off the ground. I often think we are the only people on the planet not to have some sort of summer holiday. So while everyone is swanning off to some far flung corner of the globe to get all tanned and wrinkly in the sun I am still at home getting washing on and off the line.

5. Constant pressure to have toenails painted, legs waxed and fake tan on (and/or avoid unsightly strap marks)

In winter no one could ever know that your legs resemble an unmown lawn, or your toenails are long and horny with six month old grown out nail varnish on them, and there is no constant fear of dodgy strap marks (if you accidentally wear a vest top in May on a hot day, you will be ‘wearing’ it until next summer). But less clothing in summer means more upkeep. Maintaining a respectable level of personal grooming is so much less time consuming when you don’t have to shave your armpits every day.

Hey, I love summer as much as the next person. But let’s be realistic here, it’s not all barbeques and mojitos. Happy summer everyone!

I'll Get My Coat

I love You’ve Been Framed. It makes me feel so much better to know I’m not the only person who does embarrassing things. The difference being that the people on YBF have had their one, single embarrassing incident recorded for the entire nation to laugh about (it hasn’t happened to me yet, but it’s only a matter of time) but embarrassing things happen to me every day.

A few weeks ago I mentioned a mortifying situation where I had sent a rather personal and hideously graphic text message to the wrong person. This weekend I experienced the joys of reliving the entire sorry affair when I actually ran into the guy who received the text in a restaurant. To make it even worse, he hadn’t realised the text message was from me, and I not only reminded him of the incident but also revealed that it was me that had sent it. And this wasn’t simply an uncomfortable private exchange between me and said friend, it was witnessed, with much hilarity, by my entire book club. My only redemption was that the guy was a total gentleman, and dealt with the situation with the kind of grace I can only dream of having.

All I want is to get through my life with a little bit of class and some dignity please. Is that really too much to ask?

Having kids has provided even more material for the god of embarrassment to have a laugh on me. They get a daily treat of a lolly each and son number 2 being only 22 months has a habit of having what he wants of the lolly then leaving it lying around when something else comes along to take his attention. I regularly find lolly sticks stuck to the wall, shoved in the DVD player or floating in my coffee cup. So off I went one day to pick up son number 1 from preschool, for once feeling vaguely presentable because I had done my hair and put some slap on, only to get home and realise I had a sticky Drumstick with stringy stretched bits and tiny tooth marks in it, stuck to the back of my coat. Seriously, it could only happen to me. At least I’m well prepared for the moment when the kids start accusing me of being an embarrassing parent, I’m already there boys.

School was a particularly shameful time for me. I was the girl who once accidentally farted in class and my ‘friend’ outed me. I left a pair of knickers (lent to a friend who had stayed over at the weekend and returned that day) half hanging out of my locker, and came back to find a crowd of kids standing around my locker, laughing at my apple catchers. I could not deal with public speaking in any form and spent the most uncomfortable five minutes of everyone’s life stumbling through my essay on what I did on my holidays. Feeling like I was going to vomit, I decided to miss out the middle section so the story made no sense whatsoever, but was blissfully shorter than the original. My teacher glared at me, but the other kids and parents in the audience just looked relieved. They will thank me forevermore for cutting short a story which probably felt just as uncomfortable to them as me.

What made it worse was that teachers had absolutely no sympathy for my apparent lack of social grace and actually seemed to revel in my awkwardness by casting me in the worst possible roles in pageants and plays. The Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz, drawing attention to my rounded form in a costume made out of cardboard tubes covered in tin foil, and the Queen Mother in the Royal Wedding re-enactment (hideous hat, crepe dress and my mums bra stuffed with oranges). I never even got a look in as Dorothy or Lady Di, as I clearly did not possess the charm for such dignified ladies, only the kind of clunky demeanour which suited a large man made out of metal and a doddery old lady in high heels four sizes too big.

This is one of the reasons why I am reassessing my relationship with alcohol. Without it I am aware that I’m a magnet for embarrassing situations, and can attempt to modify my behaviour accordingly, yet after a few drinks I am still a magnet but start to believe I am actually graceful and dignified, dangerous territory.

I love You’ve Been Framed because while I can be the cackling person laughing at other peoples misfortunes (a side of the fence I rarely get to enjoy being on), I also totally empathise with the poor people falling off the stage, or catching their hair on fire on their birthday cake candles; because that person is ME, every single day.

The catch phrase “I’ll get my coat” may have been created just for me, because I so often wish I had just never left the house, the risk of humiliation is so much lower within your own four walls. When I want the ground to swallow me up I just feel like saying “I’ll get my coat”, except my coat would have a lolly stuck to the back of it, you know it.

Boys Will Be Boys

The man and I have had a budgetary reassessment this week, and in our discussions we have discovered that we have fundamentally differing attitudes to money. He flies fly by the seat of his pants, I need to be more organised (shocking I know). I can save very successfully as long as any money is instantly removed from my grasp and put somewhere I don’t have access to. The man on the other hand would rather just save whatever is left over at the end of the month. This is totally beyond my comprehension. What left over money? If I can get money, I will spend it.  

Are differing attitudes to money a result of gender differences?

With the man, two small boys and a boy and girl cat, I am outnumbered by four boys to two girls. Having two boys has been far more exhausting than I could ever have imagined and I have finally come to the conclusion that I may never go on to have a daughter who can be on my side. Therefore I really need to start to understand the male psyche, so I have been reading a book called Growing Great Boys by Ian Grant.

The trouble with parenting books is they make you feel solely responsible for the turn out of your offspring, as if what you do in childhood has a direct impact on how they turn out. This may be true if you are neglectful or abusive but for the rest of us (semi) normal parents it’s a frightening concept, especially to a mother of boys (or father of girls I presume). Understanding boys is a whole new world for me, and I need to get up to speed quick, because, as Grant says, “growing boys is easier than fixing men”.

After all these years of bra burning, equality and women trying to be the same as men, I, somewhat naively, thought that boys and girls were meant to be the same, and be brought up in the same way. I have gone to great lengths to encourage neutral gender roles in my sons toys. They have a kitchen and toy Dyson, as well as a workshop and tools. They have a till and play trolley and a train set. They play without bias, and sometimes I find my eldest (now 4) trying on my jewellery and “being mummy”. When the man caught him spraying perfume (in his eyes “because that’s what mummy does” – I don’t, honestly, my eyes are no more fragrant than anyone else’s) he showed him his aftershave and said “at least if you’re going to do it, do it the manly way”. All very normal, healthy boy behaviour, and I have been smugly congratulating myself on how well I have avoided gender stereotyping in bringing them up. But now I start reading this book and I learn something shocking. Newsflash: boys and girls are different.

Not just physically, but mentally, chemically, emotionally and in pretty much every area, and need to be treated as such. Reading this book has completely changed my attitude to parenting, now I’m not just bringing up boys, I’m creating MEN. That scares me. I don’t know anything about being a man. Apart from The Rules (not really an appropriate aid in bringing up boys) and the fact that boys are usually meanest to the girls they most like, I am clueless. So I am now responsible for bringing men into the world; big, scary men with horrid feet (ever met a man with nice feet?) who will eventually go on to date women (or men, I don’t mind) and my input will affect how they treat women (or men) in the future. I thought it was enough to be gentle, encouraging and caring, but apparently boys mums also have to be tough, like sport and encourage rough and tumble play. I’m not a particularly girly girl, but I’m no tomboy. I feel like I wandered into what I thought was a sewing class only to discover I’ve signed up for eighteen years of martial arts training instead.

Apparently wrestling, climbing and running around like lunatics are normal and healthy for boys and to an extent should be encouraged. And there’s a reason why my youngest won’t sit quietly and do craft for hours on end, because there’s a perfectly good bookshelf over there that he could be climbing instead. Boys explore their world by touching, tasting and feeling things, so that’s why son number 2 will spit out a meal I have lovingly prepared but happily munch on a fluffy month old biscuit he found languishing down the back of the sofa.

I’m genuinely shocked at all this. Apparently, when it comes to gender differences, nature wins over nurture every time. So it doesn’t matter how much I encourage my boys to dress up, play with dolls or talk about their feelings, they will still refuse to ask for directions or read the instruction manual. But at least they might have some money leftover at the end of the month, and I will teach them to spend it on their Mrs (or Mr).

Flap, flap, flap

After a week of bed rest, stuck in bed with flu like symptoms (according to the doctor it wasn’t flu because there is no flu going around at the moment, don’t you just hate it when doctors say that? Why is everything just a virus? Don’t they know ANYTHING? Anyway…), today is my first day fully back in the saddle and holding the household reins.

It was horrible being ill, but a week of enforced nothingness has set about a marked change in me. As I began to recover I couldn’t help but observe I seemed to be more relaxed and noticeably less flappy.

What I mean by flappy is flustered, stressed, panicking and worrying (usually with a hint of sweat at the brow), being overly meticulous and generally feeling totally overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of responsibility to get everything done and done on time. All totally unnessecary, pointless and a sheer waste of energy. You get no more done by flapping, less in fact. Many people are able to function perfectly well and with far more serenity and dignity without flapping at all.

On the scale of flappiness from level 1 (furrowed brow, deep in thought wondering how many school jumpers to order for son number one) to full on level 10 hysterics (the house is a mess, the cat has a bad foot, a loving mummy haircut for son number 2 has made him look like an escaped mental patient so a trip to the barber is in order, my tax credits renewal hasn’t been done and if we don’t get our extension plans in now we will never have it completed by Christmas), I tend to operate at about a level 7 with occasional forays into level 10.

Flappiness is not just a mannerism confined to women. There are a few flappy men out there, it is rare, but I have seen it. Sometimes I think it would be quite good to be with a flappy man, someone else to share the burden of freaking out about day to day stuff. It would make my flappiness seem less of an issue (I could even experience the joy of being the less flappy one). I often find the man’s lack of flappiness quite infuriating “Why aren’t you panicking about this? Don’t you CARE?” But in truth I am happy that I fell in love with an unflappy man, I think the reality is that two flappy people would create uncontrollably flappy kids, and I’m already flapping about passing this onto my children.

Sometimes I kid myself that my flappiness is endearing, but I suspect the man does not see it that way, and actually finds it unbearably irritating. Often, the second he wakes up he is hit full in the face with one of my flappiness attacks: “Did you check this? Can you do that? I need to do this so I need you to…” The poor bloke hasn’t even had his morning wee yet, and already he is thinking about the fact that we have friends to dinner on Saturday so did he eat all the After Eight mints at Christmas, and the MOT is due on the car but I need it on Wednesday so it’ll have to be done before then. Advice to men, if you have a flappy wife, mum or sister the best thing you can do is say, in a nice soothing voice, “Don’t worry honey, we will get it done” DO NOT shout “Stop bloody flapping woman, we’re never going to get it down now anyway, so chill out”. The latter will only exacerbate the situation.

Flappiness is born out of disorganisation, control freakery and setting goals too high. For instance if I have a lot to do in one week, I will unrealistically attempt to get everything completed on the Monday, so the rest of the week is theoretically flap free. In practice, what actually happens is that Monday is extreme flapping day, the list doesn’t get completed (usually because a lot of time is taken up being in a stage of flapping), low level flapping mid week, then another bout of extreme flappage on a Friday when I realise I haven’t completed my tasks.

So I am attempting to quell my flapping tendencies and retain this casual air I have adopted since my week of convalescence.

Easier said than done though. I have a number of things that I feel should be done today (because as the week goes on, a lot more stuff will come up), but in reality could be stretched over the week. I just need to prioritise. But finding time to prioritise is simply adding another task to the to-do list for today. I can feel the flap levels rising. 

Time For A Change?

You can’t deny the NHS is a wonderful concept; free healthcare for all, regardless of finances, age or gender. Great idea, it’s just a shame that it doesn’t seem to actually work.

Seeing a doctor is so hard most of us will wait until we’re bleeding out of our eyes before we will try and get an appointment. It’s scary that we live in a society where guns, knives and drugs are supposedly so available but getting access to a doctor is harder than getting through Simon Cowell on an X Factor audition.

I believe anyone should be able to see a doctor that day, or that hour, whether at a surgery or at home if they are not able to travel. I believe that everyone should have access to all the treatments they need regardless of age, gender or condition. I thought this was the overall purpose of the NHS, but this purpose has become totally skewed by lack of funds. And I can’t help but wonder whether we are all suffering at the hands of a very noble, yet in my opinion futile, dream.

The news is full of horror stories about people being refused life saving drugs because they don’t live in the right postcode, or because they’re too old, IVF not available to women over a certain age, BMI or because they smoke. All of this seems to contradict the whole point of the NHS. It’s been in the news recently that Britain has among the lowest cancer survival rates in the Western world. Isn’t that scary?

I have a few friends in America (which is incidentally at the top of the list of cancer survival rates in the recent study) who, while admitting healthcare insurance is expensive, seem to be able to get access to doctors whenever they need to, specialist doctors at that. And, as much as it scares me to say it, the standard of care seems to be much higher.

Like education, I believe that healthcare should be free for all, but not at the cost of quality healthcare.

On Wednesday, after being poorly for days (hadn’t called the doctor, I was just too ill to face interrogation by the receptionist only to be offered an appointment next Thursday week with some random doctor I’ve never even heard of), I eventually decided I should get some advice. It took 3 calls to (and call backs from) NHS Direct, and an hour fruitlessly calling the (constantly engaged) out of hours doctors service, before a doctor eventually rang me and arranged to come and see me at 11pm. Exhausted by 11pm I decided to cancel and try to see my own doctor the next day. But the out of hours number was still engaged. Thank god for 1471, the number the doctor had called me on was answered straight away. I don’t know whether or not this is an organisational oversight or some kind of tactical error, but it seems strange that the number provided by the doctor is constantly engaged. Anyway, the doctor was already on his way, he arrived (at midnight) and gave me some antibiotics. All’s well that ends well but I came out the other side noticeably worse for ware and with even less confidence in the system.

You could argue that if I’m that bothered about it I could pay for private healthcare. But you still have to see a regular GP in order to get a private referral, and that doesn’t seem any better a system. I think we either need to improve the NHS, or go with a fully privatised, insurance covered system.

I just don’t see how we can improve the NHS; I have absolutely no doubt that the people who work for the NHS are doing the very best they can. But despite having wonderful people, it’s quite obvious that there simply isn’t enough money to do it properly.

I am lucky enough to have had some wonderful treatment through the NHS but I have also had some shocking experiences. Surely healthcare is something we should never be expected to compromise on?

However noble, it’s a very naïve and romantic dream to expect to have a perfect free healthcare system, a perfect free education system and all the other things we believe is our right in the this country. I like the idea of it, I just don’t see how it’s possible. And realistically what’s more important, the health of the nation or nursing (excuse the pun) an outdated concept?

Bluergh...

I’m ill. Writing this from my sickbed, so expect a load of old waffle in today’s post. Although I’m secretly hoping to bang out a masterpiece, didn’t all the great writers write their best stuff when delirious with fever and succumbing to romantic diseases?

Anyway, I don’t really feel up to much today. Alas, I have a sneaking suspicion that I’m not one of those great writers who can write amazing things whilst having a fever, my brain is like mashed potato and I’ve got the aches, plus I keep on being side tracked by This Morning and losing my train of thought. This is why I usually write in the kitchen in silence. I’m far too easily distracted.

Why does illness always comes at the worst possible time? The man is off work on his last days of holiday, we were going to do some fun stuff with the kids. Instead I’m sitting in bed, stewing in my own filth, battling fever, while the man gets on with everyday stuff like the washing and keeping the kids entertained. But at least he’s home to look after me and I can text him every time I want something, the modern version of the sick bell.

I’d like to say I’m a great patient, one of these people who can suffer in silence, and get on with it while secretly feeling at deaths door. But if I’m ill everyone’s going to know about it. I’ll stay on my feet martyring myself til the last possible second, then (when possible) take myself to bed moaning and groaning, and repeatedly apologising for being ill.

I hate being ill. You get to do really fun stuff, staying in bed, watching rubbish telly and eating ice cream (for the sore throat of course) but you can’t really enjoy it like you can when you’re well. Yesterday I actually watched Antiques Roadshow and it was pretty good. Why don’t we do this stuff when we’re well and can appreciate it?

Being ill makes me realise that I never really appreciate being well. I always tell myself I’ll be a lot more mindful of being well once I’m better. But as soon as I’m well again I just get on with my life and forget to appreciate not having a headache, being able to swallow without difficulty, not having fire burning in my ears or aching muscles and feeling like my skin is too tight. It’s always the way that we never notice the good things.

Thankfully I’m not ill often, but when I am I try to make the most of it and do the things that I never do when I’m well. Sitting in bed slothlike and stinking (I’m sure I’d feel so much better, or at least wouldn’t keep making myself feel sick with my own smell, if I had a shower, but I don’t think I could stand up that long), drinking tea with sugar in it and watching Jeremy Kyle, one of the best ways to make you count your blessings. It really makes you grateful for your own boring life, not having to worry about being pregnant with triplets by 3 different men, or finding out your husband was sleeping with his Gran.

Being ill forces you to check out of your normal life and view it from the outside looking in. It’s a rare and very valuable time when you simply have to sit still and do nothing. Sickness is horrible but I’m lucky that it doesn’t happen often so try to really take stock and appreciate how lucky I am. It always follows that a period of hardship can help you appreciate the good things.

So I’m really looking forward to being better when I will really appreciate feeling good in myself, in the meantime I’m making the most of Jeremy Kyle and the ice cream. Come on, it’d be rude not to.

Basic Instincts

I’ve been reading a book set during the first and second world wars and it has highlighted to me just how little information people had in those days. They survived in horrible conditions using the most basic of survival tools, human instinct. Today we have access to so much information I can’t help but wonder whether or not human instinct is becoming dulled by mountains of, often conflicting, advice.

Take the ‘experts’ for example. I have already admitted to having shelves full of self help books all designed to make my life easier, make me a better mother, teach me to be more organised or how to win at online poker. Millions of people around the world put their faith in these experts, me included, but most if not all, of these things should be a matter of instinct surely? And of those that aren’t, how many are teachable?

Why would these people know any better than us what’s right for us or indeed our children? Now that we have access to so much information maybe we don’t need experts, everything need is right at our fingertips.

These days we can learn anything from the internet (not necessarily from trustworthy sources admittedly) so technically we could all be our own doctor, lawyer, parenting guru. I know I Google at least ten times a day to find answers to random questions; what is this rash on my child’s arm, how old is Lady Gaga, and recipes for random meals. Even when my mum asks me to help with her crossword, my netbook is never far away (is that cheating? Maybe).

How often have you Googled your symptoms before rolling up to the doctor armed with the latest research into one disease or another? Does it mean we listen to the doctor less and can we trust them if they have never heard of a drug we are requesting?

I recently had to renew our household insurance. A task that pre-internet would have taken a matter of minutes, took literally hours while I scoured the comparison sites, weighing up the pro’s and con’s of each company, before eventually settling, amid an all consuming paranoia that I could have got a far better deal elsewhere. The same with mobile phone contracts, buying cars… we now have so much information and are so well informed that it has not only taken the mystery out of life but also, in some cases, an element of common sense.

Have our instincts become so skewed by knowing so much, having access to so much information, that we wouldn’t be able to survive without it?

Sometimes I worry what would happen to me if I was stuck on a dessert island without access to all these answers, would my survival instinct kick in or would I perish without it? I wouldn’t miss my iPod, or telly, but I would miss my beloved Google.

I know I couldn’t live without Google. I rely on it far too heavily. But it’s my thirst for knowledge that drives it, not necessarily a lack of instinct.

We often have no choice but to put a lot of trust into people we believe know more than us, doctors, politicians, lawyers. All these people tell us what is right for us, what is best for us, how to keep ourselves healthy, safe, protect our assets. But we now have the potential power to check and even question the knowledge of these people we put so much faith in. Are they doing the right thing by us? I wonder whether all this information is giving us a better or worse quality of life. In the book I’m reading the people face a huge amount of hardship, but they seem, more often than not, happy; far happier than we seem to be today as a more knowledgeable, less trusting society.

I have a feeling that that happiness came from an inner trust in their own instincts, something that we have come to question in later years. We have so many people telling us we don’t know how to do things right, that maybe we are starting to believe them. Knowledge is power but sometimes ignorance is bliss.

I realise I am an extreme case. I am a complete info-aholic. I absolutely love knowing things, not because I don’t trust my own instincts just because learning is my passion. I’m not a know all by any stretch, and would never ever profess to know any more than any other person about a particular subject. In fact, rather inconveniently, I don’t tend to remember what I’ve learned, but for one or two delicious seconds I actually do have a level of knowledge, before it unfortunately slips away within hours.

Sometimes I long for the innocence and simplicity of the days before Google, when the only choice of recipes were either kept in memory or a single dog-eared copy of Delia Smith, insurance renewal meant a quick call to your local friendly broker, and if you didn’t know the answer to a question on a crossword you either gave up or waited for the answers next week (none of this hazy “is it cheating” nonsense).

Now, what to do today while the man is off work? The simple answer would be the park. But I have my trusty Google to ensure we squeeze as much fun out of this day of freedom as possible. I just have to choose between 10 different days out, which will take me a few hours, and by the time we actually get anywhere I will be exhausted. Maybe the park would be a better option.

Bank Holiday Blues

I’m feeling a bit out of sorts today. It’s May Bank Holiday here in the UK and like many mums, I am feeling a responsibility to come up with a fun activity the family can do together, which doesn’t involve huge crowds, lots of money or potential altercations with other children (or their parents).

But the trouble with Bank Holidays is that every other person in the country is also on holiday, so all but the dullest activities are ruined by serious over crowding, and the palpable atmosphere of wild eyed people desperate to have ‘fun’.

It is yet another sign of our times that we feel this pressure to do something and make the most of all the opportunities available to us. We know that next weeks school conversation will be centred on Bank Holiday activities, and we want to give our children something exciting to report. Tales of theme parks and camping weekends will prevail, only for one annoying kid (with equally annoying parents) to gleefully relate his story of crocodile catching in America or something just as random/expensive/educational and trump everyone.

And it’s not so different in the adult world. The more competitive mothers will enjoy telling the rest of us not so organised, outgoing, rich or frankly, good, parents about how they took their kids to a paint your own crockery event, followed by a trip to the theatre and dinner at a Michelin star restaurant. All very civilised, I’m sure. I will be with the group of mums skulking off so I don’t have to admit that I guiltily sat my kids in front of “Cars” for the millionth time with some ready made popcorn, so me and the man could snuggle up on the end of the sofa for a rare but much needed daytime nap.

I like to think of myself as a fairly social person, I like to be around other people and feel like I’m part of something bigger than myself but often dealing with other people (and their kids) is what makes outings with children stressful.

I remember regularly leaving toddler groups in tears because son number one had pushed some poor child over (a favourite game of both my children unfortunately), but the other child, and more scarily the other child’s mother, did not see it as playful.

With son number 2, a frighteningly strong 21 month old, I tend to avoid toddler groups, and pretty much any situation where he will encounter children of a vulnerable or nervous disposition. For, like a lion preying on wildebeests, he is likely to hone in on the weakest member of the pack and attack without warning. Not that he sees it as attack you understand, to him he is the life and soul of the toddler party, pushing a kid over then climbing on him is fun for all concerned in his little mind. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like that to other kids, or their cross parents. And me being the guilt ridden, easily embarrassed person that I am, end up feeling devastated that I have borne such a social monster. Thankfully I don’t need to take him out so much because being the second child he has an older brother (and therefore all of his older and more robust friends) to play with, a welcome relief for me.

I would like a nice day out. I want to have some fun with my family. But the thought of being stuck in a queue, walking round a museum or theme park downwind of the same slow/smelly/annoyingly rich/enthusiastic (or all of the above) family for hours, then being ripped off in the gift shop, restaurant and ice cream stand fills me with dread. And it’s not just me, it’s the man too. How do some people seem to be able to over look all that and enjoy days out with millions of other people, while the rest of us look tight or miserable because we would rather saw off our own arm?

A friend and her family went to Disneyland Paris recently, a very worthy Bank Holiday weekend activity, and said how brilliant it was. Eight foot high Mickey Mouse notwithstanding, it’s the thought of being herded around a park rammed full of over excited children and stressed, bewildered parents that puts me off. Give me Disney Junior, a few packets of crisps and snacks and a comfy sofa any day. I realise I will have to brave Disneyland in the future. It’s on my check list of things I must do at some stage, along with jumping out of a plane and running the London Marathon (neither of which are anywhere near fruition I have to point out). I never went as a child. Of course in those days you had to fly across the Atlantic to get there, which gave my parents a bit more of an excuse. Now we have a Disneyland on our own continent, a new generation of parents don’t have the same get out clause.

Bank Holidays are like weekends with increased pressure to have ‘fun’ or ‘do something worthwhile’, plus the added stress of everywhere being overcrowded with millions of other people feeling the same pressure to have ’fun’ or ‘do something worthwhile’. I love the idea of Bank Holidays, but they are always more exciting in theory than reality. When all is said and done I can’t actually wait for things to get back to normal and the pressure to make the most of this rare and wonderful day is removed. Roll on Tuesday.

Text Wars

I’m considering boycotting text messaging. It is yet another potential situation for embarrassment, confusion and generally doing the wrong thing. Especially since this skattiness I seem to have acquired since the onset of motherhood.

I remember when text messages and mobiles (‘mobile’ being used in the loosest sense of the word, given that you needed a wheelie bag to cart the thing around such was it’s size and weight. Yes, I’m that old) came out, you only got about 59 characters, and you couldn’t run onto more than one text. That was when text speak was actually necessary. These days some of my texts are so epic that they regularly run into over ten texts, at which point my phone decides it’s a picture message and therefore not part of my inclusive text allowance. Hence why, despite having unlimited texts, my mobile bill is usually more than the contracted amount. Shhhh, don’t tell the man.

It has become the norm to text rather than ring someone, even though, in the long run, texting doesn’t save any time. My best friend and I used to talk for hours a day on the phone, and since we have become busier we have started texting. A lot. But this is actually a totally false economy. I can do pretty much anything with the phone wedged between my ear and shoulder, but I can’t text and do something at the same time. It takes a lot more coordination to text someone, not only in finger movements but also thinking about what to put so it comes out right. I could probably save myself a good hour or so a day if we rang each other instead.

If you’re not careful text messaging can be pretty ambiguous. Because they are designed to be fast and efficient, it is very easy to come across clipped or overly abrupt. Using short sentences and words which would be frankly rude in every day conversation seems to be acceptable in a text message. And to get emotion or emphasis, apart from a simple smiley, wink, sad face or tongue out :-p there isn’t a lot you can do. We can say something verbally and just with our intonation the receiver knows you are joking, text messages not so much. It’s that age old situation “it’s not what you said, it’s the way you said it.” It’s so easy to read too much into a simple one sentence text, more angst and confusion caused by the “but what did they actually mean by that?” internal debate. A misplaced ellipsis, capital letters (SHOUTING) too long, too short, could all spell out double meaning or vagueness. The simple answer is to pick up the phone and find out. Slightly missing the point of texting in the first place.

Besides, you can’t ring someone at 3 o’clock in the morning. Texting is a lot more socially acceptable after hours.

Then there’s the signing off debate. 98% of the time putting a kiss at the end of your text message is kind of law, it’s expected and, I often feel, rude not to. But sometimes putting a kiss at the end seems highly inappropriate. However it feels a bit abrupt to not put a kiss. So texting takes even longer while you deliberate whether or not the recipient would consider it rude or unfriendly not to punctuate the text message with a kiss. As I don’t tend to text in a professional capacity I don’t really know what the form is (although this situation has started to come up a bit recently when texting people for quotes for articles), so I end up putting an awkward little smiley. Not quite the same but seems to ‘friendly it up’ a bit, and I just find it physically impossible not to sign off in some way. And if you do decide to put a kiss, how many? In capitals? It’s so easy to come across overly familiar. It’s the whole social kissing thing all over again.

Then there’s the ease with which you can accidentally send a text to the wrong person. Soon after having son number 2, I sent a long and incredibly graphic text message about certain ‘issues’ I was going to see the doctor about that day. Immediately after sending it I realised that I had sent it to a guy I had gone to school with, seen in a pub about five years previously and swapped numbers (and then had never got in touch), instead of my mum as I had intended it. Thankfully he was a gentleman about it and never replied, but the embarrassment and mortification lives on, and will do forever more. Needless to say I now check, and double check, the recipient before hitting send. The possibilities for embarrassment are endless, especially with sexy texting, or having a secret bitch about someone. Whoops, sent it to my boss instead of my best friend or the man. Explain your way out of that one using text speak.

But texting can be pretty exciting. That beep beep or BRRRRING noise which announces the arrival of a text gives that same feeling of excitement as when you hear the thud of the post on the mat and you receive and unexpected and un-bill-like looking letter through the post... Ooh who could be texting me? And what do they want? Enthusiasm only dampened when it’s a boring message from your operator saying your bill is ready to view (does anyone actually view it?) or saying coverage will be disrupted in your area while they attempt to improve services (never seems to make any difference to me).

On the face of it, texting is a great and convenient way to communicate but in reality it is just another way of confusing our already busy and complicated lives. Multitasking has become the norm. Bring back the phone, I say. Those big old rotary ones which had one, perfectly acceptable and satisfying, ring tone that could be heard next door, and nice comfortable finger holes for dialling the numbers. Apart from the odd doodle or getting tangled up in the curly cord (totally cutting the circulation to your finger tips off because you were coming up with a new way of curling it round your fingers, wouldn’t be allowed today because of health and safety issues) you had to actually concentrate on the person you were talking to, and therefore the scope for confusion and embarrassment were much diminished. And you had to sit down. They were simpler, safer, times.

Stuff

There is a huge black hole not just in my house, but more than likely yours too, it sucks out time and energy and leaves nothing but hard work in its wake. And the black hole is stuff.

Yesterday, the man and me spent the entire day on stuff management, having got totally overwhelmed by the amount of stuff that seems to have taken over our house. A year ago we moved from a 2 bedroom flat with no garden to a 3 bed house with a large garden, so excited were we at the space we would have. We bemoaned that we had nothing to put in our garden, yet a year on it looks positively white trash. Discarded toys and tools litter the patio because they won’t fit in one of our two (yes, two) sheds. And the loft which we had been so wide-eyed about is already a disorganised jumble of stuff, there may be the odd useful item up there but mostly, it’s just crap. I ended the day with a bank statement bonfire, over ten years worth of bank statements that I had been saving, it created quite a blaze. Why save them? Would I have spent time in the future wistfully recollecting my irresponsible spending habits?

It has been drummed into me since I was a child that you do not throw things away in case they come in handy later on. Any packaging receptacle must be fully examined and potential alternative uses considered before it is allowed to go into recycling.

I’ve always had a problem with stuff. I come from a family of hoarders and despite feeling like I’m constantly chucking stuff out, this other person, who looks suspiciously like me, keeps on bringing stuff back in. There are clothes dribbling out of drawers onto the floor and peeping out of half closed wardrobe drawers. Our bedroom looks like a Dali landscape. There are health and safety issues too. My Tupperware cupboard is frankly dangerous, old ice cream tubs catapult themselves out making a bid for freedom, before I spend ten minutes looking for the one thing I needed, then wrestling them all back in, skinning my knuckles in the process. But I have so much that I can’t find what I need, so I buy new stuff. Essential purchasing.

They say you should only keep stuff you really need, really love or are seriously sentimental about. But how do you define need? We might not need it now but possibly will in the future. Some of the stuff serves a purpose too. I have a pair of jeans which I wore comfortably ten years ago, when I can fit them comfortably again I will know I am at a point where I can be happy about my body. Not to actually be able to wear them you understand (they are not nice), they’re just for gauging purposes.

I absolutely adore those articles in magazines where they take one pair of jeans and a white t-shirt and show you how you can create 100 different outfits from them, including something for the opera and a formal work outfit. My ultimate goal in life would be having something that could be described as a capsule wardrobe.

But being disorganised but also a (albeit genetically and against my better judgement) hoarder, susceptible to every new craze going AND a shopaholic, is not a good combo for harmonious living.

Imagine how easy life would be if you only had one of everything. One glass that had to be washed before someone else could use it. One book, one DVD, one CD… everyone could have something different and could practise compulsory swapping. I think it sounds blissful. And I know the kids would be fine, they insist on watching the same film over and over and OVER again, until even I am absentmindedly mouthing the words along to it. I just need to get the man on board (after this weekend I think he could be convinced).

It’s not just the hard stuff. It’s the perishables too. I blame my mother. When I was growing up her cupboards were always busting full, but she would still find little crevices where she could just squeeze in another tin of peaches, or different shape of pasta to add to her collection. And I am now exactly the same. If we had a nuclear war I would be able to feed my entire family (and probably a few neighbours too) for at least one month. My freezer, fridge and cupboards are positively groaning under the weight of food, yet I still manage to find a reason to go to the supermarket almost every other day (usually to get random ingredients for a recipe which I will never use again). I get kind of panicky if I can shut a cupboard door without difficulty. I tell you, I think it’s an illness.

We’re in the midst of the worst recession ever, yet consumer culture has never been so huge. So despite being skint, we’re told we need more stuff. The acquisition of stuff has become something we do for fun, not necessity. And I know that all this stuff is yet another thing that is sapping my ever precious time and energy.

I have to wean myself off this stuff obsession, starting with a food thrift week. I am going to attempt to avoid the supermarket and just use up what I’ve got. It might make for some rather strange dinners but I am creative. Now, what can I make with soy flour, corn oil and tinned peaches?