Yes, I find myself saying this, and other positive statements of world worth, after Yesterday.
Because we can now tick another Experience Box. Exams. Tiger and Squirrel sat the first part of an IGCSE Chemistry exam, and Shark blew up her IGCSE Geography, scattering corpses in her wake.
Strictly speaking, Squirrel did not actually, knowingly, sit her exam. I drove her to a sports hall in a school that looked like a Corporate Headquarters, maybe Corporate Admin Supplies Ltd, and I deposited her into the indifferent care of an invigilator while Squirrel's face bore a puzzled look of Exam? What is that? Am I sitting an exam? But how? I am standing up! And what is this thing, exam?
But Squirrel has a winning way of looking simultaneously charming / deluded / off-her-face / bewildered / dream-filled / hapless - all achieved while smiling, so you forgive her all, and I hope the invigilator put a pen on her desk, and I also hope Squirrel picked it up sometime while the clock did that turny-hand-thing.
Tiger, well, she surprised us all. I thought at the mention of the word exam - in fact any word that begins with the letter e and possibly has an e in it - that this would provoke the most enormous, wallpaper-chewing meltdown, where the family barricaded ourselves quivering in the cellar, calling the helicopter police to tasar her on the rampage.
Astonishingly, Tiger determined the letter A should follow the word exam and she's gone for it, having spent the last 28,000 hours with her face stuck in 450 Chemistry books. I wish her well.
Shark? What can I say, except it could be a race to last place.
We had an almighty fight about the IGCSE Geography last month - a fallen angels and rising devils sort of argument - which helped not. Shark since then spurned my generous advice about diagrams and how to hold a ruler over a river. Then, while a misplaced sense of confidence settled into Shark's exam preparation (whatever form that took), the bastards changed the exam specification, probably while I was sulkily staring into a notebook for cuddles and consolation. The upshot was, Shark had to approach the experience with the heroic daring of an Eddie-the-Eagle style assault. I expect she can resit, sometime after she has actually read the chapter on rivers.
Then yes, failure is a form of success, because it is not a failure to experience. Experience is only ever, success.
Showing posts with label examples of futility. Show all posts
Showing posts with label examples of futility. Show all posts
Wednesday, 14 May 2014
Friday, 11 October 2013
FB
Waste valuable day light, itching to smash things up. Not because Aunty Dee is making a flying visit and I must excavate the cellar (again), a place where Squirrel is now routinely gone to haunt, nor because I stab my finger (again) with the leather needle while stitching the divine item below...
No, it is because I am trying to do something for my marketing, and I am told I must set up a Facebook page for Knicker Drawer Note Books.
But I hate Facebook, pure and simple. If I could stab it, bash it, hurt it with skewers and throw it from the top floor of a building into a fast-moving river below where certain death awaits, then I would do that, oh yes I would.
Tsk, says Dig (en route to Slovakia). He says I have not got the hang of FB.
I should ignore him. It seems to me he is constantly wasting his life checking FB for pictures of dinners that are anticipated by other people. I note he has never put up a picture of the dinner I serve him.
Anyway, that is by-the-bye. Facebook, so Dig says, helps people find you. I don't want people to find me, I answer. I want them to find Knicker Drawer Note Books. Incidentally, FB won't let me use that name. Pass another skewer.
Well, after a lot of thrashing about, stomping, cursing, and pointing at the monitor screen on my laptop while yelling rude words, I have achieved something. Although I'm not sure what, and don't hold your breath for the pictures of dinner.
Sunday, 12 May 2013
This one can't possibly fail
I am going to make wands and sell them to witches.
No, honestly! This time, it is sure to be a success!
Okay, my idea about selling tactile steering-wheel covers to blind people. Admittedly, I did not think that one through. But witches! We have zillions of witches in England looking for circles and covens - I have even seen adverts for them in our local community hall - and I bet they all want new wands supplied with a special spell-collecting Knicker Drawer Witchery Note Book!
Shark is not impressed. As usual, she takes after her father. She pooh-poohs my idea and says I am just trying to fob off witches with old sticks.
Nonsense. I am helping the witches. I am helping them channel their natural spiritual energies into an essential tool of their craft. I know about these things. It is not black cats and Satan these days, you know. It is all healing energies, chakras and crystals. They have gone very New Age with their Druids. And I will be very respectful in my handling of that willow, elder, and oak. I will not simply stick on chunks of plastic to a bit of old wood before slapping on a price tag of a tenner.
Not that I had these thoughts in mind when I purchased my very own wand today. It cooed to me, I am your wand! I am your wand! I simply couldn't resist the calling, emanating from the Wytchy Market in a disused bus terminus opposite Milton Keynes railway station.
You may look at my wand, dear reader, since Shark has so far displayed nothing but scorn (possibly envy in disguise).
See? Half dark; half light; all bitter wood and twisted, with a gleam of false light at the end. It is mine.
I am filling my wand with energy right now, and will wave it about, probably over the washing up, the vacuuming of the stairs, and the clearing out of Squirrel's bed, when it will surely give me the strength to carry on.
And I am dealing with Shark. Becos any fule no that if you try to fob off witches, they turn you into toad.
Sunday, 5 June 2011
Denied a village fete, matron of the shires composes a long blog post
So in my diary were these appointments with England.
That is: Stewkley Village Church Fete; Family Fun Day at Oxford's Museum of Musical Instruments (sure to turn into a vale of tears); Morris Dancing in Stony Stratford; and a grand time with the Royal Institution and their happy forensic science hands-on, Poking About in Cadavers.
Reader, we did none of them.
The children opted to stay at home all this weekend and mess up the garden. I would show you pictures of what they did, but it is raining and I can't be bothered. Suffice to say it involved squatting in mud, stabbing at the earth with screwdrivers even though they have been told not to, and sieving soily lumps through my broccoli colander, the one that I searched for all last week.
I am quite sad. Not about the loss of my colander. I have learned my lesson. Now I buy charity shabby chic and not pricey Philippy Starck. Not about the loss of my garden, either. That attachment went a long, long time ago. When the creatoids from Zelta Minor came to live on Planet Earth, and I watered my soil with tears. The next year my cherished garden gave me back brambles to bite my legs.
I am sad because of a different form of loss: all this England stuff is the stuff of my lesson making.
Yes, I know all this ye olde England country worship on this blog makes me sound like I am an insular small-minded crotchety old battle-axe, complete with wellies, tweed, Yardley, a shelf for a bosom yearning after the mythology of the shires, and ripe for the picking by UKIP.
That as it may. It is also the education that lures me.
For example, I maintain (recklessly) that Morris Dancing down your local High Street has the same stuff of living to teach us as Wagnerian Opera!
Well, okay, I won't push that, but what I mean is, I can get something from Morris dancing to tell the children; it is a creation of people, history, society and culture, just the same as Wagner or the village fete or the dread of the family fun day.
Give me Morris dancing and I can give the children a two-hour discussion on folk history. If I feed them chocolate ice cream, I can get onto philosophy and politics. If I shut them up long enough with promises of pasta pie, I can take on death, religion and art. See? I am already inspired enough to start the research.
But their decision means I must remain at home, lessonless, denied an opportunity to pontificate (hence the long blog posts). Instead, my students are lured by the magic of the soil, and stab at it with screwdrivers even though they have been told not to.
Do not tell them how I am sad at their choice. How secretly I have unfulfilled desires for which home education is merely a cover. That beneath the shelf of my tweeded bosom beats a heart yearning to poke my nose in England's local doings. I am here for such a short time! I must get on my wellies! If I cannot attend a village fete before the end of July they will be all done and dusted! And then what will happen? It will be the nightingale trauma, all over again.
That is: Stewkley Village Church Fete; Family Fun Day at Oxford's Museum of Musical Instruments (sure to turn into a vale of tears); Morris Dancing in Stony Stratford; and a grand time with the Royal Institution and their happy forensic science hands-on, Poking About in Cadavers.
Reader, we did none of them.
The children opted to stay at home all this weekend and mess up the garden. I would show you pictures of what they did, but it is raining and I can't be bothered. Suffice to say it involved squatting in mud, stabbing at the earth with screwdrivers even though they have been told not to, and sieving soily lumps through my broccoli colander, the one that I searched for all last week.
I am quite sad. Not about the loss of my colander. I have learned my lesson. Now I buy charity shabby chic and not pricey Philippy Starck. Not about the loss of my garden, either. That attachment went a long, long time ago. When the creatoids from Zelta Minor came to live on Planet Earth, and I watered my soil with tears. The next year my cherished garden gave me back brambles to bite my legs.
I am sad because of a different form of loss: all this England stuff is the stuff of my lesson making.
Yes, I know all this ye olde England country worship on this blog makes me sound like I am an insular small-minded crotchety old battle-axe, complete with wellies, tweed, Yardley, a shelf for a bosom yearning after the mythology of the shires, and ripe for the picking by UKIP.
That as it may. It is also the education that lures me.
For example, I maintain (recklessly) that Morris Dancing down your local High Street has the same stuff of living to teach us as Wagnerian Opera!
Well, okay, I won't push that, but what I mean is, I can get something from Morris dancing to tell the children; it is a creation of people, history, society and culture, just the same as Wagner or the village fete or the dread of the family fun day.
Give me Morris dancing and I can give the children a two-hour discussion on folk history. If I feed them chocolate ice cream, I can get onto philosophy and politics. If I shut them up long enough with promises of pasta pie, I can take on death, religion and art. See? I am already inspired enough to start the research.
But their decision means I must remain at home, lessonless, denied an opportunity to pontificate (hence the long blog posts). Instead, my students are lured by the magic of the soil, and stab at it with screwdrivers even though they have been told not to.
Do not tell them how I am sad at their choice. How secretly I have unfulfilled desires for which home education is merely a cover. That beneath the shelf of my tweeded bosom beats a heart yearning to poke my nose in England's local doings. I am here for such a short time! I must get on my wellies! If I cannot attend a village fete before the end of July they will be all done and dusted! And then what will happen? It will be the nightingale trauma, all over again.
Monday, 23 May 2011
The great clean up begins
Spend the day throwing stuff out. Hurtling worn objects (torn coat, size 4 wellington boots, broken picture frame) into various bins (giveaway, recycle, charity shop, landfill). The experience of shedding these old layers unveils a delight that bursts quickly into exhilaration. This is emotional cleansing indeed. Too long have these objects surrounded me, showing me my own inability to act. But finally, finally I am taking control!
So I embark on the next step: emptying shelves, the ones bending under the weight of my ancient abandoned craft items. I look at boxes filled with unfinished objects and shake my head at my past self in pity. These boxes each speak of my determination at some moment in time not to give in. One day, I would have consoled myself while shovelling book craft into a cardboard box, I will finish making that!
No I won't. I can see now with my elevated gaze that the half-stitched book cover made of carpet tiles was doomed from the start. I punctured two fingers, bled all over the bathroom and dropped the pokey tool down the back of the toilet. I hardly think I'm going to revisit that particular craft project. It speaks now not of hope toiling under adversity, but of misdirected energy, blind failure and misery. In the bin it goes, and joy flows into my heart.
If I throw out all stuff like this, I think, soon I shall leave everything clean and bare!
But something bad happens as I mine down into each heirloom bag and box, finding all the totems of the family past (child dressing-up clothes, ballet costumes). Is this great throwaway at too much of a heady, reckless pace? At what cost?
I start to panic. Maybe I am making bad purging decisions, using all the wrong judgements!
Here is Squirrel's cloud outfit, made for stage performance. I hated the build up. The endless Tuesday ballet groups for 7-year olds, my showing up used as evidence of my parental devotion or damnation. I routinely failed the test. Into the giveaway bag I shove the perfect white tulle.
Then again, I might have not a ballet gene in me, but Squirrel is my little girl. Out the bag pops the sparkly net and nylon.
But I didn't, couldn't, fit. Each week, while the piano tinkled, I found myself locked in a dark, back room with five women driven by the power of sparkly hairgrips. I wanted to scream, kick furniture, smash windows. Into the bag I press the sparkling silver sequins.
Then again, how could I forget Squirrel wearing this? Think of the future! Each time I will fetch it from the cupboard, where it will hang for all my life, I'll touch the tiny sprays of pearl cream beads like raindrops and remember how my little girl wore her most intense, serious expression, her footsteps measuring out her responsibility to be a cloud, three steps left, two steps right. Remembering which is left, and which is right. Out the bag I haul the silver-lined cloud.
I run my fingers over the white edged ribbon. And I really, really hated how I was forced to endure every weekend, evening, and waste the contents of my bank account. Squirrel was never thankful for that type of devotion. She chucked up all the dance the week after I bought the sodding tap shoes at forty quid a pop. Into the bag goes the stiff white net. I push it down hard, and squash it with a witch's hat.
Before I can think again, I quickly shove in three princesses, a torn clown and the red love-heart costume that made my stomach turn, then tie the bag and Hurrah! I broke some sort of barrier.
But, if I can throw out each totem with these fond memories, what else am I capable of casting off? What if I find I can jettison every object? What if, in doing so, I discover I can steadily denude every emotional attachment I've ever made?
What if I leave myself so clean and bare that I will discover I'm not anything at all? That I am all filled up with empty. Gone will be my supporting objects of history, experience and meaning, gone will be all my memory, distress and affection, and I will find I am a floating hollow, and all this clutter only served to wrap around a person-shaped space, one who isn't there, not in any way, any where, any more.
So I embark on the next step: emptying shelves, the ones bending under the weight of my ancient abandoned craft items. I look at boxes filled with unfinished objects and shake my head at my past self in pity. These boxes each speak of my determination at some moment in time not to give in. One day, I would have consoled myself while shovelling book craft into a cardboard box, I will finish making that!
No I won't. I can see now with my elevated gaze that the half-stitched book cover made of carpet tiles was doomed from the start. I punctured two fingers, bled all over the bathroom and dropped the pokey tool down the back of the toilet. I hardly think I'm going to revisit that particular craft project. It speaks now not of hope toiling under adversity, but of misdirected energy, blind failure and misery. In the bin it goes, and joy flows into my heart.
If I throw out all stuff like this, I think, soon I shall leave everything clean and bare!
But something bad happens as I mine down into each heirloom bag and box, finding all the totems of the family past (child dressing-up clothes, ballet costumes). Is this great throwaway at too much of a heady, reckless pace? At what cost?
I start to panic. Maybe I am making bad purging decisions, using all the wrong judgements!
Here is Squirrel's cloud outfit, made for stage performance. I hated the build up. The endless Tuesday ballet groups for 7-year olds, my showing up used as evidence of my parental devotion or damnation. I routinely failed the test. Into the giveaway bag I shove the perfect white tulle.
Then again, I might have not a ballet gene in me, but Squirrel is my little girl. Out the bag pops the sparkly net and nylon.
But I didn't, couldn't, fit. Each week, while the piano tinkled, I found myself locked in a dark, back room with five women driven by the power of sparkly hairgrips. I wanted to scream, kick furniture, smash windows. Into the bag I press the sparkling silver sequins.
Then again, how could I forget Squirrel wearing this? Think of the future! Each time I will fetch it from the cupboard, where it will hang for all my life, I'll touch the tiny sprays of pearl cream beads like raindrops and remember how my little girl wore her most intense, serious expression, her footsteps measuring out her responsibility to be a cloud, three steps left, two steps right. Remembering which is left, and which is right. Out the bag I haul the silver-lined cloud.
I run my fingers over the white edged ribbon. And I really, really hated how I was forced to endure every weekend, evening, and waste the contents of my bank account. Squirrel was never thankful for that type of devotion. She chucked up all the dance the week after I bought the sodding tap shoes at forty quid a pop. Into the bag goes the stiff white net. I push it down hard, and squash it with a witch's hat.
Before I can think again, I quickly shove in three princesses, a torn clown and the red love-heart costume that made my stomach turn, then tie the bag and Hurrah! I broke some sort of barrier.
But, if I can throw out each totem with these fond memories, what else am I capable of casting off? What if I find I can jettison every object? What if, in doing so, I discover I can steadily denude every emotional attachment I've ever made?
What if I leave myself so clean and bare that I will discover I'm not anything at all? That I am all filled up with empty. Gone will be my supporting objects of history, experience and meaning, gone will be all my memory, distress and affection, and I will find I am a floating hollow, and all this clutter only served to wrap around a person-shaped space, one who isn't there, not in any way, any where, any more.
Saturday, 23 April 2011
We all have our secret desires
Shark, Squirrel and Tiger have been asking for months for this experience. So today I let them have it. Aerial Extreme, Willen Lake. (Satisfying.)
Of course I am motivated not by the education or socialisation on offer, but by self-interest.
While the offspring are twenty foot up, and cannot do or say anything to stop me, I run off to the big city. Sue the make up lady peers at my face and nods, consolingly, then sells me some mascara.
Completely bewitched and in thrall to the solutions for premature aging offered confidently by a woman with neat hair, a label, and a tub of white stuff that looks like PVA, I make an appointment to be completely done over and lose ten years.
(Shut up. Let me keep my fantasies intact. I know them for what they are. I have worked hard to get them, they are mine, and I don't want anyone robbing them from me now.)
Monday, 18 April 2011
1988
Of course I never cancelled my gym membership when we left England. I am not stupid. One of the first places I need to inhabit on my return to normality is the gym.
I love the gym. I adore it. I am going to stay there forever. It is a perfect place where I can live in 1988. Duran Duran is still going round on the sound system, Michael Jackson's not dead, we are still grateful to The Young Ones, and I have a sense of liberation and irresponsibility towards my own backside, having ditched the pointless boyfriend, avoided marriage and never got pregnant. Tonight I might go out or stay in, as the fancy takes me! And what is wrong with a fantasy like that?
You people who eschew the gym and scorn all who go there, you simply must have grown beyond 1988 to fill your lives with purpose, be successful in your business careers and feel rewarded in your personal relationships. It is likely you anticipate your satisfied and balanced days will be completed by gymnastic sex. You may have it all, and not need the gym. I have a house that looks like shit, triplets, no career, bosoms gone south and no sex life, so the gym circa 1988 is a perfect place to stay for a few hours while I reinvent all that has gone.
There is that other thing I can do, which is not an anachronism at all. It is a pure benefit of now being aged 50, invisible, and able to skulk behind the Stair Master. I can slyly glance at semi-naked men working out. Strongly recommended for all ladies in my disposition, especially if Bruce Willis in his vest was an object of great delight first time round.
I love the gym. I adore it. I am going to stay there forever. It is a perfect place where I can live in 1988. Duran Duran is still going round on the sound system, Michael Jackson's not dead, we are still grateful to The Young Ones, and I have a sense of liberation and irresponsibility towards my own backside, having ditched the pointless boyfriend, avoided marriage and never got pregnant. Tonight I might go out or stay in, as the fancy takes me! And what is wrong with a fantasy like that?
You people who eschew the gym and scorn all who go there, you simply must have grown beyond 1988 to fill your lives with purpose, be successful in your business careers and feel rewarded in your personal relationships. It is likely you anticipate your satisfied and balanced days will be completed by gymnastic sex. You may have it all, and not need the gym. I have a house that looks like shit, triplets, no career, bosoms gone south and no sex life, so the gym circa 1988 is a perfect place to stay for a few hours while I reinvent all that has gone.
There is that other thing I can do, which is not an anachronism at all. It is a pure benefit of now being aged 50, invisible, and able to skulk behind the Stair Master. I can slyly glance at semi-naked men working out. Strongly recommended for all ladies in my disposition, especially if Bruce Willis in his vest was an object of great delight first time round.
Saturday, 4 September 2010
It's mine, all mine. And I peed in all the corners.
Emily needs to get wise. She has missed one of the points on the list. That point is, Emily, pick your blogger. You can only make money out of a blogger that fits your market. Disappointing, Emily, given how much you enjoy! reading! grit's day!
Emily, with her suggestion that I tell you all about buying school uniforms, is of course entirely correct in other matters. She has seen how the future rolls on. Emily, it's rolling on without me.
Let's just call it another future I'm not joining. If you haven't checked that list yet, it provides a neat ticky list for commercial blogology. It gleefully heralds the mummy blog as promotional business product advertorial brand ambassador space with free gift, exclusive to you.
You can probably take it as a given that I won't be doing all that comes with it. Posting pictures of myself smiling with more teeth than I own. Offering the latest tidbit about Whatsherface Hilton. Reassuring my readers that breast pumps are so in they're like, hot and you all should own one right now! Say, make that three and tell everyone that grit sent you!
I won't be doing any of that stuff. No product reviews, no ads, no placement for your video, no link up with your blog brand account manager, no taking up your kind offer to provide me with copy from a professional writer, no, no, no, none of that.
Here, at grit's day, there is what there always is, at heart. A story about surviving home education. Told day by day, month by month, year by year. In all its misery, joy, broken hearts, elevation to heaven, pointless craft projects and wet fields.
So that's me sorted. In the brave new commercial blog world, I'll be sitting here, all alone. Stig of the dump. Billy no mates. Stuck in the past. One foot in the grave. My own little stewpit of blogland. Blog dinosaur. Hear me die. Fppppft.
Now, you readers of grit's day, you kind amiable people who stroll along here - I would gladly sit down for a coffee with any of you, so long as you're paying - you probably already realised that you can come and go, in and out of grit's blog, and I will still be here. Call that OCD. Call that psychosis. Call that grit. My face is set to the long term. I have kids to get through these years of home ed, and I need a space for quiet reflection, mental exercise, organised screaming. You are welcome to join me, for one day, for many days, for all days.
But Emily, if you've read this far, now's the time to give up. School uniforms are crap. They are social control dressed up in grey nylon. Burn the school uniforms, Emily, burn them. That's my advice. Burn them all.
Terms and conditions. Should grit's day suddenly and inexplicably attract audiences of thousands, Grit reserves the right to renounce all her principles and make as much money as she can from advertising to pay for Tiger's therapy bills. Grit also reserves the right to endorse any field, product, museum, exhibition, she wants, solely on the basis of the fact that she wants to. She also reserves the right to respond to any PR offering educational opportunities for the Shark, Squirrel and Tiger daughters, on the understanding that they agree to allow their client to be mocked in any way of Grit's choosing. Grit also reserves full control of her blog, having peed in all the corners.
Emily, with her suggestion that I tell you all about buying school uniforms, is of course entirely correct in other matters. She has seen how the future rolls on. Emily, it's rolling on without me.
Let's just call it another future I'm not joining. If you haven't checked that list yet, it provides a neat ticky list for commercial blogology. It gleefully heralds the mummy blog as promotional business product advertorial brand ambassador space with free gift, exclusive to you.
You can probably take it as a given that I won't be doing all that comes with it. Posting pictures of myself smiling with more teeth than I own. Offering the latest tidbit about Whatsherface Hilton. Reassuring my readers that breast pumps are so in they're like, hot and you all should own one right now! Say, make that three and tell everyone that grit sent you!
I won't be doing any of that stuff. No product reviews, no ads, no placement for your video, no link up with your blog brand account manager, no taking up your kind offer to provide me with copy from a professional writer, no, no, no, none of that.
Here, at grit's day, there is what there always is, at heart. A story about surviving home education. Told day by day, month by month, year by year. In all its misery, joy, broken hearts, elevation to heaven, pointless craft projects and wet fields.
So that's me sorted. In the brave new commercial blog world, I'll be sitting here, all alone. Stig of the dump. Billy no mates. Stuck in the past. One foot in the grave. My own little stewpit of blogland. Blog dinosaur. Hear me die. Fppppft.
Now, you readers of grit's day, you kind amiable people who stroll along here - I would gladly sit down for a coffee with any of you, so long as you're paying - you probably already realised that you can come and go, in and out of grit's blog, and I will still be here. Call that OCD. Call that psychosis. Call that grit. My face is set to the long term. I have kids to get through these years of home ed, and I need a space for quiet reflection, mental exercise, organised screaming. You are welcome to join me, for one day, for many days, for all days.
But Emily, if you've read this far, now's the time to give up. School uniforms are crap. They are social control dressed up in grey nylon. Burn the school uniforms, Emily, burn them. That's my advice. Burn them all.
Terms and conditions. Should grit's day suddenly and inexplicably attract audiences of thousands, Grit reserves the right to renounce all her principles and make as much money as she can from advertising to pay for Tiger's therapy bills. Grit also reserves the right to endorse any field, product, museum, exhibition, she wants, solely on the basis of the fact that she wants to. She also reserves the right to respond to any PR offering educational opportunities for the Shark, Squirrel and Tiger daughters, on the understanding that they agree to allow their client to be mocked in any way of Grit's choosing. Grit also reserves full control of her blog, having peed in all the corners.
Friday, 23 July 2010
Tidy tidy tidy
It is dawning on me, this idea, that the family will live some place else for a while.
I had the thought that I must clean up the house I leave behind.
I did think, Don't bother. Then I would simply exit the front door. Easy. But then I thought, if I did that, bad things will happen.
1) The debris, presently piled floor to ceiling, will rot and fester and stink. After three days, the neighbours will call the police. They will break in to look for the decomposing bodies I surely have stashed under the floorboards. To date, they are one rat, five mice, 2,456 spiders, and one gas man. The discovery of the corpses, and how we actually live, will be shaming, and I will be disgraced in polite society forever.
2) People might come and stay while we are away. People like Aunty Dee. I would like my house to be nice for her. I like to imagine that she is not a quiet and retiring, slightly deaf spinster with a career built in social work, but that she will use our house to host a swinger party for her work colleagues. I would like to imagine that all her office chums will admire how I have artfully arranged my colour-coordinated sofa cushions and thoughtfully offered a selection of tinned fruit.
3) While we are away, anyone who comes into our house will call in a plumber. This is almost a certainty. A plumber, an electrician, a glazier, a gardener, another gas man. They will all need to come and repair the damage I have left. It is true, isn't it, that other people notice what you do not.
For example, I can live with the tap. I have learned how to deal with the problem. Admittedly, my first solution was not good. I shoved a rubber bung up the dribbling end and upturned a cup on the turny bit. This was my DIY household maintenance. The bung solution was not good. I flooded the ceiling void, short circuited the electrics, and caused several hundred pounds of damage. Of course I look on the bright side. The tap stopped dripping in the short term. About ten minutes of short term, before the explosion.
Now, me and the tap get along. But someone else will come and fear the tap exploding, and think Something must be done! When the plumber arrives, I think it would be good for them to get at the mains water tap without having to remove the body of the gas man.
4) Dig says that how you present something is how it will be treated.
For example, you might take your car to the garage. But you forget it is full of crap! Like a selection of pasta in the passenger footwell, empty drinks cartons, banana skins, soiled trousers, and swimming costumes. The stuff you carry if you have kids. But when the garage mechanic sees this mobile skip, he will not bother putting down that brown paper in the driver's side. No. He will simply invite all his mates to come and sit in your treasured vehicle, wipe their boots over the stained upholstery, discard their chip wrappers, and treat the glove box like a spittoon. He is safe in the knowledge that you will not be able to tell. And he is right.
I heed Dig's caution. I will leave my house nice so that it is treated with love by the police, crumply swingers, and plumber come to mend the exploding tap.
5) I would like to come back to a nice house! This is the most important thought I have had. When I step back home after hours of torture by kid and aeroplane, I would like the house to be here, welcoming, safe, and clean. So that is how I must leave it.
Consequently I have so far removed one bottle of two-year old coriander from the fridge, and reorganised the Spanish peseta coin collection.
I had the thought that I must clean up the house I leave behind.
I did think, Don't bother. Then I would simply exit the front door. Easy. But then I thought, if I did that, bad things will happen.
1) The debris, presently piled floor to ceiling, will rot and fester and stink. After three days, the neighbours will call the police. They will break in to look for the decomposing bodies I surely have stashed under the floorboards. To date, they are one rat, five mice, 2,456 spiders, and one gas man. The discovery of the corpses, and how we actually live, will be shaming, and I will be disgraced in polite society forever.
2) People might come and stay while we are away. People like Aunty Dee. I would like my house to be nice for her. I like to imagine that she is not a quiet and retiring, slightly deaf spinster with a career built in social work, but that she will use our house to host a swinger party for her work colleagues. I would like to imagine that all her office chums will admire how I have artfully arranged my colour-coordinated sofa cushions and thoughtfully offered a selection of tinned fruit.
3) While we are away, anyone who comes into our house will call in a plumber. This is almost a certainty. A plumber, an electrician, a glazier, a gardener, another gas man. They will all need to come and repair the damage I have left. It is true, isn't it, that other people notice what you do not.
For example, I can live with the tap. I have learned how to deal with the problem. Admittedly, my first solution was not good. I shoved a rubber bung up the dribbling end and upturned a cup on the turny bit. This was my DIY household maintenance. The bung solution was not good. I flooded the ceiling void, short circuited the electrics, and caused several hundred pounds of damage. Of course I look on the bright side. The tap stopped dripping in the short term. About ten minutes of short term, before the explosion.
Now, me and the tap get along. But someone else will come and fear the tap exploding, and think Something must be done! When the plumber arrives, I think it would be good for them to get at the mains water tap without having to remove the body of the gas man.
4) Dig says that how you present something is how it will be treated.
For example, you might take your car to the garage. But you forget it is full of crap! Like a selection of pasta in the passenger footwell, empty drinks cartons, banana skins, soiled trousers, and swimming costumes. The stuff you carry if you have kids. But when the garage mechanic sees this mobile skip, he will not bother putting down that brown paper in the driver's side. No. He will simply invite all his mates to come and sit in your treasured vehicle, wipe their boots over the stained upholstery, discard their chip wrappers, and treat the glove box like a spittoon. He is safe in the knowledge that you will not be able to tell. And he is right.
I heed Dig's caution. I will leave my house nice so that it is treated with love by the police, crumply swingers, and plumber come to mend the exploding tap.
5) I would like to come back to a nice house! This is the most important thought I have had. When I step back home after hours of torture by kid and aeroplane, I would like the house to be here, welcoming, safe, and clean. So that is how I must leave it.
Consequently I have so far removed one bottle of two-year old coriander from the fridge, and reorganised the Spanish peseta coin collection.
Tuesday, 13 July 2010
The simple life
Shark insists that now we have arrived to stay with Big Bro in Suffolk, she must live in a tent in the garden.
This involves mama in horror movie mode, thrashing around in the wild outside at dusk, wrestling a blow up mattress. By dark she is crawling about on hands and knees, desperately bashing grass with a mallet.
And all the time, the stormy grey clouds glower in the skies, the wind howls, and Shark stands impatiently over me demanding sleeping bags, wind-up torches, morning alarm clocks, cushions, extra blankies, books, and a sister who can interpret the many bird sounds of the dawn chorus.
This involves mama in horror movie mode, thrashing around in the wild outside at dusk, wrestling a blow up mattress. By dark she is crawling about on hands and knees, desperately bashing grass with a mallet.
And all the time, the stormy grey clouds glower in the skies, the wind howls, and Shark stands impatiently over me demanding sleeping bags, wind-up torches, morning alarm clocks, cushions, extra blankies, books, and a sister who can interpret the many bird sounds of the dawn chorus.
Friday, 9 July 2010
Oh no! It's our local hairdresser!
How do I know?
1. They are deluded. Advertising themselves as Celebrity Stylists when they are in a back street of a small town. The only close shave they made to fame is making everyone round here walk with the same mullet. It looks like a regional crime wave.
2. They dress like streetwalkers. Black string vest, white bra, fake tan, and plastic glitter belt 50p from the market. It's not a good look on a woman aged 58. It's not a good look on anyone. Possibly an LA starlet, because the look can carry a gutter. But when it walks you to the cash till? Seriously, you feel you got robbed by a hooker.
3. They act like society needs them. This is piteous, really. So let us help make them special. Turn up late for your appointment. They love it. Now they have the chance to be important! (Guide to being important? Rap six-inch multicoloured painted fingernails on formica desk while murmuring mmmmmm. Flick hair while clicking pointlessly on a mouse and looking vacantly at blank computer screen.)
4. The stylists are particularly dim. Especially Beryl. (Stage name: Berillia.) She has one GNVQ level 96 in Hair and Beauty. I do not knock it. She is happy with this level of achievement. Even if it is a bit like thinking a Big Mac is a qualification in Nutrition.
5. They don't speak in joined-up words. Don't get me wrong. I'm not looking for Socratic philosophy from my hairdresser! Of course not! Not even long chained utterances! That would blow their fuses. Round here we listen to yeah... yeah... yeah... gonna... hmm... yeah... like... like... yeah. Could explain why Melvyn Bragg's not your customer, ladies.
6. They sound like they don't know what they're doing. Have they ever done this hair cutting thing before? I swear, here's the exchange I overheard.
Customer (C). Berillia (B).
C: I'd like it a bit more fashionable than it is now.
B: Yeah... yeah... yeah. Um... Um... Right... Yeah.
Doesn't exactly inspire confidence, does it?
7. They are high on aerosol. They spray enough of that ozone-killing junk into the room, it makes your hair want to crawl out of your scalp in submission, lay on your lap and scream. Not only are their brains affected by that PCP crap; it also makes them witter on about boyfriends in high-pitched squeaky voices. After half an hour you start to hallucinate along with them and imagine you are surrounded by millions of garroted mice dressed like hookers. And they are all waving scissors, dangerously.
8. They make a big thing out of the hierarchy. The Receptionist can only take your coat and walk you over to the Junior Shampooist. She will pass you on to the Deputy Senior Stylist. She will make a big play about consulting with the Queen of the Blower. This is all a cover. It's just a pretence to make it look like there was some training so they can justify the hundred quid they're about to rip out your bank account.
9. They speak to you like you are aged five. And a slow learner. Maybe they should offer balloons for everyone to hold. Oh, and by the way, everything is a personal favour. Just for her. So, Can you, um, sit, sit, yeah, straight? Like, yeah, JUST FOR ME? What is the matter with them? Are they high? (See 7.)
10. They have made-up names. Example: Raquelia and Sextuginia. (Really, they are called Janice and Sandra.) This is not to suggest they are airheadedbimbos useful for sex. No. Of course not. They are trying to make themselves sound exotic and interesting. When they have travelled as far as Butlins and have a boyfriend who owns a pitbull.
Good grief, did I already reach ten? I'm only warming up. I could go on. Ladies, I meant it when I said I would never bring my children to this salon again. EVER.
1. They are deluded. Advertising themselves as Celebrity Stylists when they are in a back street of a small town. The only close shave they made to fame is making everyone round here walk with the same mullet. It looks like a regional crime wave.
2. They dress like streetwalkers. Black string vest, white bra, fake tan, and plastic glitter belt 50p from the market. It's not a good look on a woman aged 58. It's not a good look on anyone. Possibly an LA starlet, because the look can carry a gutter. But when it walks you to the cash till? Seriously, you feel you got robbed by a hooker.
3. They act like society needs them. This is piteous, really. So let us help make them special. Turn up late for your appointment. They love it. Now they have the chance to be important! (Guide to being important? Rap six-inch multicoloured painted fingernails on formica desk while murmuring mmmmmm. Flick hair while clicking pointlessly on a mouse and looking vacantly at blank computer screen.)
4. The stylists are particularly dim. Especially Beryl. (Stage name: Berillia.) She has one GNVQ level 96 in Hair and Beauty. I do not knock it. She is happy with this level of achievement. Even if it is a bit like thinking a Big Mac is a qualification in Nutrition.
5. They don't speak in joined-up words. Don't get me wrong. I'm not looking for Socratic philosophy from my hairdresser! Of course not! Not even long chained utterances! That would blow their fuses. Round here we listen to yeah... yeah... yeah... gonna... hmm... yeah... like... like... yeah. Could explain why Melvyn Bragg's not your customer, ladies.
6. They sound like they don't know what they're doing. Have they ever done this hair cutting thing before? I swear, here's the exchange I overheard.
Customer (C). Berillia (B).
C: I'd like it a bit more fashionable than it is now.
B: Yeah... yeah... yeah. Um... Um... Right... Yeah.
Doesn't exactly inspire confidence, does it?
7. They are high on aerosol. They spray enough of that ozone-killing junk into the room, it makes your hair want to crawl out of your scalp in submission, lay on your lap and scream. Not only are their brains affected by that PCP crap; it also makes them witter on about boyfriends in high-pitched squeaky voices. After half an hour you start to hallucinate along with them and imagine you are surrounded by millions of garroted mice dressed like hookers. And they are all waving scissors, dangerously.
8. They make a big thing out of the hierarchy. The Receptionist can only take your coat and walk you over to the Junior Shampooist. She will pass you on to the Deputy Senior Stylist. She will make a big play about consulting with the Queen of the Blower. This is all a cover. It's just a pretence to make it look like there was some training so they can justify the hundred quid they're about to rip out your bank account.
9. They speak to you like you are aged five. And a slow learner. Maybe they should offer balloons for everyone to hold. Oh, and by the way, everything is a personal favour. Just for her. So, Can you, um, sit, sit, yeah, straight? Like, yeah, JUST FOR ME? What is the matter with them? Are they high? (See 7.)
10. They have made-up names. Example: Raquelia and Sextuginia. (Really, they are called Janice and Sandra.) This is not to suggest they are airheadedbimbos useful for sex. No. Of course not. They are trying to make themselves sound exotic and interesting. When they have travelled as far as Butlins and have a boyfriend who owns a pitbull.
Good grief, did I already reach ten? I'm only warming up. I could go on. Ladies, I meant it when I said I would never bring my children to this salon again. EVER.
Saturday, 26 June 2010
The mummy milk bottle of menace
I have tried many child management techniques.
So I can tell you straight, I wish I had not bothered with the stickers. They were very expensive. And pointless. I think I vacuumed them up by accident.
Ditto the Miss Sunshine Happy Chart. I ripped her legs off in a temper tantrum.
And the golden stars in the fruit bowl. Squirrel ate them and was sick.
The Girl of the Day strategy was reasonably successful. But this in the end failed too. Mostly because the people running that system have to remember they are running it. Also, they must not become confused about which child is which. That is hard if all the kids run together and some of them are identical.
The oranges in the jar system worked well, for about two weeks. I like to think of that time as the period of consistent parenting. But it ended when the children took control in what I liked to call 'the self-guiding stage'. After an hour of self guiding, Shark possessed all 86 oranges and wouldn't give them back.
The pocket money idea has come and gone and come and gone again. Of course we have remunerated the children according to chores achieved and chores neglected. That system ended when I had to borrow £3.20 from Tiger, with interest, to pay Squirrel who owed Shark, who owed it back to Tiger in a system they called Protection.
I have used other methods too. In varying proportions, and sometimes combined: face pulling, finger wagging, soft and kind speaking, hair tugging (mine), eyeball-to-eyeball, threatening various punishments (going home NOW, no dinner, donating to the neighbour, selling for medical experiments), offering calm-down cuddles, frowning, screaming hysterically, weeping, tutting, looking the other way, putting fingers in ears, lifting face to sky and adopting an expression of sacred suffering (a little like the Virgin Mary), and dramatically stabbing self in left bosom and howling See poor mama's heart BLEED!
I cannot say any of these have effected much.
But recently I have adopted what is called the Mummy Milk Bottle of Menace. This expression is coined by Tiger. Which possibly shows how seriously she views this management technique. But it might have worked once.
Just for a few moments, everyone stopped fighting, and stared at me, pouring diluted red food colouring into a milk bottle on the kitchen table. I took the advantage and said the milk bottle was a metaphor for my mind, and the red colour was like a pressure inside my head. The whole is a measure of mamma's emotional health and mental well being. Quietly, I thought that was clever, because I'm showing how arguments can affect a person emotionally. So I wanted to share this idea to benefit the entire world.
You can use other bottles, obviously, if you are vegan. An empty gin bottle is a very good substitute, whether you are vegan or not.
This is how it works.
You start with a clear mind and a happy, optimistic disposition. Round here, that is usually about 8.30am, and before anyone else has come down to breakfast.
But then I hear the first argument, accompanied by howling, coming down the stairs. It is probably 9.20am. I pour a little food colour into my milk bottle.
I say that we could get out of this situation. If everyone stopped arguing, and treated each other nicely, of course I would pour out the contents, and my milk bottle would be empty again!
Or maybe there is some snarling. And a very big fight over a pencil.
When that fight dies down, I say everyone could now be calm and we could plan the day. I could have a cup of tea, and everyone would treat each other NICELY. It is maybe 9.45am.
Then there is an argument over a wind chime. With weapons.
You see? Even at this late stage, mummy is keeping all her emotions under control. She executes a variety of eyerolling, frowning, fingerwagging and soft speaking. Then merely pours her danger water into her milk bottle, while explaining how arguments can lead us to have a good day or a bad day. It is 10am.
Time for a fight involving table shoving, paper scattering, and a ruler.
I point out that my milk bottle is still not filled to the top! But IT SOON WILL BE. NOW SHUT UP EVERYBODY and mummy can pour all her red fire danger water away and we can START AGAIN. The clock ticks round to 10.10am.
And someone makes the quietest, teeniest weeniest sarcastic comment about today's milk being a bit off.
So I can tell you straight, I wish I had not bothered with the stickers. They were very expensive. And pointless. I think I vacuumed them up by accident.
Ditto the Miss Sunshine Happy Chart. I ripped her legs off in a temper tantrum.
And the golden stars in the fruit bowl. Squirrel ate them and was sick.
The Girl of the Day strategy was reasonably successful. But this in the end failed too. Mostly because the people running that system have to remember they are running it. Also, they must not become confused about which child is which. That is hard if all the kids run together and some of them are identical.
The oranges in the jar system worked well, for about two weeks. I like to think of that time as the period of consistent parenting. But it ended when the children took control in what I liked to call 'the self-guiding stage'. After an hour of self guiding, Shark possessed all 86 oranges and wouldn't give them back.
The pocket money idea has come and gone and come and gone again. Of course we have remunerated the children according to chores achieved and chores neglected. That system ended when I had to borrow £3.20 from Tiger, with interest, to pay Squirrel who owed Shark, who owed it back to Tiger in a system they called Protection.
I have used other methods too. In varying proportions, and sometimes combined: face pulling, finger wagging, soft and kind speaking, hair tugging (mine), eyeball-to-eyeball, threatening various punishments (going home NOW, no dinner, donating to the neighbour, selling for medical experiments), offering calm-down cuddles, frowning, screaming hysterically, weeping, tutting, looking the other way, putting fingers in ears, lifting face to sky and adopting an expression of sacred suffering (a little like the Virgin Mary), and dramatically stabbing self in left bosom and howling See poor mama's heart BLEED!
I cannot say any of these have effected much.
But recently I have adopted what is called the Mummy Milk Bottle of Menace. This expression is coined by Tiger. Which possibly shows how seriously she views this management technique. But it might have worked once.
Just for a few moments, everyone stopped fighting, and stared at me, pouring diluted red food colouring into a milk bottle on the kitchen table. I took the advantage and said the milk bottle was a metaphor for my mind, and the red colour was like a pressure inside my head. The whole is a measure of mamma's emotional health and mental well being. Quietly, I thought that was clever, because I'm showing how arguments can affect a person emotionally. So I wanted to share this idea to benefit the entire world.
You can use other bottles, obviously, if you are vegan. An empty gin bottle is a very good substitute, whether you are vegan or not.
This is how it works.
You start with a clear mind and a happy, optimistic disposition. Round here, that is usually about 8.30am, and before anyone else has come down to breakfast.
But then I hear the first argument, accompanied by howling, coming down the stairs. It is probably 9.20am. I pour a little food colour into my milk bottle.
I say that we could get out of this situation. If everyone stopped arguing, and treated each other nicely, of course I would pour out the contents, and my milk bottle would be empty again!
Or maybe there is some snarling. And a very big fight over a pencil.
When that fight dies down, I say everyone could now be calm and we could plan the day. I could have a cup of tea, and everyone would treat each other NICELY. It is maybe 9.45am.
Then there is an argument over a wind chime. With weapons.
You see? Even at this late stage, mummy is keeping all her emotions under control. She executes a variety of eyerolling, frowning, fingerwagging and soft speaking. Then merely pours her danger water into her milk bottle, while explaining how arguments can lead us to have a good day or a bad day. It is 10am.
Time for a fight involving table shoving, paper scattering, and a ruler.
I point out that my milk bottle is still not filled to the top! But IT SOON WILL BE. NOW SHUT UP EVERYBODY and mummy can pour all her red fire danger water away and we can START AGAIN. The clock ticks round to 10.10am.
And someone makes the quietest, teeniest weeniest sarcastic comment about today's milk being a bit off.
Monday, 21 June 2010
'Good honest fumbling people caught up in tiny tragedies'
I don't know whether you've ever seen the film, Woman in a Dressing Gown. I saw it, aged about ten. I remember nothing about the affair with Sylvia Sims, so don't ask. I just remember the total futility of that central wifely role.
It was all doomed, doomed from the start. I remember wishing she'd never married at all, but instead drove a white two-seater while wearing a turban. Then she could drive downhill, fast, on hairpin bends. Occasionally she could go swimming for lengthy periods underwater, like Marina in Stingray. Except Woman in a Turban would talk while swimming, because mute is irritating. Watery mute is a sea version of Skippy.
But apart from wanting life to be so different for Woman in a Dressing Gown, what struck me was that every way she tried to get herself out of the mess, it came ready attached to a big sign, reading FAIL.
I feel like that. Even though we take the most fantastic geology walk across Burnham Beeches. It's led by someone who actually knows what they're talking about, and who gets the kids measuring the height of the water table. Look!
In home education terms, it's a complete and total success, and my only regret is not keeping a geologist in a cupboard. I can get them out whenever I want. They would be available whenever I needed to demonstrate the creation of an orogenic wedge.
Anyway, I end up hoping no-one notices at Burnham Beeches, because sometimes I'm walking in a funny striding way, and sometimes I'm furtively clasping at my groin to stop my trousers falling off.
I haven't worn this particular pair since last year. All the others are irredeemable, in the wash. So I drag them out the back of the wardrobe, put them on, and they don't fit. Or rather they do, so long as I like wearing a gastric band on the outside. Clearly, I have a magic wardrobe which shrinks all my clothes. But I'm not giving up. I'm bloody wearing the things now. More than anything.
So I do the sensible thing and cut the waistband at the seams and breathe again. But when I walk the jeans fall off. Apparently they need a waistband to stop them sliding down the enormity of arse I carry around like a spare mountain slope. But string comes in very handy, doesn't it?
Well that's a good start. I put some icing on the fashion statement by dribbling breakfast blueberry juice down my left bosom. That would be alright I think, because there isn't time to change and I can hide it. Yesterday I bought a fab-antas-tic coat at New Look, the epitome of all that is brilliant (and cheap) in high street fashion!
I get the coat out the bag, pull the label off, slip it on, and it looks FAB-ANTAS-TIC!
Except for the heavy weight and curious rattling noise at the back of my neck. What can that be? Oh. It's the shop guard. The enormous circular disk that shop owners pin to clothing. The one that indicates to everyone that this particular desirable garment? You nicked it.
So I try and hit the security pin with a hammer to smack the ruddy thing off. Only it won't come off.
So here I am, we're late for leaving and people are yelling at me. Dig is striding about because I am a nuisance. The kids are hollering and screaming. And I am Woman in a Dressing Gown. On my hands and knees on the kitchen floor, my trousers held up with string, blueberry juice sloshing around in my bra, bludgeoning a coat with a hammer.
But I am Grit. I can only conclude that the geology with hydrology walk round Burnham Beeches was a total and fantastic success. Shark, Squirrel and Tiger learnt a brainfull of inspiring rock, water and wood stuff. My trousers stayed up, although I rattled a bit. And Dig never succumbed to the itch to push me into the lake by-accident-on-purpose and run off with Sylvia Sims.
It was all doomed, doomed from the start. I remember wishing she'd never married at all, but instead drove a white two-seater while wearing a turban. Then she could drive downhill, fast, on hairpin bends. Occasionally she could go swimming for lengthy periods underwater, like Marina in Stingray. Except Woman in a Turban would talk while swimming, because mute is irritating. Watery mute is a sea version of Skippy.
But apart from wanting life to be so different for Woman in a Dressing Gown, what struck me was that every way she tried to get herself out of the mess, it came ready attached to a big sign, reading FAIL.
I feel like that. Even though we take the most fantastic geology walk across Burnham Beeches. It's led by someone who actually knows what they're talking about, and who gets the kids measuring the height of the water table. Look!
In home education terms, it's a complete and total success, and my only regret is not keeping a geologist in a cupboard. I can get them out whenever I want. They would be available whenever I needed to demonstrate the creation of an orogenic wedge.
Anyway, I end up hoping no-one notices at Burnham Beeches, because sometimes I'm walking in a funny striding way, and sometimes I'm furtively clasping at my groin to stop my trousers falling off.
I haven't worn this particular pair since last year. All the others are irredeemable, in the wash. So I drag them out the back of the wardrobe, put them on, and they don't fit. Or rather they do, so long as I like wearing a gastric band on the outside. Clearly, I have a magic wardrobe which shrinks all my clothes. But I'm not giving up. I'm bloody wearing the things now. More than anything.
So I do the sensible thing and cut the waistband at the seams and breathe again. But when I walk the jeans fall off. Apparently they need a waistband to stop them sliding down the enormity of arse I carry around like a spare mountain slope. But string comes in very handy, doesn't it?
Well that's a good start. I put some icing on the fashion statement by dribbling breakfast blueberry juice down my left bosom. That would be alright I think, because there isn't time to change and I can hide it. Yesterday I bought a fab-antas-tic coat at New Look, the epitome of all that is brilliant (and cheap) in high street fashion!
I get the coat out the bag, pull the label off, slip it on, and it looks FAB-ANTAS-TIC!
Except for the heavy weight and curious rattling noise at the back of my neck. What can that be? Oh. It's the shop guard. The enormous circular disk that shop owners pin to clothing. The one that indicates to everyone that this particular desirable garment? You nicked it.
So I try and hit the security pin with a hammer to smack the ruddy thing off. Only it won't come off.
So here I am, we're late for leaving and people are yelling at me. Dig is striding about because I am a nuisance. The kids are hollering and screaming. And I am Woman in a Dressing Gown. On my hands and knees on the kitchen floor, my trousers held up with string, blueberry juice sloshing around in my bra, bludgeoning a coat with a hammer.
But I am Grit. I can only conclude that the geology with hydrology walk round Burnham Beeches was a total and fantastic success. Shark, Squirrel and Tiger learnt a brainfull of inspiring rock, water and wood stuff. My trousers stayed up, although I rattled a bit. And Dig never succumbed to the itch to push me into the lake by-accident-on-purpose and run off with Sylvia Sims.
Thursday, 13 May 2010
Grit's Gruels
Here we are, innocently supping on the finest vino vintage, refreshing ourselves with the sweetest fruits, and tasting the exquisite and expensive delicacies of the world, then a miserable bloke on Radio 4 spoils it all.
He warns that now we have a ConLib government, everyone in the country must pay the National Debt Or Else. And it is like Big Money. Thousands and millions of pounds. Maybe zillions. My maths is not good.
But then I hear something worse. That every household in England owes the government thirty thousand pounds! Shit! We haven't got that money, not even down the back of the sofa. And they won't take your first born, you can forget that. I asked.
What to do? Grit's body is worth a couple of quid. Then I eye up Dig for the insurance, and sure enough when he sees that twinkle in my eye he's off through the door.
So we are in Big Trouble.
Right. It's time to grit those teeth, get out of the groove, and economise. Selflessly, I shall do my bit. I offer up to the nation the finest selection of Grit's cheap eats. Consider it a gift, in the national interest, and in lieu of 30grand.
(PS. Of course my cheap eats are vegetarian! We may be poor, but we hippies float on the moral mountain top of righteousness.)
1. Vegeburgers
Cheap tinned red kidney beans
Three-day old brown bread scraped out the back of the bread bin
Onions. The local shop sells a 5Kg bag for a couple of quid
Leftover cooked veg from sometime earlier
Tomato puree
Salt and pepper or dried herbs
I bet you are already busting your buffers in anticipation. Mix up all the delicious flavours in the whizzy machine. The one with the broken thing. It still works. Glue the mix together with tomato puree. Make lots of burgers and fry them. Serve with knocked-down salad rescued from the reduced bin and hawthorn leaves. Delicious, nutritious and 88p for six!
2. Bean slurry
Beans. Howabout blackeye? They are easy to soak and boil.*
Two cans chopped tomatoes
Vegetables. Stuff like onions and carrots and broccoli and stuff.
Cube of chopped spinach. (When questioned about green bits, claim they are herbs.)
Put all stuff in saucepans, cook it, mix together.
Serve with cheesy rice. What's that? Ha! You'll go crazy when you discover how easy this is! Cook brown rice, and grate a load of cheese in it!
I might get myself a big pair of wobbly bosoms like Sophie Dahl, and market Grit's book: Cheap Eats for Idle & Mean Gits.
*Danger! Soak and Boil! Otherwise you all will DIE!
3. Lentil slop
Red lentils
Celery, onion, potato chunks, carrot and more carrot.
Stock cubes
Lots of water
Put all stuff in a big saucepan and boil up for 20 minutes.
Serve with croutons. (Stale bread hacked into chunks with a power saw, tipped into a dish, tossed with olive oil, salted, peppered and shoved in the oven for 10 minutes on hothothot. Properly cooked they look like smashed up housebricks.)
4. Chickpea something
Tin of chickpeas
Carrots
Onions
Sweet potatoes (When questioned, lie. Say it is carrot)
Red peppers
Yet more tins of chopped up tomatoes
Big cloves of garlic
Serve with mashed potatoes, sculpt an unpronounceable Icelandic volcano, pretend this runny red stuff is lava, and run a geology lesson. All at the same time. Smugbastardhippy.
(Grit cuisine, is a cinch, isn't it? Quick, easy, CHEAP. And all without any deep feelings of food guilt, shame, inadequacy or any culinary skill whatsoever!)
5. Rice splatter
An enormous mound of white rice
Anything else edible. (Excellent after a late night dumpster dive.)
Put the enormous rice mound in the middle of the table, and put a dozen different things to eat all around. There is nothing wrong with peaches, peas and lettuce. They accompany baked beans, melon and cucumber exceptionally well. Persuade yourself. It's been a successful dive into the skips.
There! I have saved you for the nation too! Only £29,987.12 to go!
He warns that now we have a ConLib government, everyone in the country must pay the National Debt Or Else. And it is like Big Money. Thousands and millions of pounds. Maybe zillions. My maths is not good.
But then I hear something worse. That every household in England owes the government thirty thousand pounds! Shit! We haven't got that money, not even down the back of the sofa. And they won't take your first born, you can forget that. I asked.
What to do? Grit's body is worth a couple of quid. Then I eye up Dig for the insurance, and sure enough when he sees that twinkle in my eye he's off through the door.
So we are in Big Trouble.
Right. It's time to grit those teeth, get out of the groove, and economise. Selflessly, I shall do my bit. I offer up to the nation the finest selection of Grit's cheap eats. Consider it a gift, in the national interest, and in lieu of 30grand.
(PS. Of course my cheap eats are vegetarian! We may be poor, but we hippies float on the moral mountain top of righteousness.)
1. Vegeburgers
Cheap tinned red kidney beans
Three-day old brown bread scraped out the back of the bread bin
Onions. The local shop sells a 5Kg bag for a couple of quid
Leftover cooked veg from sometime earlier
Tomato puree
Salt and pepper or dried herbs
I bet you are already busting your buffers in anticipation. Mix up all the delicious flavours in the whizzy machine. The one with the broken thing. It still works. Glue the mix together with tomato puree. Make lots of burgers and fry them. Serve with knocked-down salad rescued from the reduced bin and hawthorn leaves. Delicious, nutritious and 88p for six!
2. Bean slurry
Beans. Howabout blackeye? They are easy to soak and boil.*
Two cans chopped tomatoes
Vegetables. Stuff like onions and carrots and broccoli and stuff.
Cube of chopped spinach. (When questioned about green bits, claim they are herbs.)
Put all stuff in saucepans, cook it, mix together.
Serve with cheesy rice. What's that? Ha! You'll go crazy when you discover how easy this is! Cook brown rice, and grate a load of cheese in it!
I might get myself a big pair of wobbly bosoms like Sophie Dahl, and market Grit's book: Cheap Eats for Idle & Mean Gits.
*Danger! Soak and Boil! Otherwise you all will DIE!
3. Lentil slop
Red lentils
Celery, onion, potato chunks, carrot and more carrot.
Stock cubes
Lots of water
Put all stuff in a big saucepan and boil up for 20 minutes.
Serve with croutons. (Stale bread hacked into chunks with a power saw, tipped into a dish, tossed with olive oil, salted, peppered and shoved in the oven for 10 minutes on hothothot. Properly cooked they look like smashed up housebricks.)
4. Chickpea something
Tin of chickpeas
Carrots
Onions
Sweet potatoes (When questioned, lie. Say it is carrot)
Red peppers
Yet more tins of chopped up tomatoes
Big cloves of garlic
Serve with mashed potatoes, sculpt an unpronounceable Icelandic volcano, pretend this runny red stuff is lava, and run a geology lesson. All at the same time. Smugbastardhippy.
(Grit cuisine, is a cinch, isn't it? Quick, easy, CHEAP. And all without any deep feelings of food guilt, shame, inadequacy or any culinary skill whatsoever!)
5. Rice splatter
An enormous mound of white rice
Anything else edible. (Excellent after a late night dumpster dive.)
Put the enormous rice mound in the middle of the table, and put a dozen different things to eat all around. There is nothing wrong with peaches, peas and lettuce. They accompany baked beans, melon and cucumber exceptionally well. Persuade yourself. It's been a successful dive into the skips.
There! I have saved you for the nation too! Only £29,987.12 to go!
Saturday, 10 October 2009
Life is this French stick
A day of astonishing achievement here at The Pile.
I drive to the local town market because I am very chi chi and I buy stylish artisan products. Anyway, I have had a big fight with everyone at home, and Dig is packing for South America, so I may as well go out.
To console myself, and prove I am morally right to insist the children label a map of Brazil, I buy this.
What is it? you whimper. But it is a lovely crisp French baguette, of course! Freshly baked today! I think from a variety of angles you can appreciate the full local-made artisan beauty of it. I feel, in a metaphor of life, it may represent futility and purpose.
Now you know what I am up against, living in Smalltown, facing another week of home education while Dig is elsewhere wearing his lumberjack shirt. It is an uphill struggle.
I bet you feel better about your life now.
I drive to the local town market because I am very chi chi and I buy stylish artisan products. Anyway, I have had a big fight with everyone at home, and Dig is packing for South America, so I may as well go out.
To console myself, and prove I am morally right to insist the children label a map of Brazil, I buy this.
What is it? you whimper. But it is a lovely crisp French baguette, of course! Freshly baked today! I think from a variety of angles you can appreciate the full local-made artisan beauty of it. I feel, in a metaphor of life, it may represent futility and purpose.
Now you know what I am up against, living in Smalltown, facing another week of home education while Dig is elsewhere wearing his lumberjack shirt. It is an uphill struggle.
I bet you feel better about your life now.
Wednesday, 12 November 2008
Dig comes home to leave again
Dig is popping in today, en route from Hong Kong to India. How global is that? This is the sort of life I only dream about. Anyway he says he needs to pick up the other passport and will you wash these socks?
Now he'll disappear to sleep and, because it's not worth coming out the time zone, he'll get up at 3am to stride about the office in his underwear, shouting at Calcutta because they expect him to transfer between hotels on a bus. In 48 hours he catches the next flight out to Delhi leaving us all to wonder who swept through the house crashing into the tea table, saying it's bedtime so be quiet.
Grit has a similar exotic travelling life, filled with glamour, as you can imagine. Me and Kate Moss, our lives are indistinguishable. I may even be mistaken for her, except I actually do the sordid bits of motherhood thing. Down the local field usually, with gritlets hanging off my body parts. Incidentally, I have begun to wonder if my limbs are detachable because Tiger has taken recently to hanging on my left arm like she knows it comes off, if she pulls hard enough. That would be great, having the gritlets run about the field with a leg or an arm apiece to wave about as weaponry. My torso could have a lie down and get some peace and quiet.
Well now I am thinking about the glamorous life that Grit leads, especially when Dig is in Hong Kong, or Korea, or Delhi, or anywhere, except at home. You might see the resemblance between me and Kate.
Eating. Probably a bit more than Kate. This is actually becoming a bit of a problem because my once super slim Kate lookalike rear is now resembling a bag of boulders escaped from the Peak district. I blame Dig about this, definitely, because this is obviously comfort eating. I am eating because I am comfortable. With no-one else there I can do what I like, including eat Hobnobs in bed at 2am if I want.
Drinking. I'm sure Kate likes to get smashed on Bolly. I'm afraid I am developing a rather more serious habit. Olive oil. This all started because last Wednesday I felt the need to be a member of the upper classes and put out a bowl of superior olive oil tickled with a twist of fresh pepper and sprinkled with a dash of rock salt. One dips one's fresh, warm, crusted bread into this, obviously. Except that after a couple of days I ditched the bread and started scooping up the olive oil with the spoon that Shark says resembles a shovel. After a couple more days I'm slapping that bowl straight at my face, draining it dry and licking it clean. Give it a day longer and I shall dispense with the bowl altogether and go straight for the bottle.
Sleeping. This is disgusting and I don't think I should admit in a public forum that I actually sleep in old clothes, and deliberately at that, so that there is no night and no day there is only time. As you might imagine, Grit conjures up a lovely Kate lookalike image at 3am, dribbling, burping and farting thanks to the Hobnobs and olive oil, while dressed in her Waynetta slob track suit bottoms with an elasticated waist, topped with an old tee-shirt that she has worn continuously for nigh on six days.
Manicuring. Or failing to do that quite as correctly as Kate does. Or actually failing to do anything at all. Virtually all personal care ceases when Dig is not around. You know, ladies, those stray hairs that appear on the upper lip when we are not looking? And which Kate obviously carefully removes? Forget it. I now look like this.
If it could get any worse in the personal care and maintenance department, it does. It is as much as I can do to stay my hand reaching for the Tenna ladies in Tesco. If I slap one of these lovelies round my boulder-like arse I might avoid using the toilet altogether and on some days that would probably be the total expression of personal care that I might aspire to.
But do not think, dear reader, that this sinking down into a ditch is all caused simply because the husband Dig is not around, and that without his manly presence, his strong and guiding hand, I drift all forlorn and lost at sea. It is not. It is because in Dig's absence I can do what the hell I like.
Now he'll disappear to sleep and, because it's not worth coming out the time zone, he'll get up at 3am to stride about the office in his underwear, shouting at Calcutta because they expect him to transfer between hotels on a bus. In 48 hours he catches the next flight out to Delhi leaving us all to wonder who swept through the house crashing into the tea table, saying it's bedtime so be quiet.
Grit has a similar exotic travelling life, filled with glamour, as you can imagine. Me and Kate Moss, our lives are indistinguishable. I may even be mistaken for her, except I actually do the sordid bits of motherhood thing. Down the local field usually, with gritlets hanging off my body parts. Incidentally, I have begun to wonder if my limbs are detachable because Tiger has taken recently to hanging on my left arm like she knows it comes off, if she pulls hard enough. That would be great, having the gritlets run about the field with a leg or an arm apiece to wave about as weaponry. My torso could have a lie down and get some peace and quiet.
Well now I am thinking about the glamorous life that Grit leads, especially when Dig is in Hong Kong, or Korea, or Delhi, or anywhere, except at home. You might see the resemblance between me and Kate.
Eating. Probably a bit more than Kate. This is actually becoming a bit of a problem because my once super slim Kate lookalike rear is now resembling a bag of boulders escaped from the Peak district. I blame Dig about this, definitely, because this is obviously comfort eating. I am eating because I am comfortable. With no-one else there I can do what I like, including eat Hobnobs in bed at 2am if I want.
Drinking. I'm sure Kate likes to get smashed on Bolly. I'm afraid I am developing a rather more serious habit. Olive oil. This all started because last Wednesday I felt the need to be a member of the upper classes and put out a bowl of superior olive oil tickled with a twist of fresh pepper and sprinkled with a dash of rock salt. One dips one's fresh, warm, crusted bread into this, obviously. Except that after a couple of days I ditched the bread and started scooping up the olive oil with the spoon that Shark says resembles a shovel. After a couple more days I'm slapping that bowl straight at my face, draining it dry and licking it clean. Give it a day longer and I shall dispense with the bowl altogether and go straight for the bottle.
Sleeping. This is disgusting and I don't think I should admit in a public forum that I actually sleep in old clothes, and deliberately at that, so that there is no night and no day there is only time. As you might imagine, Grit conjures up a lovely Kate lookalike image at 3am, dribbling, burping and farting thanks to the Hobnobs and olive oil, while dressed in her Waynetta slob track suit bottoms with an elasticated waist, topped with an old tee-shirt that she has worn continuously for nigh on six days.
Manicuring. Or failing to do that quite as correctly as Kate does. Or actually failing to do anything at all. Virtually all personal care ceases when Dig is not around. You know, ladies, those stray hairs that appear on the upper lip when we are not looking? And which Kate obviously carefully removes? Forget it. I now look like this.
If it could get any worse in the personal care and maintenance department, it does. It is as much as I can do to stay my hand reaching for the Tenna ladies in Tesco. If I slap one of these lovelies round my boulder-like arse I might avoid using the toilet altogether and on some days that would probably be the total expression of personal care that I might aspire to.
But do not think, dear reader, that this sinking down into a ditch is all caused simply because the husband Dig is not around, and that without his manly presence, his strong and guiding hand, I drift all forlorn and lost at sea. It is not. It is because in Dig's absence I can do what the hell I like.
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