Terms of Endurement

The calm before the Storm

So you've braved the battle zone of Clarke's and dented your credit card for a spanking new uniform (what do you mean polo shirt collars aren't meant to curl up like stale dirt sandwiches?).

You rugby tackled a granny to bag that last Moshi Monsters lunchbox and labelled everything in sight with permanent marker, including your husband's suits.

The alarm's set for stupid o clock and the kids' bedtime has moved forward from the end of Love your Garden (if only it would love me back, the heartless cad) to the start of Corrie.

This can mean only thing. Welcome to the start of term, kids!

Our first day in Reception

New Beginnings

The school year starts positively, with the fresh promise of making friends, learning new skills and being part of a friendly community.

Everything's shiny and new, like the overpriced school shoes, and the sun's come out just after the summer holidays. It's just one big love fest. BFF.

By the end of the year you're hiding from the playground Mafia, avoiding the PTA and, like the tape holding together the kids' scuffed shoes, you're clinging on for dear life.

The Moshi lunchbox stinks of curdled Frubes. Even the monsoon that's arrived just in time for your Cornish holiday is preferable to another school run. It's just one big stress. BFFF (Best Friends for a Fortnight).

Duck and Roll

Here's a week by week guide to that first term.

Week 1: Shiny, Happy People

Pristine uniform; early starts; conversations; Dallas style family breakfasts (Jugs of  freshly squeezed OJ, Triangular toast in a chrome rack, boiled eggs with Horse Guard cosies. Granola.

Ok, maybe that's a slight exaggeration. Duh! Everybody knows rectangular toast is better.

Plenty of time to relax, enjoy the journey and arrive at the school gates. Polite chat.

You make a concerted effort to befriend the quiet lady with perspiration issues and teenage Chav Mom, as she talks you through her Asbo. 

Strolling home; a game of tig, savouring the 'Season of mist and mellow fruitfulness'. Uniform hung up immediately and into PJs. Early bedtimes. "Goodnight, John Boy."

The boys' first day of Year 1

Week 2: Organised (no) Chaos (yet)

The new routine is working well. Loveliness transcends across the house. Ironing done, creases pressed in trousers.

Lunch boxes lovingly prepared with fresh and healthy snacks that tick all food groups.

A new friend is invited over for tea and a weekend visit to a stately home to help with the class project on the Edwardians.

Their paintings are pinned up with pride and we listen furtively to talk of  teachers and times tables.

A visit to a National Trust property

Week 3: Half full

The mid-term point. No time to feel bored. Ha! it's flying by. Fleeting thoughts of half term and Halloween.

The calendar is filling. Gentle requests from school for tins of corned beef for the Harvest Festival; donations for the Bring and Buy; invitations to that first party and the PTA's AGM.

You circle the date. This year will be the one you give something back.

You're mid smear test when the call comes. You gotta take it because it's school. Little Timmy has been bitten by the class thug, Damian, who was replicating the Philippine Cobra from Deadly 60.

You rush to pick him up. He's sporting the dreaded 'Oops I bumped my head' sticker. It's not a good day for Little Timmy.

Meanwhile, your other child comes home with his PE kit for washing. Trouble is, it contains a pair of Hello Kitty knickers and a bright pink vest. Plus he's wearing different sized shoes....

Week 4: Contagion

Along with week 5, this is the hardest. Sent to test every core of your fibre. Have you got true grit? No, but I've got something that rhymes with it....

The teachers are frantically wet wiping vomit off the Church pews. Clearly the Norro outbreak does not hold the Harvest Festival sacred. "We plough the fields and splatter...."

Old Mrs Brady is just praying that her allocated tin of corned beef has been spared. She doesn't realise the key is missing because the kids wanted to replicate 'Biff and Kipper Unlock Dad's Shed'.

A head lice infestation and the Pox linger around Nursery and Reception. It's a plague out there, as kids wearing balaclavas and character masks  (have they Even heard of Ronald Regan?) loiter outside as their parents collect siblings. A big X on the gate should do it.

Meanwhile, you're doing the one child well, one child poorly dance before the sickness and diarrhoea spreads to another family member. You. But you gotta make that school run (or should I say school runs?) leakage or no leakage. Thank God for Tena Lady.

Week 5: Endurance

It's midnight and you suddenly remember you need a costume for tomorrow. But where are you going to get a maroon medieval butler's outfit with pink piping at such short notice?

By now your calendar has moved from a few casual appointments with question marks to a regimented schedule of events, in bold and underlined.

Red letter days from school as book bags burst open with final demands for lunchtime clubs, party RSVPs, the sponsored arithmetic-on in aid of new whiteboards, plants, saving the clock tower (sorry, getting mixed up with Back to the Future).

The days are dragging. Everybody moves in slow motion.....Except for you, running around like a blue arsed fly.

Silences and yawns replace conversation as your children nod off into their bowl of Choc Slops.

Cobbling together a packed lunch. You manage to find a Banana Yazoo (fruit and dairy, double check) Beef Monster Munch (protein and veg, double check) and a Dairylea Dunker (fat, cereal and dairy, triple check).

Too bad you accidentally packed a Peanut Butter wrap, which results in a mass evacuation of the dining hall, and a sandwich quarantine, while an allergy risk assessment is carried out.

The school run is timed to perfection as the bell rings, thus avoiding having to make eye contact with anybody.

When your little angels recount their day, your default reply is: "Really?" as you contemplate dinner.

The artwork is growing daily and creations go straight into the recycling. More on this in my previous blog:  http://thenews-on.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/slam-dunk-da-junk.html

To top it all, you've sent a child in as Carson the Butler on the wrong day.

Oh well it's one day less uniform to sort out.

Week 6: The End is Nigh

The home stretch. Ticking off the days. Bring it on. I can take what you've got.

New age Mom, come and talk to me about your mental health issues.
A magenta unitard and lumberjack outfit for World Profession Day? No sweat.
One hundred cup cakes each depicting a year from the 1800s? Easy!
Of course I can recreate Sydney Opera House using tubes from Thirsty Pockets and old Cheerigo boxes.

You cannot break me.

Rummaging around in the laundry basket for a pair of matching socks and picking the crusts off sweatshirts to wear again (reduce, reuse, recycle).

Dragging the kids out of bed and munching a Pop Tart in the car.

A detour to school to avoid your overly tactile stalker with the eight Midwich Cuckoos children http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Midwich_Cuckoos who insists on telling you her life story. Embellished a little each time.

The Finish Line

Saved by the bell. You've made it. Half term has arrived. Lie-ins and snuggles. Family day trips to museums and galleries. Or back to back Power Rangers and Mario Party 1000. "Can you move out the way, Mommy?"

A chance to prepare for the next term and all it may bring.

With its cheeky flu bugs, dark mornings, icy pavements ( = broken limbs), getting stranded in the snow, scraping windscreens and dressing for a fortnight in St. Moritz.

Plus, there's the added threat of having to portray an elf for the Christmas fair. Because you volunteered to give something back (and we're not talking about Hamlet, the class hamster, RIP).

Baby, it's cold outside

Such delights.

Only another 29 terms until senior school.

The Versatile Blogger Award

The Versatile Blogger Award. Image courtesy of Rin

Ahem... Oscars style acceptance speech at the ready...

I would like to send a big thank-you to the wonderful Rin  http://rinwriting.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/the-versatile-blogger-award.html   for awarding me the   Versatile Blogger Award this week.

I'm flattered to receive such an award as the blog has only been going for a couple of months and Iwasn't even sure anybody was reading - let alone rating - the blogs so thanks Rin; I am humbled by your kind words, and the award.

Please do visit Rin's fantastic site and find out more about her life with Little Man living literally on the edge of a cliff! (Notes from the Cliff Edge).

Recipients of the Versatile Blogger Award are charged with a number of responsibilities:

Here are the rules for the Versatile Blogger Award:

1. Add the award to your blog. 2. Thank the person who presented it to you. 3. List seven random facts about yourself. 4. List the rules. 5. Pass the award onto seven other bloggers. 6. Inform each blogger they have won by posting a comment on their blog.

So here are 7 factoids about little old moi...

1. I won my 'dream' wedding in a newspaper competition (that's a whole other blog)

2. When I was a teenager I turned down a place at the National Youth Theatre because I couldn't bear to spend the summer in London away from friends. Stupid move!

3. I once chatted to the legendary steeplejack, Fred Dibnah, at the top of a large clock tower

4. I am the 5th person in recent generations of my family to have conceivd twins naturally. Yet when I was pregnant, and before I found out I was expecting twins, I had no idea of this family fact!

5. I am a record breaker. In the 80s I tap danced with the late Roy Castle outside BBC Pebble Mill as part of the largest group of tap dancers ever!

6. I have a 'lazy' eye and pigeon toes. As such, I can turn my feet completely facing each other, inwards.Without any pain.

7. My favourite place in the world is Cornwall.

The Magnificent Seven
 

Now, here are my seven wonders of the blogging world. Seven blogs which deserve the Versatile Blogger Award. Bloggers, I pass the mantle on to you.

http://101stupidthings.blogspot.co.uk

http://www.sonnyandluca.co.uk

http://thereisnomoney.blogspot.co.uk

http://improvehowyouworkfromhome.com

http://www.Lili-hearts.blogspot.com

http://www.superlucky.co.uk

http://www.pret-a-mummy.com

 

Camping it Down

Bringing a touch of Leopard to camping

An uncomfortable, sleepless night, trapped in hostile terrain.

There’s screams in the dark and I’m immersed in fluid, praying for my life.

This can only mean one thing….

Nah, not a stint on the maternity ward but a ‘fun’ night under canvas.

“Hi de hi campers!”

“Low de low….”

Incase you’re wondering, my camping trip is right down there with a trip to the dentist or an NCT coffee morning.

Put up and Shut up

The expedition began well. We found a small (BASIC) scenic (BASIC) remote (BASIC) campsite in the rural Devonshire countryside.

It was a sweltering day and the chance of precipitation (just say "rain" ffs) was 0 %.

We joined our two small pop up tents to make an uber construction.

It was dwarfed by the seasoned campers’ giant erections (couldn‘t resist).

Tents the size of marquees, big tops and the 'Millennium Dome', sorry, 'O2'.
With their compartments, pods, separate drawing rooms, studies and utility areas.

We thought we were prepared. Foldaway table, chairs and emergency rations of pickled onion 'Monster Munch', Wagon Wheels and 'Capri Suns'.

Until we spied the neighbours’ fire pits, floodlights, three piece suites, 'Smeg' fridge freezers and Agas, serving up a la carte banquets.

Our neighbours were a friendly, elderly couple. Their enormous dogs had a penchant for humping boys‘ legs.

“They just love small children. Don’t be alarmed if they come bounding up to the tent,” they laughed, adjusting the beasts’ muzzles.

To the right were two families with an assortment of infants in nappies, crawling across the field in excitement - I mean excrement - as they savoured the flavours of fresh cow pats.

We just needed a toothless hick playing the banjo.

Mr N isn’t musical, but he does play a mean game of frisbee.

Sure plays a mean Frisbee

Nuts in August

(Referencing Mike Leigh‘s superb: ‘Nuts in May’ where a group of Midlanders wreak chaos on a peaceful campsite.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCzKOYUvD3E&feature=relmfu

We idled away the hours playing games in the sun and exploring the picturesque lakes. Swallows and Amazons. In contrast to Birmingham’s Magpies and puddles.

“Look, a chicken,” the boys cried as the fowl creature, sorry, egg laying stock, see: http://thenews-on.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/confessions-of-voucher-holic.html pecked my travel hair straighteners and I fled, screaming.

We ventured to the only pub in the village and returned at dusk to the flickering embers of fires and the scent of the forest.

The boys cosied up on their side of the tent, making shadow puppets.

It was idlyc.

We sat with plastic cups of wine, listening to the sounds of crickets and the distant hum of traffic.

Closer hum….

Smokey the Bandit and his family screeched onto the site. He put up the tent by the light of Lambert & Scutler, before switching on the full beam of his GTI and pumping out Taio Cruiz.

Should I gently remind him of campsite rule # 10: ‘No noise after 9pm (10pm of a weekend‘)?

Ground Down

Mr N told me he could sleep anywhere, yet insisted on sharing MY 50 cm wide old cot bed mattress, thus stapling me up against the sides of the tent.

I took some comfort in knowing he was on the nose bleed stained half.

At home we have a Superking bed with a pillow in the centre, which acts as a buffer from morning breath and unscheduled advances.

This sleeping arrangement forced us to sidle up together. My husband passed out immediately. My body was contorted, but not in a good way, and the only thing I snogged was canvas.

Still, I had my Mummy style sleeping bag. But “Who would want to sleep in a bag?” to quote 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days'.

As daylight faded my fears began to manifest as my imagination worked overtime.

Fright Night
Eerily silent, you could hear a pin drop. Or a carving knife….

Then noise.

Piercing infant screams, squawking birds of prey, the call of cows - or zombies from 'The Walking Dead?'

It didn’t help that my digital radio - pre set to 'Absolute 80s' - was playing 'Thriller'. Quietly.

Blair Pitch Project
We were pitched by a BBQ clearing in the woods.

A rustle and steps….was it a savage rat or rabid fox scavenging for scraps of charred 'Quorn' burgers?

I gripped the torch, but the shadows of the trees above resembled giants with demi waves. Their falling blossom sounded like small rodents or tarantulas scurrying over my head.

Smokey entertained us all night with his rasping cough, until his phlegm lined splutters formed a hypnotic rhythm.

Survival of the Wettest
   As I began to drift off, the final camping cliché. Rain.How could this be with odds of 0%?

My face was forcibly stuck against dripping canvas and my sleeping bag soaked up the wet.

Like the 1980s advert where a scientist shows how absorbent sanitary towels are by pouring blue water onto them. Clearly Smurfette’s on the blob again. I’ll stick with her cousin, Lilet.

　
Delirious, I woke my husband to inform him that my waters had broken.

I contemplated moving to the car, but it was jammed with holiday essentials like fishing nets and surf boards.

I lay there like James Caan in 'Misery'. Come on, show some decorum and resolve. I resolve to ‘Like’ Hilton Hotels on Facebook.

Eventually tiredness consumed me and I fell asleep for five minutes. Before the hen, babies and couples bickering at full volume over whose turn it was to empty the slop bucket, woke me.

The chirpy crickets just left me itching.

Here chick, chick

I Love the Smell of Stale Arm in the Morning

In the harsh light of day the romance eroded, like the lining of Mr N’s 1990s swimming trunks.

The grass was no longer dewy, it was boggy.

Bleary eyed, with the imprint of a guy rope on my face and Robert Smith hair, I emerged from my tent with my husband - Robinson Crusoe - to behold the frights.

Mother nature is unkind.

Pale campers letting it all hang out in Khaki shorts and vest tops. In the wilderness there is no need for bras, under arm shaving or Frizz Ease. Clearly making aromatic and audible bodily noises is also de rigueur.

Wearing my satin nightdress seemed futile in such circles.

At least they had coffee, albeit in tin cups, whereas I had a flat can of 'Sprite'.

The boys were ecstatic. Refreshed and lively. Unaware of the stormy night.



Coming back stronger than a powered up Pacman

Life's a Pitch

Trepidation at what mysteries the lavatories would reveal. Wearing waterproof shoes and clutching an quilted toilet roll, I went on a reconnaissance mission.

I thought of Vincent Price in 'Thriller' : “The foulest stench is in the air, the funk of 40 thousand years...” and went in.

Relief - in both senses of the word. The toilets were surprisingly clean and former patrons had even left a bottle of  'Jasmine Radox' and a packet of 'Mint Imperials'.

On return I walked past the much maligned caravans. Envious of their electricity, running water and access to the Saturday morning 'Emmerdale' omnibus, even if it was the signed version.

Time to pop away the tents (like wrestling a giant slinky) and return to civilisation.

Glumping
My suspicions were confirmed. I’m not really one for nature and I don’t really understand camping.

Even with a Wigwam, divan, combi boiler and full access to a 'Scutlins' holiday park - with optional upgrades to breeze block - I’m not sure I’ll Girl Guide it again.

I’ll continue my Mother’s sterling work and book into a B&B while all the boys rough it.

I’m less Kum ba yah and more Go by car. Now!

A parting gift, bird crap on the driver‘s door. Presumably the chicken, or the Pterodactyl.

Insane in the tent membrane: Camping's gone to Mr N's head

Who do you think you are? Some kind of superstar?

As the new series of 'Who do you think you are?'  begins, I must 'fess up to having spent much of last year being an armchair genealogist.

Inspired by the programme, I was fascinated to learn more about my family's past and how it has shaped me.

Just like regression, when everybody’s Nelson or Elizabeth I, we like to assume we hail from 'good stock' with a few juicy and heroic tales in the mix.

Would, as Brooke Shields discovered, my heritage be soaked in blue blood and lead to the Royal Court?

Perhaps there would be epic battles, the crossing of great plains and monumental decision making, as celebrities like Jason Donovan and Ashley Judd found.

Out of my Tree

So I surrendered my bank details to some dedicated sites and took a journey into the past.

Soon my trees grew and I gained new friends and distant relatives from all over the world.

Over familiar strangers who were suddenly calling me “cousin” and threatening to visit.

Tenuous links were forged with pensioners, as we travelled on ancestry forums back to the 1400s.

A barrage of daily email updates involving dozens of random individuals and marked as 'urgent': 

"Anna, we have discovered that Gt (x7) Aunt Flo married in 1822, not 1823!'

In an attempt to chronicle my findings I interrogated family members and raided their precious photo albums.




My Nan, Lydia Dora May Houghton. 98 soon!

Then I forced them to endure the DVD screening, followed by a Q&A. Only those aged 90 plus were permitted a toilet break.

Stop making Census

My obsession with the dead was beginning to disturb my living husband.

He would return from work to find the lounge decorated in certificates, photographs and a mountain of paperwork.

His dinner was often in the cat.

Then I would nullify him with longwinded accounts of how I had found a 9th cousin 4 times removed.

Once he found me skulking around the cemetery like a modern day Magwitch, taking snaps of headstones and tracking down ancestors.

The final straw came when he was woken as I tried to tap the keyboard silently under the duvet, desperate to access a parish record from the 1600s. It was 3am.

　
Middle Earth

So who were my ancestors?

Aristocratic dandies flouncing around ‘Downton’ like Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen?

Most of my relatives wore flat caps (even the women) and resided in back to back squalor in my home city, Birmingham.

A family wedding from 1917

Factory Records

The furthest they migrated was to the factory at the bottom of the street.

One did profess to inventing the Bachelor Button, although I still have no idea what this is.

Honest grafters. Salt of the earth. More cannon fodder than cowardly general.

Well maybe a deep, dark, sordid secret would be unearthed...After all Bruce Forsyth discovered that his great-grandfather was a rogue who’d abandoned two families.

A rumour about the illegitimate son of a Lord surfaced. The evidence is sketchy.

Other than that, the most excitement was a day trip to Weston-Super-Mare in a charabanc.

More folk in Norfolk

This lack of drama is best summed up in Alan Partridge’s ‘Who does Alan think he is?’

“My distant relative was involved in perhaps one of the most important pieces of town planning that Norwich has ever seen,” the DJ gushes.

He adds:“Changing what was Dearing Square into what is now Dearing Lane…The number of times I’ve parked on that road and never knew…it sends a shiver down my spine.”

In search of a life less ordinary, I moved on to Mr N's history.

A family of ferry boat pilots from Felixstowe Ferry, who form many a chapter in a book (which we now own) about the tiny hamlet. My in-laws even made a pilgrimage there.

I wondered if his sea legs would surface on aboat trip. No, he had a dickie tummy and borrowed the children's waterproof poncho. Plus, he can barely navigate the car to the shops without getting lost.

Laying some Ghosts to Rest

But there were exceptions. Some very real and heartfelt tales that every family, hostage to circumstance and hard times encountered.

Stories of ordinary people surviving in extraordinary times.

The Great Aunt killed in the Blitz, the Prisoner of War who died just days before the end of WW1.

POW William George Scott (My Great, Great Uncle) 

The identity of my Nan's birth mother. A young widow who was forced to give her child up for adoption. Information Nan was unable to access in her lifetime.

The most remarkable find - locating the final resting place of my brother, Christopher, who passed away in hospital at just one day old.

My parents spent more than 40 years not knowing where the local authority had buried him.

Finally, they have some closure and our family has a dedicated place to visit.

Technology makes it easy to trace our lineage, but often, some things are best left in the past.

Although I dip my toe in the family gene pool now and then, I’m happy to take a step back and concentrate on the living.

Camping it up

The last time I slept under canvas was 20 years ago this month.

It was the 'Reading Festival' 1992 and Kurt Cobain had just played his last UK gig.

In true festival style, it rained and the wind puffed, but I didn't care. I was a teenager in love. And I liked cheap cider.

When we returned to the tent - which my Mother had purchased from the 'Bargain Pages' for the price of a multi pack of 'Dr Pepper' - it had blown away.

Or been stolen by thieving crusties. 

As we boarded the festival coach of grime back home, we wondered if we should have hammered down those million guy ropes and pegs (or whatever those thingymajigs are called).

Stay Indoors

So it is with some trepidation that I will camp this weekend, en route to Cornwall, because my kids want me to.

"I can do this," I thought as my friend Lisa introduced me to 'Go Outdoors'. The new Milletts. I can do glamping. Now where are the diamantes and ice buckets?

We found a Zebra print tent. It was ideal. I was ready to camp there and then. In the comfort of a centrally heated store.

"Does it come in Leopard?"

But I had already bought a couple of pop up tents so that the boys could spend the first week of the school holidays camping in the garden, alongside Daddy.

I must now spend one night in the no frills tent with a 6-year-old boy. On a basic farm site, where they may be smells and animals.

I know what you're thinking, I'm a mother of two boys, I should be used to such primitive living.

I'm not blonde and I look terrible in utility wear, but I feel like Goldie Hawn in: 'Private Benjamin', when she first embarks on military training. Totally ill prepared and spoilt.

My phobia of camping began when I was a child. My father and brother would go Youth Hostelling while my Mother and I would five star it up in the neighbouring spa resort.

Camps or lady cramps? ( I'll take the latter please)
But in a house full of boys, it was a given that somebody would choose to camp sooner or later.

So I have agreed to go. Reluctantly.

"Will there be wolves, Mommy?" One boy asked innocently.

As I assured him there were no wolves (Although a midnight call from 'Twilight's' Jacob would be welcomed) I thought about my own irrational fears:

1) The dark - The crack of a twig. The silhouette of a lunatic. A hairy hand unzipping the door. Until I realise Mr N has got the wrong tent. 

Besides, we now have glow sticks. Just incase there is a late night rave emergency.

2) Insects - I have a Princess and the Pea style mattress topper and a mummified sleeping bag cocoon. I just need a gas mask to stop a spider laying eggs in my mouth.

3) The cold - Fortunately we're going to have a heatwave. But even so, I've had to get (and I really can't spit out the words) a fleece. And it's purple..

4) Snoring. The adults don't do it. But both boys breathe like Darth Vader. I've got some furry pink ear muffs from 'Claire's Accessories'.

To combat all of the above, I have a secret weapon. Wine.

5) Electricity. With no electrical hook up, how will I cope without my morning espresso? curling tongs, electric blanket or Remington Lady Shave? 

6) How will I overcome the communal facilities of the toilets and shower block? I've seen 'Bad Girls'.

To combat the last point, I will bring my own soap. I will also be scanning the site to see who has got coarse, curly black hair...

I'll update you on how it all goes. I know you'll be desperate to find out x

In with the Flynns? Out with the Bins!

Auntie's Gussets

The new series of 'In with the Flynns' starts Friday.

The Beeb expects me to find this programme hilarious, because I am a middle aged mother of two who is indeed in on Friday night.

But I refuse to conform.The day I give in and watch is the day you catch me wearing a beige fleece on the school run or buying: 'It's only Turds', the Best of Boyzone.

It 'aint happening. Capiche, Auntie?

Shit Coms

For those of you who are not familiar with the set up, it's a tried and tested formula - a sit com about a modern family, with amusing consequences.

Targeted at the family audience, and holding the coveted Friday night prime time ratings slot, it's light entertainment, with good clean fun.
The premise - a bungling and inept Dad, the smug Mother who holds it all together ,and a few clever kids in the mix - proves for a raucous half hour.

Presumably, we can all recognise this slice of 'crazy' family life.

A Comedy of Errors

For years the BBC have been pedalling this type of 'comedy' on a Friday night.

There are the popular stalwarts: 'My Family', 'Outunumbered,' 'Life of Riley'.

And the also rans: 'All About Me' (Jasper Carrott's politically correct disaster), 'Blessed', (Ben Elton's failed attempt) and Nicholas Lyndhurst's 'After You've Gone'.

Shite Entertainment

Maybe it's just me, but I don't find any of them funny.

I often cringe at these mediocre offerings, which make enforced staying in at weekends even more depressing (check out my blog post: 'Not Going Out').

Am I supposed to guffaw because Dad has just stepped on a banana skin and his clever kids (who are all marvellous actors) have just saved the day?

I don't care if Robert (G.B.H) Lindsay is at the helm. Bring back 'Citizen Smith'.

Rhea Life

Even before I fitted into the mid life mould, I didn't find this type of comedy amusing.

As a child/teenager I wasn't amused by 'Bread' '2.4 Children' or 'Butterflies' (Nick Lyndhurst again. Although he is redeemed by Rodney Trotter). 

Did I just dislike comedies about families? No, I liked 'Roseanne'  'Married with Children' and 'Diff'rent Strokes'. But they were all imports.

So maybe it was just the BBC 'Airfix' ones.

The Younger Ones

Will my kids find the likes of 'Life of Riley' amusing?

Or, mirroring my own childhood, will they prefer subversive British comedies such as 'The Young Ones' and 'Blackadder'? Ben, you are forgiven.

I still enjoy comedies about family dynamics. Like the relationship between 'Ab Fab's' Edina and Saffy. Or 'The League of Gentlemen's' Tubbs, Edward and David. But mainly because they are funny, dark and dysfunctional.

In this house we do not like middle of the road comedies....

Slam Dunk (Da Junk)

Sometimes I fantasise.

Sadly, not about Christian Bale, Christian Grey or Christian Louboutin.

About hiring a skip and loading it all with all the tat and random items we’ve acquired.

My house is over-run with junk.

Clash of the items

Lurking in every room, in bright boxes, which do not complement my colour scheme.

An assortment of plastic toys, paper planes, models, drawings
and puzzles.

Several versions of the same item. Do we really need three sets of crazy golf?

Cupboards spring loaded with precariously balanced objects.

I feel like the heroes in Star Wars when the garbage compactor closes in.

I’ve often dreamt of being trapped with Han Solo and Luke Skywalker (not Chewie, but then again, I‘m not fussy). But I don’t fancy being buried in rubbish.

Eat yourself whole
I don’t know why we‘re engulfed. I’m always offloading my stuff and recycling those works of art as soon as the boys’ backs are turned.

I retain the sentimental items, but the scribblings of dinosaurs shooting each other go in the blue paper box.

Until the kids discover them hiding under the squashed Choco Moons packets.

“Whoops! Daddy must have accidentally knocked them in.”
They’re far too trusting.

I don’t know how this started. How it builds, like a cartoon junk ball, gathering momentum and more bits of crap with each rotation.

It creeps up. A few odd plastic bricks and wooden shapes from those primitive Playskool days. You can’t quite recall which toy they belonged to, with but you keep them just incase.

Before long you acquire box after box of bits.

One lone box has invaded my piano space. It starts with one...

Especially around the danger zones of Christmas and birthdays. Or the end of term, when they emerge from class, laden with folders, paintings and toilet roll innards. Like a walking fire hazard.

The battle of woman vs. junk spills out to the garage. It’s less of an Aladdin’s Cave. More like Steptoe’s Yard.

　
Attempts to offload
I’ve been caught in the act. Having successfully palmed off our tat at the charity shop, the kids have picked up the rejects on a return visit.

“Mommy, they have the McDonald’s Tom and Jerry chopsticks too!”
What a co-incidence.

Or:

“Mommy, the boy who owned this book has the same name as me!”
Bless ‘em.

At the school fete we were forced to buy our junk back - and more. A game of dominoes with three missing, an incomplete jigsaw and a Buckaroo that fails to buck.

I’ve offloaded some on grandparents too. I didn’t even give them chance to object. Just thrust the plastic box at them and avoided the look of defeatism in their eyes.

I’ve accepted that Lego is just an extension of our family. I may have inadvertently vacuumed up the odd bit. Nothing pivotal. A workman’s cap or Harry Potter’s hair.

I need a vac the size of Nu Nu from Teletubbies. I could suck up the whole of Lego City and reclaim my spare room.

As a girl, I would read Twinkle (yup, that’s right) magazine. Nurse Nancy and her grandad ran a toy hospital where injured toys would convalesce.

Can’t I just send Big Ted to rehab for a while and blame it on his addiction to all those tea parties? Or Daniella, the sugar loving Daschund, with her eroded septum? Damn those Haribos.

Just one corner of the infamous Lego Room!

　
　
Clear off
I would love to just clear it all. Minimalist.

The Pez heads, the used glow sticks and the unwieldy Transformers toys.

We’re more maximist. Maximist Grime…

Refuse to go
I need to be ruthless. The devil on my shoulder goads me:

“Go on, Anna. Do it. I dare you to bin the remote control car with its absent battery cover or The Stig bubble bath bottle”
While the angel - who kept all the baby toys and clothes - gently reminds me to add it to our collection in the loft. “Just for now.”

I bet that’s what Miss Havisham said when she refused to give up the gown.

The road to recovery
I’m going to follow the boys’ eco warrior mantra:

Reduce: Stop buying. Ban birthdays, or put the present straight in the bin to save time later. Relatives, cash will suffice.

Reuse: Well, the painted pebble paperweight is a great tool for deterring Magpies

Recycle: Donate to charity shops, loved ones or the household recycling centre. AKA the tip.

　
Stig of the Dump

Where do I begin? My hit list would be:

Random toys from party bags (medals, slinkies and rubbers)
Drawings, clay models which look like turds, or anything made from egg boxes
Blunt pencil crayons and felt tips sans their lids
Plastic containers and storage units, originally bought to house all of the above. (These are now technically clutter and need a sub-category of their own).




Can you tell what it is yet?

I’m weak. I need by husband on the job. Or Kim and Aggie. I really don’t want the bloke from Obsessive Compulsive Hoarders.

How therapeutic it would be to start from scratch, with a few wooden toys and a hoop and stick. Simple and creative play with some quality, traditional toys.

Next door does have a skip at the moment…..

I wonder if the boys would notice The Stig’s leg popping out the top?