I’ve done a terrible thing

I’ve just collected the twins from their Duke of Edinburgh training, wearing embarrassing trousers.

(I should perhaps make it clear that they’re not training to become the Duke of Edinburgh – although I’m sure they’d make a fine job of it.)*

I stayed in the car. It could have been worse. I could have got out and walked up and down in my embarrassing trousers and actually spoken to people, if I’d felt like it. But it seems I’m still a terrible mother. They were kind enough to observe, however,  that if I like my embarrassing trousers, I’m perfectly entitled to wear them – but in my own time.

That seems fair, don’t you think?

* if being the Duke of Edinburgh consists – as it seems to me – of not carrying any money and saying things out loud that would have been far better kept inside your head.

 

Loves – Labour’s Lost

I know this is terribly old news now, but I only just thought it up.

I can’t quite believe I’m contemplating this …

Is this nuts? I’m faced with the possibility of having to buy a new car because my daughter has just graduated to playing a full-size cello, and it won’t fit into my tiny Peugeot.

Aaaaarrrrgggghhh! Anyone similarly challenged got any advice? It’s not one of the things they go into in any detail on Top Gear.

What a difference a day makes …

On Friday, at about 12.30, I parked my car on Riverside just along from the theatre and went to join about a dozen friends for lunch at The Vintner, in Sheep Street. We’ve all known each other since our kids were a primary school together, and we still meet regularly for one escapade or another. Anyway, this get together was to celebrate our last day of ‘freedom’ before the school holidays began. We were all settled in with a drink each and had just placed our orders (lamb kebab with couscous and tian of leeks, since you ask) when the mobiles started to ring.

First of all we were a bit blase. The river wasn’t especially high – the bridge was clear. They were probably over-reacting. Surely the buses would get though. The teachers probably just wanted to get home early. Gradually, it became clear that this wasn’t a false alarm. The rain was sheeting down outside and we started trying to make sensible plans. Drivers of 4x4s, normally teased unmercifully, were now the focus of attention. How many kids could they take? Which way would they go?

More calls. More news. The Birmingham Road had been closed. Ingon Lane was a torrent. It was nose to tail on the Alcester Road. We paid and left.

My car – very much NOT a 4×4 – was still fine, the river still within its banks so I set off on the 20 minute drive, going through Shottery to shave a little time off the journey. An hour and a half later, I was nervously inching through a stream of water, trying to stay near the middle of the road where, to judge from the car in front, it was still shallow enough to negociate. Ten minutes later, I arrived at the school.

The head had everyone together in the hall. I picked up my two and another boy who was going the same way and we set off again. The water was certainly deeper now, but the traffic was lighter. Most people had heeded the warnings and got themselves home. We were back by 5.00pm.

A couple of hours later, the only way to have reached the school would have been by boat. Have a look.  Images 1, 2 and 9 are of the road to my kids’ school. Images 3 and 4 are a stone’s throw from where I parked before lunch. Image 5 was taken in the village where we were supposed to be at a party last night. Image 7 is where my husband was going for a meeting. Image 8 is the village where our friends, Chris and Jo, have been flooded out of their house for the second time in 10 years.

Spare a thought.

Cereal monogamy

By nature, I’m a fairly faithful kinda gal. I’ve devoted myself wholly to one breakfast companion at a time before moving on. And here, in a cardboard box and with added niacin, is the story of my life so far.

So first it was Ricicles, but that’s only really because I had a huge crush on Noddy, their front man at the time.

And, honestly, can you blame me? You can keep David Tenant and his tardis. Give me Noddy and his little yellow car anytime.

Then I think is was Frosties. Because, obviously, they’re greeeeeeat!

Was his nose always blue? I never noticed that before.

Then we probably had the masochistic Special K years – too dull to illustrate but it’s still going strong. Next, I went all whole food and organic.

I even used to make my own – using a recipe from The Enchanted Broccoli Forest and ingredients from Neal’s Yard, carefully lugged home on the 137 from Oxford Circus. Ah me! Hippy days. That lasted quite a while. In fact, probably until I had my first tooth crowned.

When the twins were smaller, I mostly finished up fag ends of slightly stale and bizarrely named chocolately cereals bought purely because of the free gifts.

But now that they’re older, and eat more or less the same stuff as humans, I can please myself again. And the market has moved on to accomodate people like me, who like to pretend they’re being health-conscious while indulging themselves hugely at the same time. So now it’s …

… not just cereal, it’s M&S Triple Chocolate Crunch with wholegrain crunchy clusters and curls of plain, milk and white chocolate.

Yum!

Glove box gourmet

As you screech from school pick-up to intermediate capoeira, drop one child at water polo and the other at pottery, then swing back again to pick both of them up in time for young masters’ chess, you’ll want to be keeping up your children’s flagging energy levels.

This is why air-conditioned glove boxes now come as standard, and can be the only possible excuse for the development of cheese string. It may also help to explain the increase in 4×4 ownership – basically these cars have become mobile homes, so they have to be enormous.

Anyway, whatever the reason, feeding your kids in the car has now become as much a tradtion as the Sunday roast, but it does present its own challenges.
Creating a balanced, nutritionally sound menu is vitally important, so here are a few pointers to help you provide meals where each and every food group is represented (and can be sucked up with a Dustbuster).

Fruit: Sunmaid sultanas, Fruit Winders, Jaffa cakes
Dairy: Frubes, Cheese Strings, Cheddars, Creme eggs
Carbohydrates: Pringles
Protein: Pepperami, Dairylea Lunchables, Cashew nuts
Fibre: The cardboard it all came in

Serve in a traffic jam, with a warm Fruit Shoot, wet wipes and French verbs.

Absurd, isn’t it? But actually, it’s quite hard not to get sucked into the whole after-school activity vortex. There’s always that fear that someone, somewhere will have found the very class that your precious would have absolutely aced – the skill that would, eventually, have added the crucial extra lustre to their CV, and landed them a job in the City. And in primary school when they have next to no homework anyway, doing a few classes seems a far more constructive use of time than watching endless re-runs of Tracy Beaker – especially when you daren’t let your children play out anymore. Yep, we’ve all been there. I think my darkest hour was the term when my kids did cross-country on Tuesday after school, followed by their swimming lessons, then on to the athletics club we’d waited eight months to join.

We didn’t last long. As the weeks wore on, my feverish scrawl on the family calendar on the kitchen wall thinned out, until we were left with blissful blank space. And time to just be.

Phew! I feel better for having shared that, and I’m slightly consoled in all this by this fantastic post by 8-Centimetres Deluded

That’s way madder than me … isn’t it?