The Bush Babies

Tales from the bathtub..

2012-02-09T11:46:00.000Z

I have my best conversations with the kids when they are in the bath.

I used to dread bath time (like most mothers across the land) as it can be stressful, noisy and bring out the worst in all children at the end of a long day. But now that they are a bit older I actually really enjoy it (in the main) as once the business of washing is out of the way, it's a good time to have a proper chat with them about the day.

Example, last night's conversation with the younger two. I was telling them about my birthday (today) and that I'm going to be forty one (gulp) and how when Mini is forty one I will be seventy six (bigger gulp). How when she is forty one she will be bathing her own children to which her eyes nearly popped out of her head and her little nose wrinkled in horror. And I told them how they'd probably both be married to nice men to which the youngest turned to me, looked me in the eye and very firmly said..

"NO Mama.. I'm not marrying a man, I'M marrying a lady"..

Mini and I chuckled to ourselves and I quickly had to think of an appropriate response to this which won't later be held against me..

Then later in the bath with Senior who is nearly eight and won't let me wash her anymore so I just sit on the loo (lid down) and chat to her while she washes her bits and bobs. And in that totally non sequitur way in which children speak, after a long conversation about the boy that she has kissed in her class which is a secret and I'm not allowed to tell anyone (whoops) she suddenly said..

"Mummy, it's amazing how Father Christmas knew EXACTLY what I wanted for Christmas last year.. he actually READ my list and knew that I wanted a horn for my scooter and some new slippers. HOW does he know this?"..

To which my heart gave a little leap with joy that she does, aged nearly eight, still believe.

It's moments like these that are the reason I started writing this blog, so that I could write them down and remember them for ever.

Memories are made of this..

2012-02-05T18:21:00.000Z

What was your best childhood holiday?

Do you have a particular memory of a time and a place that, when you think back to it, fills you with warmth and nostalgia?

Mine is camping with my Dad, Stepmother and brother in a windswept field on the top of a cliff in Pembrokeshire, sleeping in a tent pitched next to our parent's caravan. I still remember the ancient face of Edwin, the Welsh farmer who owned the site. I still remember the smell of the lavatory block where we used to trudge in the evening clutching a slightly damp towel, an equally damp loo-roll and our toothbrushes. I remember fishing for mackerel from slippery, oily fishing boats racing along the coastline spraying us with the salty sea. I remember walking the coastal paths for hours with our dog Sophie. I even remember driving there on the motorway in our Passat with the caravan weaving dangerously behind us, playing a game where you had to spot all the new registration number plates that had just come out - we always went around the beginning of August when the new registrations launched. (They don't do that any more do they?).

These are my happiest memories of childhood holidays. Nothing flash - on the contrary they were the simplest of pleasures, sleeping under canvas with my brother beside me.

So, I asked the girls yesterday what had been their best holiday. Unequivocably the answer came back as 'Somerset', where we went last Easter with nine other families and stayed in a rented stately home. Senior still dreams about it and can't wait to go back in a couple of months for our next Easter visit. They then said 'Cumbria' where we recently went for New Year. I have to agree with this choice - it was fab. (Less in agreement on Somerset which has to be endured rather than enjoyed).

No mention of our fabulous holidays on the Ile de Re of which we've had many and are without question my hands down favourites. But it occurred to me that the kids don't really mind where they go, as long as they are with us, somewhere fun and most importantly with friends. They don't really remember holidays just with Mummy and Daddy.. they remember holidays with their mates. This, I realise is the key ingredient.

So, as we pontificate about where to go this summer, about the frightening reality of flying five of us anywhere in Europe costing upwards of a grand these days, of the need (mine) for somewhere hot, I realise that they will be as happy in rainy Wales as they would be in sunny Sardinia. That spending a thousand pounds on getting them there and another two on a flashy house is probably wasted when they would just as happily be on a Canvas holiday where there would be plenty of other children to play with.

In our modern times, have we fallen victim to the ridiculous, over indulgent, over priced holiday for our children when really they couldn't care less where they go?

I might look up Edwin and see if he's still there.

We're off to find our Uggie..

2012-02-01T12:01:00.000Z

If I was teetering on the brink of getting a dog before, then I've well and truly fallen now after seeing the film 'The Artist' last night. Despite being a truly magnificent spectacle of a film on many different levels, the true star of the show has got to be Uggie the Jack Russell. What's not to love about this trusty and faithful hound who stands by his declining master through thick and thin, even saving his life in the end. Doggie and human hearts must be melting all over the world after seeing that film.

Our search for a faithful friend is back on and what better place to go and find a good quality breeder than CRUFTS?

I took the girls to "Discover Dogs" at the end of last year courtesy of the nice people at the Kennel Club and they absolutely loved it. If you are thinking of buying a dog, going to a dog show is a great way to watch your children's reaction to animals and see how they get on with each other. Don't assume they will automatically fall in love - some children are naturally scared of dogs so introducing them in the environment of a fun lively show is often a good idea. Every breeder hands out free stickers to the children who then spent the whole day rushing around trying to collect as many as possible and cover every inch of their bodies in them.

Crufts itself is the Mothership of all dog shows and the largest in the world. It's on next month from 8th-11th March at the NEC Birmingham, and will have nearly 28,000 dogs under one roof ensuring a top day out for the kids. It is truly astounding to see all the different breeds in one place and the children quite often got to cuddle some of them, as well as watch the agility shows, the flyball displays and all the fabulous competitions and activities on offer.

Kids under 8 go free (bargain) and if you click here you can book tickets in advance and save money on entry. It's only an hour and a half on the train from London, and cheap as chips with our family railcard (it is so much easier travelling with kids by train).

I'm already excited about going to find the Jack Russell breeders. Maybe there is an Uggie out there somewhere waiting for me?

For more information about Crufts visit www.crufts.org.uk

Owl in the Bush..

2012-01-31T10:45:00.000Z

We have a new member to our family.. here she is. Her name is Hedwig and we bought her at vast expense at the Harry Potter concession at Harrods last weekend.

The girls have been itching to go since it opened last year but I'd promised to take my niece who is a huge Harry Potter fan, so they had to wait. Finally, with niece on loan for the weekend the deal was, culture first - then Harrods. There were cries and moans of despair - but that was the deal so they finally agreed.

We'd decided on a trip to the V & A, a museum we don't go to so often which does great backpack activity trails for kids and is not far from the sacred temple of Harry Potter. As a nod to our cousin from the East we did the Chinese treasures trail where the kids had to complete puzzles from around the museum using clues supplied in the back pack. Downside to this was that they only provide one back pack per family - big mistake. Whoever thought that up clearly doesn't have kids. You can't give four children ONE backpack to share - madness. The inevitable bickering ensued but we soon got over that and had them seeking out Chinese marble gods and dragon emblazed robes. They actually really enjoyed it and it's a great way to bring these large imposing and slightly daunting museums alive for children.

After a pretty decent lunch in the cafe there, we hit the Harry Potter shop at 'Rods. And I have to say it was pretty cool actually.. Despite being quite small and having been open since last October, you still immediately picked up that magical atmosphere of the world of witches and wizardry.

Much to the children's delight nice young guys in Hogwarts robes kept yelling 'Gryffindor' or 'Hufflepuff' every time some young 'un put on one of the Sorting Hats.. they were very well trained, very knowledgeable about the films and were very good with the children.

For me, the best thing however were the props from the films - scattered around the place were glass cases containing the actual real wands used by Harry, Ron and Hermione in the films. Also the actual boxes of tricks from Fred and George Weasley's trick shop and several of the original costumes worn in the films including Bellatrix LeStrange's black dress and Dolores Umbridge's famous pink tweed outfit. Even the grown ups ummed and ahhhed at these.

So despite having to inevitably delve into our pockets and buy something - hence our new Hedwig - conclusion is that if you are into Harry Potter, it is definitely worth a visit (although I have a feeling that the props leave today for the new Warner Brothers studio tour opening at the end of March).

Four very happy children came home armed with wands, owls, posters, Harry figurines and sat very still for an hour and half watching The Goblet of Fire by candlelight whilse the grown ups recovered with butterbeer.

The magic of J K Rowling lives on.

Absence makes the heart beat faster..

2012-01-25T19:18:00.002Z

My eldest daughter is on a school trip until Friday. For weeks I have been cajoling and extolling, enthusing and exalting about it. We've had long chats about what to do if she misses us (she's got a photo), or what happens at bath time (they don't have baths), or what if she wants to go to sleep before everyone else (go to bed) or what if she doesn't like the food (eat something else).

I've spent so long prepping her I forgot to prep myself.

And now she's gone.

And I've got a bit of a dull ache in the left hand side of my chest, especially when I just went into her room to put away some laundry. Her bed is perfectly made, her book by her bed where she left it last night. Her unfinished drawing on her desk. Her little bottles lined up neatly on her chest.

But the room is empty and cold and odd.

The whole house feels odd. It's weird only having two children. It's ridiculous but I miss her constant chatter, her happy whistling, her constant pleas to go on the computer, her tinkling away on the piano. In the evenings now she stays up when her sisters have gone to bed and we have grown up mummy/daughter time while I get supper ready. It is her special time with me and we have the best talks ever.

I miss her beyond belief. It is mildly ridiculous of me. After all she has slept away from home before. But never for this long, and never this far away. And she is my first born. My eldest. My precious little thing of whom I am deeply protective in a way that I perhaps am not of the other two. They've always had each other and have a much better coping strategy than she does.

How silly am I?

When you want me but no longer need me..

2012-01-23T14:12:00.000Z

Isn't that the line from Nanny McPhee?

I'm getting to the point where my kids want me but don't really need me. Sure they need me to take them to school, fill the fridge, keep the house warm, wash their clothes etc. But there is a growing frequency of when this Nanny McPhee mantra applies.

EG You want me to pick up those clothes off the floor, but you don't really need me to do it as you are really quite capable of doing it yourself.

You want me to put a DVD on but actually you've seen me do it a million times now and could quite easily press the right buttons.

You want a jumper from upstairs because we are going to the park and there's absolutely no reason why you can't go up there and get it yourself..

You can even make yourself a piece of toast, get the milk out of the fridge and the cereal out of the cupboard and put your own bowl in the dishwasher.. you don't really need me to get up out of my warm bed and come downstairs to do it now do you? In fact it is quite astonishing just how much you can do if left to your own devices..

There is a fine line as a mother which you cross somewhere in their fifth or sixth year of life when you really do have to stop doing everything for them and encourage a bit of independence. Both for your sake (to stop you going insane) and for theirs (to teach them that Mummy isn't a doormat). But this moment creeps up on you and, especially if this is your day job, as it is mine, it can sometimes catch you out.

I've always encouraged the girls to be independent, to get dressed by themselves, to brush their own teeth and now to bathe themselves. But I am still shocked sometimes at how much they expect me to do for them. When the nearly eight year old shouted at me this weekend because I hadn't got her something that she was demanding, it stopped me in my tracks. And I found myself telling her, in no uncertain terms, that I was not her personal slave and to flipping well get it herself.

The stunned look on her face was a revelation. And it occurred to me that I do need to encourage them to do more for themselves. Enough is enough. We promptly went upstairs and practised putting sheets on beds and pillow cases on pillows. She is going away on a school trip for two nights this week and we had strict instructions from her teacher that she had to be able to make up her own bed.

She now can.

One more tick for independence.

The time for me to go just got a little bit closer.. rather sad really, but there it is..

Ribbet..

2012-01-19T12:23:00.000Z

As we stepped out into the pouring rain this morning to go to school, we encountered a gigantic bright green toad sitting fatly on our doorstep. It was wondrous and magical and when I pointed it out to the girls they literally gasped in amazement. We had to stand for a full thirty seconds in the torrential rain, examining it.

They were speechless. I have not seen them that awe-struck since they first came face to face with the giant dinosaur in the entrance to the Natural History museum.

They talked about it all the way to school, about whether we should have picked him up and put him in a jar and kept him as a pet (no). About who was going to tell Daddy when he gets back tonight from Barcelona. About who the first person they were going to tell at school was. About whether he would still be there when they got back.

Sure enough Mini went roaring up to her teacher and told her at the first opportunity.

Even the two year old keeps talking about him and when she saw a picture of a frog in her book just now she piped up "just like the one outside the door mummy".

It is heartening and quite a relief at how such a simple thing as seeing a real life toad, of which admittedly you don't find many in downtown Shepherds Bush, can still fill a small child with such excitement. I have not seen them react like that to any computer game or TV show.. they are obviously not total ruined by modern technology and screens.

Simple pleasures, it would appear, do still suffice.

A teensy bit excited..

2012-01-16T10:11:00.000Z

I have a spring in my step, a giddy head. I feel light as a feather. I am sitting here, cappucino in hand, idly mulling over what to write. I have something that I haven't had in a while. That little tiny thing that mothers across the globe crave more than new clothes, younger skin and more sleep..

TIME.

I am child free. For the first time in nearly eight years I have an empty house. And for the first time I feel excited about the future. About what I am going to do with this time, how I'm going to fill it. After number two went to nursery I felt lonely, bored, a big empty hole where my child should have been.. a mourning of my children leaving me and being a lonely bored housewife.

But not this time. I am 40, I am happy and all three of my children are safely packed off to school and nursery where they should be. And now it's my time. My time to have a little teensy bit of my life back for me. And it feels good.

This weekend we went away for my husband's 40th. When we got back and were discussing a possible outing to the cinema for later this week, Senior stated in a very put out kind of voice "but you've just been away from us for a whole day and a night Mummy, that's enough. You can't leave us again". And I looked at her and very calmly said "Yes, I can. Mummy and Daddy need time for each other. To talk to each other about you and your future and what we are going to buy you for your birthday when you aren't listening".

That soon shut her up.

But my point is that it is ok to leave them now. They are fine and the apron strings need to be released now just a little bit. One day they will be gone and it will just be me and him enjoying some well earned peace together.

They, and I, have to prepare for that day even if it is a long way off.

And the preparation starts now.

Me, Withnail and the Werewolf..

2012-01-07T12:19:00.000Z

It was with much excitement that the Bush family boarded the 08.30 train from Euston to the Lake District last week. We were off to Cumbria to stay with friends for New Year.. an area known only to me from films and books.

Being a London family it is important that we get the Bush Babies out in the wilds every once in a while, and wild it indeed was. As we pulled into Oxenholme station the scenery was stunning and we were all left open mouthed at the sheer enormous space of it all. Hailing from the New Forest I thought that was pretty stunning but I've realised this year after jaunts to the Western Isles of Scotland and now here
that you don't really ever get big spaces or big skies like you do up north.

I kept pointing out the rolling green hills and steep vales to the girls. They were vaguely interested in the sheep for about two minutes and then went back to bickering. The baby just kept pointing at the sheep and saying 'Pig'.

We spent three happy, cosy nights ensconced in front of the woodburner in our friends' beautiful house. In the middle of nowhere with the wind howling, the rain falling, the Bush felt very far away. We walked across rolling moors, up hills for New Year drinks with relatives, ran for cheeky fags and chocolate in the nearby very charming town of Kirkby Stephen and out for a very good bloody mary in a stunning pub on New Year's Day. The kids played outside in the rain and had permanent rosy cheeks.

All in all it was a jolly good romp.

We didn't make it the Slaughtered Lamb of 'American Werewolf in London' fame, located just across the valley.. or up to Penrith where the iconic 'Withnail and I' was filmed. But just being there I could almost feel the chill of the blue moon on the wild abandoned moors and thought I caught a glimpse of Richard E Grant shuffling into the local boozer.

A stunning breath of fresh air for the New Year.

To be recommended.

I am so much nicer after wine.

2012-01-05T22:37:00.000Z

Should I be worried about this?

My husband has given up booze for January. I have taken it up.

Today I have taken the kids to school, done the ironing, hoovered the house, rearranged my daughters bedroom, changed four beds, washed four lots of sheets, taken toddler to park, written five thank you letters, posted them, picked kids up, made them write thank you letters, made their supper, bathed them, read them all stories, put them to bed, roasted a chicken, made dinner.

How am I supposed to do all of that without wine?

'Twas a week after Christmas and all through the house..

2012-01-04T12:58:00.000Z

not a creature was stirring not even a mouse..
everyone had gone off to school or to work..
so Mummy was left with a rather large smirk..

I love my kids, I really really do, but by gum am I glad they've gone back to school. Despite the killer early morning I don't think I could have taken another moment of the bickering. It started two and half weeks ago at 3.25pm when I collected them from school at the end of term and it continued, steadily until 8.55am this morning when I dropped them back there again.

They - did - not - stop.

Now I know all kids bicker. My mum smacked me and my brother very hard once up the Eiffel Tower. She had taken us on a special treat to Paris and up the tower to admire the view. All we could do in return was bicker. She, understandably, had had enough. Oh how I feel for her now.

Pre Christmas I threatened to tell Santa if they didn't stop, so that he wouldn't come. They just looked at me witheringly and carried on.

Post Christmas I threatened to take all their presents to the charity shop. They just looked at me witheringly again as the baby cackled with glee as it was absolutely NOTHING to do with her and shoved another chocolate coin in her mouth.

I tried banning screens, I tried banning telly, I sent them to their rooms, I put up charts for good and bad behaviour, I took them out individually for special bonding time with mummy, I sent them on play dates. Nothing worked. They still bickered non stop.

So it is with some relief that they have gone and I have some peace and quiet back. I normally feel a twinge when they've gone. The house normally feels empty and quiet.

But this morning, nada. It's bliss..

Happy New Year indeed.

Thank god for Matthew and Mary..

2011-12-28T20:09:00.000Z

Home is truly where the heart is.. dog poo and all.

As we arrived back from our New Forest Xmas pilgrimage to our customary little 'gift pile' right on our doorstep which we then all duly trod in, even then my spirits couldn't be dampened.

Never have I been so glad to smell the poo on my feet, taste the chlorine in my mouth, collect the fox strewn litter from the garden, even see the local drug dealer who live two doors down.. No it was all manna from heaven, music to my ears, a joy to behold. Because, it was home.

Christmas was great. Ok it wasn't great.

It was exhausting, noisy, crowded, hysterical, annoying, boozy, hectic and over the top. In hindsight I loved it. It's amazing how when you get home all the crappy bits fade from memory and you remember the bits that were actually quite good fun.

But a combination of being ill, having a sore butt, having a tantrumming toddler sleeping in your room, being in a house with paper thin walls, a whining dog, an octogenarian father with sciatica, an octagenarian mother in law who.. well.. just was, a frazzled mother who needed looking after, a stressed fresh off the train husband who needed to go to bed, rounds and rounds of family, meals, cooking, clearing up, drinking and very little sleep - does not a great Christmas make.

As my mother pointed out, this probably describes most peoples' Christmas across the land.

The best bit without doubt was Matthew and Lady Mary kissing in the snow. Thank you Julian.

I bet they don't have dog poo on their front step at Downton.

Things the books never tell you.

2011-12-15T13:53:00.000Z

When do they switch to grown up toothpaste?
When do they stop believing in Father Christmas and the tooth fairy?
When are they old enough to bath themselves?
When do they start going to bed later?
When do they stop wanting to cuddle you?
When do you start being an embarrassment?
When do you start giving them pocket money?
When do you let them walk to school by themselves?
When can you leave them alone in the house?
When do you get them a mobile phone?
When do you tell them about the birds & bees?
When do they stop being yours?

Desperate housewife?

2011-12-09T12:40:00.000Z

As I trudged back from the post office this morning, having posted cards and gifts to Australia, Africa, Belgium, the US, Germany and France I pondered about the role of husbands versus wives at Christmas.

As a stay at home mother AKA 'Housewife' - married to a very busy, stressed husband I obviously take on most of the domestic household duties as he is out there earning the bacon.

At Christmas this really comes into its own. As well as all the normal jobs one has to do like buying loo rolls, new toothbrushes, scraping dried cheerios off the floor, turning off taps around the house, scraping toothpaste off sinks, picking up clothes off the floor and examining to see if they can get away with not being washed for one more day, one also has all the preparations for the biggest and most expensive extravaganza of the year..

It got me thinking - should there be a balance of power shift at Christmas?

How much should a man really be expected to do when he is in the office until at least 8pm most nights and often on a plane and away over night. How is he supposed to fit in buying, writing and posting Christmas cards? Would they ever get there if he did? I think last Christmas's cards would just about be arriving now.. Would the kids get any presents? Would they have stockings? When is he supposed to have time to shop? I know my husband has bought my present because he told me and I think he bought it a few months ago in a moment of being terribly organised. But as for the girls, their stockings have obviously been bought by me as have presents for all his godchildren (and posted off around the country/world), his family and some of his friends.

There are a few jobs that I do leave to him. Buying the tree for example. That is a 'daddy' job and the girls love going off with him to get it. Washing up at Christmas is another, and making the gravy. Obviously carving too - I am rubbish at carving.

But as I slogged around Tesco's AGAIN this morning racking my brains for interesting things to cook for the family this weekend it did occur to me that it would be nice if he could occasionally cook or put on a load of washing, or hang up a load of washing, or even iron a shirt. But then I feel wracked with guilt that the poor guy is so blinking tired, that is totally unfair and selfish of me to even expect it.

Isn't it?

I have friends who do everything for their husbands, who by all accounts have never bathed their children or even changed a nappy. I have other friends who split everything bang down the middle, down to cooking, buying the kids clothes, hoovering.. I have other friends who leave all of their husband's side of the family for them to deal with - cards, presents etc. They only do their own. I find this quite odd and a little divisive. Isn't the point of being married/with someone that you take on them and their family? Don't they become your family too?

For the moment, sadly I feel that these jobs do fall down to me. But I am dreaming of a role reversal one day when I trot off to a very important meeting in a black cab, cappuccino in hand, shod in Louboutins and clad in Prada whilst Daddy licks the stamps and buys the loo rolls..

One day..

Awesome..

2011-12-07T10:59:00.000Z

This week's theme from Tara's Gallery is a tricky one.

How do you define 'awesome'?

Amazing, spectacular, jaw-dropping, out of this world, incredible, mind-blowing? These are adjectives that spring to mind.

So there was only one photo that jumped out for me..

Agree?

NB this photo was taken at my best friend's hen night. You can hire these boys out for the evening. No harm came to him. I was nine months pregnant at the time and just very happy to look.

The best kids Christmas show ever?

2011-12-05T09:42:00.000Z

This is not a sponsored post. I didn't get anything free for this. This is a bona fide, genuine, straight from the heart raving review.

At Christmas we are bombarded with advertising for children's shows, plays, pantomimes. We've done the Richmond panto, the Wimbledon panto, the Snowman, the Lyric panto etc etc. They were all good in their own way but the kids didn't really really love them and were always wheedling to go home by the interval.

But then yesterday we went to see this. The Railway Children. And it - was - fabulous. Our ages ranged from five to sixty five. And we all totally loved it. We had seats at the back but it didn't matter - every single seat is a brilliant one. The performers make full use of the old converted Eurostar platform and everyone gets a proper taste of the action. Bobby even waved to Senior and commented on her pretty glittery hair band which had Senior squirming in delight. And then there is the big magic revealing moment in the middle which I couldn't possibly tell you as it would spoil all the fun.. All in all it is a wonderful, old fashioned, interactive, beautifully produced two hours of fabulousness and I highly highly recommend it if you can get to London by 8th January when it ends.

My mother joined us by train from Hampshire - one of the benefits of being set in Waterloo station so it is very handy to get to. And walking through the deserted Eurostar terminal to get to the theatre took both my husband and I back on a sentimental journey of the days when we use to RUN for the train to Paris on our various work trips.. They even have all the original signs and escalators..

Forget the Snowman - this is the one..

Not to be missed..

It's beginning to smell a lot like Christmas..

2011-12-02T13:03:00.000Z

Despite my pain in the ass, I managed to make the Christmas cake last weekend. It is the recipe of the lovely Mrs Franco over at Landcroft House which I make every year. It is looking gooooood and being regularly fed with Courvoisier until it's ready to ice..

There is something about the smell of cinnamon, ginger, all spice and peel that evokes instant bubbles of Christmas happiness and puts even the most grumpy child or sore Mummy in a good mood. The rest of the crystallized ginger I used to make these delicious ginger cookies which I must give to my friend Miranda who is suffering with morning sickness.

Yum Yum.

I love Christmas.

A pain in the ass..

2011-11-30T18:49:00.000Z

This blog is about being a mother, giving birth, raising children, the highs and lows, the trials and tribulations, warts and all..

Or should that be piles and all?

I have been a bit low key of late, elusive and under cover. I mentioned the small matter of an operation a few weeks back, hence why I've not been around. It was one of those "ahem" operations that I didn't really talk about other than to my immediate family and friends who were on a "need to know" basis. It was an embarrassing op, a girlie op which one just didn't talk about. When I did reveal to people it was astonishing the amount of people who shared my affliction, which did make me feel better in some way.

But now that I've had it done, I have completely transformed. I am shouting from the rooftops, I am discussing it with the woman in the pharmacy, the man in the wine shop, my next door neighbour. I don't care who knows - I've thrown caution to the bloody wind.

It was so BLOODY PAINFUL I want everyone to know. And as it is directly linked to motherhood, childbirth, labour etc etc I think it definitely deserves a place in the Bush Babies hall of Fame so that I can reflect back in later life, at what I went through for my girls.

So here it is.

I have had my hemorrhoids removed.

There I've said it.. out loud and clear on the WORLD WIDE WEB. I can hear husbands of friends around the country wincing at this - 'TOO MUCH INFORMATION'. Sorry guys - but you wanna read this, you get the full unabridged version.

Turn away NOW if you don't want to know.

The fact is that I feel it my duty to write about this procedure. I am sure many of my readers suffer from this terrible affliction. It is linked to pushing out babies and many millions of us walk around suffering every day. Well, I'd had enough and decided to do something about it.

I knew it would be painful. I'd had the warnings - from people who'd had it done, from my doctor, from my consultant, from his secretary, from the internet. But nothing really prepares you and hearing about it and doing it are two very different kettles of poisson. Basically I have just had the worst most painful two weeks of my life. Two weeks ago today I was coming round from a general anaesthetic with staples in my bottom. I have had a stapled hemorrhoidectmy.. Google it if you want the full blurb. I don't even really know what they did.. all I know is that my life now revolves around what my bottom is doing. I have never been so frightened to do a poo in my life. I nearly fainted at the first one. Two weeks on and it is still a major event.

I have had to hide away like an animal. I couldn't bear to have the kids near me. The pain is like labour in that you go into a different zone, turning primal and animal like. Food becomes terrifying as you just imagine it coming out the other end. Every tweak of your gut is a reminder that you are going to have to go again soon. Everywhere I go I am followed by a dull ache, a throb that pervades my entire body. It takes six weeks for the wound to heal as it is an open wound - go figure. Not an easy place for a wound to heal right?

The pain killers work but make you constipated so you take fibre supplements and laxatives to counter the pain killers. The house is like a pharmacy. You have to take salt water baths after every 'motion'. I seem to spend a lot of time lying in the bath. I didn't have a drink or a cup of coffee for ten days and my skin is like a peach. I have lost half a stone - that is the best bit of it all.

On Monday I went to Westfield to do some Christmas shopping. I was there for one hour and collapsed when I got home. I couldn't get out of bed for 24 hours. My eldest daughter came home from school yesterday and burst into tears because I was in bed - again. She is traumatised at how much time mummy has been in bed. She wants me back to normal. I'm trying darling..

So there it is. Would I recommend it?

I'll get back to you.

Pin up of the week..

2011-11-28T18:31:00.000Z

I used to run this as a regular feature on my blog, back in the day but as I got older and they got younger it all felt a little bit inappropriate.. However as I was watching this chap quickstep his way to three very well deserved tens on Saturday night, I couldn't help but drool.

I turned to my middle daughter and told her that if she wanted to marry a young man like him who could dance like that, that was absolutely fine by mummy and she'd have my full blessing.

A drummer who can ballroom dance. How cool is that?

Something I am proud of..

2011-11-23T14:14:00.000Z

This week's theme from The Gallery is a thought provoking one.

It's something I muse over when I am having one of those moments of looking back and wondering what I have achieved in my life. Aged 40 I've done a lot of which I'm proud - hitch hiked around Africa, lived in France for a year running a bar, moved my whole life to New York for a year by myself, built up a pretty decent career and salary. But despite the excitement of all these things which were all wonderful in their way, they were all transitory. There is nothing solid and tangible left to really make me proud.. They are proud moments in my memory and which have shaped me into the person I now am.

No you can guess the thing for which I'm really proud. It's obvious from this blog. But I guess I wouldn't have got to them if it hadn't been for all this other stuff that led me to them in the first place. So I am proud of all that stuff too..

But really? Its all about this lot.

From the other side..

2011-11-19T13:44:00.000Z

I'm home, in agony and not able to write much other than to make these observations.

1. Pain hurts.
2. Coming home from hospital with sore bits but no baby was weird.
3. Pain and children - not a good combo.
4. Thank god for Downton Abbey. There's nothing like a bit of class drama to distract one.
5. Steve Jobs is my hero for inventing the iPad which is my new best friend.
6. I never knew the loo could be so terrifying.
7. Private patient? No bloody diffrence if you ask me.
8. Aged 40, I still just want my mum.
9. My husband is starting to appreciate me a bit more.
10. Laundry does not do itself. Shame.

Mummy's mini break.

2011-11-16T11:22:00.000Z

I am very excited to be going away tonight for 24 hours on my own. I have been handling a family sick bug since Monday and am up to my eyeballs in sheets, scrubbing brushes and surrounded by the permanent ever so slight smell of vom. It's not good and I need to get away.

I never thought I'd actually look forward to this kind of 24 hours and I'm sure by this time tomorrow I shall be eating my words.

You see, I'm actually checking into hospital - nothing sinister. Just good old fashioned surgery to 'fix' a little post-natal issue that has beleaguered me for years. Take three big babies, push them all out over a long period of time et voila - I'm sure you get the picture?

The good news is it is courtesy of my husband's health insurance so I do get a nice private room, TV and my own facilities. The bad news is that as of now I am nil by mouth until tomorrow morning and as of six o'clock tonight, I will not be able to sit down.

It's not a pretty procedure and I will be in possession of a rubber ring for the next few weeks. But hey, I get 24 hours away from the vomit, the kids - who know Mummy is going somewhere and are being particularly trying - and I come home thinner.

What's not to like?

See you soon with an update.

Thank you Grandpa - for surviving.

2011-11-11T13:47:00.000Z

I never met my father in law which is something that will always sadden me.

I catch glimpses of the man I think he must have been, in my husband all the time. I see the characteristics my husband clearly didn't get from his mother - his gentleness, his compassion, his quietness and his gift of being to see the good in absolutely everything and everyone.

My girls never knew him either which is my even bigger sorrow. For them, but for him particularly. He would have loved them so much.

He was an incredibly brave man who at the age of twenty one, during the second world war was shot down over Holland and taken to Stalag Luft III, an infamous Luftwaffe-run POW camp for captured air force servicemen. There he drew the long straw and was thankfully left behind during the infamous mass escape which ended in the execution of fifty Allied Airmen. They are listed here, and I want to remember each and every one of them today and thank god that his name is not on this list.

If it had been, my husband and my children wouldn't be here.

These were his friends, his fellow prisoners, his fellow officers all of whom saw such horror and showed such bravery. To know that they tried to escape but didn't make it must have been horrendous and heartbreaking.

Grandpa Guy went on to be honoured by his country for his bravery winning amongst other medals the DFC, pictured to the far left of the picture above. These are his medals and we have them hanging up in our house. We talk about him a lot and what he did for his country, especially today.

I feel very tearful writing this. He was an amazing man who never really fully recovered from his losses. He died of cancer when my husband was nineteen and we all still miss him dreadfully.

He did go on to leave an even better legacy which is what this blog is all about.. and for which I will always be truly grateful.

And for which I hope, if he is watching, he is truly proud.

All I want for Christmas..

2011-11-10T11:56:00.000Z

The dilemma of what to buy the third girl in the family, who basically has everything a little girl could want either second or third hand..

The poor child rarely gets anything new, as there is little point in adding to the frenzy of pink, fairies, dolls, Sylvanians, Playmobil, Lego, Puppy in my Pocket that currently resides in our little London house. Fact is, we don't have room for any more. We pretty much have everything from Early Learning, Mothercare, The Entertainer and John Lewis..

But the guilt is creeping up on me, and then I got this very lovely catalogue from the Handpicked Collection. It is beautifully laid out and features cleverly chosen gifts for all the family that you actually would quite like, at a range of different prices.

I stumbled across this Fisher Price Record Player (remember this?) and I just couldn't resist. An original toy that I used to play with as a child.. the mist crept across my eyes.. I know it's plastic and I know it needs batteries but I'm sorry it's fantastic and retro and she will LOVE it (as will the rest of the family).

One down.. how many to go?

Are we barking?

2011-11-08T12:41:00.000Z

I've put off getting a pet for as long as possible. As long as there are nappies in this house, there will be no picking up of poo. However Cub is now out of a cot, into a bed and potty training is looming. So the discussion about pets is starting up in earnest.

I am a dog person. My husband and children are cat, rabbit, gerbil, guinea pig people.
I am a dog person, so obviously as the person who will have to feed, clean, care for and exercise this animal, it is my decision as to what we get.

How do you buy a dog? This is an interesting question. Unlike everything else in life you can't go onto the internet, browse, ponder and hit the return button. Buying a pet is possibly one of the only things that you cannot buy online and have delivered, rather annoyingly. A cursory search on Google brings up hideous adverts for Staffy cross Bull terrier cross poodles on Gum Tree. Everyone has warned me against Gum Tree for pets.

One friend just bought a kitten off a family on a local estate. It arrived, cute as a button, with fleas, worms, ticks, nits, ringworm which they all now have. Bliss.

Another friend has warned me off hounds. NEVER buy a hound in London.. at the first whiff of a scent, they run, leaving you stranded in park with three children in the rain.

No, we're going the kosher root. We are going to buy a BOOK on dogs, read up on all the different kinds, talk to the Kennel Club about suitability of breeds with young children. And we are going to go HERE this weekend so that the girls can get down and dirty with the real thing. Hopefully they will see something that they like and victory will be mine on the pet choice front.

Discover Dogs 2011 takes place between 12 - 13 November 2011 at Earls Court. It provides a fantastic opportunity for visitors to meet, greet and discover over 200 different breeds of purebred dog, and learn all about the distinctive personalities, traits and looks of each breed and how to buy the perfect canine partner.

If you're thinking of getting a pooch, or just fancy coming along for a fun family day out in London (it's going to rain this weekend) get your tickets here.

Filling gaps.

2011-11-07T14:48:00.000Z

Do you ever bump in to someone in the street or at a party, and afterwards feel like you did all the talking and they didn't get a word in edgeways. Like you didn't stop to draw breath and gabbled like an insane demented lunatic? Which leaves you feeling a bit embarrassed and rather foolish?

Or you go for a coffee or lunch with someone and seem to sit there with your mouth open trying to get a word in yourself whilst they never stop talking.. and come away feeling rather irritated that they didn't ask you anything and talked too much?

In fact both of these things have happened recently and reminded me of a friend who once had a dinner party and made a conscious decision to 'not fill the gaps' in conversation.

Whenever there was a pause in the chatter, she didn't fill it.

If there were spaces of silence during the conversation, she left them. There was no inane small talk or plugging of gaps. She just let everyone hang until the conversation naturally picked up again.

I asked her, in horror, how this experiment went? Apparently it was very interesting, and you can only really do it with good friends who all know each other in the main, but it was overall very refreshing and created a much more relaxed and natural vibe to the evening.

I do think we all talk too much and 'fill' silence and space when we have it. I am definitely guilty - probably a combination of upbringing and instinct for not wanting long embarrassing pauses. I think by default we Brits are a nation of 'space fillers' and don't like awkward or pregnant pauses. We like the security and comfort of constant chitter chatter.. albeit mindless.

So when you next bump into someone, go for coffee or are in a meeting, try it - its really rather interesting.

Quiz me baby..

2011-11-05T16:14:00.002Z

Bush Daddy and I are busy writing the questions for our annual school fundraising quiz night which is next week. It is a remarkably bonding experience and we have spent many a joyful hour of late brainstorming ideas or debating possible questions.

I can highly recommend it as good marriage therapy if you happen to be having a row and need reminding of a GSOH. It's utterly hilarious - especially now we are in the midst of compiling a retro TV theme tune round which kept us up very late last night reminiscing on You Tube.

OMG - take a look at some of these babies..

Remember this? This gem? Or this or one of my personal favourites this.

Where were you when you were watching these?

Don't they evoke memories of young teenage love, adolescent hormonal angst or just plain carefree living when you didn't have to worry about anything and were still living at home with Mum and Dad? Sigh.

I felt a combination of feelings:

a) nostalgia
b) old
c) slightly tearful
d) old
e) very happy

Any other favourite suggestions welcome..

Balls..

2011-11-04T12:38:00.000Z

Mini has started after-school "Girls only" sports club. This is big news as to date she has refused any such extra curricular activity with a vengeance.. So we were very excited when the letter about it came home.

Visions of jolly hockey sticks, muddy vests with GOAL ATTACK or CENTRE emblazoned on them and quartered oranges filled my mind.. coaches to tournaments and yelling from the touchline..

But guess what? Netball, schmetball - it's after school bloody FOOTBALL.

As the mother of three girls and living in a no-boy zone, I get a little frustrated with the nation's obsession with this game and the fact that in primary schools nowadays even girls are expected to play it exclusively.

Our hard earned PTA funds have just paid for a new all weather 'FOOTBALL' pitch at school. It's fabulous and a real investment.. but once again it reinforces the emphasis on what I consider to be a 'boys' game.. and lets face it, half of the 120 pupils in the school are girls. Ok - I'm not being sexist. Girls like football and some can play it too - granted.

But an element of choice would be good?

What about netball? Or hockey? Or softball? Or even rounders? What happened to good old fashioned 'girlie' games? Competitive team sports are a hot potato in the state sector I know, but I'm starting to kind of see why. Although football is a team sport, for those girls that don't want to play it - which is quite a lot of them - what alternative do they have? Swimming is hardly teamwork..

It's frustrating to say the least and I'm on a crusade to change it. A few mums and I are going to roll up our sleeves and get a netball team together. Perhaps we might even start a mums team to play against?

My girls playing football?

Balls to that..

Two.

2011-11-02T09:45:00.000Z

Great theme from Tara this week.. The Letter 'T'.

How to make a birthday go on and on and on.. buy one of these balloons. A month after the event, it has only just gone down and was a lovely reminder to us all that our baby girl is now two.

How did that happen?

Tweet, blog, tweet, blog, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet...

2011-11-01T19:50:00.001Z

How has a girl got time to do anything else?

"Sorry darling, you'll have to make your own dinner, I'm following Caitlin Moran.."

My poor family are suffering at the hands of my latest addiction. I didn't know what all the fuss was about and was frankly sceptical and quite scathing. But now I'm hooked.. it's like drugs (or so I would imagine).. you can't go for long without your next fix. You can't help skimming down the timeline to see what Gwyneth Paltrow is up to today, or Stephen Fry, or Lily Allen or one of my fellow blogging mums. It's addictive.

And how does the whole celeb tweeting thing work? Surely it's a massive invasion into their private worlds? I mean anyone can access them and follow their every move, any minute of the day or night. Do you think they go on social media courses and are trained by media professionals on the "do's and do nots" of tweeting?

Rule #1 - Never reply to any old Joe.. they'll be inviting you over for dinner in minutes.

There is something faintly voyeuristic about following what Lily Allen's doing on Hallowe'en. It's almost too much information but you can't quite help yourself from having a quick peek. After all, if she's going to post pictures of her bump, we're gonna look at them right?

It's clearly a phase for some people.. I notice Gwyneth Paltrow, like me was a bit cackhanded when she started and tweeted a video of herself walking down a street in NYC. I mean why would you do that? If you were HER? Why do you need to? She even tweeted pictures of her kids albeit from the rear view but still.. however she's now gone silent. Like Danny Goffey who I've followed since his fabulous performance on MasterChef.. Nothing for a few months.. he's clearly run out of things to say.

To pick up on my theme of late, we are not spending enough quality time with our kids, so what are all these people doing on Twitter? Where are their children? Parked up in front of CBeebies no doubt.. I know mine was this morning.. But it's not quite right is it?

Not quite right, but oh so much fun.

I mean Caitlin Moran is bleeding hilarious and Sarah Beeny's my new best friend..

No fireworks please, we're children.

2011-10-30T16:37:00.000Z

Last New Year's Eve, my husband and I went for dinner locally with some friends. We had a lovely evening, much delicious food and wine, and shortly after midnight settled down to watch that Jules Holland show that I can never pronounce the name of and to play Trivial Pursuit.

At 12.10am my phone rang.

It was Granny, who was babysitting, slightly agitated. We could hear three lots of crying in the background. All three children were awake and kicking off. She was three weeks post-op from a triple by-pass and had kindly offered to babysit as she was on bed rest and going to bed early anyway. She hadn't anticipated any actual childcare. She couldn't actually lift the baby out of her cot so she was standing up in a puddle of snot and tears when we finally raced home slightly tipsy (the baby that is).

Ever since this night - we have had a slight problem.

Our kids basically, hate fireworks.

They go absolutely mental if they hear the slightest bang. You'd think they'd lived through the blitz. Now, you may think this normal for children. But my eldest at seven and a half is the worst. And actually, when you live in multi-cultural inner city London, this is a dilemma. Last week was Diwali - so this weekend, all weekend, there were fireworks. We got back from the cinema last night to a note from the au pair.

"Girls all up and crying. Mini was sick from fright. All ok now."

Next weekend is suddenly looking like a bit of a challenge. We've been invited to dinner with some good friends whom we haven't seen for ages. I really really want to go, but Senior is already coming up to me with huge eyes, downturned mouth and tears building.

"I'm worried about next weekend Mummy. Why do they have to do fireworks at night?".

We've coaxed, cajoled, tempted and bribed them with the possibility of sweets, treats, candy floss, the funfair, cheap plastic overpriced tat, the works that accompany the local fireworks display. They used to love it - when they were about three.. but now - they want to go and stay with Granny in deepest Hampshire to escape the bangs.

"They even have fireworks in Hampshire darling" I tried to explain.

I have now duly declined next Saturday's dinner invitation and we are staying in with the kids to protect them from the horrors of the evening. I anticipate that fireworks will start on Tuesday right after Halloween is over so we are in for a long week.

New Year this year? We are hopefully going to Cumbria, to the middle of nowhere.

Treetop bonding.

2011-10-27T17:38:00.003+01:00

So a few weeks ago I posted about whether our kids were really alright as apparently they are suffering from not spending enough time with their parents.

I've been mulling this over, and although I'm at home with them and don't have a 'go to work' job, I have to hold up my hand and say 'guilty' to the above charge. I am forever saying - "go and read a book, go and play in your room, practise the piano if you're bored, oh OK, turn on the telly then".. I always seem to have something else to do (like write this) which takes me away from sitting down and actually playing with them, or reading a book with them, or talking to them. I'm sure most mothers in the Western world are guilty of this. But it did make me wonder about parent/child bonding, whether it is suffering and whether just being a stay at home mum is really a good enough excuse?

So, when the lovely people at Go Ape! sent me a voucher for their fabulous new adventure Go Ape! Explorer I jumped at the chance. Now, for a mother of two girls from London this would not be an immediate choice of days out - indeed I'd normally send Daddy to something like this. But you know what? It was FANTASTIC. We are not sporty or extreme or particularly active as a family, but that's what made this day out so great. We were all completely out of our comfort zone, particularly me, but from the moment we were strapped into our harnesses and given our safety briefing, the bonding between us began.

The adventure is aimed at kids over one metre or over four years old, you are attached to a wire with a safety harness, given a helmet and up you go. The kids were fearless and shot up forty feet to the first walkway which are basically different kinds of rope and wood ladders strung between very tall trees.. It is not for the faint-hearted and I was surprised at how brave my little five year old was about even going up into the forest canopy. But once up there we all had a ball. And for the first time in an embarrassingly long time, I spent a fantastic hour just being with my kids. No phone, no computer, no distraction. Just us figuring out how to climb from one tree to the next with only a wire to walk across and a few ropes to hold onto. There was a lot of coaxing, a bit of boasting, a tiny bit of weeping (me) but a huge amount of pride when each bit was completed successfully.

A few of the walkways were pretty hairy for the five year old who bottled it on the climbing net where you basically had to haul your own body weight across. I question whether any four year old is strong enough to do this, let alone five year old. She had to be carried across by one of the big burly instructors who were everywhere up there to help out. But despite her fears, she carried on even when her eyes grew so huge in her little pale face that I thought I was going to have to parachute her down to safety.

The adventure is made up of a grid of twelve walkways all of varying degrees of difficulty. My seven year old LOVED it and flew around quite happily. The whole adventure ends with a hundred yard zip wire which the kids loved so much they asked, and were allowed to do again. Thus ending the day on a high note even for Mini, despite her earlier fears.

Moors Valley is down in the New Forest, about 90 minutes from London and is a fab day out for all ages, sizes and shapes.. even mummies from the Bush. I highly recommend it.

(This post is an entry into the Tots100 Best Western School Holiday competition.)

Sandy Faces..

2011-10-26T17:02:00.000+01:00

This week's Gallery theme from Tara is "Faces".

I couldn't resist putting this one in, taken on holiday in France only 7 weeks ago. It was so odd seeing these disembodied heads lying in front of me in the sand..

We buried the baby as well but she seems to have disappeared altogether (don't worry.. we found her later).

Ten little half term irritations.

2011-10-24T10:38:00.000+01:00

It's only Monday and already I have nearly knocked myself out on the top bunk of the girls bed. Banging your head when you have a cold makes the pain and subsequent discomfort about ten times worse.

The day was not starting well. It got me thinking. I love having everyone home for a week. The baby is in heaven having her two big sisters home and it's bliss having built in childcare. Not having to get us all dressed by 8.30am is also a joy, but it doesn't take long for the little irritations to creep up on you again.

Here are my top ten:

1) The constant eating. Ten minutes after any meal.. "Mummy, I'm hungry".
2) Waking up early. Even when you let them stay up to watch the Strictly results and a little bit of X Factor, they wake up at 7am.
3) Christmas. The endless requests for this, that and the other even though they've already had their main present.
4) Horrid Henry - on loop. If I hear 'na na na na na' one more time, I'll hit something.
5) Playing the piano at 7.30am. I know I should encourage music practise - but really?
6) The floor - constantly covered in stuff - everywhere. Lego, Sylvanians, Playmobil, socks, crumbs, juice, mud, cheerios.. all the time, everywhere.
7) The loo - never gets flushed, ever.
8) Boredom - constant, even when we've just been on a fab outing.
9) Daddy - never comes home 'early' because it's half term.
10) Clothes - the endless washing when they don't wear school uniform..

A Heavenly competition..

2011-10-19T14:17:00.001+01:00

I have regular conversations with my children about heaven. Or 'Devon' as they rather charmingly call it. It's much easier to tell them that the dog has gone to Devon. Or that Granny's in Devon and will see them soon.

They are at a fairly religious C of E school where they PRAISE THE LORD every day at assembly. They also say this very sweet grace at lunch which I'm going to write out because it is so adorable.

Thank you for the world so sweet - ho hum.
Thank you for the food we eat - yum yum.
Thank you for the birds that sing-a-ling-a-ling.
And thank you God for everything, Amen, start again.

Obviously the subject of heaven comes up more and more particularly as people we know sadly seem to keep dying. The dinner lady at their school - Babs - died last week. She served them their lunch every day and was part of the furniture at their school. Mini's little brow was very creased about that one. "But WHERE has Babs gone Mummy? and who's going to serve us our lunch now?"

I never know quite what to say about heaven. Some people think it's ridiculous to spin a yarn about a whole idyllic world in the sky where you go and live on a cloud, never get old and see all your old friends, pets and grandparents. But my view is this.

They are children.

They cannot possibly begin to rationalise or understand death at their age. I can't rationalise or understand it at my age. They NEED an explanation.. an image of where people go and what happens after life. My view is that they can hang onto this version until they are old enough to come up with their own better one. It's just another Father Christmas or Tooth Fairy story really. So in our house, there is a heaven, and everything is perfect there, and there are angels with wings and everything is white and God is there (although when they asked what he looked like I was a bit stumped). This makes them happy. They visibly sigh in relief. It comforts them and makes people dying easier to bear, which is fine by me.

We were recently sent a new release kids film called "The Littlest Angel" based on the best-selling children's novel by Charles Tazewell. It's utterly adorable and a perfect way to bring heaven to life if you, like me, believe that you have to give your children some kind of explanation.

All three children - aged seven, five and two were mesmerised by it and I had a lovely hour of peace while they watched it.

I've got three free copies to give away if you can answer this question.

Question - What are the names of the three Kings in the Christmas nativity story?

Winners will be picked at random by Senior Bush Baby after half term.

The Littlest Angel is available on DVD and Download to own now.

Relics of my old life..

2011-10-18T13:15:00.000+01:00

Once upon a time I earnt enough money to be able to afford lovely shoes like these. Then I got married, had three children, gave up working and now I shop in Primark and these little beauties sit collecting dust in the wardrobe.

I keep looking at them thinking "will I ever wear you again?".. but the truth is that I won't. Lets be realistic. I now live in flat boots or trainers to do the school run. My feet have got bigger and flatter from having three kids and my bunions are another story. It just ain't gonna happen.

The other day in a moment of "I cannot stand the clutter in this house".. I bagged everything up, took half to the charity shop and loaded the other half into the car to take to our local vintage shop. I checked on ebay to price stuff and realised that actually "vintage" or "secondhand" to us lesser mortals - shoes do not fetch a pricely sum. There was I thinking that Manolos or Prada would attract a few bob.. the girl in the vintage shop offered me £25 for the Manolos. They were my mother's from the 80's when she worked in fashion. She lovingly handed them on to me but apart from the odd wearing they have simply sat in the back of my wardrobe taking up valuable space. But there is huge sentimentality attached to them. They are nearly as old as me and I love the idea of my mum wearing them when I was a little girl.

And then I got to thinking. I've got three girls. Three girls who already are showing signs of loving fashion. They still rush through the door after school, tear upstairs and start rifling through their wardrobes assembling hilarious outfits - some of which are actually, quite good.

And it hit me. I can't get rid of this stuff. This is my history.. Every piece of clothing or pair of shoes tells a story. Like these Prada shoes I bought on a girls weekend in Monaco in my late 20's with my best friend. I bought red, she bought pink. Or the Jimmy Choo boots that my husband bought me in New York for Christmas when I was pregnant with Mini. Or the beautiful but quite old fashioned full length Max Mara camel coat that I bought myself with my first pay cheque. These things are their birthright - even a fairly worn down old pair of Pradas. They will covet this stuff one day.. teenage girls LOVE vintage don't they? And raiding mummy's wardrobe? I know I did.. My schoolfriends and I used to spend hours going through my mother's wardrobe trying on incredible Chanel jackets, Oscar de La Renta pencil skirts and towering Christian Dior heels.. (She still doesn't know about the time that all my male friends dressed up in her clothes one very drunken New Year's Eve but the photos live on to tell the tale).

She still has all her clothes; she is keeping them for me and the girls and by the time they get their hands on them, they will be worth a small fortune. So I realised that I can't throw this stuff away just to free up a bit of space.

One day this will be gold dust for them.

Hoarsey hoarsey..

2011-10-16T09:22:00.000+01:00

I have lost my voice.

This is an interesting dilemma when in sole charge of three small children. The kids are in shock. They are like bewildered rabbits and keep looking at me suspiciously. It is actually very peaceful in our house right now. There is a palpable calm around the place.

I'm so used to everyone shouting and screaming that I just assumed that this was the norm when you live in a fairly small terraced house with three children under eight. However what is very interesting is that when I stop shouting, so do they. Talk about lead by example. My husband would be rubbing his hands in glee if he were here - thank goodness he isn't as I couldn't bear the enormity of his 'I told you so..' moment.

Last night, in the bath, Senior actually told me to stop whispering, she doesn't like it, it unsettles her. She wants her real mummy back, the one that shouts - a lot. I whispered to her that surely it was nice that I couldn't speak or shout and that it must make a nice change no?

Clearly no, she is deeply disturbed and the last thing that she said to me last night was "I hope your voice is back in the morning Mummy".

Sadly, it's not. I'm still whispering, and they are still, remarkably, calm.

Back to the future.

2011-10-14T13:48:00.000+01:00

The year of the Rabbit does not seem to be a good year for some people. I've just had lunch with my third friend (male) who is going through a divorce.

It makes me unspeakably sad when friends tell me that their marriages are over. I want to grab them, shake them and say "are you SURE?, are you REALLY REALLY sure?". I just can't bear the thought of all the shit that their poor children are now going to have to deal with later on in life.

Don't get me wrong. My parents getting divorced was the best thing that ever happened to me. Having one happy secure parent to raise me instead of two emotional basket cases was by far superior. God knows what I would have turned out like if the two of them together had brought me up. No, it was much much better that they separated when they did and both found happy lives with other people.

In fact for little kids divorce is kind of ok - after all they don't really know any different. OK, mummy and daddy don't live in the same place and you might have a bit of explaining to do at school but they roll with the punches pretty well at that age. I don't ever remember it bothering me that much as a small child. As long as you get breakfast, lunch, supper, clean clothes, cuddles, bath time and a story you are basically ok until you are roughly ten years old right?

No the reason I wince is all the other stuff that they will have to deal with much much much further down the line. This is when the real difficulties start..

I would say that arguably I am more affected by my parents divorce since I've had my own children. I am much more forgiving now of my own parents as I realise what a responsibility children are and how it is never easy to make the right decisions. Overall I think they made a pretty good job of a pretty miserable situation. Me and my brother have turned out fine, are both very happily married with three children each. Not bad for a majorly dysfunctional early childhood eh?

But now that I've got kids, little things creep up on me. For example step-sibling rivalry and the subsequent pecking order of how all our different children get treated. Step-siblings are tricky things and in my family sadly there is the inevitable rift. Step-parents prioritise their children and grandchildren over you - FACT. My parents probably do the same with me and my brother which probably upsets them too. For all of us involved this is deeply unsatisfactory and not very nice.

Step-parent rivalry is also a pain. My mother married a very possessive man who wanted to 'own' her. As he has reached old age this has exacerbated to such a degree that as soon as she enters my house, the phone rings (it's him) and does not stop for the entire duration of her stay (always him). It has been known for him to ring her every hour whilst she is there. It is infuriating. But he is making a statement. He is jealous because she is with me.

My father married a woman who was insanely jealous of my mother and frankly loathes her. So I've grown up listening to passive aggressive abuse about my own mother which lets face it no-one wants to hear ever. Coupled by the fact that I do quite resemble my mother, it has not been an easy ride on that side of the family either.

This is all exhausting. Exhausting and frankly unnecessary and it is things like this that make me very very angry with my mother for leaving my father and putting me through all of this in the first place. I go through periods of being very cross and wanting to throw things like a spoilt child. I ignore her for a bit, don't return her calls or am unnecessarily mean to her for no reason. I think she gets it because she never challenges me. Just accepts my appalling behaviour quietly and without question until I calm down. Which I always do. After all, shit happens in life and there's not a lot you do to change it so why waste energy being angry?

So when my mate told me yesterday about his four year old and how she's coping, I didn't feel sorry for the four year old. I felt a deep sadness projected into the future of who that four year old will become.. for the hurdles that she will inevitably have to face even when she has her own children.

So, for now, nearly forty one and still married. Fingers crossed.

Mini Mi5.

2011-10-11T13:55:00.000+01:00

I'm a dedicated Spooks fan as some may know. Having bumped into Harry in Waitrose in Marlow a couple of years ago, my fandom was complete. As I approached him for his autograph (yes, I actually did), he looked left, looked right and whispered "I'm under cover you know".

What a total dude.

Sadly, it is time for Spooks to go. It's lost its polish and there are only so many times a terrorist cell can nearly but not quite blow up Trafalgar Square. Plus the new girl - Erin - what's she all about? She actually has a life outside of Thames House.. she has a child, a house, a mother. She's not a REAL spook.. Spooks are machines, robots, they don't clean their teeth or eat real food or lounge about reading the papers in their pyjamas. They live on the Grid and work 24/7 guarding the nation from terrorist attack. I still think Roz Myers was the ultimate spook.

So I was delighted when my mother phoned me at the weekend to ask where the computer key for her work emails was and whether my middle daughter might know as it was last seen in her clutches the previous weekend. When I asked said daughter, she blinked and without even looking up said "Yes mummy, it's in the little white box on the sideboard in granny's kitchen". I relayed this intelligence to my mum who went off to check. Blow me down - there it was.

Now my middle daughter has always been a bit good at finding things but this was something else. She remembered where she'd left something that she'd been playing with a week before at her grandmother's house. Wow.

"You should be a spy darling" I told her. "You could go and work for Mi5 and travel the world undercover". Her eyes grew even huger. "What's Mi5 mummy?" she breathed in wonder. I explained it to her in a Janet & John kind of way.. Secret Agent, disguise, travel, watching people, pretending to be someone else etc etc. And I could see - she was hooked. Talk about projecting your secret ambitions onto your children.

I caught her yesterday peering out of her window with a notepad in hand, writing down what everyone in the street was doing.

"Old ladee with greene hat just nocked on dore number six acros the road. Noone ansered dore. Now shes gon away".

Roz Myers - watch out.

Crackling pigs..

2011-10-10T12:33:00.000+01:00

I've just been given another very good reason not to move to the country.

As we ambled home from the park yesterday afternoon the air was rich with the smell of roasting succulent meat.. On every street corner there seemed to be a different and delectable smell floating from an open window. Me and Bush Daddy were like the Bisto kids - our noses pointing skyward as we breathed in the delicious smells. The whole of W12 seemed to cooking up a storm of a Sunday lunch yesterday.

And the reason why? Because the fantastical Ginger Pig butcher has finally arrived on our door step.. yes in the little ole' Askew Road - an award winning butchers shop normally only found in such cool 'hoods as Marylebone and Borough Market.

In the park we were all exchanging notes on what we'd sampled so far from our new arrival.. the pork pies have had a big thumbs up, and the sausages although Bush Daddy was less keen, so used to a processed sausage from Tesco's is he. But we all agreed that the pork loin was by far the winner..

I cooked ours rubbed in olive oil, crushed juniper berries, black peppercorns and sea salt a la Nigel Slater and the crackling came up a treat. There were six empty plates - including my two eldest girls who walloped the lot having never eaten pork. But this is pork as pork should be eaten. Fellow pork lover friends cooked theirs marinaded in balsamic vinegar, high on the rack in a boiling oven letting the juices drip onto the roasted vegetables in the pan below. It makes my mouth water just thinking about it and I'm not even that much of a carnivore - although I think I might become one.

It's not cheap - and it's not for your everyday consumption. But even my thrifty husband had to concede that it beat any pork joint from Tesco even if it did cost three times the price. Plus the fact that the kids ate it without a murmur in my mind is the best sell of all.

We shall return Ginger Pig, and thanks for coming to the Bush.

Think different.

2011-10-06T12:54:00.001+01:00

At the moment I'm listening to the Jeremy Vine show and people are texting, emailing, tweeting and calling in from all around the world on their Apple devices paying tribute to this incredible guy who revolutionised the world in which we live in today.

It is astounding how people are reacting. Messages are pouring in waxing lyrical about their favourite Apple product and how it has, quite simply, changed their life.

One of my youngest daughter's first words was "iPad". She could sweep her finger across an Apple screen by the time she was 18 months. Steve Jobs has left behind him a legacy not only for us but for our children which will no doubt fill their lives with unimaginable opportunity and fun.

What a guy.

He must be looking down feeling quite chuffed with himself.

RIP. This sums it up for me.

She was all yellow..

2011-10-05T09:22:00.000+01:00

This week's theme at the Gallery is colour.

Just one colour.

This proved quite tricky as all the photos that jumped into my mind were filled with colour of every kind, but that is not the brief.

And then I remembered when we took the kids to see the Ernesto Neto exhibition at the Hayward last summer and took this shot of our eldest daughter..

I love it. She looks so calm and peaceful.

The axe I most like to grind..

2011-10-04T13:49:00.000+01:00

Guess what it is?

Yup that's right - my M-I-L.

I always have to preface these posts by apologising to my long-suffering husband who will probably read this.. Sorry darling but I'm off again...

On the whole I have huge respect for my MIL. She is an amazingly resilient and powerful character who has lived and still lives a very full and rich life. Despite being eighty and having had a triple by-pass in the last year, she still has an active social life, plays bridge regularly, goes to the cinema, is a regular theatre goer, reads extensively and enjoys her food and wine. In many respects I really hope that I am like her at her age.

Now that's the good bit. Here comes the bad.

She is needy. She is lonely and needy and quite controlling in her own little way. My husband is her only child, my children are her only grandchildren and she feels that it is her right to have unlimited access to us. Now you may think that she should have this right, but like most things in life, everything in moderation I say.

I should also preface this rant by saying that please note - this year we have been on holiday with her for a week, spent Christmas and Easter with her and most bank holiday weekends. She comes up or we go down to visit every two weeks and the longest she will ever go without seeing us is three weeks maximum. Also please note that most of these arrangements are instigated by 'yours truly' not her son so I am not a total nightmare daughter in law from hell who should be strung up by her toenails.

So let me explain my disgruntlement. My husband works very very long hours. Today he left the house at six thirty am. He has a work dinner tonight and will not return until the late hours therefore not seeing his children at all today. On the whole he will see the children either in the morning or at night but rarely both until the weekend. Oh, and then there's little old wifey who fits in when he's seen the kids and they've finally gone to bed. Our time together gets constantly bumped and it is rare that we get any quality time when we are not both exhausted or rushing somewhere.

So to then add a MIL into the mix of 'quality time' together is as you can imagine, quite difficult. I think we see her quite enough, and that every three weeks is sufficient. He feels guilty and feels we should see her more. She phones him at work or on his mobile and leaves endless messages about when we are going to see each other. He never returns them because he is too busy so she then plies my answerphone with messages too.

When he does return her call and leave a message, she mysteriously seems to forget or not get it therefore justifying another phone call to check whether we got her last message. She is also sadly getting old and forgets things so her messages to us both repeat the same thing again and again.

EG she has just phoned. I was feeding the Cub and do not have time to talk for half an hour with a small hungry child next to me (she likes to chat). So I let the answerphone pick up. She had her dejected voice on.

"Just leaving ANOTHER message, am beginning to wonder if there is ever anyone at your house.. I am free ALL weekend, Friday, Saturday AND Sunday and would love to see you."

Now, today I am tired. I didn't sleep well and I am tired, I am busy and I just haven't got time to call her back. When I'm not looking after a small child I have to do all the other millions of things that need doing. Oh and I have to write this. I want to write this.. why shouldn't I write this? I feel cross that I should have to give up my few precious moments of being child free to sit on the phone negotiating my weekend plans with an old lady who talks but doesn't listen. I feel resentful that I am made to feel guilty for just wanting to have a weekend with my husband and my kids. I feel guilty that we have invited other people for lunch on Sunday and don't want to include her. Why should we ALWAYS include her..? She is included in most things we do.. sometimes I just DON'T WANT TO INCLUDE HER.

But she is one of those mothers that knows EXACTLY what her child is doing every minute of the day. She knows our plans better than we do. And I know what her next tactic will be.. She now goes to our church, around the corner from our house.. so I would almost bet a thousand pounds that she will phone tonight to let us know that she is planning to drive up to go to church(she lives forty minutes away) and seeing as she is in the neighbourhood on Sunday, why doesn't she just pop into say hello? She won't stay long.. just for brunch.. is that ok? It would be ok if she meant 'not stay long'.

She will arrive at midday and leave at 4pm.

So what do I do? I feel like public enemy number one, despite the fact that she has just been away on holiday with us for a week, then we hosted an eightieth birthday party for her, then we all went out for lunch. She is going away with my husband for a weekend on her own in November leaving me on my own with the children and we are all spending Christmas together, as we have done, every year, for the last nine years since I met my husband.

Help...

Thank you.

2011-10-03T13:14:00.002+01:00

This weekend has been a birthday bonanza in our family.

I am now the proud owner of a two year old - sob - and my lovely niece turned twenty one. Amidst the cakes, candles, giant helium numbers floating around the place, I reflected on the difference between them and how I want my girls to be at her age.

I remember my niece being born. I was nineteen and drove like a demon in my Citroen 2CV to the hospital when I heard that she had arrived, crashing it in the car park on arrival but too excited to care. She was the first baby in our family - the first grandchild and much loved and adored. There are now twelve grandchildren and my two year old is the youngest.

Rather fitting that their birthdays should be celebrated together.

My niece is one of those 'young people' that you hope your own children will turn into. She is kind, gracious, optimistic and confident. When she walks into a room, she holds her head high and can talk to anyone. She is as charming and attentive with her eighty year old grandfather as she is with her two year old cousin. She can switch across four generations and always be smiling. I'm sure there have been moments of teenage drama and angst which I have not been witness to. I know from my sister in law that it has not always been easy. But despite of all that she is one of the most well adjusted young people that I know and if any or all of mine turn out like her I will be eternally grateful.

At her birthday dinner, I stood up and said as much. We were all gathered, her parents, grandparents, siblings and aunts and uncles and I wanted to tell her how fabulous she is and also to thank my brother, her father and his wife for doing such a bloody good job with her.

As we all know, raising children is the hardest thing in life you will ever do. There is no manual you can read, there is no course you can go on, there is not even one simple way of doing it. You learn from what you know, as you go along. You face the pitfalls and challenges as you reach them because they are different for every family and each one has to be taken on individually.

Just to get your child to twenty one all in one piece, I think is a cause for celebration for most parents. I am over the moon to have got my youngest child to two without any drama so they deserve a flipping medal.

But most importantly for her mother, I wanted to say that one thing that as a mother you never or rarely hear. Those words that are just taken for granted from the moment you give birth, to the moment your kids leave home.. Those words that sometimes are all you need to keep going, and that I hope one day, someone will say to me.

Two words.

Thank you.

What's the form?

2011-09-29T13:37:00.000+01:00

I've just been greeted in Waitrose by a lady that I don't know very well, by my nickname. I was a little startled as although my name does get shortened a lot, it is normally only by very close friends who know me well enough to do so. My reaction bizarrely, was one of irritation. I felt a little affronted that she had called me that, which is ridiculous because it is actually very nice that she was so friendly and felt that she could greet me in such a way.

What is the form here? I'm pretty old fashioned about name shortening. I believe that if you are introduced to someone using their full name, you take their lead and use that name. I do not condone automatically and presumptuously shortening someone's name without them agreeing to it first or at least offering it up as a choice.

My husband is guilty as charged. He calls people called David "Dave" or Christopher "Chris". It sets my teeth on edge and has become one more of the things that I nag him about it.

He claims he's being friendly.

I claim that it is assuming and really quite rude.

It's like when people ask to drink the wine that they've brought to a dinner party. Another etiquette 'hot potato'. I find this gob-smackingly rude and it normally puts me in a bad mood for the rest of the night. We have a couple of friends who do this - religiously. They arrive with a decent bottle of wine and then demand it be drunk immediately, thereby committing social suicide by rejecting the very nice wine that we are serving and drinking their so called 'gift' themselves. I even know of people that take their own wine to school fund raising events as they don't want to drink the plonk that the headmaster serves, even if he is selling it to raise money for the school.

And what about when you introduce a friend to a friend and then find out two days later that first friend has invited second friend over for dinner AND NOT INVITED YOU. This makes my hair stand on end in frustration.. Isn't that just really bloody rude too? My mother who is a guru on these things, maintains that the correct form is that Friend One invites Friend Two AND you on the first social occasion.. thereafter they are fully allowed to NFI you if they so wish..

I've probably just committed social suicide writing this.

I'll never get invited anywhere again.

Oliver, Oliver..

2011-09-26T18:12:00.000+01:00

I was saddened but secretly a teensy bit relieved to read in the Sunday supplement this weekend that even Jamie and Jules Oliver don't have the perfect marriage. They don't even have sex any more apparently, although clearly Jamie is up for it and we're all dying to know if he got lucky on their recent holiday to Portugal, their first ever holiday away from their children.

Well it's not surprising really is it? I mean he is permanently on telly, trekking across America hanging out with cowboys, launching a new book, or teaching dinner ladies how to cook.

Poor old Jules doesn't get a look in.. and she's got four kids for crying out loud.

"But they're loaded" I hear you cry "don't feel sorry for them" - yes ok.. but they are still just a normal family like the rest of us with four young kids.. Yes they can have all the nannies under the sun but they are still THEIR children. They still are ultimately responsible for making sure the homework gets done, the uniforms are clean, the kids haven't got nits and little Daisy isn't getting bullied at school right?

Apparently Jules is a control freak and won't delegate. Well good for her I say, to NOT delegate the duty of care for her children to someone else. Get a cleaner - fine. Do your grocery shopping on-line by all means, even get a chauffeur to drive you everywhere if you are that rich, but clearly she wants to be the one to look after her kids all the time and for that I salute her.

As I well know this can wreak havoc on a marriage. As I read the Jamie interview it could have been my husband talking (except that he is not worth £100 million). But the message was the same. Married life isn't that much fun when you've got a houseful of young children and a very busy job. There is a lot of resentment on every side.. I can just picture an evening in the Oliver household..

Him "But I'm out earning all the money to pay for this house and all this stuff"
Her "But I'm at home all day without another adult to talk to and you are never here"
Him "But you won't let anyone else help you so that we can spend some time together"
Her "You employ thousands of people why can't you delegate and spend a bit more time with me and the kids?"

Sound familiar?

Ten non materialistic things to do with your kids this weekend.

2011-09-25T08:53:00.001+01:00

Following on from my last post I thought I'd put my money where my mouth is (excuse the pun) and do something about it. So, put your mobile down, turn your laptop off, switch off the TV and here we go..

1. Build a marble run.
2. Bake a cake.
3. Go to a dog show.
4. Make mud pies.
5. Play the recorder.
6. Build a den.
7. Go to church
8. Do coin rubbing
9. Invite a granny for lunch.
10. Write a letter.

Feel free to improvise here - you may not believe in god, have a garden, own a recorder or have any grandparents but the point is to introduce the kids to new things, even things they may not want to do. They may moan and groan but chances are they will end up having a teensy weeny bit of a good time.

Are the kids really alright?

2011-09-24T08:50:00.000+01:00

Apparently our kids are all miserable and 'wallowing' in a sea of materialism according to a new report out from the UN.. all they really want is to spend more time with Mum and Dad but we are too busy working so hard to earn the money to keep them in the 'kit' to which they have become accustomed, that we haven't actually got time to talk to them any more..

None of this is news to me. In a class of twenty my eldest daughter was the only kid by her seventh birthday who didn't have a Nintendo DS. And BOY did we hear about it. In fact most of her little chums have Wii's, iPods and TV's in their bedrooms and probably aren't far off from getting their first mobile phone. We constantly get asked why we do we always have to go to "Cornwall or France or Scotland and not a real country?"

Clearly this Mum and Dad just aren't working hard enough.. and the bar is being set pretty high..

But how? Is it actually us, the adults, obsessing over the things we want to buy and using the kids as an excuse for working so hard so that we can afford to buy them? Or is it them watching too much advertising on TV (while we are sending that last work email, or writing a piece for a deadline - ahem) and then pestering us to buy it all which we duly do - out of guilt for ignoring them. One of my best friend's who is the MD of a very successful PR company and works full time leaving her two children in the care of her nanny, confesses to regular 'guilt purchases' for her kids.

How many times have we all said in a moment of total rage and frustration "get in the car NOW and I'll buy you a magazine/toy/treat".. I know that I have.. often.

Last weekend when I was home alone I built the kids a den. Actually it was quite a cool den. I put a little light in it, some books, some cushions, a rug. They then spent the best part of the weekend 'designing' it, then 're-designing' it.. And then every day when they got home from school, they went straight back up and played in it quietly and happily until teatime. The only squabbles that we've had this week are because the baby goes in when they are at school and trashes it.

My point is, when left to themselves, children's imaginations can really run to the most amazing things, and they really don't need to be constantly stimulated with 'stuff'. If my eldest spends too much time on the dreaded DS, she becomes very sullen, bad tempered and sulky. Her mood swings are noticeably marked. Her whole disposition changes. But give her a few hours in her home made den, made out of blankets, rugs and cushions.. oh and throw in a few biscuits.. she's happy as a sand boy.

So why do we keep buying them all this stuff?

Peer pressure? Advertising? Keeping up with the Jones's? or.. more likely..

Guilt?

Fag Ash Mum.

2011-09-21T08:24:00.000+01:00

Tara's brilliant Gallery has this week posted the theme of "Guilty Pleasures", which was one that I was not about to miss.

Now I could have put in a picture of me stuffing my face with cake, or drinking a large glass of wine, or the results of a recent much needed pedicure. But I thought I'd be honest.

And if I'm being honest - this is me and my very very guilty pleasure.

It doesn't happen very often. I know it's not big and it's not clever. I don't do it in front of the kids (unless on holiday after too many glasses of rose at lunchtime) and it is very very bad for my health.

But you know what?

I love it.

BTW I don't always wear silly hats. It was New Year's Eve and blinking freezing outside.

I want to go to boarding school..

2011-09-19T14:35:00.000+01:00

My nine year old niece has just started at boarding school and my seven year old daughter now wants to go.

I knew this moment would come. She's watched too much Harry Potter and read too many Mallory Towers books. And now cousin Amber is there, well, she wants a bit of that too please Mummy.

Mummy doesn't really have a leg to stand on. Mummy went when she was nine and absolutely loved it. However things were different then. My father was a naval officer and often away at sea for weeks on end. The Navy paid the fees and then my parents sadly divorced so they decided it was the best thing for me to escape the disruption of a broken home.

I've mulled this thery over since becoming a parent myself. It seems to me that this was just an excuse to get rid of us. By nine, my mum had had enough of having us at home and wanted to go back to work - so off we went. As I say I loved school. Boarding was good for me. It made me independent and firmly cut the apron strings from an overprotective mother who tended to overcompensate in the affection department due to guilt for having left my dad.

It made me more confident. You can't be a shrinking violet at boarding school. You have to hold your own. It made me more resourceful - you have to learn to do everything for yourself, and think for yourself. It garners strong, lifelong friendships. My children are now at school with my oldest school friend's children and she is godmother to one of them. We have been friends now for thirty years and still speak on the phone every week. It teaches team spirit and camaraderie. All for one and one for all.

I don't have that many bad things to say about it really.

Apart from the food, which is awful, oh, and I guess I probably didn't do as well academically as I could have done. But I'm not sure that is the fault of boarding school. If I'd come home every day I would not necessarily have worked any harder, but would potentially have had a more difficult relationship with my mother than I do now as being away from her made me miss her more. And if I'd seen her every day she'd have driven me mad.

My husband and I have differing views on this subject. He is vehemently anti boarding school, in part due to cost but mainly on principal. He sees it as a ridiculous over privileged way of palming your children off on someone else. But then he would wouldn't he? He didn't go. And anyone who didn't go simply doesn't get it.

Whilst I don't particularly want my girls to go, nor can we afford to send them (much to my husband's relief), I do want to give them the choice. If they like the sound of it and feel they would enjoy it I would love to give them the opportunity. My eldest daughter would benefit in so many ways. She is slightly low on self esteem, not massively independent but is very social and loves being with other people. She is the one who always cries when we get back from group holidays. Her best holiday ever was when we went away with ten other families and rented a massive house. The kids ran wild and ate in school dinner fashion every night. We didn't see her from dusk til dawn. It did her no end of good.

A friend of mine has just brought her two boys back from boarding school. They hated it and are now much happier being at home with their parents. The days of duly following what the generation before did are long past. Most of the kids at our local school have parents who were educated privately and many boarding, but who choose to keep their children local and with them.

For now Senior might have to put up with us every night.

But lets talk again when she's a teenager.

Here come the brides..

2011-09-17T21:43:00.000+01:00

As we approached Kew Gardens in the p****** rain this afternoon, 'sans papa' who is living it up in Cambridge at a college reunion, we were all delighted to see a wedding party pulling up the main gates.

Now my girls, being girls, LOVE LOVE LOVE a bride. One of their favourite pasttimes is poring over our wedding photos, gazing longingly at my wedding dress which will, one day, be one of theirs (if I don't first sell it on ebay when I'm in need of a few extra quid).

Indeed Mini has bargained with me on many occasion to 'add' it to the dressing up box. "Pleeaasssse Mummy can I try on your wedding dress? Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease???".

Errr, bespoke, two and half grand, made to measure blah blah blah - I DON'T THINK SO.

Anyway, today Mini roared up to the bridal car and stood right next to it practically panting like a dog in anticipation of the bride stepping out (poor bride - in the driving rain).

The problem with having your wedding at somewhere like Kew Gardens on a Saturday afternoon is that you get annoying people like me and my kids rubbernecking at you close up, desperate to catch a glimpse of veil. How annoying must that be when all you want is to see your close friends and family?

But I'm afraid we did all troop up to watch, from a distance, her grand exit from the car. She did eventually exit, and she was beautiful, and was followed closely by another equally beautiful woman. They stood there, in the rain, close to each other, waiting as their photographs were taken, trying to ignore the annoying six year old (and forty year old) gawping at them from across the way.

We all stood there, slightly puzzled, trying to figure which one of these beauties was the bride? Was one the bride and one the matron of honour? Or one bride, one mother of bride perhaps? One was in full Indian sari dress and the other in some exquisite silver beaded gown. But they were young and both had that slightly shy, awkward, self conscious demeanour of a bride. Remember that feeling of being totally dressed up and everyone looking you?

They then moved into the beautifully decorated conservatory for the civil ceremony and as we turned to continue on our way, it hit me.

They were both brides..

Sure enough on our return we read out the notice on the gate announcing the 'civil partnership' ceremony between Anita and Rebecca.. two huge pairs of eyes turned to me in wonder..

Two girls? Getting married? To each other??

Now try explaining THAT one to two little girls on a wet and windy afternoon in west London.

Why are husbands never there when you most need them?

Want another baby? Go to Scotland..

2011-09-15T14:29:00.001+01:00

I was saddened but not surprised by the headline this morning that there is a dangerous shortage of midwives in this country.

It reinforced my own personal experience of giving birth and frankly I would never give birth in this country again.

When I had my last child nearly two years ago, due to my age, the fact that I had two other children at school and that my husband travelled extensively for work so was away a lot, I decided to pay to have a private midwife to look after me.

I had to be practical. Trudging half way across London for ante-natal appointments just wasn't an option and this way, I could have them all at home, at a time that suited me, with the kids around. Also I got to actually meet the person who was going to bring my child into the world. This is a rare event in itself these days and I'm pretty certain that if you live in London, and have a baby on the NHS, you will never know the name of the woman/man who is going to deliver your baby until they are standing in front of you giving you gas and air and telling you to breathe..

First and second time around, I just took this as read. I didn't like it but I was so excited to have my babies that I didn't really let it bother me and indeed with both babies I had very nice midwives, both male and female. But I never saw the same one twice, and there seemed to be a constant stream of them always changing shift.

So with number three I wanted an altogether more intimate and relaxing experience, and the only way I could guarantee this was to book and pay for my own.

Even so, when we arrived on the labour ward at the local hospital to give birth, the lack of care and facilities for women was shocking. It was like walking into an Eastern Bloc medical centre - not one of London's leading labour wards. The few midwives that there were barely looked up as I was wheeled in and those that were there looked knackered and bored. My midwife was ignored as she was 'private' so seen as the devil's work.. she asked where there was space and was rudely told to try several rooms down the corridor. We finally found a room, she had to make up the bed, there was no clock on the wall - NO CLOCK ON THE WALL - IN A LABOUR WARD!! and no monitoring equipment. All of it she had to scurry around and find for herself.

If I'd been a first timer I would have been frankly terrified.

In fairness, when it all went pear shaped and I had a suspected shoulder dystocia the medical staff came through and I had about six midwives all on top of me in seconds.. to this day I will be grateful to them for saving me and my third daughter from potential trouble.

But do it all again?

No thanks.. and I'm not moving to bloody Wales or Scotland either..

PS Just found this post which I wrote two weeks after giving birth as above.

Hip Hop

2011-09-12T12:54:00.000+01:00

It's a bit of a worry when your two year old starts asking for the iPad.. however this weekend it did come in rather handy.

Granny was 80 and threw a big party for all her octogenarian friends to celebrate. This was always going to be a challenge for three children under eight especially as being a widow, my husband and I were expected to 'host' with her, be on call to welcome guests, work the room, be charming and darling etc. So the question was what do you do with three kids on a rainy Saturday afternoon, in an old lady's (small) house, while said old lady is having thirty of her friends for drinks?

Well, on the way back from France a few weeks back I caught a glimpse of the lady in front playing a film to her young children on her iPad. Now I've had mine since March and I still haven't quite figured it all out yet.. I actually tapped her on the shoulder and asked her how she did this.. she then filled me in that you can not only buy and download films off iTunes but you can also rent them, for 30 days for not much money at all. Films are available to download from their DVD release date too so you can watch pretty soon after they've been in the cinema.

FANTASTIC! GENIUS! Lifesaving for flights and old dears' birthday parties.

So I went onto iTunes, clicked on a button and downloaded the rather fabulous film 'Hop' for the kids. No annoying waiting for a DVD to come through the post, or spending ages choosing one in the library. A couple of clicks and a few minutes et voila, a full length feature film on your lightweight little iPad to slip in your handbag and take with you. The kids lay on Granny's bed upstairs and watched this rather hilarious film (we watched it later when they'd gone to bed) about the Easter Bunny which was really rather good (and featured some excellent English v/o's which is always a bonus).

They then came downstairs and did their obligatory turn of the party in their pretty frocks, had their heads patted, cheeks pinched, were sighed over and even raised a couple of tears (too many sherries that one), before disappearing back off upstairs to put on granny's make up.

The guilt has gone..

2011-09-09T10:02:00.000+01:00

It's not often we can say that in our lives. We all feel guilty about something most of the time don't we?

For not returning that call to your Dad who called you last weekend, for having butter in your baked potato when your supposed to be on a diet, for having two glasses of wine on a week night, for shouting at the kids before 8am. That sort of thing..

But miraculously, on a general level, my guilt with regards to my kids has gone. When I think about the fact that I want to go back to work, I feel a clearheaded giddiness which I have not yet had to date. I feel exuberant, exhilarated, excited - all the exes. I was just chatting to a friend at the school gate who also has three kids and when I told her that I was planning to return to work, she eyed my youngest and said 'you've got a little way to go yet haven't you?".. I looked down at the small one and I didn't immediately think "OMG I can't POSSIBLY leave you".. in fact I looked at her and my instinctive reaction was "you'll be fine".

It is a liberating feeling. The hair shirt is going back in the cupboard. I don't feel like I have anything left to prove. I've done my innings as a full time mum. My kids are up and running and fine.. I can be proud of the years of me that they've had and that I've dedicated wholeheartedly to them, and when I look at them I feel certain that I've given them the best start that I could possibly have given them.

I'm not going anywhere. In fact it'll probably take me a good while to get going with my new plan. But psychologically the first hurdle is overcome - the mental readiness and preparation to get back out there and do something.

This, I think is the hardest step.

Swell.

2011-09-08T12:27:00.001+01:00

It's amazing the things that can make your heart swell as a mother.

It can be a simple look that they give you, a sudden unasked for hug, or a question they ask in total innocence, like "if you die before us Mummy will we see you again in heaven?"

Or even watching them watching something on TV, such as the film 'The Snowman' when there is a stunned silence as the credits roll followed by mass hysteria as everyone seems to collapse into tears. Them because they simply can't take in the thought that the Snowman has melted away and gone. Me because I can't bear to watch their little mouths turn down at the corners, and their little chests start to heave with dry sobs.. (Mini has been known to sob for a full hour after watching this film.)

But today was one of my all time classic 'heart swell' moments. It was nothing spectacular. Nothing unusual, well for most people anyway.

It was a simple every day moment, watching my children as they walked to school ahead of me.

For the first time ever, after four years of stress, many tears, a lot of driving, many application forms, much money, three lots of school uniform, many school runs in all different directions, a lot of favours pulled from good dear friends, a lot of lateness, a lot of stress - they now, FINALLY go to the same school.

Good things do come to those who wait..

The shoe passage of time..

2011-09-07T13:27:00.000+01:00

How to feel sentimental about your children growing up..

Just look at their shoes..

Me, myself and I.

2011-09-07T13:21:00.000+01:00

I've moaned a lot recently. About the fact that I've had enough of being a full time mum. That my kids are p****** me off quite a bit at the moment. That I resent being home all day, miss the money, miss the clothes, feel brain dead. Am jealous of my husband going to work. Jealous of friends who work and have a life outside of the children. Jealous of women who supposedly 'have it all' if such a thing exists.

So, I'm going to stop moaning, and I'm finally going to do something about it. ("Thank god" I hear you cry..)

I've just been in the park with a girlfriend who is a childminder. She has just taken on a three month old baby. I winced when I saw the baby. It is so small and young it can barely open its eyes and still does that shuddery spasmy thing that newborns do when they are used to being in the womb. But when the baby cried, my capable friend swiftly picked her up, cuddled her, stuck a bottle in her mouth and she stopped crying instantly. And it dawned on me that actually, at that age, they don't care who looks after them. As long as a baby is fed, cuddled, changed and generally loved it's not really a problem who does it. I can now look back and see that it really is when they are older that they need you.

My point is, that having stayed at home for all my children from birth, which adds up to a total of nearly eight years now, I feel ever so slightly hoodwinked at the thought that I could have gone back to work when they were babies, and they wouldn't have even noticed.. However at the time I had a job that I didn't particularly like and if I'm really honest, there is no way I was handing over my three month old babies to a childminder.. and so I stayed home.

But now, it's time to dip my newly painted toes back into the water. And having ummed and ahhhed about what to do I finally have a focus that I hope will guide me forward to a fulfilling and maybe eventually, lucrative second career.

I'm excited. I'm nervous. I'm apprehensive. I haven't had to talk shop or sell myself for so long I'll probably say all the wrong things and fluff it up.

I've changed as a person since I was last in a working environment. I'm now used to being "Mummy the boss", in charge, telling everyone what to do, anticipating every situation and having to deal with it as the caretaker of everyone around me.

I need to shed this image and take a step back to consider who I really am when I'm not surrounded by children and responsibility.

I need to rediscover 'me'.

But I really want to do it now..

and it's really rather exciting..

P & Q

2011-09-06T09:32:00.000+01:00

I don't ask for much in general.

I like shoes and nice clothes but rarely buy them these days. We go on holiday to either France or in the UK. We don't eat out much or drink much.

But in fact, the best things in life are free, and the only one of them I crave right now is this one - P & Q.

Already this morning by 09.28 one of my table lamps and side tables has gone for a burton with three children trapped underneath it and one screaming baby. The kitchen once again looks like a tsunami has swept through it. I have just had groundhog day, picking up the same child's baby buggy from the sitting room and removing to the kitchen only to find by the time I return to sitting room it has mysteriously reappeared again in exactly the same spot.

I am trying, very, hard, not, to, shout.

I have just thrown the au pair (thank you god) a tenner and packed them all off to the high street with instructions to get hot chocolates, croissants, books from the library, a DVD for impending wet afternoon and bonjela for the mouthful of ulcers that my eldest daughter seems to have.

And very strict instructions to make all of the above chores take AS LONG AS POSSIBLE.

Only one day and counting.

The permanent playdate..

2011-08-25T19:08:00.000+01:00

It is quiet in the Bush household as I write.

In fact the very fact that I am managing to write this at 18.49 in the evening, is, in itself, a rare event.

The reason? I am missing a child. One is absent - on a sleepover and so for a few golden hours, I once again have just two children.

It is utter and total bliss.

How can ANYONE with two children complain about noise, stress, mess? I don't get it? It's joyful. A walk in the park, a breeze.

I know that my friends with two kids (eg most of my friends) don't get why I'm always stressed, tired, rushed, lacking sleep, lacking make up, a few pounds overweight, covered in some kind of food, moaning, whinging, etc etc. I'm sure they walk away from seeing me whispering "what is her problem? what IS all the fuss about? Hundreds of people have three children and cope amazingly, never complain, always look immaculate... AND she has an au pair? I mean what's that all about?"

I know they just don't get it. And I'm not surprised because whenever I try to explain it to them which is basically every time we get together for coffee, wine, playdate, park action, I just can't seem to put my finger on what it is exactly that is such hard work about having three kids.

I 'ummmm' and I 'ahhhh'..

It's not sleep deprivation because on the whole they all sleep now. It's not lack of help because - yes - I do have an au pair. It's not my husband never being around, because he actually is, amazingly at the moment. I just can't nail what it is that's so bloody difficult and why I am always, perpetually, living in a state of chaos and angst. Why I am always blowing my top, why I am always shouting at the kids rather than enjoying them, why other people's kids now run for cover when they see me coming for fear of being shouted at. Yes, it has been known for me to shout at other people's kids when they behave badly.. I know - breaking the NUMBER ONE PARENTING TABOO.. Never EVER shout at anyone else's kids.. yup, I've done it.

So what is it that pushes me so close to the edge on such a regular basis?

This evening, as peace engulfed me, it hit me. Supper time was calm, the house is relatively intact, bath time was positively angelic, I even played with the kids in the bath rather than set my usual goal of seeing how quickly I could get the whole dreadful business finished with as soon as possible. The (two) children are now quietly playing in their respective bedrooms. My husband is about to read them a story. All is well in the world.

Why?

Imagine your worst possible playdate. The one where a child comes over to your house for the afternoon, fights with the other children for the duration, trashes all the toys, refuses to eat anything you put in front of them, has a tantrum, gets bored, sulks, refuses to play with anyone and then ends up glued to the TV while you curtain twitch desperately waiting for the mother to arrive to collect them.

Well THAT is what having three kids is like.

The permanent playdate from hell.

A friend of Bill's?

2011-08-24T12:55:00.000+01:00

I have a few friends who are in recovery from alcohol or drug addiction.. they are amazing strong and fantastic women and I admire them hugely. As the recent tragic demise of Amy Winehouse has proven, addiction is a terrible illness very difficult to overcome. Sadly many don't overcome it.

I heard this wonderful expression used by one of my mates the other day.. we were in the street and a guy came up to us and asked us if we knew where the meeting was. My friend promptly replied "are you a friend of Bill's?" to which the guy equally promptly said "yes".

"Who is Bill?" I wondered to myself.

I followed up on this with another friend who confirmed that this is indeed a code for people in recovery so that they can identify each other. She had a wonderful story about being in an airport once when there were horrific flight delays.

A voice came over the tannoy..

"Can all friends of Bill please report to Room 5b on the second floor". Upon arrival at Room 5b an impromptu AA/NA meeting had been organised for those 'friends of Bill's' who were stuck at the airport.

Genius..

"Mummy who is Madeleine McCann?"

2011-08-23T09:13:00.000+01:00

When I started writing this blog four and a bit years ago, it was partly inspired by the tragic disappearance of Madeleine McCann whose story needs no explanation.. Well at least not to any adult I know in the western world. However four and a half years ago when she disappeared, my eldest daughter was three and still clueless to the ways of the world.

Now, at nearly seven and a half, she wants to know everything. Including who Madeleine McCann is. Now this is a tricky subject with any child, but I am of the school of being open and honest with my kids, and I believe that if they are old enough to ask the question, they are old enough to know the answer.

This has in part been compounded by the news of a schoolfriend's niece disappearing at a London tube station recently, thankfully to be found, but found boarding a train with an Arabic looking woman. This woman had told the eight year old girl (gulp) that she knew where her daddy was, that he had asked her to bring his daughter to him and that he was waiting for her.. so off she went. Luckily the dad got there in the nick of time. There but for the grace of god..

Last week whilst walking up Lymington high street in the driving rain negotiating with a two year old and an inside out umbrella, I lost my eldest daughter. Classic case of I thought she was ahead with my mother, my mother thought she was behind with me. She was neither and in the confusion of the heavy rain, she had missed the turning to walk back to the house and wandered off up the high street. She was not with us for a full eight minutes I would say. This is a long time in a little girl's life, let alone a mother's. However I did not panic, as we were in leafy Hampshire and things like child abduction just 'don't happen'. Or so you hope. I rushed back to the high street, starting to slightly hyperventilate before seeing a sodden little figure with a crumpled face come rushing towards me sobbing.

It's taught her a lesson, I can tell you.

Anyway, back to Madeleine. Over the summer holidays my brother scolded me for discussing this very sad story in front of his children who were then obsessed with knowing ALL the details. It hadn't really occurred to me to not discuss it in front of older kids.. foolishly perhaps. But shouldn't they know? After all if it's the one thing that stops them talking to a stranger offering them sweets then surely that's preferable to scaring them just a little bit and making them realise that sadly the world isn't always such a nice place?

So, I explained very carefully to Senior the sad story of Madeleine McCann. And about how she is still missing. About how she is probably very unlikely to still be alive. How a strange bad man took her from her mummy and daddy and they are very sad. And how she should never EVER talk to anyone she doesn't know if I'm not there. Ironically she had talked to a stranger when we lost her on the high street, had given the stranger my phone number and the lady was calling me as I found her, to tell me that she was safe. That is ok, I explained, but better to go into a shop and ask the lady behind the counter, or better still find a policeman or someone in uniform.

Tough love.. better than lost love - right?

Going slightly mad.

2011-08-19T14:32:00.000+01:00

Is it because it's week six of the school holidays?

Is it suddenly being with your children from dawn til dusk, or indeed them being with each other, all day, every day for twelve hours a day?

Is it finishing lunch and then ten minutes later someone saying "Muuuuuuummmm, I'm huuuuuuungggrrryyyyyyyy" when you've just cleared everything up and put it all away.

Is it the bickering that is so extensive now that when you drop them off at their morning tennis class, they are bickering, and when you collect them oh "quelle surprise" they are the only children STILL BICKERING.

Is it because you take them horse riding, to the beach, for picnics, to play tennis, to hideous films at the cinema, on play dates, on days out, for sleepovers. Basically enough fun stuff packed into six weeks to last them a life time, and yet they are still bored when they get back home?

Is it because now they are getting older, they don't go to bed so early so that sacred beautiful time from 7pm when your life is once again your own, is slowly disappearing?

Is it because they change clothes five times a day leaving each rejected outfit in a heap on the floor only to be picked up, washed, ironed - AGAIN - despite only having been worn for about half an hour?

Is it because the baby is so delicious and cuddly and never answers back and giggles like a little fat pudding which makes your heart melt and you kind of wish they were all like that again?

Is it because the baby then throws a massive tantrum, lying on the floor, fists clenched, inconsolable for absolutely no reason and you wish they were all reasonable, rational seven year olds that you can talk to?

Is it because she is in fact no longer a baby but nearly two and out of nappies?

Is it having someone yelling 'Muuuuuuuuuummmmmmmy' pretty much wall to wall every minute through the day (oooh there's one now)?

Is it the four loads of washing that you have to do every day?

Is it the cup of coffee and copy of Grazia that you never get to read?

Is it the ridiculous number of loo rolls that you go through when everyone is at home?

Is it never having any money to spend on yourself because you've spent it all on aforementioned riding, tennis, cinema trips?

Is it being too scared to get drunk for fear of having to cope with all of the above with a hangover?

Bring on September 7th...

The end of the earth..

2011-08-14T09:01:00.000+01:00

I feel like I've just been to the moon.. we've just holidayed in a place so remote, so tranquil, so peaceful and so frankly bloody beautiful I am still in a funk about being home, a week later. Indeed last week I had to cover my ears on busy London streets, being on a bus felt like a physical assault, the smell was unbearable, the riots frankly surreal - and all because we have been to a place which is SO quiet and tranquil that you could hear the woman in her house across the valley asking her kids what they wanted for tea, with all the doors closed.

The kids ran wild. We left the doors unlocked. We cooked langoustines that were still kicking about when we bought them. We paddled in Caribbean like white powder sand and azure blue seas (ok so you couldn't swim in it without getting lockjaw), we climbed peaks so high that you could see the Hebrides (see photo above). We opened and shut A LOT of gates to keep the sheep out of our garden. We had full blown majestic Monarch of the Glen stags in our garden at twilight.

Scotland, specifically the North West Highlands of, where my mum's dog comes from, is basically breathtaking. If you want a holiday where you will relax as soon as you arrive. Where your man can be a REAL man and chop wood, learn to sea cayak or build BIG fires. Where your kids can find real life gigantic starfish, sea urchins, sit in pubs and fall in peat bogs. Where you can watch your children run and run and run and not worry about them being snatched, or hit by a car. Where you can read your book in natural light until 10pm - it is further north than St Petersburg. Where the worst that can happen is you are bitten by a tick - lucky as the nearest doctor is a helicopter ride away.

Then go here.

It is awesome.

Headbanging..

2011-07-27T14:24:00.001+01:00

The kids are in summer camp. The baby is with the au pair for a few hours. I'm going shopping, I thought to myself yesterday, with glee. A few blissful, peaceful, child free hours wandering around Westfield.. perhaps a little mooch around the sales, a nice leisurely coffee, a holiday shop in Boots (yawn).. Such a treat during summer holidays.

Of course I completely forgot that EVERYBODY else's children would be in Westfield at 10am on a Tuesday morning, but never mind, they weren't my responsibility. I started out on my solitary adventure.

BANG.

Whilst walking along peering sideways to see if the Uniqlo sale was still on (great jeans) I walked smack bang into one of those large white moulded sign posts.

Now I'm not sure what is worse:

a) me, a 40 year old woman walking into a signpost in broad daylight.
b) weeping because it hurt so much.
c) trying to scuttle away red faced (through shame and impact) pretending it didn't happen. Not easy right in the middle of Europe's largest shopping centre.
d) wondering whether I had sustained a concussion. I did literally see stars. Images of Natasha Richardson flashed through my head. "40 year old unidentified woman drops down dead in crowded shopping mall"..
e) feeling quite sick and terrified of puking in middle of shopping centre and everyone seeing that too..
f) my children - motherless.
g) my husband - wifeless.. wondering where the hell I am.
h) no ICE on my phone..
i) being broadcast on YouTube by CCTV cameras by tomorrow.
j) Westfield security staff in stitches on the floor laughing at the CCTV footage.
k) my only child-free shopping trip - ruined.
h) having a thumping headache all through Harry Potter last night.

When my husband got home last night he looked at me blankly when I told him about my near death shopping experience. He hadn't got any of my messages.. Great.

I now have the beginnings of a black eye.. and a slightly bruised ego.

I keep checking You Tube..

My husband will properly be carted off for wife bashing.. "Er yes officer, I walked into a signpost.."

Wendy and the Wig Wam..

2011-07-19T19:55:00.000+01:00

So what do you do with a bored seven year old, a bored twenty month old, incessant rain, and gripping all afternoon TV that you simply have to watch?

Simple.

Go to Homebase and buy this for £9.99.

They've been in it all afternoon, in fact Senior is still in it right now, reading, waiting for Daddy to come home.

And Mummy got to watch the custard pies flying and Rebekah Brooks's clearly un-Botoxed forehead - all afternoon.

Wasn't Wendy good?

Please definitely let me go..

2011-07-09T11:40:00.000+01:00

Due to severe hacking cough, slightly badly planned hangover from Monday, absent husband and generally feeling quite S*** this week, I indulged in some restorative, relaxing television watching.

This included the very very strange and frankly implausible and depressing film 'Never Let me Go'. If you've seen it, tell me I'm wrong in thinking it is just utter drivel with some quite good acting thrown in? I mean, I'm a big fan of hottie Andrew Garfield in a slightly 'I'd like a son like that but he's also quite sexy' weird sort of way.. and Carey Mulligan is brilliant in a slightly frumpy, android-like sort of way. Keira Knightly is just annoying as per usual. But the storyline is - just - RIDICULOUS. At then end I did throw something at the TV. It was that annoying. Sorry if you haven't seen it and wanted to.. but there it is.

Then, last night I tuned into Miranda, which was MUCH MORE LIKE IT. I generally dislike watching comedy. I just don't get it.. all these puffed up, egocentric people dominating the stage with their drivel. I do love Graham Norton mind.. but when my husband settles down to watch his series record of Have I Got News for You, I bristle quietly in the corner.

Miranda, however is genius.

Her humour is so bang on the money and insightful.. Like last night when she says words repeatedly so that they then sound weird.. eg 'Thrust'. Who has not done that? She is just brilliant and hilarious.

Finally Luther.. the first black man (other than a very sexy Nigerian SOAS student that I once snogged) who really lights my fire.

Now he could definitely never let me go...

This little piggy went to Babington..

2011-07-07T11:15:00.001+01:00

I've just had a glorious 24 hours with five old school friends down in the heart of beautiful Somerset, to celebrate our 40th years..

I must say it felt terribly decadent to drop the girls at school and then get on a train to Bath at ten o'clock on a Monday morning clutching a copy of Grazia. It felt even stranger to have one whole hour and half to myself without having to actually speak to anyone.. We lunched, we yacked, we drank, we had pedis and massages, we yacked some more, we had afternoon tea and a swim. Cocktails followed by delicious dinner, followed by delicious wine all combined with much much more yacking. Then more cocktails (this is where it all started to go a bit wrong), two bottles of champagne, more yacking, a lot of giggling, a bit of Gaga, Kylie, Black Eyed Peaz, a VERY VERY cross Hotel manager at 1am, a VERY comfy bed, a not so great wake up (a bit more yacking but of a different variety).. a bit of a hazy morning before heading home..

There is something very comforting about being with friends that you have known for half your life. Despite seeing them very infrequently, you just slip back into the friendship like an old familiar sock. All attitudes, inhibitions, jobs, husbands, even mobiles were quietly abandoned for 24 hours and we just got on with it.. catching up, reminiscing, enjoying the peaceful pleasure of old friendship. And all in one of the most beautiful places in the country.

I am loving this 40 business.. it just goes on and on and on..

My weekend, my hero..

2011-06-30T19:26:00.000+01:00

This is my darling big girl winning three firsts at her sports day last Friday..

What a big boost for my slightly under confident eldest daughter..

This put a big smile on ALL our faces, for most of the weekend actually. A truly unforgettable and magical moment.

Bush Daddy cried.. a lot.

Yellow in the Bush.

2011-06-27T12:42:00.000+01:00

So Bush Daddy and I 'did' Glastonbury this year.. for the first time..

on iPlayer, from our sofa.

I mean, like all these super fantastical events, why actually GO when you get SUCH a good view from home, on the telly? Where else would you have seen that incredible, crazy drumming sequence from Coldplay, or watched Chris Martin's sweat drip slowly but continuously off his rather handsome chin? Or wondered how long it would take Bono to actually wipe his sunglasses at 10pm at night? (did he actually ever wipe them?? did he?).. or seen Beyonce, Jay-zee and Gwyn all in a super celebrity huddle?

I'm a wimp. I just can't bring myself to even attempt to go to Glastonbury for real. I probably possibly could get a ticket through various contacts at my ripe old age. But you know what? The thought actually TERRIFIES me. All those people, all that noise, all that rain, all that mud. Miles to the nearest loo or warm dry tent/jumper/socks/cup of tea. People off their heads on drugs. It's all just far far far too scary.

I noticed that they were handing out water to those poor people pinned to the front of the crowd during Coldplay. Thank god - in that heat. But what do they do when they need a wee I asked BD? I mean you can't ask someone to keep your place and just pop out for a sec can you? Where do you go?

"Oh for god's sake woman, you just pee down your leg don't you?" he replied.

It gets better.

Not only are you trapped in a smelly sea of drug heightened humanity for hours on end with no escape, you are actually standing in their wee too. And you have to pee down your own leg.

Nice..

And people pay £195 for that?

I predict a riot.

2011-06-24T12:17:00.000+01:00

Senior's latest phase (aged seven) is to slip into a slow but sure decline at the mere mention of me going out in the evening. Having happily until now, gone trotting off to bed as I leave the house, she is now like a dying duck in a thunderstorm.

I have taken up pilates.

I want Pippa Middleton's bum and apparently that is how she got it. And I have to say, I am hooked. I go every Wednesday night to the Arts Ed in Chiswick where I feel like I'm walking into an episode of 'Fame' and expect Leroy to come pirouetting around the corner in his singlet and legwarmers (except he died of AIDS didn't he?). I lie on the floor of a dusty dance studio with a wall of mirrors and a bar running along one wall, listening to the far off hum of ascending scales by young talented wannabe actors. As they ascend through their notes, their voices get more and more hysterical and deranged until they sound like they are about to bite someone. It is straight out of the movies, it's fabulous and I love the whole atmosphere of it. Perhaps because it is so far removed from my life and is pure escapism.

So Senior said to me the other night "when are you going to give up pilates Mummy?". Bearing in mind I've only been going for three weeks I bristled. There is something about being told off by your seven your old for going out and having an hour and half of YOUR OWN LIFE, that rather sets one's teeth on edge. As I pointed out to her, I am with her and her sisters ALL THE TIME. Every school drop, pick up, mealtime, bathtime, bed time (until now), weekend, morning, night, lunch, afternoon, holiday.. and have been for the last seven years.

I am now entitled to a little 'me' time right? Apparently not.

She actually stays awake until she hears me come back at 9pm. Last night we went to the opera and left her sobbing her heart out on the sofa. My au pair texted me at 9pm to say she'd finally fallen into an exhausted, tear drenched sleep.

So, how do I broach with her that I am going away for the night in two weeks, and that Daddy, who was supposed to be holding the fort will now also be abroad on business, leaving her and her sisters for 24 hours with the au pair - without me.

As I say, I predict a riot.

Forget You..

2011-06-22T13:02:00.008+01:00

My lovely friend over at Knackered Mother's tagged me on this GREAT meme. All I had to do was pick a song that I'd choose if doing karaoke. I have to confess to a secret penchant for karaoke, I would love to be the centre of attention and the star of the show. Perhaps because it is the least likely thing ever to happen to me in my life. EVER.. Particularly now. Anyway I've been thinking about it all night..

It HAD to be a diva... hmmm, Madonna, Britney, Kylie.. so many to choose from. A prerequisite would be it would have to be all about ME, taking centre stage obviously and strutting my funky diva stuff. Maybe J-Lo? Maybe Beyonce?

And then I remembered... this..

This.. is.. the.. one.. Maybe something to do with being forty.

Kate Morris, Mud, Nutty Cow - over to you.

Take it away.

You Choose..

2011-06-21T22:04:00.008+01:00

I was lying in bed with Mini tonight reading this with her, her favourite book illustrated by the fabulous Nick Sharratt of Tracy Beaker fame.

We all love this book in our family - me included. It asks you hypothetical questions about lots of different things and asks you to choose..

Here's my grown up imaginary list.. what's yours?

If you could go anywhere where would you go? - The new Harry Potter theme Park, Florida.

Who would you like for family and friends? - The family from Outnumbered. The 'Friends' friends.

What kind of home would you choose? - A large rambling house in the South of France.

What would you put in it? - a grand piano, my own personal bathroom and dressing room, a dog.

Would you travel with wheels or wings? - Wings, preferably first class.

When you got hungry, what would you eat? - Peanut butter sandwiches, calamari, foie gras, pistachio ice cream.

What would you wear? - My wedding dress.

Choose some shoes - SuperGas.

A hat? - Trilby

Why not get yourself a pet? - Big shaggy mongrel dog called Treacle.

Is there a job you'd like to do? - Air hostess.

What would you do for fun? - Ski, eat, sleep.

And when you got tired and felt like a snooze, where would you sleep? - anywhere with my husband.

Goodnight.

Typical morning..

2011-06-19T08:23:00.004+01:00

So here we are at 8.23am on Sunday 19th June. Father's Day. Breakfast tray poised and ready (made by Mini at precisely 6.43am) to take upstairs to sleeping dad. Senior, seven going on seventeen, slumped in armchair on DS. Mini and Cub slumped on sofa on my iPad playing dressing up princesses.

Me, listening to Aled Jones and writing this.

A typical twenty first century Sunday.. All four awake members of the family on a computer.. including the 21 month old baby. I've tried to fight this.. banning screens until after 5pm/after school/weekends.. But frankly it makes life for the whole family totally unbearable. The sulks, tantrums, slamming doors that follow just simply aren't worth it, and that's just the baby..

My mother's philosophy has always been - let them have a little of everything and then they won't crave it. Hmmmmm.. be interesting when they want to try crack cocaine or absinthe.

Anyway. It's Father's Day hence the paternal lie in and the maternal need for technology at 8.29am. I've just heard an amazing Moment of Reflection on Aled's show by some divine sounding vicar with a voice like melted chocolate. I am waiting for his words about fatherhood to go up on the website so that I can copy it over here.. it stopped me mid tracks to the toaster and I had to silence the children so that I could listen to it. It was stunning.

They are quite good those Dad things - aren't they?

Happy Father's Day.

Still 'ere...

2011-06-15T13:55:00.007+01:00

I've been jolted out of my blogging inertia by a complete stranger.. A very nice lady who sent me some promo stuff to link in, whom when I politely replied to say I was no longer writing (not by choice) immediately replied saying things like "oh no" and "what a shame" and "let me know if you start writing again".

I am a bit gob smacked really.. I simply didn't think anyone read it any more or was even that interested. I mean in the four years that I've been writing this blog (can't quite believe it myself) the blogging world has gone mad.. There is even a name for it "blogosphere".. It's a full time job for some, a business.. There are millions of brilliant, articulate, clever mums out there blogging about fascinating things.. Who on earth wants to read this anymore apart from my brother (hi bro - call me please), and a couple of good loyal mates on their lunch breaks.

Other changes:

I'm writing this lying on my bed on my iPad.

I am 40.

The iPad was a 40th present. It's not very easy to write on it.

My youngest daughter is about to be two..

I have two children at school now and really should be out earning some money.

I've come to have a love/hate relationship with my blog. I am very proud of it, of documenting the girls' early years, of having a few followers, of keeping it going so long. But it suddenly became a chore.. And I was so tired from all the other chores involved with three small children that suddenly I didn't need another one. It wasn't fun anymore. And I haven't had anything interesting to say. There's also the protocol.. Reading other blogs, commenting, awards, memes, tags, photos, comments even conferences.. Suddenly all too much and not enough time.

But I have secretly missed you blog.. I've missed my blogging friends.. How are you Potty, Mud, NVG, Knackered mummy, Muddling along Mummy to name a few? Are you still there?

I might be re-surfacing..

They don't make 'em like that any more..

2011-03-14T13:57:00.004Z

Last night as I was channel surfing alone, eating my solitary dinner for one I stumbled across one of my all time favourite movies on Filmfour.. Terms of Endearment. My heart did that little skip of joy which small pleasures can bring a sad old bird like me on a Sunday evening.. I settled back into the cushions suddenly quite pleased that my husband is safely in Mumbai for five days and I can watch schumultzy, girlie rom coms in peace.

Actually him being away has several benefits which I reflected upon this morning.. I don't have to cook dinner in the evening and can hoover up the kids leftovers without feeling guilty because I know I won't eat again later (.. although I always seem to). I can sleep spreadeagled in the middle of the bed.. I can fit in one or two small children who are having nightmares and still sleep peacefully through the night. I do not have to have sex for five days.. not that I do every day you understand.. but the pressure's off. I'm not fighting to get on the computer.. I'm not fighting for the shower in the morning. There is no one snoring next to me..

Oh dear.. this list is getting rather long. I'd better stop in case he reads it and never comes back.

Getting back to Terms of Endearment. As a very young looking Shirley Maclaine filled my screen last night I did let out a sigh of nostalgia. They just don't make films like this any more. There she is - un-botoxed, un edited, in her full middle aged glory. And there HE is - the unbelievable force of nature that is Jack Nicholson - fat, balding, frankly downright lecherous but OH SO damned sexy in this film. In those days women were WOMEN and men were alpha male, beer drinking, fast car driving, sex machines.. what has happened? It was so refreshing to watch a believable love story of two people with real life plausible faults and hang ups.. The film is so well observed and on the money about men and women and how they react to each other, it is frankly scary. Or maybe as I have turned 40 I can relate to it much better than when I last watched it aged early 30's?

Whatever - I sobbed and wept my way through it despite strict instructions to myself NOT to cry. As soon as Jack Nicholson reappears at the swimming pool to see Aurora that was it.. game over. Wow - what a film.. So well deserved of the many Oscars it won at the time.

Why don't they make men like Jack Nicholson any more?

(Darling you'd better come home soon.. it's not good to leave me on my own with him.)

Seven year itch..

2011-01-20T19:35:00.002Z

It does exist.

I used to think it was a load of old cobblers.. why were 'seven' years significant? Where does this old wives' tale come from?

But I've got it, and it's ALL true.

But it's not with my husband (you can exhale now darling). No - it's with the kids.

My friend and I went out for lunch on Monday because we both had the 'glums'. I offloaded the baby and we went to our fabulous local pub the Princess Victoria for their fabulous £12 set lunch (honestly darling). But even the Princess had the glums that day, as for the first time ever, I had a bad meal there. Which is saying something as it is one of, if not the best pub food in West London..

Anyway, back to the glums. Our glums we discovered, were identical. We had one of those conversations where she said something about how she was feeling, and I sat there with my mouth hanging open in shock and then relief that someone else felt the same way as I did, and vice versa. And so our conversation went on. We concluded that it was all because our eldest children are about to turn - yup you've got it - seven, simple maths dictates that it is approximately seven years ago that we rolled out of the tube/bus/car and waddled to our desks for the very last ever time before setting sail off into the murky depths of motherhood where we have been bobbing about unsteadily for the last seven years.

SEVEN YEARS.. I've just got to say it again. SEVEN YEARS...

I've been doing this motherhood career break thingamybob for SEVEN YEARS..

How? Did? That? Happen?

"Where have 'we' gone?" we asked ourselves..

This was the cause of our glums. The bottom line is that I have had enough of it. I love my kids more than life itself.. But I am not enjoying them at the moment. Correction: I am LOVING the baby who at 15 months old is at the stage of having eyes for no-one other than me who she idolises and adores. That's fine by me. But the other two are driving me, very steadily, gently but quietly around the bend.

I am going through the motions. I wake up and my heart sinks at the impending two hours of doom that awaits me. I brief myself NOT to shout at them before I have said good morning and to AT LEAST wait until they have had their cheerios before I tell them off. Not easy and never ever works.

By the time the kids leave for school, they and husband, are running for cover desperate to escape the deranged pyschopath that their mother/wife has become..

It's not good is it?

Seven years of this, turning 40 imminently, third baby now up feeding herself, sleeping twelve hours a night, walking..

it's time to do something else...

Hello old friend..

2011-01-11T12:40:00.003Z

It's been a while.. My blog is four this May and I have been seriously neglecting it. Sorry blog. My other four year old has been demanding my attention as has my now walking 15 month old and my turning into a teenager nearly seven year old.

The day after I last posted on here, my mother in law had a heart attack. She is fine - don't worry. But it has re-focussed us as a family and set our priorities in order. Suddenly I had a fourth child to look after. And not just any fourth child.. the widowed elderly mother of an only child, my husband. The responsibility of this weighed heavily upon us both but particularly me being the youngest of six and never really having to be responsible for a parent before. One of my siblings has usually shouldered the burden on any family crisis on our side of the fence. But with Bush Daddy's family - it's just him.. or rather it's just him, me and the girls.

Just to add a little spice into the mix, my husband boarded a flight for India two days after her triple bypass surgery and disappeared off into an incommunicado void of crossed lines and annoying time differences.

Then, it snowed, heavily, in London and my job of visiting her daily in intensive care became even more challenging, skidding across snow and ice in the four o'clock dusk.. wearing layers and layers of clothes which I then had to peel off in the stifling warmth of the hospital. But the vulnerability on her face when I arrived, the indignity of seeing her in a backless nylon gown without her teeth in and her hair unkempt was enough to finish me. She is a very stylish well turned out woman.. she hates not to have her hair done or for anyone to see her in anything other than full war paint and immaculately dressed.

Suddenly this rather opinionated, powerful woman who drives me slightly up the wall had, before my eyes, shrunk to a little old lady. The weight fell off her (it needed to), the lines deepened, the hair looked thin and fragile.. her hands felt like little birds in my strong healthy hands. The whole experience moved me beyond belief. I found myself crying at the most ridiculous times of the day. Getting angry with my mother when she complained about some ridiculous trite thing that had gone wrong in her day.

It all got better. Husband came back. She came out and went to a nursing home for a few days which I had chosen and vetted. It broke my heart to put her in there, with all those gaga old ladies smelling of wee but I simply could not have a post operative cardiac patient convalescing in my house with three small children, five polish builders and no husband. She understood.

She spent ten days with us over Christmas - and it was OK. She didn't drive me mad. She was very quiet, very private, slept a lot. She just wanted to be with us.. surrounded by the noise and chaos of a normal family. I tried to keep the children quiet when she rested but she actually liked hearing them nearby, loved it when they barged into her room when she was getting dressed and cross examined her about her underwear..

I feel different. Seeing the effect my children can have on other people. Seeing how much joy they give her and how much they helped her to heal. We fed her, made her hot water bottles, let her sleep, but the real healing came from them, from their simple innocent unassuming love. Caring for a woman who was once so strong and active and now needs us so much is a very grounding experience.

As I approach forty, I certainly do now feel it.

New diet

2010-11-11T09:12:00.002Z

I'm very excited as for the first time in about two years I am back in my old jeans, my size 12's are actually LOOSE and my favourite denim mini skirt is no longer lodging stubbornly on my muffin top. It must be the result of my new diet.

It's called the 'don't have time to eat' diet and I'm sure most women (and maybe some men) will swear by it. I used to really enjoy cooking and be a real foodie. My cupboards are crammed with all sorts of weird ingredients like udon noodles, caramelised onions, panko - to name a few.. but they have sat - untouched - for a while now. As I gazed uninspiringly at my plethora of cook books yesterday I realised that I actually now - hate cooking. It is a chore, a millstone around my neck, a simple waste of the precious few hours of freedom that I now have and which I covet.

Don't get me wrong.. I do still cook. Normally most days, I have made a shepherds pie, spag bol, fish pie, casserole by lunchtime. So by my lunchtime I am sick to death of food and will myself eat a small sandwich or some pitta bread hurriedly dunked in houmous and a diet coke drunk, again on the run in my hurry to get onto something far more interesting like snatching a couple of child free moments on the computer or reading a magazine.

It's a simple question of priorities. And food is no longer one of them.

During the afternoon I run around like a mad woman for about an hour picking up children, dropping off children, everywhere carrying a hefty one stone baby on my hip (who needs weights?). And then by five thirty I am spooning aforementioned shepherds pie, spag bol, fish pie into three hungry mouths, scraping it off the floor, table, chairs, carpet. Then washing it all up by which time I never want to open the fridge again - in - my - life... EVER.

Husband gets thrown together pasta improvisation most nights. Or a jacket potato if he's lucky. I'll eat more pitta bread with peanut butter or houmous, and maybe a bored attempt at a jacket potato and a glass of wine before retreating as soon as possible back to my book, the computer, the tv - whichever happens to be more appealing.

It seems to be working. The 'no time to eat diet'. Reminds me of the 'having too much fun to eat' diet of my university days when I survived on a loaf of white bread, endless cups of tea and diet coke along with quite a lot of cheap and nasty wine by night and a lot of dancing (or raving as it was called back then). I was seven stone.. and it was fabulous.

My child of our time.

2010-11-05T10:07:00.004Z

My one and bit year old may be ghost writing this for me soon. She seems to have far more time on her hands than I do. Plus her first word was 'ello' shouted rather loudly whilst holding a small pink plastic mobile phone to her ear. She now thinks it's hilarious to wobble around the place grabbing anything remotely phone shaped, holding it to her ear and yelling "'ello, 'ello, 'ELLO" at the top of her voice.

One of her first fine motor skills was the sweeping movement with her chubby little index finger. Yes, that's right, she's discovered my iphone (along with her sisters) and now throws a complete, full blown diva tantrum unless I hand it over (luckily I took out insurance). She can swipe it on and off, swipe through photos, send text messages.. no just kidding.. but it won't be long. Her eldest sister (aged six and a half) now sends regular text messages to her best friend.

She loves my husband's laptop which sits around the house most of the time ready for sticky little fingers to poke all the buttons. She gazes longingly at her two older sisters playing on the CBBC website for rather too much of the day. She hasn't got into television yet but loves listening to the ipod which the other two now put on by themselves, selecting their favourites songs from Cheryl Cole and Kylie. I mean when did children get so sophisticated? I remember buying my first LP by Elvis when I was about eight and even then not really knowing what to do with it.

It has got me thinking about our children of today. How different their influences are to when we were kids.. Back to when we had just three television channels, one fixed bakerlite telephone with a curly whirly wire per household which alone provided hours of entertainment. I remember clearly dangling the receiver for hours trying to unkink all the kinks in it. And the pleasure of sticking little fingers into the then seemingly huge dialling holes and straining to turn the numbers around the creaky dial.. and the lovely whirring noise it made..

Such simple pleasure.. No children's telly, no mobile phones, no computer games.. My eldest daughter pesters me daily for a DS or a Wii. She goes to friends' houses and comes home full of how she spent hours dancing in front of a screen.. What happened to good old fashioned hide & seek or playing with dolls? I remember playing for HOURS with my Sindy dolls and my brothers Action men. Or building huge Lego worlds.. Or making chocolate crispy cakes with my mum.

I'm winning the DS battle at the moment... they don't need any more screens. But I wouldn't be surprised to walk to my desk one day soon and find the baby sitting there sending an email..

Perspective.

2010-10-14T13:36:00.002+01:00

The miracle of watching those men climbing out of that hole in Chile puts, for one small moment, everything else into perspective. Suddenly unreliable builders, bickering children, financial worries, sleep deprivation and where to go on holiday next year all seem so damned irrelevant.

As Bush Daddy said to me last night, how nice to have good news for a change.

I love this poem that I read on Jeremy Vine's site.

Out Of A Copper Mine
by Lucy Berry

When the whole world shifts and creaks
in the press of the rock above you;
and there are no doors from the night
to the ones who love you,

(and the silly, bright metal you prized
and the zeal with which you mined it
is part of the dark, and the dark,
and the dark of eyes blinded)…

you yearn for the sameness of light.
And a breeze. And your parents’ faces.
And the kiss of a loving child.
And your wife’s embraces...

...and hailing a friend on the street
as if there was nothing to it;
the ordinary things which are blessed
though you never knew it.

And long after you have been freed
from that outer and inner night
as an old, old man you’ll recall
your first new glimpse of the sight
of human faces - and hands -
and the blessed greatness of Light.

Favourite photo - 10/10/10

2010-10-13T10:28:00.005+01:00

I was about to trawl through my photos to find one of my favourites when I suddenly remembered that I took this, last Sunday, the 10th day of the 10th month of the 2010th year.

It was a perfect Indian summer day, taken in the New Forest where we went to the top of the river to watch my mum racing her scow dinghy..

This is Senior swinging out across the creek in a moment of totally pure childhood heaven.

It's a forty thing..

2010-10-12T19:12:00.003+01:00

I seem to be growing younger.

Whereas most women approaching forty far too fast like me are settling down in book clubs, drinking fine wine, buying their shoes from Russell & Bromley and watching Downton Abbey, I am turning into a teenager.

Luckily, my husband is too so we are rebelling together.

For example at night we rush to bed, frantically checking on the kids en route, taking them for night time wees, locking up, turning out lights, trying desperately to get into the bathroom first before the other one before diving for the pillows.

Don't turn away if you think things are about to get steamy.. they're not..

Oh no we aren't rushing to bed to HAVE SEX...

No, no, no.. It's the teenage vampires.. again. Well at least it is now for my husband. I on the other hand have graduated from Stephanie Meyer onto big grown up vampires who actually "do it".. yes, they have sex, and quite a lot of it, in almost embarrassingly graphic detail. True Blood. 'V'. I'm addicted. In a kind of secret (not any more), guilty kind of way. I have to turn the volume down when the sexy bits come on in case the neighbours happen to be coming home and can hear it from my sitting room, or one of the children wakes up wanting a glass of water..

I've had to LEAVE my book club with mumbled apologies because I am actually secretly addicted to teenage literature and vampire porn.

And then there's X Factor. I have never watched it in my life. I have blatantly poo pooed my friends who watch it. What a load of mindless clap trap lining the pockets of the ghastly Simon Cowell. But now.. yup, I'm addicted. It is like drugs. You HAVE to tune in to see who is in and who is out. This weekend we both bolted our very nice dinner and excused ourselves from my parents' dinner table to rush to tune in.

Fast forward half an hour and my entire family is 'ooohhing' and 'ahhhing' at the dreadfulness of Wagner and the divinity of Aidan. My 80 year old father is in love with Danni Minogue's eyes.

But back to bedtime chat.. our day normally ends up with me winding up my husband by letting slip little nuggets about Bella turning into a vampire or Jacob imprinting upon Renesmee.. he howls at me to shut up and stop giving the plot away. Then we lie there long into the night having long discussions about how the hell one gets pregnant by a vampire anyway and whether Edward would have a really cold *****? Surely they can't actually 'conceive' as it were.. I mean they are dead right? They don't have a heartbeat.

This is the level of intellectual discussion in our house right now.

And then, last week, in a moment of pure poetry, Simon Cowell likens Aidan (my favourite X Factor contestant durrrhh) to being so 'of the moment' in the style of the whole 'Robert Pattinson Twilight thing'.. and I sit there feeling quite smug, quite 'with it' and definitely nowhere near to being forty.

Hello bro..

2010-10-06T21:03:00.004+01:00

My brother phoned me today.

We haven't spoken since early August due to his busy schedule and living on the other side of the world.. and me juggling three children, six Polish builders, a lot of concrete and an absent husband.

We chatted away about family, work, children, schools. He did most of the talking about his end.. not many questions were directed my way. I was surprised at the length of time since his last call. I was also surprised at the lack of questions that he asked me about my family, life, husband etc.

When I did start telling him something about what I'd been up to, he immediately interrupted me, finishing my story for me before I could even begin..

I was stunned..

.."but how did you.."..

**ding** (penny drops)

.."ahhh.. the blog"..

"yes, the blog" he replies.. "I always read your blog".. "so WHY haven't you been writing it?"..

So, this is to my brother, sorry I haven't written for a bit.. I actually didn't realise you read about my life or that you would find it the slightest bit interesting.. but the fact that you do and the fact that you read it is, in fact, remarkably flattering particularly as I distinctly remember you saying to me once that you were completely and utterly flummoxed as to WHY ON EARTH I would want to write all about my life on the internet, revealing my innermost secrets to a bunch of complete strangers. WHAT ON EARTH possible purpose could it serve and FRANKLY MORE TO THE POINT, who on EARTH is interested?

Well there's your answer..

Clearly...

you are..

The crying game.

2010-09-14T09:34:00.004+01:00

We've had lots of tears in the Bush household this last week. Mini has started her new school which happens to be the most brilliant CE school that we DIDN'T get Senior into two years ago and about which there was much gnashing of teeth and sobbing on this very blog.

But the gods were shining on us skint folk in W12 and lo and behold a place popped up for Mini and so there she now goes. It leaves me with the slight dilemma of having two children at two different schools and all the problems that presents.

EG

two different school runs, in opposite directions, 10 minutes apart.

two different school uniforms - no hand me downs.

one on packed lunch, one on school dinners. A fight every morning.

one at a very socially active school with hundreds of after school meetings and jollies - one who takes your child, takes your money and basically tells you to 'eff off'.

the list continues and will evolve I'm sure..

However we in the Bush are VERY happy to now only be paying one lot of school fees.. this does lighten the financial burden somewhat, hence my 40th taking place in Marrakech, and not in the Eagle on the Askew Road.

However being the time poor mummy that I am at the best of times, I now have to literally pull up at the school gate, eject one child and leave her standing to go in alone (this is allowed btw), floor it through W4, W6 into W12 to double park hideously illegally, tear through streets into emptying playground and gently shove younger child onto end of disappearing line into classroom (baby left happily chuntering in the car).

This all went fine last week and is certainly good for my post partum fitness regime. I am losing about three pounds a week in stress and sweat. However on Friday it all went a bit wrong.

Mini, suddenly realised that school - was - forever.

It wasn't some fun summer camp that was going to end and we could all go home to mummy and make cakes all day. Oh no no - this was it sunshine. You are here, and here you are going to stay.

The penny dropped and the mouth turned down. The mouth turned down and the eyes welled up. The eyes welled up and the shoulders drooped. The shoulders drooped and the most almighty wail went up from somewhere in W12 that could be heard inside Westfield. And the arms and legs went around me like vices and DID NOT LET GO. For the last three days, Mini's teachers have had to physically unpeel her from my body. Today my husband took her, and the headmaster actually came over, unclamped her, took her firmly by the hand and led her gently off to look at some stickers, as she screamed even more loudly.

I wasn't expecting this. Mini is my boy. My tough little cookie who rarely gets emotional about anything. She is teflon coated. Shouts and threats bounce off her.. not much bothers her in life. But clearly this does. I know it will pass and as soon as we've left her she's fine..

And so I headed off to Legs, Bums and Tums on Friday morning after having my second child surgically removed from me. I left the baby in the creche and went up to work up a sweat with the wimpiest, gayest fitness instructor I have EVER seen..

It lasted half an hour. The door opened and there stood the creche girl eyeing me pleadingly..

"Can you come? She's crying"..

Getting old with vampires..

2010-09-12T10:23:00.004+01:00

I've just booked my 40th birthday celebrations and I'm feeling a bit glum. There is a very insightful article in Red this month about women being in their prime during their 30's, how you know who you are, where your going, where you want to be. You don't care so much about what people think of you, how thin/fat/tall/short you are. By your thirties you've grown used to yourself in the mirror and what you see is ok. Every word of it is true (get hold of a copy and read it if you can).

So why do I now have to be 40? I love being in my 30's. 20's were fun in a slightly out of control, too much of everything kinda way and I was very glad to leave them behind me.

In my 30's I became quite good at my job, met my man, calmed down, had my children and generally started to enjoy life and being me. It's been bloody hard work but of a very rewarding nature. Building my life with my family, the people I'm going to grow old with.

But 40 seems quite scary suddenly. Half of my life is over and whilst I am glad to be with the people I want to spend the next half of my life with, I am still looking in the mirror thinking how the hell did that happen? I still remember, very clearly, being sixteen at school and thinking that buying Just Seventeen magazine was so grown up and 'old'. I remember thinking that by 34 you were past it. And here I am.. teetering on the edge of my 30's, about to topple.

My latest obsession to escape from the children is vampires. Someone lent me Twilight and I am hooked. I have watched two of the films and have all four of the books. I am obsessed with Edward Cullen, a seventeen year old very sexy bloodsucker. This is NOT the behaviour of a near forty year old housewife. I mean he is young enough to be my son for god's sake. This can't be normal.. I have googled Robert Pattinson - it is embarrassing.. my husband is embarrassed on my behalf. I catch him gazing at me when I'm reading my book and everso slightly shaking his head in bemusement as if to say "it's a phase.. she'll grow out of it" like I'm one of the children.

The prospect of four nights in Marrakech in February is keeping me going. As I put yet another 40th birthday party in the diary, my approach is to run for the hills to celebrate.. in this case the Atlas Mountains.. with my husband and hole up in a very nice hotel for five days by ourselves to mourn the passing of my better years.

Maybe there will be vampires there?

Three is the magic number.

2010-08-17T08:48:00.003+01:00

I can't believe it is nearly one year that I have been a mother of three.

Last night I walked out.

I left the house, slamming the door behind me leaving my rather astonished husband with three mewling children. A nearly one year old teething, snotty, hot little baby. A four year old and a six year old who are about to kill each other after nearly eight weeks of self imposed imprisonment with each other.

No one would go to bed.

Everybody was crying.

I had enough.

I don't do this normally. I am quite old fashioned in the sense that my husband has an incredibly stressful job and works all hours that god sent so it is of course my job, as his non 'working' wife to make sure the house is calm and serene when he arrives home. The children are more often than not bathed, teeth cleaned and calmly sitting in front of the telly waiting for him to come home and read them a story. The baby is always asleep. But last night the baby wouldn't go to sleep.. entering some annoying new growth phase where every time I put her into her cot she back arches and thrashes around like a newly caught cod..

And the big girls, despite new bicycles, trips to the cinema, outings to lovely activity parks, swimming, beach trips, ice creams, new toys, new dvds, hour after hour of cutting sticking pasting, colouring in..

are.. still...not...happy....

are...still..whining...

continue..to.. bicker.. constantly..

and frankly.. I've had enough of the bloody holidays.

Having three kids is like being a member of an exclusive private members club. It comes at great cost, but with huge reward and benefits. You don't really know what it's going to be like until you join. Other members nod at you meaningfully, with a slightly superior air of 'you are one of US now' shaking their heads sympathetically when they hear your tales of exhaustion, early starts, never having a minute to yourself, not being able to go to the loo.. all day... ever.

People often ask me if I'd have gone for a third if I'd known.. After a brief pause, I reply that of course I would. But if I know anyone who is thinking about having number three, I invite them into my office, sit them down and give them a serious talking to. I wish someone had done that for me and I don't really understand why no one warns you how hard it can be, and yet so bloody fantastic at the same time.

Bring on school.. and then maybe I can start writing my blog again..

Ch, ch, ch, ch-an-ges...

2010-06-28T19:24:00.007+01:00

I hate change.

I'm a creature of habit. I like things 'just so'. An order to life.. a routine.

And just when it's feeling vaguely manageable (my life that is), it's all change.

Again.

Mainly I'm in a decline because my divine, darling, best ever au pair - the Ballerina - is leaving on Wednesday. In two sleeps. Only one more bath time to go.. only one more full day of divinenes.. of calm.. of handing the baby over to someone else so that I can help Senior with her tricky maths homework.. or read a book to Mini.. or make supper.. or go on Facebook.. basically have five minutes escape..

Ten months has gone in the blink of an eye.. it feels like only yesterday that I was the size of a house and she was arriving from Stansted.. I knew from the fact that the girls were hanging off her when they all walked in from the airport that she was going to be a big hit.

They haven't quite realised that she's going yet. I keep blubbing and they just think it's all a big joke. I don't know quite how I'm going to deal with Senior when she goes into her empty room on Wednesday afternoon and finds her gone. I have sweetened the pill to both myself and the kids by making a fairly firm arrangement for her to come back next summer for a 'working holiday'. I'm hoping that her life events won't overtake her by then but I'm not optimistic.. she is going to study to be a doctor and holiday time will be precious for both study and down time.. she won't want to come and look after my brats again.

I have been very lucky. She has been like a daughter and a friend to me, despite the fact I am old enough to be her mother.. She has slotted into our family like the proverbial pea in the pod.. I think she has vaguely got on my nerves about three times in ten months which I don't think is half bad. Far less than my husband irritates me..

I even felt quite pleased when Germany won yesterday, on her behalf.

I owe her a huge debt of gratitude. I have two stable normal children whose lives have, thanks in great part to her, not really changed since the arrival of Cub. She has kept the troubled waters calm.. quietly dealing with the chaos when I have been too exhausted.

And when I see her with the Cub.. my heart melts.. because I know leaving is going to be equally hard for her. She has been with my baby since the moment she was born. She was about the third person ever to hold her and has basically looked after her ever since. We are desperately willing her to crawl for the Ballerina before she leaves.. she is so nearly there.. on the wobbly cusp of starting her great adventure through life..

When she fell forwards this afternoon in another failed attempt, misjudging her balance on her fat little paws, it was the Ballerina who dived forward and scooped her up into a gigantic fat squishy cuddle - not me. She held her with such tenderness and kissed away all those tears with such love that I felt quite choked and had to turn away.

I think Wednesday is going to be very hard on her too.

Auf Wiedersehen pet.. we're sure gonna miss you.

My Daddy..

2010-06-21T22:07:00.002+01:00

I previously thought Father's day a load of commercial clap trap.

Probably an excuse for being crap yesterday and not really giving my husband any treats..

Maybe due to the excruciating hangover that I had..

And then Senior - aged 6 - pulled this one out of the bag..

And I think that sums it up nicely?

Motherhood

2010-06-16T09:51:00.004+01:00

This month's gallery subject is Motherhood.

There's not much more to say on this one other than that for me, it is the greatest gift that I have ever been given and I thank someone up there for it every morning when I wake up.

When I hear about the death of a child - any child.. I always shudder and feel dizzy and a little bit sick. Mainly out of desperate sorrow for the mother that is left behind, but also selfishly, a tiny part of me is always sickened by the thought of it - the unthinkable - happening to me.

This photo was taken approximately one minute after Mini was born. I had only been in labour for four hours.. An hour before this was taken I was sitting on the sofa at home watching TV. She arrived at great speed and with very little fuss. The next day I was walking around, doing the laundry, cooking lunch. Hers was the easiest and most enjoyable of my three birth experiences. And I think it gives us a special bond that she has since been pretty easy and straightforward.

I was at one of my happiest moments in this photo. The safe arrival of another perfect little girl.

Motherhood - a gift that none of us should ever take for granted and one that we should always cherish.

The horns, the horns...

2010-06-14T19:28:00.006+01:00

I'm not a football fan.. Even if I was I have been far too busy organising birthday parties, holidays, wedding anniversaries and christenings - all of which have featured in our life in the last four weeks.

World Cup? What World Cup?

Being married to a gay man in a straight man's body, football does not feature much in our household. He'll probably kill me for saying that... giving away the truth that he'd much rather watch "Gardener's World" or "Have I got News for you" than England v whoever the hell it happens to be..

However I did happen to tune in to the first England game as I was making trifle the other evening.. I had it on in the kitchen quietly whilst I pottered about, thinking I should at least do my bit for patriotism even if I really am not the least bit interested..

A friend summed it up perfectly this weekend.. When I asked her if she was following the world cup she replied that no she wasn't because she didn't know any of the players any more. This struck a chord. No more Beckham, Ljundberg, Owen, Henry or even Ferdinand who I am at least familiar with. They've all gone so who is left to follow? Ashley Cole? No thanks - bored, bored, bored of hearing about his life. Lampard - ok I suppose.. But really they are all young enough to be my sons so frankly they no longer hold my attention.

There was something magical that happened to the atmosphere when Becks stepped into the stadium. The air crackled with electricity - he had such a presence (on the pitch). Who now really has that magic?

Anyway back to pottering in the kitchen. I suddenly became aware of the most dreadful low humming/buzzing sound in my kitchen. It went on and on even after I opened all the windows and doors to get whatever bug it was out. After a while and with the onset of a nagging headache I realised it was coming from the television. More specifically from the football stadium in Cape Town or Jo'burg or wherever the hell it was.

The dreaded horns..

What a dreadful racket they make.. And what I want to know is - when did they start to appear at football matches? I've been to a few footie matches in my time (a brief spell as a Gunner in my youth) and I have never witnessed these dreadful things before. And now every Tom, Dick and Harry in South Africa seems to be carrying one.

How does anyone hear what is going on with that racket? How can the players concentrate? How can the commentators keep their focus and train of thought?

I had to switch it off. I am now watching Italy v Paraguay with the mute button on. It will be the silent world cup in our house from now on..

Ban the bloody horns I say.

Pin up of the week.

2010-06-09T09:56:00.007+01:00

I used to feature a regular pin up of the week.

A 'hottie' that cheered me up when I was having a bad moment, feeling swamped by the mundanity and lack of glamour in my stay at home mummy life. A little pick me up when I turned on the telly or opened the paper for a quick read..

I had abandoned this regular feature for lack of tottie talent.. it simply dried up. James Franco, Dominic Cooper and that very yummy army sergeant that I featured from the front page of the Telegraph a while back were all favourites.

But since then..

Nada.. nothing.. zilch..

It's been a desert out there. No one to look at or fantasise over..

And let's face it.. All mummies need a good old fantasy every now and then. When the bod starts going south and the wrinkles seem to multiply in one's sleep, there's nothing like a nice tasty pin up to cheer one up and remind one that one used to be young, fit and beautiful even if now we are old enough to be these chaps' mothers.

And then I turned on the TV last Tuesday night whilst on holiday in Woolacombe and I tuned into Luther..

And that was that..

My heart was lost..

This time six years ago..

2010-05-27T09:05:00.002+01:00

They make your teeth fall out.

They make your hair fall out.

They deprive you of sleep for six years running.

They cost a fortune in shoes, breakfast cereal and drawing paper..

They never stop talking..

They fight constantly with their siblings..

They always want more, more, more..

But then you look back at pictures like this, and you think..

...boy isn't it all worth it?

Happy Birthday Senior..

Six today.

This time four years ago...

2010-05-25T19:33:00.001+01:00

I was sitting on the sofa, panting at regular intervals.

Four hours later, this little person arrived (and yes I did make it to hospital.. just).

Happy Birthday Mini Bush Baby.

Four today..

Friendship.

2010-05-24T17:58:00.004+01:00

This week's Gallery subject is "Friendship" and I'm actually nicking this photo and story from my other half.

This picture sits in a frame in our sitting room, and every time I look at it I get a little glow in my heart and ever such a slight pang of envy. Not only does it show my hubby looking so happy (yes he is the maniacal grinning one top left hand corner), but to me, it epitomises a very strong bond of friendship that can exist between a group of close friends.

There is a touch of St Elmo's Fire in this gang.. a bit of The Big Chill or Peter's Friends going on.. It's not that I don't have friendships of my own.. I just don't have one big group of friends who have remained eternally close from university days, like this.

Every year since about 1994, usually at Easter, this same group of people have been on holiday together for a week in a rented house. It started as a drunken, debauched knees-up with lots of drinking games and snogging. Over the years girlfriends have become wives and pregnancies have come and gone. This year, we were twenty adults with a jaw dropping twenty four children between us.

These guys are a truly impressive bunch.. I was terrified when I was first introduced as "the new bird".. Needless to say I was given the third degree by the girls (they weren't handing over one of their boys THAT easily!). But in the last eight years they have slowly but surely become good friends of mine too and what is even more fantastic is that our children are all great friends, we are all godparents to each other's children and we still pretty much all see each other on a weekly if not monthly basis.

So there it is.

Friendship.

One Day..

2010-05-21T16:15:00.007+01:00

I've just read the most fabulous book in book club. I never normally write about book club for fear of sounding old and boring and falling into that stereotype of "stay-at-home, join a book club, have babies, go to coffee mornings, spend all my husband's money, garden" category (even though I am of course firmly in it).

But this one is worth reading and is the inspiration for this post mainly because on May 20th it was my three year Bloggerversary. Or my three year Blogday?

Basically I've been writing this drivel for three years.

I can't quite believe it.

There've been good times. There've been bad times. There's been another baby, a lot of pain, not much sleep, many laughs, many tears, many highs and many lows.

But we are still here in the Bush and we are all still smiling.

So here we go..

May 20th...

One Day...

Three years..

Let's see shall we?

This was how it all began. Amazing to think she still hasn't been found.

And this was 2008.. a brief respite from pregnancy, breastfeeding, hormones, nappies, poo, sick and wee. I was actually quite thin, having a laugh and looked relatively normal.

Then this in 2009. Pregnant, food poisoning, 20 week scan revealing another little girl - how blessed were we?

And to today when I didn't write yesterday because guess what? I was ill again, same day, another bug, up all night, feeling dreadful. It must be something about May 20th that sets me off?

So this is coming a day late but still.. thanks to all my readers and my lovely cyber friends that I have made. Am still unsure as to why my life is even vaguely interesting to anyone else but me.

But most of all - to my girls.

My world.

This is, and always has been, for you.

Mind the gap..

2010-05-17T21:05:00.004+01:00

This happened this evening.

It made me surprisingly emotional.

Seems like only yesterday we were going through hell waiting for them to appear. Cub is now doing the honours on that front.. and Senior's are just falling out all over the place.

Sigh.

Where does the time go?

Dear Harry Potter..

2010-05-16T19:25:00.006+01:00

Senior came in to the kitchen last night, ginormous blue eyes brimming with tears, bottom lip wobbling. I sighed, wiped my hands, squatted down on my haunches to her level and looked solemnly into her little face to enquire what her sister had done (now).

She took a few deep wobbly breaths and then pulled a piece of paper out from behind her back. She then proceeded to tell me that she was feeling very sad and had written a letter.. to her latest hero of the moment.. Harry Potter. I eventually got it out of her that she was feeling terribly upset having watched the end of the Chamber of Secrets because Harry leaves Hogwarts and goes home leaving Dumbledore and all his friends. She feels really sorry for him because he hasn't got a mummy and daddy to go home to.

I'm a bit unsure about whether my four and six year old children should be watching Harry Potter - certificate 12.

"No" I hear you cry.. and you are probably right. But they watched it on holiday at Easter with their older (eight year old) friends.. and that's it. They are hooked. No matter how much I encourage good old Snow White or Dumbo, it's Harry and Hogwarts they want.

They both want to be Hermione.

They can recite most of the spells and use my chopsticks as wands.

They love Hagrid.

They call Ron, Rob.

They know that Draco Malfoy is really bad and they don't seem at all bothered by Dementors. We fast forward the giant killer spider bit but they have seen the two headed man who has Voldemort living in him who spontaneously combusts at the end. And it doesn't seem to bother them.. but it does raise a whole lot of 'other' issues..

Like boarding school?

After many questions such as "where are their parents Mummy?" I explained to the girls that Harry and his chums sleep at Hogwarts without their mum and dads.. A look of wonderment passed over their faces. I went on to explain that I went to boarding school when I was younger than Harry Potter, that I absolutely loved it and met most of my closest friends there.. including Senior's godmother. Their jaws fell wider and wider as I explained that I slept in a dormitory with four other girls and it was like having a gigantic sleepover every single night. I actually begged my mum to let me go to boarding school I told them.. all my friends were going and I wanted to go too..

"Cool" breathed Mini..

"Awful" moaned Senior.. 'I'm NEVER EVER going to boarding school".

And I feel my heart strings pulling as another little piece of my girls' future clicks into focus.

Senior will never want to leave me, but Mini will be off as soon as you can say Invicto Veritas.. or whatever the hell it is they say..

And swearing.

Despite being a certificate 12 as I walked out of the room I suddenly hear the words 'bloody hell' as Harry's turned into Crabbe.. and then 'bloody hell' again as Ron turns into Coyle (or whatever's he's called).

Basically my point is, this film is unsuitable on SO many levels and yet my girls absolutely love it and spend hours making up Harry Potter fantasy worlds, telling amazing stories and whizzing around the house pretending to be unicorns or owls, dropping pieces of paper on each other and having pretend feasts with pretend goblets. It is so amazing to watch that I can't quite bring myself to take it all away from them.

I'm just waiting for that little voice..

"Bloody Hell Mummy".. it's coming.. I know it is..

Fly in the car...

2010-05-11T21:43:00.006+01:00

"Bloody hell Sam.. we're in.. I can't bloody believe it! Christ I'm nervous.. thank god you're here.. what the hell am I doing? This is surreal. God look at that bloke in that taxi staring at us.. and the cab driver.. they must be listening on the radio.. where is our escort? Why haven't they closed the bloody roads. Note to self - never EVER drive unaccompanied through London streets again. Too many rubberneckers.. Yes hello dear.. shut your mouth.. yes it's us.. yes that's right.. the Camerons.. yes I'm PM now.. God Sam, here we are, look at the size of the place.. what do I say to her? God my palms are sweating... Does my hair look ok? Does my breath smell? Is my forehead shiny? Are you ok? How's the baby? What? Calm down? Yes, yes ok.. Breathe breathe, she's only human like the rest of us. Shit what do I call her again? Ma'am, Your Majesty, Your Royal Highness? Christ get Steve on the phone.. get him to check Royal protocol on first meeting.. Oh god, here we go. The car's stopping, wish me luck, hold my hand.. Not sure I can do this.. what's that? yes I can, I can, I can.. Positive Mental Attitude.. You are right.. as always. Thank god you're here.. right, yes, I love you too.. Breathe. Deep breath.. breathe."

Later. Upon entering Number Ten.

Samantha: "Bloody hell, look at her curtains.. they've gotta go.."

Dripping tap.

2010-05-07T19:04:00.008+01:00

As I tuned blearily into Radio 4 this morning to glean what had happened to our country overnight, I caught the tail end of a talking head drawing some parallel between some politician or other and a nagging woman.

He was likening a nagging woman to a dripping tap.

And it dawned on me, that I have become a dripping tap. All day this has been niggling me, bugging me and generally on my mind. I am basically being a bit of a cow to my husband at the moment. I don't do it deliberately or consciously. But I realise that since Cub's arrival I have slowly but surely become a bit of a nag.

Drip, drip, drip.

The combination of tiredness (sorry I KNOW I'm always banging on about how tired I am but bear with me), juggling three children and him suddenly working the hours of a top level lawyer (on about an eighth of the salary) have all combined to make me into a self-proclaimed "pain in the ass".

I don't pester him at the office during the day.

I don't even particularly need him to be home at bathtime thanks to my divine angelic Ballerina who is leaving me next month (sob).

But once he walks through the door at anything onwards from 9pm, I tend to be either in bed, on my way to bed or far too tired to speak to him. If we do have a conversation it is in monosyllables about how the kids are, why he's so late - again, what needs doing around the house, has he called his mother, how much money we haven't got, followed by a swift night then, see ya and the light goes off. No kiss. Nothing. I'm all out of love.

Then in the morning when I get downstairs I enter the kitchen and survey the chaos that reigns and start barking out orders about what to put in the girls' lunchboxes, where the clean school shirts would be, what porridge to feed the baby, in between yelling at one or other of the kids to sit down and eat their cheerios or else. Then whoever is doing the school run goes to get dressed, and that's it. By the time I get back he's gone. By the time he gets back I'm in the shower. Conversation over. We have not exchanged one nice word to each other. And then it starts all over again the next night.

I may soften and bend a little during a quiet moment during the day and send a text or an email apologising for being such a cow.. but as soon as he walks in the door again, I seem to grow horns. It's all rather worrying really and I guess I should watch it as one day, as my mother always warns me, he may just walk out the door and not bother coming back.

And I wouldn't blame him.

On a happier note, the lovely Belgravia Wife has nominated me for an award. Winning these never ceases to make me happy so thank you very much.

I need to name seven things that people may find interesting about me.. and nominate some other worthy bloggers.

Here goes..

1) I am a dripping tap... but at least I admit it.
2) I love Barbara Streisand.
3) If I had a dog I'd call him Treacle.
4) If my life was a song it would be "You can't always get what you want" by the Rolling Stones.
5) I really want to move and live abroad before I die.
6) Rome is my favourite city.
7) I wish I could speak Russian (and work for MI5).

I nominate the following bloggers:

Tara at Sticky Fingers for starting the truly brilliant Gallery.
Potty... just because she's fab and in Russia.
Mud.. I feel like I really know her now she's met my family in Singapore..

Teeth.

2010-05-05T21:14:00.003+01:00

My eldest daughter is losing hers.

My youngest daughter is gaining hers.. (and keeping me up all night in the process).

I too, am losing mine, thanks to all of my daughters.

I went to the dentist yesterday. I have been too busy to go for a year and only went due to terrible sensitivity problems with my teeth that have mysteriously developed. My lovely dentist took x-rays and there they were.. in black and white.. my poor eroded, receding gums. Before and after baby number three. One minute they are there.. the next minute they're disappearing like some shrunken, wizened old lady.

I used to have good teeth. People COMMENTED on my teeth.. I had a good smile.

Now I am turning into some gummy, loose toothed old hag. I am not going to have my own set by the time I hit 45. They are all going to start to wobble and fall out like Senior's. My mother in law's falsies click when she eats. That'll be me soon..

Not for the first time this year, I am starting to feel old.

Is there a tooth fairy for mummies?

Why does having babies make your gums shrink and your teeth fall out?