io

I’d be buggered in the Southern hemisphere. Winter needs a celebration. Hang on, how cold is Italy this time of year? I somehow doubt the chariot DUIs and turkey pizza dinners of Saturnalia would have had snow on snow, snohoho on snow. But isn’t that the joy of glass upon glass (glahahass upon glass) of Christmas cava? All your seasonal icons get in a muddle and it’s pulling them out of your brain through your mouth in a soggy, glorious tumble of ubertinsel that you realise. Damn. The bleak midwinter is made to party.

Or to drink glahahass upon glass of cava while putting up the deccies and voting for Leona and pretending you have a life and are invited to the sort of parties that bleak midwinters pimp.

stick it to the man

And the teachers have ideas. And then all the teachers talk to Mr C about their ideas. And they all mix up their ideas. And that’s a. What’s that called? A democracy.

Top one, Zig. And have you done who decides which ideas are done how, when, and to or for whom?

The word for tomorrow is autocracy.

feat

Gareth took a fisheye lomo shot of my feet. These feet have had quite a few Flickr views, a couple of comments - from foot fans, I assume - and a goodly Autumn run in a Paris department store. For black socks. Which I wasn’t wearing. Right now I’m wearing dark blue socks with bright blue toe and heel. Just so you know. Oh, how I dream of one day owning black socks. They used my feet to pimp their product and didn't send me a sample. I'm glad to say the same of the people who left the Flickr comments.

Gareth and I are having a teeny domestic rumble about who took the shot of Oscar Pistorius:



which has about fifty Flickr views less than the feet. Rock paper scissors.




Searching for my feet found Zig’s foot:

prima materia

Take an Open Day in a High School with cardboard corridors and pupils who slam doors and startle with a grin.

Shake over the promise of a large budget for a refurb rebuild. Add a generous pinch of extra budget for an autism department.

Stir thoroughly with a physiotherapist who only seems to want to talk to your son’s LSA, not to the mum.

Fold in a prospectus, unfold at the SENCO’s name.

Break the ice with a phonecall. Dig out a pair of trousers that aren’t denim.

Shatter the nerves with a first day.

Take a seat next to a sealed alembic.

Agitate.

Gently.

virgo midheaven

Will I ever feel useful? Will I ever feel of use?

Probably not, yet there’s this queasy compulsion to keep trying.

One day. Yes! We could do with you. You are the very person. We have the very thing.

A little thing. That I do. That I can do. Well.

could try harder

We don’t send holiday letters. People we know or know of, who by association or accusation are etched into my in-head Christmas card list, can assess our progress through this year’s children’s drawings.

Because what’s the use of keeping children if they don’t scribble something mewlingly festive in felt tip, which the parent can grab by the scruff, shake, and scan? Before stuffing in a sack and drowning in the waterbutt.

Here, goes the printer: Here, have many, many mewling festive scribblings. Splurge goes the pritstick. Hah. Instant xmas art no one dare criticise because. It. Has. Been. Done. By. Children.

Genius. And then, because I loathe everyone on my Christmas card list who cares for the state of their carpets, I bring out the PVA and add glitter.

stocking

Nanna would make my stocking and Grandad would watch and pass comment and humbugs. Sweets, puzzles, plastic toys, marbles, bubbles, balls, and comics, wrapped and partially peeking from the skinniest of paper. The satsuma would’ve been in the toe, only the stocking always became a carrier bag through necessity.

Nanna died three years ago, Grandad soon after. I stumbled. Today we’ve collected sweets, puzzles, plastic toys, bubbles, balls, party poppers. We’ve wrapped them, partially peeking through the skinniest of paper. We’ve loaded them into a Rudolph stocking, the toe lumpy stuffed with chocolate coins.

Tomorrow I’ll post it down the country until it nearly hits the bottom. To Aunty Maz - Nanna and Grandad’s daughter. When I stumbled she fell splat on her face. A satsuma would go squidgy and smell.

all i want for christmas

It took a big hammer.

piss cat

I have a cat I would love. I have a cat I would love if once every six weeks or so he didn’t forget the catflap, raise his tail and quiver any interior piece of house he happened against. He truly is a cat of cats. He is curled into my legs every morning and loathes my laptop because he is my laptop. He is fluffy, white, a scrap of scrawn with one cat coloured eye and one blue. He makes me jump. I would love him.

mouthful of chips

This evening Mol told me she had to dress scruffy as they were having a Tramp Supper at Guides. She didn’t have to bother with a dirty face or anything, she said, just scruffy clothes.

I was utterly, utterly thrown.

I nudged Mol to Guideswise when her Brownie trousers started to skim her ankles and she ran out of badge space on her gilet. I thought it would help encourage independenceyetfunctioningaspartofateam, social responsibility, and an excuse to dawdle over a late supper and watch Catherine Tate when she got home.

Now it seems I can add hypothermia, malnourishment, mental illness, addiction, and prostitution to the Big Guides List of pre-11 Life Experiences. Oh, and a knack for rooting McD remains from bins, snarfing chips off the pavement, and acquisition and care of a dog on a rope.

But that’s okay! We’re not talking about homelessness here, chaps, we’re talking about Tramps: happy fellas with a beard and a bottle, a ruddy glow and a hearty high ho silver.

Either that or I was expected to send her in a red latex mini and a pair of high heels, and expect her home complete with a scarlet rimmed dogend and a broken heart of cynicism.

I hope to fuck they have a subtext here.


In other news, Zig’s class had a dentist in to talk teeth today. He solemnly explained that he should not rinse after brushing as it removes the floorboard.

Fluoride?

No, mum: floorboard.





eta, she came home:

Sooo, what did you learn about homelessness?

Lots.

Like what?

That there are err three hundred and eighty thousand people homeless … in our country

…

Oh yeah! we ate chips.

puddin

Nigella is batting at the camera and doing Christmas. She swoon voiced Women’s Hour last week, with how It Was Filmed in July But That Was Okay As Her Grandmother Always Had A Second Christmas In The Summer Because She Liked The Whole Christmas Thing So Much, so that’s all right.

That steeped, liqueured, glut stuffed, whipped, creamed, cinched, gravadlax dulcet dominatrix act she pulls is so seductively compulsive I can almost forgive her for only ever having given me one recipe that works.

The One Nigella Recipe That Works (For Me)
(and it’s Christmassy. Brucey Bonus).
Iced Rum Sauce
300ml double cream, 2 large egg yolks, 2 tablespoons golden syrup, 2 or so tablespoons dark rum, small sack of crack*.
Beat the cream until stiff and the yolks until frothy. Yeah, baby. Keep beating those frothy eggs and splunge in the syrup and the rum. Fold into the stiff cream, plurup and dollollop into an airtight container. Stuff into the freezer. Pull out about half an hour before money shot onto hot pud. Or do as I do and tease it from the freezer spoon by hard spoon.

*Optional, but advisable for the Nigella wide-eyed, Oh Big Boy Oh Oh OH glaze.



Pickles! Must buy pickles.

pamper

The Wash of the Wash, Cut and Blow includes a deep down deep circle-finger scalp massage.

Every time I forget until I’m there, leant back in the chair, washed warm and sudsy. Then press, massage, soothe, relax.

Around and around. Press. Massage. Soothe. Relax.

Neck tightens. Jaws clench. Nails dint white crescents into the palms. Insides clench and screech

Get off. Get off. Get off.



I tip.

once upon a time in the m.e.n arena

Glowsticks come in blue, yellow, orange, green and red. I found this out this evening. Oh, and purple. They also come in purple.

I also found out that pissing against the wind is giving out six thousand assorted glowsticks to six thousand assorted children aged seven to eleven - who are the act not the audience, by the way - and asking them not to snap and wave them until the Morricone world premiere - the penultimate sing song of a two hour concert.

Not that I snapped my glowstick (red) as soon as the lights went down and waved it like the buggery, or anything.

long-leggety beasties

Mum, is it the bit where Charlotte tells Wilbur, In a day or two I'll be dead?

No Mol, it’s not that bit.

Right.

…

Mum, is it, No one was with her when she died?

Yes Mol, that’s the bit.

Does it still make you feel dead upset when you read it?

Yes Mol. Dead Upset.

Oh. Ohhh.

Right.

jumper

Does European cinema have all the bad jumpers? Manchester tried for a few today. Batwings of solid, striplit colour. Half-arsed, half-hearted doodle of a golfing pattern turned retro chic £29.99 desirable (six quid in Primark). But they are half-arsed half-hearted. The full throated unabashed bellow of bad jumper belongs to European cinema. As is and ever was. Time without end.

thing that go bump

At nine at night on a Friday we sit in a row on the sofa. At nine at night on a Friday I realise I have two arms because I have two kids; I have two kids because I have two arms. Whichever, whatever, strike and reverse. Each kid gets an arm and we all get Most Haunted. Green night vision faces with wide, bright pupils, and never a free arm with a free hand for my wine glass.

note to self

If, when writing the Brownie Christmas play, you find you've written this Fairy made me come so quickly, I left my sack behind, rephrase.

twins

Which one was that, Zig?

Dan.

How can you tell?

Dan’s the one with that face. Joe’s the one with the other face.

trouser snake

Today was Zig's a bit belated seventh birthday party. I met the Queenie. She stretches from here to here or there to there, and weighs five stone.

Her tail liked my pocket:



But her head preferred the birthday party boy:



Psssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst.

Over here, little boy ... You and your strange extra hand ...

like the first bird.

Is it darkest before dawn? Is it always darkest before dawn?

What happens if you don’t get that far? Don’t even get to the night proper? Don’t even get to the stage where you shower, clean your teeth, have the last wee of the evening (and wash your hands, ladies and gentlemen), set the alarm for a couple of hours after the dawn it gets darkest before, fumble into bed and fall asleep over the same page of the same book you’ve been falling asleep over for five days now?

What if the nearest you get to the night that gets darkest before the dawn is the dusk? Some perpetual twighlight: after the blackbirds, before the stars. Some still, grey brown suspension you breathe through gills.

Scientists have recorded the noise of Jupiter. They call it the dawn chorus.

nicey nicey zoo zoo

We went to the zoo.

I took this photograph.

It makes me happy.

a life less apostrophised

Casually suggested to Gruff as we pulled out of Somerfield car park:

We could do with renting the robots of death.

Said to Zig just now, as he struggled to pull away from the Fairly OddParents:

Just concentrate and write the Rosetta Stone.


I reckon it’s useful to have a Bank Holiday to do list

Gruff went in and came out safely. Thanks to the drama of developing a dramatically dramatic allergy to any antibiotic beginning with Ciprox, he was in for nearly a week, has more than one reason to be a bit lighter, and has only just stopped walking a bit deliberately. But now he’s back and - well - Balanced, if you get my meaning, with a scar to make grown men faint and curious wives poke and prod. Just the one, though, eh.

Mind you, if any curious wife out there is that curious, make me an offer and perhaps you can come and poke and prod too. We need to build up a bigger pot for the big brave grown-up house move we’ve been intending for a few years now; this could be our answer. Telling you that he’s all scrabbly from dissolving stitches and hair re-growth just makes it better, oh yes.

baubles part der

I wonder if Gruff is the only person to have gone down* to surgery with ‘Xmas Trees’ written under allergies on his wristband**? Because you never know when your surgeon will be strung with tinsel and gripping his scalpel between Blue Spruce fingers.

Or - as Gruff added, to derail the twiggy hands idea, as he had Raggety nightmares as a child, and doesn’t really want to wonder about vengeful childhood horrors looming over that bit of him when he’s out for the count - if the anaesthetic will be pine fresh.

Still, he said, after all was done and altered but not Altered, the metal snap stickers along his torso made him Neo.

Or a babygrow, I didn’t add, because the poor chap had just had rather nasty surgery on his man bits, and if being Neo makes him feel better then good for him. And a few après surgery metal snap chest stickers are available on the National Health. Floor length leather coats are not.

It went well, but things were trickier than expected, so he will be in until at least Monday. He’ll be fine; he has Cartoon Network.


*I was about to write why ‘down’ when surgery wasn’t ‘down’ at all, but over, across a bit, a bit more, and along? Then I remembered that Gruff had been moved to the second floor and surgery was on the ground floor, therefore he did indeed go down to surgery. Smartarse or keen observationalist I’m not.

**The wristband they make you wear so you don’t get lost. Or someone doesn’t pick you up while you are dozing and take you home in mistake for their baby. Which, when you’re a bit plump, a bit bald with temporarily bald nads, could happen. Even if you’re so much 36 you're very nearly 37, and always very much 6’ 1 ½”.

ooch

Will somebody please tap me on the shoulder when it's International Think Before You Speak Day. I'll be just here, with this cushion over my head.

what’s the name of that book again?

These days I’m holding my breath. My eyes must be bugging, my cheeks puffed, numb and tingling, my lips turning blue from the outside in.

Somebody get a pin. Or tickle me. Or something.

onward and upward

Or: Why I will never be a theatre critic. Or have tea with the queen.

Since about this time yesterday afternoon, Mol has been 10. Double figures. One of my kids is in double figures.

The shock called for high culture, and high culture was got.

I might be thirty-five; I might bristle to the touch, be a bit tough to chew and a little wizened around the edges, but when the banging and knocking had finished and the cloth was lifted, my sensibilities roared and my gut donkey kicked


OH MY GOD! IT’S CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG!


FUCK ME! SHE’S FLYING!


Chaps, I had a tissue up my sleeve, secret-like. I am crap.

But, fuck me. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

he he he

Am downloading some Glenn Miller for Molster, who is learning to play In The Mood in keyboard lessons.

I get a little jolt every time I see Glenn Miller's face on an album cover, and it's not James Stewart.

you have 357 days to comply

Zig claims to have forgotten his new year’s resolutions. Year 2 stormed the stairs (for stormed where Zig is concerned, please read rode the Robocop-worthy, cooler than Stannah any day matey stair chair) to the computer suite, to tap their resolutions into a hard drive.

Sarah’s mum says Sarah said (repeat quickly fifty times and score ten points) she resolved to keep her bed tidy. Not the bedroom, for she’s a practical six-year-old with a feel for what’s reasonable.

While hoiking him into his chair, I asked Zig what he’d resolved. He screwed up his eyes, puffed out his cheeks, and turned up the corners of his mouth. Hold for ten. Release.

I can’t remember

Apparently he didn’t resolve to do all the washing-up for the year. I checked. Whatever they were, quick as made, his resolutions blew away to make friends with the ether. And probably do all its dishes for the year.

Either:
1) He remembers his resolutions perfectly well, but is concerned that I might hold him to feedingthecatswashinghishandspickingup litternotpickinghisbogeysresolvingworldconflicts every day for a year
2) He remembers perfectly well but is afraid of the cloud of failure should becoming the Archbishop of Ramsbottom not be feasible before December
3) He remembers perfectly well but thinks it none of my bloody business
4) He’s forgotten

Any are possible; I empathise with all. I’ve deliberately side-stepped resolutions this year. I’ve also, until now, side-stepped the side-step, with a breezy whistle. Letting a resolution slide is just too cloudy, and if I don’t let them slide, I might, you know, succeed.

The very idea.

Thing is, in the computer suite on the second floor of a school not too far away, there’s a hard drive. In this hard drive there are Zig’s resolutions, which for reasons 1-4 or 5) Other, he has chosen to keep quiet.

My innards being sneaky, I reckon I’ve got a hard drive too. I’d take the stairs but I forgot to plug in the Robocop-worthy, cooler than Stannah any day matey stair chair to charge.

I'd best just stay here on my arse. Pass the chocs.

up up up up up up up

Molster was given three juggling rings. I’ve nicked them, and practice in the kitchen. Am spending a bit of time unhooking juggling rings from wine racks, swiping them down from the top of the fridge freezer, and hoopla-ing shallots.

It takes a whole different hand position than juggling with balls. A sideways flick is trickier than an open palm toss. As every good girl knows.

I was taught to juggle by a new friend, before he became a good friend. Which he was before I learned to keep three bright balls up in the air.

He’d turned up on my doorstep, with a soft, cheery knock and a backpack full of passata and gnocchi. Knock, gnocchi, passata and company were all welcome. I’d just returned to an empty dump of a student house in a rough part of Manchester, to discover I’d been robbed.

Not being heartless, they’d left me my kettle and a muddy footprint in the center of my bed sheet. With kettle, knock, gnocchi, new friend, footprint and passata, I could conquer the world.

Instead, we went to the park, where I learned how to keep all my balls up in the air.

Haven’t the foggiest where my new friend, good friend is now. Or his backpack.

I’ll keep on tossing the rings.

stonkingly large, stonkingly expensive, cat-hunting robotic dinosaur sez no

I’m the bad cop parent. The one who puts her foot down with a firm hand. The one who says no.

Every so often, however, I’ll take a breather, and – if I don’t exactly say yes to something – allow the impression of a yes to slide past.

When a boy has saved his money until he has enough for a stonkingly large, stonkingly expensive, cat-hunting robotic dinosaur, who am I to say no? Specially when, on the quiet, I really want to have a go.

The impression of a yes (so cunning an impression I’m the one who places the order online) slides past, and a couple of days later there’s a stonkingly large, stonkingly expensive, cat-hunting robotic dinosaur on the living-room floor.

In its box.

Because, no matter that I let the impression of a yes slip past, I’m not the only one able to say no, it would seem.

Being only able to find five of the necessary six high-powered rechargeable batteries needed to power the thing, although there are eight of them in the house, that’s a no. So I make an impression of a yes and charge up the six make-do lower-powered batteries.

To then spend a good half an hour untwisting twisty plastic-covered wire tags to release the beast, to discover that I can’t unscrew the buggering thing's feet from its base. I just can’t get the damn things loose. If I struggle any longer, I’ll wreck the threads, and that will be that.

The stonkingly large, stonkingly expensive, cat-hunting robotic dinosaur has had its foot put down with a firmer hand than mine.




You’ve got ‘til Friday, cats.

run, bellamy

Watership Down is a very, very sad film, Zig decided, lots of squirrels get killed.

This wasn’t the only moment I wondered whether the kids had been watching the same film as us parents, squished up together on the sofa though we were*.

Much is said about the increasing violence and aggression that children absorb through screens today. Yet what is the film that made Molster stark awake until 1am, when she came and snuggled in our bed with Freddy dog, and was sat on and purred to sleep by Major Tommy? What is the film that made the bad dream that brought Zig through before dawn, to squeeze the last half inch out of the kingsize and throw his mother off the edge?

A U-rated film about bunnies, made in 1978.

Art Garfunkle is that scary.



*Until near the end, that is. After a few childhood late 70s, early 80s years of owning the bookofthefilm, before seeing the film, and seeing more spoofs than my childhood cats had rabbit paws on string to pat and gnaw**, I know enough to hop [geddit] from the sofa and out of the room before Hazel felt that he wouldn’t be needing his body any more, so he left it lying at the edge of a field, and stopped for a while to watch his rabbits because even now, all grown up, even typing - and probably misquoting dreadfully – the line, makes my nose and eyes strangely runny. Shut up.

**I’ve never owned or read the actual, you know, book, even though there has to be a copy in every charity shop before a charity shop can be called a charity shop. That and Jaws. It’s the law.

use or ornament

We park the Dyson between the merchant chest and the hinges of the living-room door. It’s not exactly hidden, not exactly on display. When I twirl round in this computer chair, I stare at its strata: sandy stuff, dirty stuff, paper stuff, fluffy stuff, hairy stuff.

I know you’re supposed the categorise the Dyson as use, not ornament, however, I must spend more time looking vacantly at those layers than at any other bit of useless tut on the units or walls of this room.

Today was the day we took down and repacked each and every shiny thing we unpacked and put up a couple of weeks ago, plus a few that snuck in, seasonally quiet-like. Then we hoovered, because Dysoned is not yet a verb and vacuumed sounds too … empty.

Twirling just now, I noticed the strata are: glitter stuff, dirty stuff, wrapping paper stuff, tinsel stuff, hairy stuff, sweet papers.

My quandary is, although it’s use, not ornament, does my looking at those layers, however vacantly, more often than at any other bit of tut in this room automatically classify the … what do you call the see-through plastic middle bit of a Dyson?.. does it automatically classify that bit as ornament?

Do I have to empty the Dyson before Twelfth Night, or do I keep it as is and enjoy dirty Christmas right into February?

feathers fly

My first sliver of 2006 daylight sliced a single wince-opened eye. I groaned for water, then grumbled for tea.

I then lay in bed until gone midday, and read a tatty paperback about a man who, finding the minds of his people muffled by torpor, the lands of his people fallow through skills forgotten, the hearts of his people numb and limp, sets off on a quest across land, across sea, past the world known into the world uncharted or unchartered, to find, challenge and vanquish whatever big tog, superking duvet was doing the smothering.

Is doing the smothering.

in with the new

breath dig cox snooze act give receive chortle hum accept reveal fight question answer might drive study work wish nurture grip spell respond surprise support observe ice-cream excite relate turn make lick quicken revolt spell arse renew plot Christine’s Garden dream move challenge savour release alchemy space balance sense tickle.

out with the old

Sloth torpor passive stolid static stagnant fallow gutless lax slack limp flaccid sluggish tepid weary idle aimless fear hesitant regret pies procrastinate avoid poison cheap chocolate filler fancy void inert arse defeat abnegate concede Eastenders hide abjure mass censor forbid abuse saturate cud cross defunct submit withdraw vapid grease numb.

could try harder

This year is all used up.

I never grabbed it; never wrestled it into submission. Never tied it up, tickled its belly, and rolled it, dizzy and giggling, down a grassy hill into the nettles.

I never licked a finger and, touching it to a day, claimed that day mine.

aslan product placement

We watched a trail for Narnia at school, on the interactive whiteboard.

What?

Every classroom in Mol and Zig’s school now has an interactive whiteboard: a superdooper connect t’internet and … interact … whiteboard.

And they both - that’s the Year 2 and Year 5 classes at least - watched a trail for the Narnia film.

This unsettles me hugely. They attend a Church Of England school because it is the nearest, it is a good school, and it’s important to Geroff and me for the kids to go to school with the neighbourhood kids. Not because it is CofE. Because it is CofE I can – sort of - understand the pimping of Christian allegory through the medium of interactive whiteboard, but shit and fucking hell, it’s advertising. Pure and simple.

How long and how, if not already, will the names creep in? Will McD’s ‘incentivise’ schools to display a small golden arsecheese at the top of the screen, which begins to blink at 11:45? Will Run Spot, run in Nike?

There is an interactive whiteboard pipeline direct to my kids in a place they trust. It won’t take long, the brands can smell it. If they haven’t already devised and funded it.

I don’t like this one little bit.

Wasn’t too keen on the film, either. Which, by the power of interactive whiteboard or otherwise, was the becoming traditional family cinema twixt Christmas and New Year visit choice for 2005. No adaptation betters my head Lion, Witch or Wardrobe, imprinted by reading the damn book. Simple.

The wardrobe is even at the wrong angle. I know. The kids, however, loved it.

it might as well be spring

There are four tidal pools of pressies on the living room floor; they spread, wash into each other, then pull away, leaving some of their original and taking something new. This won't end peacefully.

I dipped a tentative toe into the business of assimilating them into the house today. A bottle of port is now in the bottle of port box. Go me.

Christmas has been hibernation. Warm, curled and nesting. With sprouts.

Molster has been at her best friend’s tonight, and has been invited to stay. She needs pyjamas, toothbrush, hairbrush and clean top and undies. I am uncurling, waking up and shaking out to walk them up the road to her. And stay for a drink, of course, now the antibiotics are over.

Big yawn and a stretch. Come on brain, wake up. You’ve got to think of conversation. And talk. And shit.

all the food groups

Chocklit.


Chocklit.


Chocklit.


Chocklit.


Chocklit.


Chocklit.


Chocklit.


And Christmas Pussy.

god bless us, every one.

To the success of the feast
The success of the feast

To the boy who lived
The boy who lived

To the new Doctor Who
The new Doctor Who

And zombie penguins
Zombie penguins



Things To Do

Cake: Soak fruit in booze; chuck all the stuff together and cook; voodoo with more booze; marzipan; ice; eat.
Pressies: buy; wrap; distribute (wearing stiff gauntlet to save fingers). addendum: forget to give Suffolk ones to mum when she visits.
Pressies from kids: buy; make; wrap; post / give out.
Cards: buy / make; give out / post.
Decorations: consider putting up; put up ; take down.
Christmas dinner: yeah, right.
Booze: buy; drink; buy; drink; be bought; drink; buy; stop drinking for five days because of tooth abscess and antibiotics; drink; buy; drink; scrounge; drink; drink; drink; drink; buy; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink (list in progress).

ha bumhug

You probably noticed it. In the middle of last week, the Last Chance To Order Before Christmas!! emails gradually, depending on the companies’ faith in their courier service, changed to Sale Now On! Great Bargains!. As I’m sitting smug on a pile of bought and wrapped pressies for those I love, those I like and those I feel obligated to buy for, all were deleted unread.

Who wants to shop for after Christmas when we’ve yet to have the grand unwrapping? Damn, we haven’t even opened a box of mince pies yet. Have yet to do the sprouts.

Imagine my surprise when I check Geroff’s account online and see a £99.99 purchase from Play dot com, dated next Wednesday.

Imagine his surprise. It seems I don’t have a lovely post-Christmas just-sub-£100 treat on its way to me.

Apparently the Christmas holiday is beloved by gits who steal card details, for using those details. The buggers.

Card is now cancelled, the department that deals with refunding our account is closed until Tuesday. We wait to see what other joys they’ve ordered. I have an irritated head about this, an irrational Oh, Will They Give Us The Money Back? drama head, a mocking £99.99 Ha! Is That Your Best Shot? Head, but most of all is my throbbing Ow, Won’t This Blasted Abscess Ever Go Away thump skull against the wall head.

Merry Christmas, One and All. Yes, you too. Just this once.


Things To Do

Cake: Soak fruit in booze; chuck all the stuff together and cook; voodoo with more booze; marzipan; ice; eat.
Pressies: buy; wrap; distribute (wearing stiff gauntlet to save fingers). addendum: forget to give Suffolk ones to mum when she visits.
Pressies from kids: buy; make; wrap; post / give out.
Cards: buy / make; give out / post.
Decorations: consider putting up; put up ; take down.
Christmas dinner: yeah, right.
Booze: buy; drink; buy; drink; be bought; drink; buy; stop drinking for five days because of tooth abscess and antibiotics; drink; buy; drink; scrounge; drink; drink; drink; drink; buy; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink (list in progress).

you cannot solder an abscess with air

Apologies, Emily.

So it's not as easy as I thought.

I still hopped between Paramol and Ibroprofen, and inched each antibiotic a little earlier than it should have been taken.

I still shoved a table full of food that needed chewing in front of family and friends, drinking a litre of smoothie for myself for the day.

I still made it through the evening and wished friends a very merry christmas at the door, before begging off cleaning up and going straight up to bed.

And coming straight back down to write fifty words or over about how ruddy tricky it is to function with a rave in my jawbone.

Tomorrow will be better. Tonight Frosty will visit to leave something in the kids' advent calendar for the last time in 2005.

I love my husband. He takes care of me. And frowns at me for not being in bed.

being a grown up

The seasonal sore tooth has got big ideas and become the seasonal abscess.

Seasonal because it happened four Christmases ago. Same tooth.

But my, my, my, how I have grown. Four years ago found me deep in disbelief that a couple of days of ibroprofen wouldn’t get rid of a sore tooth. When the infection reached my throat - on Christmas Eve, of course - I visited the doctor, not the dentist, got told it was viral and sent home to sit it out.

Oh pain. My theory is that toothache hurts so ruddy much because the tooth is relatively near the brain, so a tooth pain whisper sounds like a shout. Not that an abscess whispers.

Christmas day was spent pale and sideways. It was a poor, sorry sight that whimpered her pathetic arse to the emergency docs on Boxing Day four years ago. Antibiotics were finally dispensed, by an emergency doc that knew damn well it was dental but pitied me so much she kindly diagnosed an infected salivary gland.

And the healing began. But not until I learned just how easy it was to vomit when you can only open your mouth by half an inch. Answer: it is not at all easy.

Anyway: but my, my, my, how I have grown. This year I made a large pot of lentil soup and phoned the dentist yesterday, as soon as I knew the toothache was only going to go one way. An emergency appointment was made for first thing this morning, and antibiotics prescribed. We’ve left the tooth to be sorted out the other side of Christmas. Best not to poke it.

So, I am in big, huge, shapely, mouth, neck and ear abscess-sized pain, but I have the stuff to shoot it down this side of Christmas day.

Leaving me wincing but able. Able to wrap and dispense and entertain and cook and all without a drop of rough tough and rollicking Christmas booze.

Oh, bollocks.


Things To Do

Cake: Soak fruit in booze; chuck all the stuff together and cook; voodoo with more booze; marzipan; ice; eat.
Pressies: buy; wrap; distribute (wearing stiff gauntlet to save fingers). addendum: forget to give Suffolk ones to mum when she visits.
Pressies from kids: buy; make; wrap; post / give out.
Cards: buy / make; give out / post.
Decorations: consider putting up; put up ; take down.
Christmas dinner: yeah, right.
Booze: buy; drink; buy; drink; be bought; drink; buy; drink; buy; drink; scrounge; drink; drink; drink; drink; buy; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink (list in progress).

capricorn

Winter Solstice, the day disappears from the ground up.

As it reaches the rooftops, I rootle for the secateurs, push my feet into garden shoes, and go out into the soft drizzle.

This year, the thing on the Close is preternaturally large inflatable Father Christmases, Snowmen, and one Homer Simpson (in a Father Christmas hat. He never seems to be fully inflated, so spends his days slumped, bob-feeding from nextdoor's wheelie bin). Last year and the year before the Close virus was gaudy outdoor loops and icicles of flashing bulbs. Last year’s bulbs meet this year’s inflatables, in a blink and a blur of where shop ends and home begins.

Inflatables, bulbs, and brash Christmas tunes from a party at the end of the Close. All lighting up the silhouette of rooftop against watercolour winter sky.

At the foot of the garden I hunt out the Blackpool of bushes, and cut its glitziest branches.




Things To Do

Cake: Soak fruit in booze; chuck all the stuff together and cook; voodoo with more booze; marzipan; ice; eat.
Pressies: buy; wrap; distribute (wearing stiff gauntlet to save fingers). addendum: forget to give Suffolk ones to mum when she visits.
Pressies from kids: buy; make; wrap; post / give out.
Cards: buy / make; give out / post.
Decorations: consider putting up; put up ; take down.
Christmas dinner: yeah, right.
Booze: buy; drink; buy; drink; be bought; drink; buy; drink; buy; drink; scrounge; drink; drink; drink; drink; buy; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink (list in progress).

Genuflect

heliacally rising

In Prague, we were charmed by and bought a small nativity scene.



Joseph has the blue dress here, while Mary – the hussy – gets red. They both look happy and startled, as though someone they’ve fancied for quite a while has nipped them on the bum. Baby Jesus also looks startled: he’s not quite certain what it’s all about, but wahey. A definite touch of Hitchhiker’s Guide whale about this Baby Jesus.

A nativity scene isn’t something I thought of having before I saw this one. There’s no clutter of supporting cast: no shepherds, heavenly host, innkeeper, or three kings bringing Mould, Grrr and Frankenstein (honest, Zig, that’s what they took, ignore what the songs say, I'm your mum, would I lie?). Baby Jesus, Mary, Joseph, stable, and that star.

That star. I wink at the star and it winks back.

Christians the world over celebrate the story of the nativity as validation of the beginnings of their faith. I celebrate the story of the nativity as validation that two millennia of Church insecurity can’t knock what I do on the head. That central to the story of the birth of their saviour are some blokes interpreting a portent in the sky.

I skipped the carol service this year. Wonder if the vicar gave the same sermon as last. He is very sweet, and tries very hard to be open. I like him. He beamed as he called the magi astronomers. Astronomers. Oh, for fuck sake vicar, how does the methodology of astronomy find a Messiah? Come on vic, say the word, spit it out. Constantine was a long while ago, and you know the man had issues. Say. The. Word.

Just for me.


Things To Do

Cake: Soak fruit in booze; chuck all the stuff together and cook; voodoo with more booze; marzipan; ice; eat.
Pressies: buy; wrap; distribute (wearing stiff gauntlet to save fingers). addendum: forget to give Suffolk ones to mum when she visits.
Pressies from kids: buy; make; wrap; post / give out.
Cards: buy / make; give out / post.
Decorations: consider putting up; put up ; take down.
Christmas dinner: yeah, right.
Booze: buy; drink; buy; drink; be bought; drink; buy; drink; buy; drink; scrounge; drink; drink; drink; drink; buy; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink (list in progress).

as the evening wore on

it softened.

The day-old fruit scone and luke-warm vomit-flavoured latte special at an anonymous American chain, softened to strawberry ice cream and gin and tonic on a banquette at my favourite theatre.

The sharp elbows and sharp voices of a pre-Christmas city department store, softened to whispers to partners and banquette hooching-ups for strangers.

The mouthings of Wanker to twats who block the busy road then pretend to ignore you, softened to applause, and a bit more applause, because we were in no rush to leave.

The evening wore on. That's a nice expression. With your permission I'll say it again. The evening wore on.

If you’re in the neighbourhood, pop in and visit the pooka.



Things To Do

Cake: Soak fruit in booze; chuck all the stuff together and cook; voodoo with more booze; marzipan; ice; eat.
Pressies: buy; wrap; distribute (wearing stiff gauntlet to save fingers). addendum: forget to give Suffolk ones to mum when she visits.
Pressies from kids: buy; make; wrap; post / give out.
Cards: buy / make; give out / post.
Decorations: consider putting up; put up ; take down.
Christmas dinner: yeah, right.
Booze: buy; drink; buy; drink; be bought; drink; buy; drink; buy; drink; scrounge; drink; drink; drink; drink; buy; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink (list in progress).

and there was no room on the tree. bollocks, no.

Shayne!

Air was punched.

Anyway.

Because Fimo™ is generally too hard to fiddle with, it’s recommended that you tuck the blocks into your back pocket or your bra for half an hour or so before use.

Because we were using a fair bit for the bobbinses last week, and what with the cut of my jib there’s not an awful lot of room in my back pocket or my bra, I stuck it all on the radiator.

Because I am brilliant, I deduced that Fimo™ kept on the softening radiator would stay softened until we needed it again.

Because the days are cold, the nights were colder, the radiators rarely off, and Fimo™ bakes at gas mark a half, keeping it on the Fimo™ softening radiator all week until needed again did not go according to plan. (If anyone would like any cunningly crafted Fimo™ ... blocks ... of solid Fimo ... let me know.)

Because I bought a lot of Fimo™ from eBay (because, dammit, I was not going to be beaten in an auction) there was a bit left.

Because I had the arsehole™ with Fimo™, Geroff took over Christmas Fimo™ With Kids duties.

Behold! Bubba Gabriel:




And his très Matt and Trey heavenly host:





Things To Do

Cake: Soak fruit in booze; chuck all the stuff together and cook; voodoo with more booze; marzipan; ice; eat.
Pressies: buy; wrap; distribute (wearing stiff gauntlet to save fingers). addendum: forget to give Suffolk ones to mum when she visits.
Pressies from kids: buy; make; wrap; post / give out.
Cards: buy / make; give out / post.
Decorations: consider putting up; put up ; take down.
Christmas dinner: yeah, right.
Booze: buy; drink; buy; drink; be bought; drink; buy; drink; buy; drink; scrounge; drink; drink; drink; drink; buy; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink (list in progress).

cold outdoor parties and hot indoor tension

The coldest Christmas party in the world today took place in the indoor barn of a Riding for the Disabled center somewhere high up in the north west of England.

Party!

but

Cold. So cold.

but

Party!

but

Cold. So cold.

And because I am nice and kind and giving in this season of niceness, kindness and givingness, I let Geroff keep warm by running around with Zig, while I stayed still and cold. So cold.

We came home to no mulled wine. Mulled wine would’ve warmed us from our thingies to our whatsits. Mulled wine was needed.

Note to self: next year, take a flask.

Now I’m flexing my thawing dialing finger for the off. Shayne or Andy, Andy or Shayne? I’m torn. Shayne is from Manchester, and is every potwasher I ever mothered in my bar days there, the sweetie ... Andy did that thing with Lately last week … Damn it all, Brenda, where are you?


Things To Do

Cake: Soak fruit in booze; chuck all the stuff together and cook; voodoo with more booze; marzipan; ice; eat.
Pressies: buy; wrap; distribute (wearing stiff gauntlet to save fingers). addendum: forget to give Suffolk ones to mum when she visits.
Pressies from kids: buy; make; wrap; post / give out.
Cards: buy / make; give out / post.
Decorations: consider putting up; put up; take down.
Christmas dinner: yeah, right.
Booze: buy; drink; buy; drink; be bought; drink; buy; drink; buy; drink; scrounge; drink; drink; drink; drink; buy; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink (list in progress).

make it big. fantastic.

I can explain why Last Christmas is squeezed between Jockey Full Of Bourbon and Pas Si Simple on my shuffle. No really, I can. It’s for educational purposes. Training purposes. It’s for Molster.

Last night, in front of assorted tables of assorted mums, dads, brothers, sisters, and miscellaneous, Molster stood - all cloakless, tinsel-haloed prog rock god - at a fancypants keyboard, and played Last Christmas. Very well. With all the twiddly bits and everything.

All right, so there aren’t really that many twiddly bits to Last Christmas. In fact a lot – a lot - of Last Christmas goes:

Derderderderderderderderderderder der dader
Derderderderderderderderderderder der dader
Dadadadadadadadadadada da dada
Derderderderderderderderderderder der dader

And this she did. With the rest. The twiddly bits.

Despite people holding me down last night and force feeding me dirty booze, I managed to film it rather well. My video camera is decidedly non-digital, being the size of the suitcase you'd have to take were you only allowed to take one suitcase on a three month cruise, crank powered, and full of midgets chipping individual film cells into lumps of slate. Were it not I would certainly share the joy of Yamaha derderder with twiddly bits.

Mol, I am very, very proud of you. I can’t play Last Christmas on a keyboard, not the derderder, not the twiddly bits. I can’t even remember how to play Jingle Bells on the chime bars, which was the highlight of my childhood musical triumph. You, in Wham terms, rock.

So you see, I can explain why Last Christmas is squeezed between Tom Waits and Yann Tierson. Give me a minute or three and I’ll come up with an excuse for Wake Me Up Before You Go Go



Things To Do

Cake: Soak fruit in booze; chuck all the stuff together and cook; voodoo with more booze; marzipan; ice; eat.
Pressies: buy; wrap; distribute (wearing stiff gauntlet to save fingers). addendum: forget to give Suffolk ones to mum when she visits.
Pressies from kids: buy; make; wrap; post / give out.
Cards: buy / make; give out / post.
Decorations: consider putting up; put up; take down.
Christmas dinner: yeah, right.
Booze: buy; drink; buy; drink; be bought; drink; buy; drink; buy; drink; scrounge; drink; drink; drink; drink; buy; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink (list in progress).

by the magic of television

He scores! Sort of! And it’s in the back of the net! And the crowd goes wild!



The image link should lead straight to a QuickTime download (no audio). If there are any problems, let me know. I won’t be able to solve them, as I haven’t a clue what I’m doing, but it would still be good to know.


No, that's not a dress, that’s a Junior League football top on a rather small six year old. Brownie points for anyone who can identify the superhero transfer on the back of Zig’s splints (it’s not Spiderman; Spiderman graced the last pair, and will probably grace the next, if only because the Evil Nemsesist NHS does not provide orthotic transfers of baddies. Curses).

A couple of seconds of this or similar Ziggy footage (arf) begins a current BBC trail for Junior League football.

I don’t know what to make of it, really. Stand on a chilly faux grass field for an hour or so on a Sunday morning. Shoot , reshoot and shoot again a small boy with C.P kicking / missing a ball into / away from a goal. Shoot, reshoot and shoot again that small boy cheering and celebrating with genuine fona bide Junior Leaguers. Fiddle with it all for a while and voila: Zig scores a goal.

Got to be good, hasn’t it? Still, when I watch it I feel as mixed up, muddled up and shook up as a Kinks narrative voice.

Thanks Reg.



Things To Do

Cake: Soak fruit in booze; chuck all the stuff together and cook; voodoo with more booze; marzipan; ice; eat.
Pressies: buy; wrap; distribute (wearing stiff gauntlet to save fingers). addendum: forget to give Suffolk ones to mum when she visits.
Pressies from kids: buy; make; wrap; post / give out.
Cards: buy / make; give out / post.
Decorations: consider putting up; put up; take down.
Christmas dinner: yeah, right.
Booze: buy; drink; buy; drink; be bought; drink; buy; drink; buy; drink; scrounge; drink; drink; drink; drink; buy; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink (list in progress).

hoppit

I’m not a good partner. I’m grumpy and removed and not at all tactile. I frown and always have a better idea. I am not lightheartedly, quirkily, desirably at ease with my inability to keep a house clean or tidy. I do not use sex as a release from stress or a rumpshuss celebration of being together; rather, my libido is safely packed in three layers of bubble wrap until the day we land on a clean beach, with plenty of food, a promise of eternal good health for our children, a pleasantly appointed house where shore meets forest, which needs no repair or repainting, and no council tax bills. And no people. I am as prickly as an October conker shell.

I am solitary at heart. My superpower is a reddybrek glow of partner repellent ninety-eight point seven percent of the time, day or night.

But I do like the short phonecalls, the three word texts of abbreviated interest and concern. In Standard English only, please. I rely on them as lilypads across Monday to Friday.

And when it’s gone sixteen hours without a ring or a bleep from our capital city, I get a smidge unsettled. And glower from under my rock.


eta: ta


Things To Do

Cake: Soak fruit in booze; chuck all the stuff together and cook; voodoo with more booze; marzipan; ice; eat.
Pressies: buy; wrap; distribute (wearing stiff gauntlet to save fingers). addendum: forget to give Suffolk ones to mum when she visits.
Pressies from kids: buy; make; wrap; post / give out.
Cards: buy / make; give out / post.
Decorations: consider putting up; put up; take down.
Christmas dinner: yeah, right.
Booze: buy; drink; buy; drink; be bought; drink; buy; drink; buy; drink; scrounge; drink; drink; drink; drink; buy; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink (list in progress).

solve et coagula

I cheer up a bit when I realise how much magic I manage everyday.

Just made the second batch of rice krispie cakes this week, for the second kiddies’ Christmas party. How many kids, since the fabulous Mr Kellogg flaked some corn and puffed some rice, have had their cooking annunciation by stirring melting chocolate in a bain marie, shaking in however much breakfast cereal it can hold, and stuffing a spoon of the glop into a bun case?

That’s the magic I’m talking about.

The mystery of magic is the mystery of alchemy is the mystery of cooking: it’s the gaps in our understanding. Within this understanding, it’s a bit easier to melt chocolate in a bain marie that it is to bubble nigredo in a sealed alembic. I’m unconvinced, but my days are rushed and I’ve yet to find Prima Materia in the homebake aisle. Even in Lidl.

I turn into a right Hermes Trismagistus in the kitchen, but don’t reckon I’ll be rushing to add Jamie Oliver’s Emerald Tablet to my Amazon wishlist.

If I turned chocolate to gold there would be a class full of pissed off bling six-year-olds tomorrow.

In this way the little world was created according to the great world.

Pucker.



Things To Do

Cake: Soak fruit in booze; chuck all the stuff together and cook; voodoo with more booze; marzipan; ice; eat.
Pressies: buy; wrap; distribute (wearing stiff gauntlet to save fingers). addendum: forget to give Suffolk ones to mum when she visits.
Pressies from kids: buy; make; wrap; post / give out.
Cards: buy / make; give out / post.
Decorations: consider putting up; put up; take down.
Christmas dinner: yeah, right.
Booze: buy; drink; buy; drink; be bought; drink; buy; drink; buy; drink; scrounge; drink; drink; drink; drink; buy; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink (list in progress).

god rest ye irritating git

It’s not until I become irritated trying to rethread a bauble that I remember he died and was buried at this time of year.

I don’t have a shortcut to remembering the calendar details of his death and burial. I remember hanging the cerebral palsy angel on the tree, which means he died after we’d received Zig’s diagnosis; C.P angel’s legs were still tightly crossed that year, which means it was the first year we had her, which means it was 2000, which means he would have been 38.

Although I’ve got 36 in my head. Perhaps the edge to dieing suddenly, alone – allegedly – in bed aged 36, is dulled just slightly by its being 38. I don’t see it myself, but the drama of dieing young is a funny beast.

He would have loved the drama. The pathos. The grief of half a handful of women weeping at his coffin and his graveside. Which is one of several reasons I didn’t go to his funeral. The main one being I couldn’t be arsed, and felt irritated at having been asked.

Irritation was more than a floral top note of our relationship. Last night I wrapped (ignore that if the idea of wrapping pressies already gives you a bit of a panic) a stocking-filler for Zig: a pair of zeppelin-shaped magnets that crackle like the devil when you throw them together. That was our years together: a constant, electric, polar crackle.

Bloody irritating.

I was irritated at my assumption that I was self-aware enough at eighteen to find a true friend and lover for life. Irritated that I couldn’t chop off all the bits of my drives and dreams and personality that would make me the perfect fit for his. Irritated that he would want me to be.

He was irritated that I would never behave. Irritated that I’d question his absences, and then question and question again his lazy, careless, clumsy lies. He was irritated that nobody else smelled like me, and that I didn’t act the way I smelled.

I was irritated that his full chest laughter would have me laughing along, every time. Irritated that, although he liked big boobs, the black lacy bra he gave me one late Christmas was both padded and two sizes too small.

We were both insanely, underskin histamine inflamed irritated that somehow some glitch in the narrative made too hot, too cold, too big, too small, too hard, too soft, of what should have been just right.

He was irritated that I was Liz; I was irritated that he was Billy, and he knew that I didn’t want milk.

I was irritated that he was scared of growing old, and I wanted someone to grow old alongside. Irritated that when he learned that growing old was not at all bad; that being a faithful partner had a lot going for it; that being a parent was a terrible, ecstatic experience, it wouldn’t be safe to sit alongside him in a pub with a couple of pints of Thwaites and wonder about the wonder of it all.

Even though we has no shared friends at the end – although I only lived a couple of dozen miles from him, I was very careful that he never found out – I heard about his death on the day they found his body.

I put the phone down and howled. Screamed and stamped and wailed and rent and gnashed and and kicked and stomped and dripped gunge and all that. I thought I was sad that he would never learn that growing older is not at all bad; that being a faithful partner has a lot going for it; that being a parent is a terrible, ecstatic experience.

I thought I was grieving.

It’s not until now, today, feeling irritated by a bauble that doesn’t want to be rethread, that I recognise in the irritation a portion, a shaving, a whiff or a sniff or a ghost of this time five years ago, and realise I wasn’t grieving.

I was bloody furious.



Things To Do

Cake: Soak fruit in booze; chuck all the stuff together and cook; voodoo with more booze; marzipan; ice; eat.
Pressies: buy; wrap; distribute (wearing stiff gauntlet to save fingers). addendum: forget to give Suffolk ones to mum when she visits.
Pressies from kids: buy; make; wrap; post / give out.
Cards: buy / make; give out / post.
Decorations: consider putting up; put up; take down.
Christmas dinner: yeah, right.
Booze: buy; drink; buy; drink; be bought; drink; buy; drink; buy; drink; scrounge; drink; drink; drink; drink; buy; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink (list in progress).

q

The sort of queues I don’t mind … mum observed, in the car on the way to Bury, on the way to the tram, on the way to Manchester - I’m filling her suspenseful pause with this lengthy ellipsis … are the kind where you stand in a line.

It was about here – no, it was exactly here – that Gruff and I made plenty of room for an even longer ellipsis.

So we caught the tram to the city and had a mother daughter Saturday pre-Christmas thorough exploration of my mother’s queue preference.


Things To Do

Cake: Soak fruit in booze; chuck all the stuff together and cook; voodoo with more booze; marzipan; ice; eat.
Pressies: buy; wrap; distribute (wearing stiff gauntlet to save fingers). addendum: forget to give Suffolk ones to mum when she visits.
Pressies from kids: buy; make; wrap; post / give out.
Cards: buy / make; give out / post.
Decorations: consider putting up; put up; take down.
Christmas dinner: yeah, right.
Booze: buy; drink; buy; drink; be bought; drink; buy; drink; buy; drink; scrounge; drink; drink; drink; drink; buy; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink (list in progress).

bob bob bobbins

When you’ve got kids, you can:

· Gather up your scrap pieces of Fimo™, stick them in a plastic bag, and keep them in your back pocket, squished against your bum, until they soften.

· Spend half an hour of therapeutic venting punching, pummelling, plaiting and pleading with the scraps to mix, until you get brown. Crap brown.

· Holler the kids, and with them rip the brown lump into thirteen smaller lumps, punch and pummel it some more, add little red, white, black and gold Fimo™ dabs to the brown, in approximately biologically appropriate places, and stab each through the head twice, with a pin.



· Cook them, string them up, and post them off to relatives who are contractually obligated to go oo and ah




· Give crap.





I’d like to assure anyone who might be concerned, that our robins will not be homed separately. They will travel to their new trees in groups of at least two, usually three. Robins being aggressively territorial, so this should be a laugh. Thirteen Fimo™ robins were pummelled, stretched, mangled, squeezed, rolled, pulled, poked with holes, baked, and strung up for the making of this seasonal art project.


Things To Do

Cake: Soak fruit in booze; chuck all the stuff together and cook; voodoo with more booze; marzipan; ice; eat.
Pressies: buy; wrap; distribute (wearing stiff gauntlet to save fingers). addendum: forget to give Suffolk ones to mum when she visits.
Pressies from kids: buy; make; wrap; post / give out.
Cards: buy / make; give out / post.
Decorations: consider putting up; put up; take down.
Christmas dinner: yeah, right.
Booze: buy; drink; buy; drink; be bought; drink; buy; drink; buy; drink; scrounge; drink; drink; drink; drink; buy; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink (list in progress).

the season for giving

A home day. Zig, coming down from the adrenaline of one dress rehearsal and two days of performance Joseph, has collapsed in a coughing, groaning heap on the sofa.

So Molster had a solo walk to school. One of the hefty responsibilities of life as a class counsellor is to go in a bit early on Fridays, to help chop all the gubbins for Fruity Friday – they like their Fridays fruity in Lancashire. It’s a simple walk, a few hundred yards up a single straight road.

As the sun was lower as it would be if she left at the normal time, I lifted a reflective armband down from the hall keyhook, and worked it up around her right coat sleeve. Changing my mind, I dragged it off, and hooked it back up on her left arm. She walks on a right-hand path up to the school, so the armband would be on the side of the oncoming traffic.

Mol reckoned the armband might be of more use on her right arm, all the better for unexpected oncoming cars to see her as she crossed the couple of quiet residential roads between home and school.

I pulled it down off the left and hooked it back up onto the right.

And off she went, with a kiss and no gloves and a hope for a good day, the sky pink and one-eyed around her.

She’s growing up. I’m paying out the cord between us: bright, white nylon, guy rope tough. Should I forget, or resist, wrapping it round my wrist and a rock while I reread a clause in my mother contract, she tugs and discovers it gives.

I’m useless against this. This give. When my nine year old suggests her reflective armband would be better on the side of the sudden, unexpected traffic, I mutely move it across.





Things To Do

Cake: Soak fruit in booze; chuck all the stuff together and cook; voodoo with more booze; marzipan; ice; eat.
Pressies: buy; wrap; distribute (wearing stiff gauntlet to save fingers). addendum: forget to give Suffolk ones to mum when she visits.
Pressies from kids: buy; make; wrap; post / give out.
Cards: buy / make; give out / post.
Decorations: consider putting up; put up; take down.
Christmas dinner: yeah, right.
Booze: buy; drink; buy; drink; be bought; drink; buy; drink; buy; drink; scrounge; drink; drink; drink; drink; buy; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink (list in progress).

teatowels

Oi, lady with the head.

I’m concerned that you sticking your head in front of my camera over and again might compromise your www anonymity. I’d hate for someone to snatch this photo of you, for use in advertising cheese, or bad hair porn. Your head has the random bounce of a parent in her first year of Nativity play attendance. That’s sweet, but I’m sure you won’t mind if this old hand of six Key Stage 1 Nativites in a row raises that old hand to flick your ear. This is my last Nativity play, you see. Now shift.




Oi, bloke with the head.

I know you. I like you. My son likes your son and your son likes my son. But when my camera auto focuses on your head because you are sat in the front row – and probably missed lunch to nab those three seats for yourself, your nice wife and nice mother, and didn’t think to save a couple more for my adequately lunched self and my husband, also your friend – that, I don’t like.

Ta for showing me your perfectly focused, unobliterated-by-mass-head front row shots of my son.

My son. Joseph. The one in front of your son. A shepherd.

Yes, you’re right, they’re great shots. And yes, I would very much like copies. Ta.

(Your neck looks fat. Just saying.)



Oi, ghost.

It's not big, and it's not clever.




Oi, shaky hands.

Damn you, shaky hands.




Oi, Joseph.



Nice dress.


Things To Do

Cake: Soak fruit in booze; chuck all the stuff together and cook; voodoo with more booze; marzipan; ice; eat.
Pressies: buy; wrap; distribute (wearing stiff gauntlet to save fingers). addendum: forget to give Suffolk ones to mum when she visits.
Pressies from kids: buy; make; wrap; post / give out.
Cards: buy / make; give out / post.
Decorations: consider putting up; put up; take down.
Christmas dinner: yeah, right.
Booze: buy; drink; buy; drink; be bought; drink; buy; drink; buy; drink; scrounge; drink; drink; drink; drink; buy; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink (list in progress).

distant drums

Highways Dept workmen have been messing around on the road outside for a couple of weeks now. Spreading half a dozen rectangles of orange tarmac, leaving it for a couple of days (the excitement, orange tarmac, what could it be for? Will it be an admittedly risky chessboard? A communal arts blank tarmac canvas project to lure the teenagers back to the straight and narrow with a brush and an invitation to Create! Flowers! Birds! Hills!? Have Bury MBC developed a yen for a bit of warm Mediterranean?) before returning to daub SLOW in white across the centre of each.

Gosh, thanks. Give it to them, they wrote each SLOW the right way round for the respective carriageway; there will be no bumps, prangs or scrapes as drivers strain to work out what WOIS is warning them about. WOIS? Wois a WOIS? Is it like a Woozle?

Drivers, go careful, drive WOOZLE.

As it’s getting near the end of the financial year there’s previously sat on chunks of budget to be used up sharpish on rivers of orange tarmac, oceans of white paint. Still, as a traffic calming measure it stinks: they haven’t given us bumps to make certain drivers going above 15mph will Bo and Luke it against the roof of their Corsa; they haven’t lowered the speed limit from the standard 30mph for built-up areas. They’ve given us a white word on an orange rectangle.

I knew when they were working, by the low, distant drumming of their generator. I heard it when I woke at 6:30 this morning, and thought they’d got an early start. Taking the kids to school I realised the road was clear, the SLOWs gleaming up through the frozen fog. I could still hear the generator, though, and shook away a Richard Carpenter image of ghostly, grudge-holding workmen slowly banging on each front door. Waiting, just waiting, until the awful moment when some fool will open, to be given an orange tarmac-stained mug of tea, as orange as ... tarmac, and a copy of yesterday’s Sun.

Sadly this was not to be. It would have been wonderful for house prices, and easy to get a foreigner done on driveway resurfacing, so long as you don’t mind orange. With a big WOOZLE across it in white.

The distant drumming is in my head. A brand new tinnitus tone, to join Barbershop Hum, Spincycle Whine, and 1970’s BBC1 After 11:30pm. It’s me that’s got the workmen in.

It might be that I’ve seen both Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Vanilla Sky this year, but I’m wondering how long it will be before they get busy. That woodland track we walked through Bradfield Woods in 1994: did we really step across that rectangle? That large, orange rectangle? Charles Bridge in 2002: beneath the Czech vendors’ stalls of enamelled pendants and wood carvings, could I really see that large S, a T, a bit of a P?

Nah, I’m being daft, these are workmen. They haven’t even had their second brew yet, not even glanced at the sports pages. My memories are safe.



Things To Do

Cake: Soak fruit in booze; chuck all the stuff together and cook; voodoo with more booze; marzipan; ice; eat.
Pressies: buy; wrap; distribute (wearing stiff gauntlet to save fingers). addendum: forget to give Suffolk ones to mum when she visits.
Pressies from kids: buy; make; wrap; post / give out.
Cards: buy / make; give out / post.
Decorations: consider putting up; put up; take down.
Christmas dinner: yeah, right.
Booze: buy; drink; buy; drink; be bought; drink; buy; drink; buy; drink; scrounge; drink; drink; drink; drink; buy; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink; drink (list in progress).

eh? early morning discussion

Even though I’m different from everybody else at school because of my cerebral palsy, even though, if I didn’t have friends, know what? I think I’d be bullied.

…

If someone feels so unhappy that they want to bully someone, it doesn’t matter what the difference is. It could be that they don’t like your haircut; it could be that they think your nose is a funny shape; it could be that you speak in a different way; it could be …

… that you have three nipples …

… yes, perhaps you’ve got three nipples …

… or webbed feet …

… yes, or webbed feet …

The discussion went sort-of sideways from there.

more roaring greasepaint, more smelly crowd.

That’s the Brownie play over for another year. 2005’s Dr Who and the Missing Christmas lacked a little of the sparkle of last year’s Panto Idol. Perhaps once you’ve had a six-legged pantomime cow anything else seems, I don’t know, muted, no matter how many [nine] Bahumbug aliens sneak onstage to nick Christmas. No matter the tardis sound effect; no matter the revelation that the man in red [who spat out her gum this week] and his [many] helpers are From Another Planet*; no matter the balloon whisk, sink plunger allusion to Dr Who’s uber baddies; no matter the sherry-soaked transformation of Dr to Dr.

It must be that six-legged pantomime cow.

Which is making an appearance this year at the Brownie pack up the road’s Christmas bash. Word’s getting round that there are some plays. For Brownies. With six-legged cows. Brown Owl Claire wants to send my plays off to the Guiding Magazine. Soon all Brownies in the UK will Find the Cow, have their chance to Be the Cow. It’s only fair.

Thing is, obliging though I am, I’m not certain how successful these plays will be in the coming years. The knack of a good Brownie play being, freak cows aside, to hook into the zeitgeist. Brownies love a good bit of zeitgeist. Last year I pipped the Shrek 2 DVD release to the post with Panto Idol, this year I’ve anticipated the Dr Who Christmas special.

That’s my talent, my gift, my curse. Oh woe. Oh sigh. Ah me. I get a tickle at the back of my nostrils that tells me the way to go, to show the shift before the shift shifts. If only I could make it pay. Reckon I’ve promised not to pre-empt the zeitgeist for personal gain.

It’s a right arse.

Of course, it can’t all be zeigeist; you’ve got to tip your hat to the classics. This year the narrators used that metre known technically as te tum tum te tum tum te tum tum te tum. The one from Twas the night and The Grinch.

The Bahumbug’s planet
Was dark, sad and grey
And Christmas was always
A planet away.

Away, high in the distance
Sparkled a star
With bright season’s greetings
But oh, so, so, far!

How they wanted to reach it
And share in the fun.
They started to study
How it could be done.

They read “The Grinch”
And saw how he got plenty
But their copy was missing
Pages thirteen to twenty.

The Doctor wanted to help them
And had an idea
Of how to give the Bahumbugs
Some real Christmas cheer.

For his idea to work
Doctor Who had to plan it
With the help of the
Bahumbug’s neighbouring … planet.

The star that sparkled
A bright Christmas light.
*Can you guess who they are?
You might just be right.

Thank you Thank you. I know. It’s my gift. My curse.

The Slade stayed.

Narrator 2 beholds Queen Bahumbug

and lo

zig mad hair day
Originally uploaded by glatisant.

guess who's up for joseph in the school nativity this year.

eau de thomas, mary, taz, ned, morrin, toby, spray and cee jay

Wedding anniversary. Seven years. We’ve been together eleven years since the 5th. So there are cards and gentle stuff. It’s a change time, so gentle is good: change of job for Gruff; change of stress pattern as mebbe cancer scare turns out to be water on the nad; change of jumper for me because I smell of pony.

That is, a change of jumper if I was a nice, honouring the anniversary by showering and smelling purty sort of wife. But I’m a cosy jumper, like the smell of pony, shower when I’m good and ready and start to itch sort of wife. Which is the best there is.

I’ve been volunteering at a local Riding For The Disabled school for a few weeks now. Molster and Ziggy have been going for a couple of months, paid lessons are provided for standard issue kids at the weekend to help cover costs, and we give a voluntary contribution for Zig’s. Molster likes the gentle, friendly, black Cee Jay, Zig – a little bugger for a little bugger – loves with admiration the obstreperous white ex show pony, Toby. He arrived as a loan, originally, whiter than white. After two weeks of rolling in almost vertical mud in almost vertical fields, they knew they could never get that colour back, so kept him.

Started the morning by grooming the biggest … when does a pony become a horse? Thomas must cross the line. Have heard he can nip a bit to search for treats, so treats have been banned. Also – ha - he likes to lean on you when you clean his hooves. However, he was a perfect gent: looked attentive as I rambled on with brush, currycomb and conversational monologue; lifted his soup plate hooves one at a time as requested, the better for me to pick out half a field of mud, leaves and horse shit; obliged me – as most do – with a long, companionable, hay top noted fart as I brushed the dust from his broad rump.

Then onto Mary, a piebald grandmother who can get depressed. The next largest. I whispered into her ear that she was Gruff’s favourite, but shhh, don’t tell.

And on along the ponies, brush and hoof pick, and dust clouds and filthy fetlocks, and oh those farts.

I rode Ned: slightly stiff of joints, honourable, not quick to trust, looks like Hitler. To the moustache. The first time up on a pony in over twenty years, and I’m proud to say I came off the right way. But, oh, the rising trot is a different animal these days. I don’t know what’s happened to my thigh muscles. Didn’t I used to have thigh muscles? Although not tenor lady material, I’m glad to be a lady with no water on the nad.