Saturday, December 31, 2011
GRAN
From 6pm till just before midnight she became a manic demon. She got down on all fours scrubbing the floors with a tiny sponge, checking every corner for dirt. All hell would break loose if so much as a crisp wrapper remained in a bin her house as we approached midnight. She'd scream at us like an army sergeant major till she was safely into the next year. Superstitious to the point of insanity, my brother would be thrown out in all weather minutes before the bells with the last speck of dust in a bag while I remained in the kitchen baking the obligatory shortbread from her 'Lofty Peak' cook book. Burning it was not an option of course because it might then constitute rubbish and woe betide me if I should be the creator of pre-Bells rubbish!
One year poor Derek had the misfortune to be outside when the clock struck midnight... aged eight, short with dark reddish-brown hair, there was no way in hell he was getting to first-foot her so he was made to remain outside in the snow in his slippers until a kindly neighbour turned up with whisky and some more shortbread.
After the bells, we'd be allowed into her front room (a rare occurrence) where she'd play piano and we'd all sing till about four in the morning. I've no idea how the other three neighbours put up with the noise!
I guess if Anna had met her she might have called her Silly Mad Jean.
A DANISH PROBLEM
Take New Zealand. If Thomas and I lived there instead of here, he'd be obliged to go twice to Sydney to get a new passport. When Amaia was born he'd have been obliged to take her to Sydney to get her first passport... which begs the question - how would he have got her into Australia without a passport or visa to get her first passport?! Family passports aren't synchronized either so a person with two or three kids could end up having to fly back and forth every other year. For instance Amaia's current Danish passport runs out in 2013, Anna's in 2016, Amaia's replacement would run to 2018 and Thomas's would be up in 2021 - that is a fair number of plane trips to the embassy! Someone hasn't thought it through!
Anyway Thomas is so incensed he's started a Facebook group to alert people to the change, and of course to try eventually to pressurize his government into a rethink. I'll keep you updated on the revolution!
ZOOPLA
Take it with a small pinch of salt occasionally however - I did notice one flaw... When André and I got divorced I sold him my half of our house so the last selling price for his house is in at half of that of all his neighbours despite his house being extended unlike his neighbours'! This could cause a future potential buyer to worry unnecessarily what is wrong with it. But other than that it makes for interesting, and sometimes scary, reading.
BEECH?
Friday, December 30, 2011
TEENAGER OVERLOAD
Thursday, December 29, 2011
FAILED WELLINGTON
In the autumn Thomas decided to try to make Beef Wellington for the first time ever. He bought a chunk of beef and a roll of Jus-rol pastry in Tesco. It was a wonderful success. Even Marcel and Léon who are the least meaty of our kids loved it.
Thomas's parents and mine came to dinner a couple of weeks ago. I suggested the Beef Wellington would be a good choice as it had been so easy to make yet tasted as if you were in a restaurant. So I went up to ASDA and bought a chunk of beef and a roll of Bells pastry. The same steps were followed but as he turned the hot beef in the pastry it actually dissolved! It seems to me that the Scottish version of puff pastry is half butter, whereas the non-Scottish one is maybe 20% butter. Do we need our puff pastry to be more stretchy to fit across a traditional steak pie ashet?
In any case, whatever the reason, I'd warn against using Scottish puff on your Beef Wellington!
NOT JUST ROADS
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
WHY?
Saturday, December 24, 2011
HOW MUCH?
Recently while shopping in Toys R Us a woman was buzzing around the aisle holding a large sheet of paper. In her basket she had three large toys each costing around £30-£35. The toys were aimed at a male child of maybe seven or eight. She was extremely organised, ordering around the man who was with her (presumably a husband or partner). Come on, hurry up - we've got the first three, it can't take that long! she ranted. Subdued, the man complained I don't see why we need so much. Completely unfazed, she explained that she had told their child he could choose ten things, so he would get the ten. Twenty minutes later, I passed them again and was more than surprised to see all ten of the presents were now in the trolley and the £30 one seemed to be the cheapest!
I have no doubt any one of mine would be excited if they were to receive everything they could ever imagine wanting, but is it really necessary? An hour after the child has unwrapped these ten gifts, he will have a favourite or two I imagine and the others will be forgotten or put to one side. This child, I guess, will probably also receive things from grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, family friends...
Yesterday I met an old friend of my mother. Léon was with me. She asked him what he was hoping to receive for Xmas. Léon actually didn't know how to answer the question. He looked quite surprised, as if he had never thought about it. She asked him again, he thought for a moment and then simply replied If I get a Harry Potter T-shirt I will be very happy!
Léon wants love, affection, attention. He wants to feel safe and happy. He doesn't need £300 of plastic to achieve that.
Friday, December 23, 2011
ROYAL MAIL
What's going on with the Royal Mail parcel delivery service? Has the government run out of money to provide them with the little red vans they used to use? Three times in the last week a postman has come to my door with a parcel and the van parked at the end of my driveway has been sporting either an Arnold Clark or Northgate vehicle hire logo.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
GROWING UP
Monday, December 19, 2011
SAAB
CONSISTENCY WOULD BE GOOD
I'm the first to moan about the primary school's (or is it perhaps the council's) mollycoddlying of children.
The poor wee buggers are closeted in classrooms all winter at the first hint of a snowflake because they are so afraid a parent will complain if their precious actually scrapes a knee slipping in the snow.
I often pick up sad-looking kids who've been desperate to get out all day just to have a snowball fight or build a snowman. Of course, the first thing they do when I get them home is just that.
Today, however, I did have to question their consistency. It snowed a few times last week. Walking had compacted it into ice and rain and freezing temperatures had been added into the mix. By this morning the entire playground was an ice rink.
Granted, a small 30cm path had been de-iced round the edge of the building and out to the gate, so the kids would be fine when they dragged them in early... Of course, they would take them in early... wouldn't they? Or would they let all 600 slip and slide round the playground and fall into icy puddles for the twenty minutes till the bell? It was like watching a bad attempt at Torvill and Dean. Whole chains of them were sliding backwards down the little embankment, generally landing with a bone-splitting thump on the black ice. I stood and watched ten minutes, by the end of which Léon was possibly the only little boy I hadn't seen fall into a puddle and soak his school trousers. They seemed to be having fun but today - unlike on the fluffy snowflake mornings, it was genuinely dangerous.
So are they making a new anti-health-and-safety stance which will consist of giving them the childhood we had, or did someone just cock up this morning?
I'm betting they'll be re-cotton-woolled tomorrow. :-(
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
CULTURAL AILMENTS
The Italian story doesn't differ too much from my French experience. Even at 35°C, my former sister-in-law believed that opening two windows in her car simultaneously to create what I would consider a pleasant breeze might cause her kidney failure. With common summer temperatures in the high thirties, the same relative believed that walking barefoot on the tiled floor of her flat would cause all sort of dangerous goings-on to occur in her womb area, possibly resulting in the need for an emergency hysterectomy! She was completely serious. She had learnt from childhood that any draught could be near fatal, not realizing that while avoiding one at 3°C or 4°C on a cold December morning was advisable, a degree of pragmatism should come into it in July! I have often sat in her (and her mother's) house with the oven on, the outdoor temperature pushing 40°C and every one of them refusing categorically to open a window because of the danger! And when I would walk around the flat barefoot, and suffer no ill effects, they'd simply dismiss it with mutterings of 'What do you expect with her Nordic blood!' When the kids came along and survived open windows and cold floors, they too were deemed Nordic!
My family members were also forever getting injections into their spines every time they had backache. That used to worry me. It seemed very OTT!
Like Italians, swimming after even looking sideways at a sandwich would, of course, cause you to drown so had to be avoided at all costs. I often had the pool to myself while my entire family sat looking at their watches after lunch. As I'd bounce about in the water with the kids, they'd shake their heads disapprovingly as if I should have my kids taken into care for the degree of irresponsibility I was showing!
Now Danes are a different kettle of fish. For example, all Danes I know own and treasure thermometers - usually anal ones and as soon as they or their child feels under the weather they need to know their temperature to the nearest tenth of a degree... Interestingly though, once they know it, they don't do anything about it! Calpol and baby nurofen are taboo words in Denmark. I had to haggle and negotiate to get paracetamol for Marcel once in a pharmacy in Aarhus when he was ten because he had an ear infection and a raging temperature. It isn't on the shelf in their supermarkets, it isn't even on the shelves in their pharmacies. Trying to buy a pack of kiddie disprol is like trying to buy cannabis over the counter here! And as for antibiotics, they seem to be taking the fear of over-prescribing them more seriously than anyone else on the planet. I am assured by all my family members that getting any antibiotics is more or less impossible! So in Denmark there are two degrees of illness: the first seems to be up to about 38°C where you do nothing, the second at higher than 38°C when you force your child to eat ice cream! :-)
I wonder what my foreign relatives, old and new, consider to be the idiosyncrasies of Scotland?
BARBAPAPA
NAIVETY
Monday, December 12, 2011
LUCKY TEACHER!
Well, I was in the dinner hall eating my lunch and it just fell out! he explained.
So what did you do? I asked
Well, I noticed my teacher was also sitting having her lunch so I just went over to her and gave her it!
Lucky teacher!
ROOF DAMAGE
Then the bloke who lives across the road dropped by today to ask basically if we shouldn't be wearing hard hats every day coming in and out until it was fixed... Until what was fixed? You see from his top floor he has a much better view of our roof than we do. I walked as far as I could away from it to get a better angle.
Holy shit! Has someone been up there with a crowbar and a hammer?
I have now been back on to the insurance company sheepishly mentioning I have found a few more issues since we last spoke!
Oops... roof tiles bloody better be covered!
Sunday, December 11, 2011
ANNA'S PRESCHOOL PHOTO

Anna had her preschool photo taken last month, just a few weeks before she got her glasses. I really like two specific bits of it.
When Anna is all grown up and I look at this photo of her at three, I will smile, remembering the fascination she had as a tiny child with nail varnish. Up till the day before this photo, Anna had always opted for a single shade, but on this day she insisted that every single nail had to be painted a different colour, so she could look extra-special! Her smile shows how proud she feels.
The other thing the photographer has managed to capture is Anna's odd eyes. I have been noticing since Anna's eyes changed from blue around nine months, that while her right eye is green, her left one is noticeably darker!
Saturday, December 10, 2011
SHAKER MAKER
Friday, December 09, 2011
SPOT THE DIFFERENCE!
Facetious, me? Never! ;-)
NOW HERE'S A CLASSIC
Fire and theft! was their reply!
Now, I ask you - what is most likely to happen to a fence? Storm damage, fire or theft?
So I guess I'm away out to try to cobble together a new fence out of all the shattered pieces of wood strewn up my street.
Should any of you feel like stealing my fence once I have finished building it, feel free! ;-)
Thursday, December 08, 2011
EITHER IT'S DANGEROUSLY WINDY, OR IT ISN'T!
So which is it East Ren? Too windy to open schools, or not windy enough to call off the insulation guys?
Wednesday, December 07, 2011
CONFUSION
Léon hasn't been in Denmark since he was two and a half. (He is now six). When Brita retired as a minister at the end of 2008, they moved out of the manse that had been their home for forty years and now split their time between their beautiful, old Tuscan house and a small flat in Aarhus. That means of course that when they are in Denmark, they do not have enough space for us to visit, so as a family we visit them in Italy. It is such a shame they left the huge manse just a few years after Thomas and I got together, as it had so much space for us all and a wonderful garden!
Anyway, the upshot is of course that Léon is now beginning to think Danish is a language that you can only speak in Italy! Thomas only speaks Danish to the three wee ones, no English, so they know it can be spoken in Scotland, but are aware, as all bilingual kids are, after a mistake or two, that they can't get away with speaking it to many other random people here! In Italy though there is a lot of Danish spoken all day every day and many of the conversations around them are in Danish. Thomas's parents even have a new Danish next door neighbour with kids in Italy!
I became aware of this anomaly when Thomas started showing the kids Nissebanden as a TV advent calendar last week. It seems to be a story of a group of Danish-speaking elves who fly off to Greenland in a hot-air balloon - truly riveting ;-) I happened to walk in as they landed in Greenland. 'Where did they set out from?' I asked, feigning interest... 'Oh, they must have come from Italy', Léon piped up immediately, 'because they were speaking Danish to each other!'
I guess when you live in a family where a minimum of five languages are spoken in the home almost on a daily basis, nothing fazes you!
Saturday, December 03, 2011
TYPES OF GLASSES
Yesterday she shared her findings with me:
You only wear glasses when you are reading Mummy, Pumpa (my dad) does the same. Granny, Léon and Farmor (Thomas's mum) wear their glasses all the time. Großvater (Thomas's dad) wears his for driving but not for reading. But Theodor (her Danish cousin who is 13) only needs his for sleeping!
You've got to laugh at the logic. Basically, Theodor has recently started wearing contacts during the day so Anna only ever sees him wearing his glasses at breakfast, so she assumes he only needs them for sleeping! Cute.
GLASSES - DAY 2
All day they have been slipping down Anna's nose and sitting on the end of it so out we went in the torrential rain, back to the opticians to have them adjusted. Too loose is not good in kids glasses. Fortunately, I have learned from the Léon experience. We no longer choose opticians by the range or price of specs on offer, but by proximity to our house and usual haunts (yes, we opted for the one next door to ASDA again) because the number of times you have to drop in for repairs and adjustments (especially between nursery chuck-out at 3.35pm and closing time) really make an optician in town too much hassle.
We are home now and they've stopped slipping. The opticians closed eight minutes ago. Anna's latest complaint: They are too tight behind my ears!
Ho hum, I guess it's back to ASDA again tomorrow.
Friday, December 02, 2011
ANNA'S NEW GLASSES
Last year in September, when Léon first got glasses we had driven back and forward to the opticians at least twice in the first fortnight because they didn't seem to be the correct prescription, but what a difference a year of experience makes for the parent! We know now that a child who has always needed glasses but has never had them learns, with a struggle, to focus without them. When they first get glasses, it takes them a week to ten days to stop compensating. For the first wee while, they think that the glasses don't work. I swear I must have told Léon to look through his glasses, not over them a hundred times a day at first, until suddenly one morning he got up and was happier with them than without them.
I guess that fortnight or so for Anna has now begun.
Thursday, December 01, 2011
ANOTHER SELACHIAN CHILD
One thing is sure though - unlike his little cousin, who got his big teeth through much earlier than Léon, when the fairy turns up at our house, she won't be carrying anything like £5 per tooth! Let's hope they don't confer!
MORE FUNCTIONAL LANGUAGE
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
PENSIONS
Of course there will be a small percentage of private sector MDs with decent pensions, just as there will be top civil servants with decent pensions too but an average worker will get a pension that will not allow him to retire ever. Add to that the issue of redundancy - when people lose their jobs they have to choose between continuing to invest in under-performing pensions or paying their mortgage. However short-sighted it may seem, many people choose to pay their mortgage! A quick poll of my freelance friends today (many editorial staff and journalists work freelance these days, having either been let go by struggling publishers, or having resigned, like me, unable to pay childcare costs from my very average salary, thus figuring working from home was the only option) reveals that next to none of my friends (all in their 40s) are currently paying into a pension at all. I wonder how many of the rich Tories in charge of the country are aware of that?
So rather than lamenting the fact that the public sector workers didn't exactly rush out in their thousands ten years ago in support when this was happening to us, I think it needs to be said that the government and country doesn't need to rethink their plans for the public sector so much as rethink pensions in their entirety. Twenty years from now we are suddenly going to hit a point when there are no jobs for us 60-somethings but we have no pensions either. It's time to break down that old us and them divide and realize all of us, public and private alike, are facing an impossible retirement.
It isn't the rights of public sector workers we should be fighting for, but the rights of all workers on average salaries, regardless of their sector. We should all be out there today pointing out to the buffoons in charge that a major rethink is needed.
(Here's an interesting quote from Macwhirter:
Here's a statistic to think about. At present annuity rates (that's what you get when your savings are converted into a pension) to buy an index linked pension of £24,000 - roughly what a teacher gets - a 60 year old would need to have saved over £600,000. It is impossible for normal people to save anything like this. The average personal pension savings “pot” at retirement is currently £30,000, which will generate about a £1100 a year, most of which is lost because the pensioner loses entitlement to means tested pension credit. And remember, a third of British workers, round 8 million, have no pension at all.)
Sunday, November 27, 2011
ALPHABET PLATES
Léon asked me yesterday why car number plates were called number plates when they are predominantly alphabet plates! It's funny how young children see the world through different eyes.
Then we got talking about number plates. He noticed a car with a number plate that contained only one letter and two numbers. He wanted to know why it was so short so I explained the UK's system of private number plates and mentioned that such a short number plate would have been quite expensive. The wee guy is now on the look-out (he says) for a car with the whole alphabet on the back because he hears there's a recession on so he figures someone around is going to be that poor!
Friday, November 25, 2011
ANNA
Of course, the result is the same. She too is likely to need glasses always. Ho hum :-(
Anna, of course, is a very positive person. She is completely thrilled that the only glasses that are small enough for a three year old on sale in Boots opticians are bright pink. She was dramatically claiming she was so blind she couldn't possibly leave the shop without her new glasses (despite not realizing last month she had any vision problems!) And she's already ordered Thomas to put a shelf beside her bed (he put one up for Léon's glasses a few months ago.)
Let's hope they don't take too long.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
SKINNY
Last night I asked Anna where she had left her nursery bag. 'In the skinny hall', she replied. The pink hall, being internal, with five doors off it, is substantially smaller, so I assumed that is what she meant, but her bag was nowhere to be found. I went out to the big hall and there it was. Odd... until I questioned her further. You see according to Anna, apparently 'skinny' doesn't mean 'narrow', it means 'the colour of skin'! So my pale terracotta hall is in fact my 'skinny' hall!
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
PHOTOGRAPHIC SANITY RETURNS
School sports day fell the week after my mother's stroke. My son was in primary one and I was banned from taking a photo of him to his granny in hospital for no reason I could see. I didn't want a class shot, simply a photo of him alone in his sack or holding an egg and spoon. So I wrote to my MP.
Dear Mr Macintosh,
I thought I'd ask for your help on this minor issue. Today was Sports' Day at my kids' school here in East Renfrewshire. As has been the case for the last two years the head opened it warning parents not to take photos of the event for private use as a few of the children didn't have permission to be photographed. It seems to me that the majority of the parents did want to photograph the event - many sneaked out mobiles while the teachers' backs were turned. Why are the majority's desires ignored in favour of the minority? I agree publishing photos would be another matter. But a snap of your child for personal use is harmless. My mother is in hospital after a stroke last week, my father is terminally ill with cancer so neither was able to attend my son's p1 sports' day. I feel terribly upset I couldn't brighten their day by showing them a photo of him with an egg and spoon. I have no desire to take photos of others' kids, I simply feel aggrieved that someone is telling me I cannot document my own child's childhood because of the desires of a few paranoid individuals. Ironically if these kids are walking home from school on say Mearns road nothing stops me from accidentally snapping them as I take a photo of a nearby church for example. I don't need to ask permission of every individual on Prestwick beach on a sunny day before snapping the view. And of course the rules have changed over the years - I have plenty photos of my older kids' sports days. How do I explain to the youngest that his own mother is banned from photographing him? I think it is time we got back a sense of reality. And the reality is 95% of parents want a cute little photo of junior with his egg and spoon and 5% are spoiling that. Why are we allowing that? By pandering to this paranoia we are sending the kids the message that the parents watching them at school are potentially dangerous. That is completely wrong. I wish the Scottish government would step in and issue some guidelines for sense.
Thanks for your time.
I assumed it would be ignored but I felt better for having moaned at least. A month later I received a letter stamped 'Scottish Parliament'. Mr Macintosh said he agreed with my points, had kids in the same council area and agreed to take up my case with the council. I was surprised to say the least. Another month passed and both Ken and the council wrote to me saying new guidelines allowing parents to photograph their kids on condition they didn't upload the photos to social media sites had been sent to all East Ren heads.
Today I attended the school's p2 show where we were allowed to take photos of our kids for the first time in three years. So I guess the lesson is to be less cynical. Complaining sometimes actually works!
SCOTTISH PANTO SEASON
Monday, November 21, 2011
HOW SWEET CAN ONE CHILD BE?
Sunday, November 20, 2011
BILINGUALISM
Funnily enough learning who speaks what doesn't stop at people! Bilingual kids may have a teddy or similar who only speaks one of their languages!
This fantasy continues to quite an advanced age in childhood. I remember Thomas telling me his dad had a box of puppets when he was a child who could only speak German (Thomas is bilingual German/Danish from birth - his dad was originally from Germany). Thomas was happy for these puppets to only speak German but one day he had some kids home from school, so his dad was obliged to make his German puppets speak Danish so the other kids, who were not bilingual, could understand the show. Thomas told me he was beside himself - completely distraught, as the illusion had been broken. He had known for years that the puppets were German-speaking so speaking Danish was really wrong in his young mind.
Thomas has a box of puppets who only speak to Léon, Anna and Amaia in Danish! I have a horse and a dinosaur glove puppet who only speak to the three of the them in French!
Yesterday we dropped in on my parents and my mum asked Anna if she had any wishes for her 4th birthday next month. After a day's thought she asked me tentatively this evening: Do you think if we went out shopping we might be able to find any puppets who can speak English, mum?!
STIEG LARSSON
Having watched the nine hour television series of the Larsson trilogy in Swedish, I am now tuned back into that but if I spend the rest of the year reading Larsson in Swedish will my Danish become laughable? So do I break my own no-translation rule? (I happily read translations when I don't speak the language by the way!) Do I do the ridiculous and buy it in Danish (given the price of books in Denmark) or do I take Swedish to bed every night and start singing my Danish to the point where I start to sound like the muppet chef?
Saturday, November 19, 2011
APPLE JUICE
Amaia's linguistic expertise has taken on a new dimension today. Following on from her inventions of her 'tired' and her 'drive' the other day, she has now decided that things are called what she wants them to be called, and if that doesn't match the real name, then that's simply tough - we should learn the new name!
Today she came in and asked for 'apple juice'. It was as clear as day. 'Mummy, I wan appoo juice'. No problems there. So I gave her a glass of diluting apple juice in a plastic beaker. She was distraught! She has an inflated sense of her age, so I assumed I had offended her with the lid (she doesn't use a lid at the table any more, but I'd given her this so she could walk about with it). Even without the lid, this apple juice made her fall to the ground in dramatic, hysterical tears. She stormed through to the living room and started pointing at her auntie wailing 'appoo juice' over and over. Amanda was drinking a caramel cappuccino I'd made two minutes earlier. I took Amaia back through to the kitchen and pointed at the cappuccino machine. She became less agitated. I poured the remaining frothy milk, a dribble of coffee and a spoonful of caramel into a Toy Story mug, half filling it. 'Apple juice?' I asked. She smiled, took it from me and wandered back to the living room where she sat down in front of the patio doors happily repeating the words 'appoo juice' over and over while hugging her mug and sipping her coffee.
If only I had more money I could commission myself to write and publish an Amaia-English English-Amaia bilingual dictionary!
Friday, November 18, 2011
HERE WE GO AGAIN
We took him to the hospital follow-up and were told he was long-sighted and would need glasses at least till he was a teenager, if not permanently. So the fun and expense of keeping glasses unscratched, unbroken, unlost etc began.
I immediately tried to get Anna's eyes tested at the time. Opticians refused because she was under four. I tried in vain to get the hospital to look at her when I was there with Léon. I asked for a doctor's referral but was told she would be checked at four anyway.
She isn't four until next month but the nursery contacted us last month to say she too has now failed her nursery sight test.
Yesterday, I phoned the hospital who said she'd be receiving a non-urgent appointment at some point in the future. Léon's first appointment had taken nine months to come through. I wasn't going to put up with that again. After speaking persuasively to them for half an hour Anna has now been given an appointment next week.
Given the hassle value of glasses and small children, I really hope they've made a mistake, but Anna is so excited about being old enough to get glasses just like her big brother, she's already picked out a pink pair in Dollond & Aitchison so if they tell her she doesn't need them she's going to be beside herself!
Thursday, November 17, 2011
MEMORY TECHNIQUES
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
FUNCTIONAL LANGUAGE
It will be interesting to watch how this pattern develops.
FUTURE SHOPLIFTER/DRUG SMUGGLER?
She has a habit of taking things and hiding them in her vest. She pops them in at the neck and we find them at various places throughout the day.
Take this last week. First, ten or so of Léon's lego men, complete with guns, spears, helmets and Viking horns all went missing. No one had seen them until I noticed Amaia had a limp the morning after they went missing. She was wearing her fleecy all-in-one pyjamas. The men were found in her left leg, after she'd managed to sleep a whole night with them.
The following day I pulled off her pinafore at bath time and her cutlery from dinner fell out of that!
Today I was about to change her nappy when I found sound strange dented patterns on her pelvis - I opened the nappy to find it full of paperclips, which once again had been inserted at her neck and fallen down through her vest into the nappy.
Finally, on another nappy change, I opened the poppers to reveal her stomach had various coloured stripes on it... and as I searched further up inside the vest, I of course found various crayons and felt tip pens minus lids.
Given we have so many relatives abroad, I really need to take great care before boarding a flight, especially with some of the more budget-end airlines... Trying to explain that I was not in fact trying to smuggle a knife, a cork screw or various unidentified powders, gels or substances in my baby's nappy might not just wash with them! :-\
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
O2
Lots has had her heart set on buying a new phone since her old Sony Ericsson(?) gave up the ghost a few weeks ago. After a rather large rant at her about her not spending half of the savings she's been amassing for over three years, she finally gave in and opted for the lowest spec Smart phone she could afford. Everywhere on the web seemed to be selling it at around £120, O2 had it at seventy something.
She has her own debit card these days - one of those teenage accounts to get you used to cards but with no overdraft facility - so first she ordered it with her own card, got a delivery slot of the following day and was very happy. I waited in and nothing turned up. She phoned and they had no track of her order. I asked if she'd followed the online instructions to the letter - nothing had gone wrong but she hadn't received a confirmation email so she reordered. She still got no email. I phoned again - no order. Assuming they had maybe tracked it as a child's card and were maybe blocking it that way but giving her no indication she was being blocked, I offered to buy it if she went to the ATM in the sweetie shop and got me the cash instead.
I followed the tedious instructions again all the way through and after a wait, I was told my transaction had been declined. This was the third time with no info. I was seriously annoyed at the lack of explanation. I decided to phone and buy it instead. Another half hour was wasted going through all the same details. And at the end my transaction was declined! At least over the phone they actually tell you why! My bank smile.co.uk wasn't authorising the transaction unless I rang to confirm it was me. For crying out loud! If I can spend £70 in Tesco without being hassled, why can't I buy a phone? Thanks Smile! 2/10 for customer services, but O2's online shop could easily have explained this to me too 2/10 to them as well.
I phoned Smile and told them I was me and they told me they'd authorise me spending my money, (thanks a lot), then I phoned O2 back. No, I have nothing better to do with my time, really I don't! Yes, back to square one, I re-re-re-re-ordered the phone and was given a delivery slot of today between 7am and 9pm! No I really have nothing better to do all day than man the doorbell, honestly.
At 2pm, O2 rang me to ask if I had any suggestions for their customer services department! Communication would be a good start - I explained the saga, and before I let him off the hook I asked if my phone had been dispatched. Yes, at 1pm! Great - no more moody female child to deal with... or?
8-30pm came and I had that sinking feeling for the third time. I wasted another ten minutes with O2 who gave me the phone number of Yodel who were delivering my phone. I rang them. The reference number didn't match anything they had, so I gave them my postcode. Oh yes, that's been dispatched from head office, said the bloke in a scouse accent, it should be in Scotland tomorrow but I'm not sure when it'll get to you. I explained O2 telling me to wait in today and was informed that they'd just leave it with a neighbour if I was out so I had been misled. I also mentioned that I'd been promised a delivery today and told them I'd stayed home to wait on it. Oh some of these companies we deliver for like to promise dates but they aren't set in stone, just best guesses, he informed me helpfully!
Great customer service O2, well done - you just went down to 0/10! Next time one of my kids wants a phone I'll be recommending the T-mobile shop who always dispatch my new company phones on the day I ask and are never late!
Rant over - I'll let you know what (if anything) tomorrow brings!
Sunday, November 13, 2011
HOME-MADE POLITICS?
It turns out, in fact, to be a puppet theatre that he's been working on so he can throw puppet shows in Danish for the three youngest kids - he has a box of puppets upstairs - how sweet! Though rumour has it he expects me to paint it before use.
It is a shame really - I had this thought that if I installed it in my garden during the next general election, I could put up posters directing locals here to vote and have some fun with it! It could be quite a good way to influence the outcome of the local poll but it'll probably be less convincing in red or blue!
Saturday, November 12, 2011
A CLEAR NIGHT
PROUD OF THE MAN MY SON IS BECOMING

This photo was taken yesterday... yesterday on my time scale but nearly fourteen and a half years ago in reality.
Life doesn't always turn out how you expected but you do your best for your kids as they grow.
When I left his dad, when he was eight, I was convinced that I was doing the right thing. It was right for me because I didn't love him any more. But more than anything I thought it was imperative for my boys that I show them the consequences of neglect in a relationship. I figured that if I stayed, I was tacitly telling my boys that they didn't need to make any effort with their future partners and the ultimate outcome of that could be their partners walking out on them, potentially taking their kids away many years down the line. I had to leave to protect them from future heartbreak, otherwise I would have failed them.
Although I knew divorce was best, you never know if your kids are going to see that. It takes a certain maturity to get there, I imagine.
Today I was driving my child into town.
I'm so glad you and papa got divorced, he suddenly revealed. It was the best thing you ever did, mum. I can't begin to imagine our lives if you'd stayed with him. I remember what it was like, the others don't. You two together is unimaginable to me. When you were with him, you were frankly a bit weird, but now you're you!
Phew - what can you say to that? He is so right. André made me a nervous wreck, Thomas calms me but how can one so young, with so little life experience be quite so astute? I'm a very proud mum.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
INHERITED CHARACTER TRAITS
Listening to the little ones parent the littler ones is always amusing. I overhear Anna chastising Amaia (or even Léon) in words she could have only stolen from me and I laugh. She accuses me of procrastinating and I know she's heard Thomas and I chatting!
One of the most amusing things when you have as large an age spread as me is hearing the younger ones use their knowledge of what they hear from the older ones when interpreting what is going on around them. Léon occasionally refers to girls as 'fit' when he means 'pretty' for example! Marcel! And tonight Anna was standing on a chair above me singing what she thought were the correct words to the nursery rhyme: "I'm the king of the castle, and you're a dirty wee 'arsehole'!" I'm not sure that happens when three year olds don't have teenage siblings!
It is particularly fascinating to analyse the character traits your children inherit. Thomas hates embarrassing situations. Movies of the Borat type leave him squirming to the point he cannot physically sit on the couch and he dashes for the kitchen at the first opportunity on the pretext of coffee-making or the likes. Anna has inherited this character trait and I suspect from Amaia's concerned look in the above photo she probably has too. It was taken as they were watching the Swedish (dubbed into Danish) film Emil i Lönneberga. It shows a boy of about eight getting into all sorts of scrapes and up to all sorts of nonsense - he upsets his father by filling his wellies with water to check if they are water-tight and drops some black pudding mixture on his head for example. Instead of laughing, as intended, at the slapstick comedy of the situation, as Léon does, Anna squirms nervously on the couch saying he makes her feel ill at ease, while Amaia chews her fist worriedly, neither girl even smiling at the fun goings-on. Thomas came in last night and looked similarly uncomfortable. It is very sweet to watch!
Wednesday, November 09, 2011
SMARTER, OR... POORER?
When I was a child standard uniforms for little boys like Marcel consisted of a plain shirt, a school tie, trousers and shoes, as Léon is pictured wearing above. This was the original 1960s uniform and was still an option when Marcel started but was worn mainly for school photographs and perhaps on a child's first day when the parents wanted them to look extra-smart. When Marcel started in a year with 90 children, no more than five or six wore the 'smarter', old-fashioned uniform on a daily basis. I was greatly relieved as I am not in favour of four year olds having to waste time of fiddly little buttons and ties. I don't think they look smarter (after their first toilet visit of the day) as their shirt tails are generally flapping in the wind and after PE ties are backwards and the likes - little boys tend to look a state in the old uniforms! I have taught in France and been married to a highly intelligent Frenchman and Dane who both managed to get a first class education despite sitting in class in jeans and a jumper!
When Léon started at the same school last year, I ordered the usual uniform out of habit. He started to moan constantly about wanting to wear the old uniform. I figured it was a phase he'd grow out of, but he didn't and by p2, I relented, allowing him to wear the old-fashioned uniform on non-PE days. I hadn't asked myself why Léon had taken such a fancy to the uniform until recently. Standing at the school gate I started to notice the percentage of kids wearing the old-fashioned uniform had increased noticeably. Back in 2002, 6 or 7% of kids wore it, today I noticed it was closer to 25%-30%. Maybe Léon was simply seeing more kids in it and that was what was inspiring him?
I started to ask myself why it was coming back into fashion? It is not more practical, it is not more durable, and with the youngsters in charge, it is not smarter... I could think of one main issue. It is much cheaper. A pack of five shirts is £4 in Tesco, five plain grey (unbranded) jumpers cost £15, and a tie (which can be used for the whole seven years is £4.99). So a whole week's outfits cost just £19, with a one-off outlay for the tie. The branded polo shirts cost around £7 each and the sweat shirts are about £10 each. So if you wanted a polo shirt and sweat shirt for each day, a week's uniforms cost £85 plus trousers and shoes.
East Renfewshire contains some of Glasgow's most affluent suburbs. People pay inflated housing prices because the schools are unrivalled in the state sector. Most residents are typically professional or senior and middle management. The current recession is not following previous patterns where low-level workers are made redundant and find a new job or live on benefits. This is a recession where middle and senior management are being thrown out with no possibility of benefits to cover their hefty mortgages, and because their houses have not increased in value in four years, and self-certification is no longer accepted, they are unable to sell up and move unless they can find cheap, rented accommodation, which of course doesn't exist in East Ren. Public sector workers are also now beginning to be hit with pay freezes but rising inflation. I am beginning to suspect that what on the surface looks like people returning to the smarter, old-fashioned look for their kids is, underlyingly, actually something much more sinister.
Friday, November 04, 2011
BEANBAGS
Years have now passed (this episode probably dates from 2002ish). None of my kids, though they speak French, has even a hint of a French accent, having been brought up and schooled here... or so I thought till this week. I was driving in Newton Mearns on Monday morning when all the wheelie bins and recycling bags were out on the kerbside for collection. Léon was riding up front with me when a paper recycling bag blew out onto the road in front of my car. 'Watch out for that beanbag!' he shouted very clearly. I was stunned. 'Binbag' I corrected, and he looked puzzled before correcting his pronunciation. How odd!
Still surprised at that, Charlotte (who had not been in the car when this event occurred) blew me away this evening. I have been negotiating with my ex for a pair of bedroom curtains on and off for five years. Given we don't speak, this hasn't been the easiest task but this week he finally relented and allowed me to have my ladybird curtains back for Anna and Amaia. Charlotte bounced in from the dining room at about 5pm and asked 'Did you see Papa dropped off those green curtains this morning?' 'No - where?' I asked, given I hadn't seen them. Her reply... 'They're in that beanbag on the table!'
What is that man doing to my kids suddenly?!
Wednesday, November 02, 2011
AUTUMN ENVY
I've just been speaking to my mother-in-law in Italy. She described the wonderful, golden colours she's seeing from her house across the Tuscan valley while mentioning the warm temperatures and outdoor village gatherings she's been attending.
Here I am sitting in my cold Glasgow house watching the wind and rain rip the leaves heartlessly from the trees once more, giving little opportunity for a photo shoot or outdoor gathering.
I loved living in France in autumn. Every day I would get up to a different, more vivid shade of red or gold and sheer joy at being able to walk through the countryside in Franche-Comté in just a jumper with my camera around my neck.
One of the worst aspects of this recession to me is having my wings clipped by necessity, no longer being able to fly over to France for a long weekend on a photo shoot, or Italy to visit my in-laws. Sitting here knowing the autumn photo opportunities I am missing in France, Italy or even NY is just so frustrating. I want to throw all my kids in a plane and show them autumn is a beautiful season that lasts weeks, not one wet, stormy, dark Glasgow day that blows everything off the trees while you hide inside with the heating on. After nearly four years, even the oldest ones struggle to remember those days.
Closing my eyes I can still smell the air in October in Avignon, or the sea breeze in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. I so miss the pre-recession days of freedom.
Is it ever going to end?
Monday, October 31, 2011
OOPS!
Yesterday, as I went to dye his hair though I realized Charlotte had finished the black face paint making Léon into a pirate last month... crisis! No worries - I noticed there was a box containing just black and white face paint beside the rest. Someone must have had the foresight to replace it - phew.
I was in a rush - I had four witches and a Harry Potter to face-paint in less than half an hour! I got Lots to paint Léon's head while I made myself green. I was struck by the greasy look of his hair while she was applying it. Face paint usually looks powdery and dry on the head. I figured it wasn't dry yet and we set out for the party at Derek and Amanda's house.
At the party one of Amanda's friends was rolling and tumbling with the boys in the bedroom while I was in the living room. Suddenly I noticed her running for a basin of soapy water... some of Léon's paint had come off on the bedroom carpet while she was tickling him. I immediately decided to wash it out of his hair quickly so no further accidents would take place, though I was still puzzled it had rubbed off on the carpet as it doesn't usually... Then the fun began.
I stood Léon (protesting because he wasn't done being Harry) under Derek and Amanda's shower. Why wasn't the water paint running down his body like it was supposed to? Had Charlotte used so much I would actually need to apply soap? I lifted down the shampoo and put it on. His head felt greasy but the shampoo made no impact! I gave him a second shower using shower gel on his head - none of the black came off, then shampoo again, nada! Arg! After a forty minute shower my blond boy was still greasy and black. What the hell had Lots used on his head? The box definitely said face paint. I gave up.
Later that evening Lots was removing her face paint with a make-up wipe. I tried that and it helped a bit. The colour remained but the greasiness started to come out. I figured make-up wipes were an expensive option so after four, I reached for a pack of baby wipes. They worked too. Twenty odd baby wipes later his hair had gone from black to dark brown but he was wailing and moaning at all the rubbing.
Fortunately it was Halloween dress-up day at school today so I had an extra day to get it clean. He came out of school today with his hair now somewhere between grey and what looked like dark green! I had since checked the packet of (German) face paint that Thomas had bought ten years ago... professional, adult oil-based face paint complete with its very own make-up removal oil - for skin use only! I have no idea how it had come to be put with the kiddie face paint. Of course, Charlotte can't read German instructions, can she? I was bemoaning this at the school gate when a friend mentioned she'd managed to remove gloss paint from her own hair last week (after she'd painted her hall doors) using olive oil, so poor Léon was dragged home, scrubbed with a face cloth drenched in expensive extra-virgin olive oil and dooked once more - well actually four more times but he finally seems to be almost blond again, (though the bath is black)!
I'll be ordering more water-based kiddie face paint before I ever attempt anything like that again - assuming any of the kids will let me... not that any of my relatives will ever invite us back after that pantomime :-/
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
OWAMA
Wow, you've got big hair this morning! I remarked casually...
Yeah I look a bit like Owama, she replied very certain of herself.
Who or what is Owama, I wondered, almost afraid to ask as she'd been so dismissive.
Her with the red hair Charlotte listens to - you know - she sing 'Owama - that's my name, Owama, that's my name!
I'm thinking she might be meaning... Rihanna!
I suppose that's what you get when there's and eight year age gap between your kids - 3 year olds who sing Rihanna instead of Twinkle Twinkle.
MOTs
Since my MOT back in September (it passed without a hitch), I've been wondering about human priorities... Why do we give our cars (that can be replaced for £25K) annual MOTs but we don't give humans over a specific age the same?
Anyone who reads this occasionally knows that my dad is terminally ill and my mum had a stroke in the summer...
Think about it. Dad has bowel cancer - an easily curable disease if it had been discovered before it had spread to his lymphs, lungs, liver and other such places. If he'd had an 'MOT' every year from 40, 50 or 60 - whatever was deemed the human equivalent of the car's three years - then they'd have caught it on time. Mum had a stroke caused by a mix of high blood pressure, thyroid problems and an irregular heartbeat - all things that would have been detected at an MOT too. So dad is terminally ill at 68 and mum has suffered some brain damage unnecessarily at 67.
It makes you think through priorities, doesn't it?