WEE OLD MAN

Have I mentioned my new wee nephew Alasdair? Isn't he cute? What amazed me last Thursday when he was over was his wrinkly forehead! I don't think I've ever met such a wrinkly baby before. He can look like a shrunken middle-aged man with all the worries in the world at times! He makes me think of one of those dogs with too much skin too. I guess they often do before they learn to smile properly! I must admit I just love that stage where they look like serious wee helpless trolls :-)

LAST DAY OF FUN

Gordy was round to play with Pudge yesterday. It was a perfect summer's day so garden time was on the menu. After showing him our sunflowers and teaching him which berries in the garden were edible, he and Léon had what looked like the best half hour of their lives jumping into the paddling pool with handfuls of freshly cut grass, shouting that they were playing in courgette soup! The grins were so big, they almost met round the backs of their heads! Thomas did walk by at one point and mutter - they seem to be enjoying their last day of freedom - with both of them starting primary school today, I guess yesterday was their last completely carefree day until they reach retirement which by the time they are old will probably be about 65 years from now!

BABY WHO?

It's funny what you find out at the ripe old age of 42. I have always known that I was not meant to be called Phyllis. When my parents got pregnant in May 1967, they informed my four grandparents that no child would be named in any way after them: Jean, Matthew, Phyllis or William. Of course things shifted slightly when my fifty year old grandmother was diagnosed in the September with a terminal illness - it shifted to a remote possibility at that point. And I assume if she'd lived till March or April of 1968, my life would have been very different. But as it was she died on the Tuesday before I was born (on the Sunday). My Phyllis/non-Phyllis status was, I always assumed, sealed at that moment. But during dinner with my parents on Friday, I was told for the first time in my life that I actually wore name tags for my entire stay at the maternity hospital sporting the name Linda Buchanan! As a shy child, I hated being a Phyllis in the early 70s. I yearned to be a Karen or Gillian like the other duplicates in my class, wanting to hide in the anonymity rather than standing out like an eternal freak. I was asked by the class clown more than once why I didn't have a blue rinse - I was not amused :-( In 2007 I had to pay to change my name by deed poll because my divorce was not going to be through in time for me to give Anna my surname. It was strange to hold in my hand a piece of paper with a blank box asking me to fill in what I wanted to be called - changing to Phyllis Buchanan cost the same as it would have cost to give myself a whole new first name and middle name (something I'd always resented not having, given my brother had one). I still disliked Phyllis but I couldn't choose anything else because you don't name yourself. The only people who could have changed my name by deed poll to something else were my parents, so I found myself ironically paying not to change first name or add a middle name - odd... I don't really like it, but it is me all the same. It is funny how many other people that has affected too. My younger brother was given the middle name Henderson to pacify my mum's mother who had been upset that I'd been given my dad's mum's name and only this week my new nephew was named Henderson too to carry on that tradition. I wonder what Derek and Alasdair's middle names would have been had they had a sister or auntie named Linda instead of Phyllis?

LARGE FAMILIES

Sometimes when I look at my kids, I think of what most people consider the norm - and that would probably have been a photo of just me on a bench with Charlotte and Marcel. How much less rich my life would have been if I'd stopped there. They are all so different and so alike in many ways. Anna and Marcel are quite alike in their interests, Léon, Charlotte and Amaia look very alike. I can see myself in all of them regardless of gender and colouring. Looking into your own eyes in another colour touches the depths of your soul. This weekend Marcel has spent most of the time listening to the same song over and over trying to learn the lyrics - something I myself would have done at his age. Charlotte sometimes drives me mad with her awkwardness and shyness - again traits I too suffered from at her age though overcame. The little ones are so endearing with their smiles, their chat, their nonsense, their understanding of the world. I watch how Marcel interacts with the smallest ones and I feel pride at having raised such a gentle, lovely boy. He acts indecisively like his father and I cringe. I ask him to tidy the kitchen and he does a sloppy teenage job and I want to kill him but he was my first love so I can't. He smiles his smile and sparkles his beautiful green eyes and my heart melts. He comes home from school and leaves a report on his bed, forgetting to show me it. I find it and read he is one of the cleverest kids at his school, polite, well-behaved, full of enthusiasm and I hold my breath, thrilled that by some fluke I have managed to raise the perfect child. That's what being a mother is all about. Charlotte's teacher, at our parent meeting, stops on more than one occasion and gasps - My God you are the same person - she gestures like you, she moves her hair like you, she talks like you. I rarely see this myself. I am bemused and yet proud. She says to me - Charlotte is unaware of how bright she is. Again I am secretly thrilled at having got something right. I love her freckly nose, her clear green eyes. Her niggling with the little ones sometimes drives me insane. Her hours of patience with them in the next instant amazes me. She's more patient with them than me at times and her parenting wisdom stuns me when she sees better how to deal with them than me. Her refusal to ever brush her beautiful hair drives me batty. Her tomboyishness puzzles me as it is so far from where I was as a young girl. She talks enthusiastically about footballs in a way I'd have spoken about ABBA at her age - I have produced a me who is the antithesis of myself! Léon is my fragile little angel: my lovely, caring, gentle boy. He has the most cheeky smile. His transparent blue eyes are flecked with yellow. Had I stopped at two kids, I'd never have known kids could have yellow eyes! He adapts easily to everything, yet is so needy of our love. He's my special darling Pudgeman. His laugh makes me laugh. His hugs are so precious. Nursery tells me about this well-behaved, happy little boy and again I am proud. His spot problem and other problems he's had since his horrible chicken pox as a baby make me want to protect him and cocoon him in love, to keep him safe from the world but as he grows and I offer him a little more independence, I am proud of my brave little boy. Anna has a fiery nature and two odd eyes - one darker than the other. Had I stopped at two kids, I wouldn't have known I could have had an odd-eyed kid! Her eyes draw me in and fascinate me. Anna's favourite word is Whhhhhhhhy? She argues with me and her older siblings because she believes she knows better than us at times. This makes me laugh because she has such baby logic. And yet the minute the big three go for a night with their father, Anna walks about wailing as if her right arm has been removed. When they return, her faces breaks into a smile and she tells them how much she loves them. She's very definite about her likes and dislikes. My like pink, my ikke like blue. She can make her large dark eyes fill with tears at a perceived wrong as she mutters my am very sad. Anna is my sweet little drama queen, my daddy's girl. Anna is obsessed with being a big girl in comparison with Amaia. She studies her for hours so she can point out everything she has that is bigger than her baby sister. Being big is very important to Anna! Amaia is my perfectly content smiler. She's my happy eating machine, my nosy feeder. She pulls my boobs to look behind her when she's eating. She's my standing baby who refuses to bend in the middle. She wants to learn to walk before she can sit steadily. She loves to be hugged and kissed by me and all her siblings. Her face lights up for each and every one of them. Had I stopped at two kids, I'd never have known I was capable of giving birth to a 4.5kg baby without drugs and smiling five minutes later! She smiles and observes all day long and I need her as much as she needs me. I watch her sleeping. She sucks in her sleep and I wonder if she's dreaming of me. She is another beautiful precious child with deep thoughtful eyes of another odd grey/green/blue shade. The only thing that makes me sad about my large and beautiful family is a fear that I won't live long enough to watch the youngest ones reach my age. I can't ever imagine having only had the two kids society expected me to. I love each and everyone equally. I love the way they are individuals and I love the way they need each other.

OMA'S 80

My kids are over in France visiting their German grandmother this school holiday for her 80th birthday. Of all André's family, I miss Annie most of all. I miss sitting on the stool in her kitchen chatting for hours and hours about nothing and everything. I miss her homely cooking. I miss her warmth. Much older than my own parents, my old mother-in-law was a bit like the Granny I didn't have as an adult, having lost my only Granny as a child. They weren't at all alike, she is simply a lovely, fascinating, genuine old woman. I would love to be able to drop in and give her a birthday hug, but in the absence of that possibility, I've printed out this photo of her three grandchildren, framed it, and sent her it so she knows in her heart, that I still miss her terribly.

TIME TO MODERNIZE?

Charlotte's French homework tonight was to draw a family tree. Obviously given our French background, this would have been possible for her despite the only vocabulary on offer being mother, father, brother, sister, grandmother and grandfather. But given at least 25% of the kids in her class would have needed to know how to say 'step mother, step father, half sibling, step sibling, step parent's mother or father etc etc , it is maybe time for a rethink of such exercises. By the time Marcel reached p7 at least half his class had divorced parents. Charlotte, of course, went about things unconventionally. She first said she couldn't do it so would base it on a fictional family. She then decided to base it on me, but realized I had no sisters so she would prefer to use herself given she has both brothers and sisters. She drew herself, Anna and the boys. She then drew me and labelled me as her mother. I asked if she was going to add Thomas labelled Mum's husband, then add André and his Chinese wife. She said no, her page wasn't wide enough, so she added an unnamed father beside herself, explaining as she went along that if she drew the hair very short it wouldn't be overly obvious if it was Papa or Thomas, and then proceeded to add Thomas's parents above the 'father'! Confused? You will be after this episode of Soap...

A FURTHER PATERNAL ECCENTRICITY

Anna accidentally dyed her hair green last week! (She painted the inside of a plastic tub green, then popped it on her head as a hat with the obvious result!) I showed Dad the photo, given I have strongly recollect him going on about wanting green hair throughout my childhood. On seeing the photo, he was rather impressed, and went on to explain where the obsession with green hair had come from. As a small boy he'd seen one of the first technicolor movies The Boy with Green Hair, and although it had freaked him out, he'd taken a shining to green hair. When I questioned him about what age he had been when he saw it, dad explained he'd seen in late 40s... in black and white! I guess kids had more imagination in those days!

PROOF OF REINCARNATION

Anyone who knew my old Gramps will see a bit of a family resemblance in this most recent photo of Anna. He often looked a bit like this on New Year's Eve himself if I remember correctly. All we need now is for her to burst into I belong to Glasgow or call me Hen and I'll know there's something to be said for the reincarnation theory.

HEREDITARY TASTES?

When I was a little kid I hated the Xmas song Little Drummer boy. What I found particularly offensive about it was all that 'pa rum pum pum' nonsense. If you can't think of any words that fit into a song, then don't bother. It's a bit of an easy opt out if you ask me, and when it makes up 80% of the song, you really are pushing your luck. I was driving the other day when it came on the radio: the new Aled Jones and that unspeakable man, Terry Wogan, version. I instantly remembered how much it used to annoy me. It being sung by Terry - my least favourite person on the planet - didn't change my opinion of it... Marcel bounced in from school the next day and said, completely unprompted: The school is making us learn that shite Xmas song - Little Drummer Boy - you know the awful thing where they cheat by adding pa rum pum pum pum instead of decent lyrics. That sucks! Are musical likes and dislikes hereditary?

ARSENIC AND OLD LACE

Thomas hired Arsenic and Old Lace at the weekend. I had heard of it of course, but never seen it. Late Saturday afternoon everything was a bit manic - big kids squabbling, DIY hell, little kids sick, so he suggested we all stop for a coffee break and watch it as a breath of fresh air.
It was interesting at first to see quite how slow moving films were back in the 40s. It's been many years since I have watched an old movie. You could almost watch it while doing other things as it didn't take much concentration. In fact both Marcel and Charlotte did. Charlotte followed the whole thing while playing with Pudge, Marcel from behind a laptop exploring Amazon's new MP3 site.
As it went on though it became quite deranged. That stupid man constantly charging up the stairs making a noise with his bugle did my head in for starters. Cary Grant forgetting constantly about the new wife and the taxi, stressing about having the medical papers signed to commit his brother to some asylum was mildly annoying. The criminal brother turning up and all the mad running around began to make me twitch. The last manic half hour was on a par with an hour in the asylum that is my house and far from feeling relaxed after it I felt like I could use a second coffee break or even a gin to calm my nerves!
I think Thomas, Marcel and Lots enjoyed it though so 3 out of 4 isn't bad.

MY BELOVED DYSON

I like this bit best!
Originally uploaded by PhylB

I love my Dyson vacuum cleaner. I know that makes me sad but with 4 kids and a big house, it is a necessary member of the family. Thomas has an annoying cylinder hoover that couldn't suck a baked bean off the carpet if its life depended on it. I hate Thomas's hoover! It'll be vaguely passable once we've replaced the hideous carpets in this house with wooden floors, but in the meantime only my Dyson can cope... or rather only my Dyson could cope till yesterday when the engine on it started making an ear-piercingly shrill squeal every time it attempted to suck up the post-Anna dinner mess. For now, it is still sucking perfectly but I have an ominous feeling about it. I also have a vague notion there is a burning smell coming from its insides. I am scared it can only be a matter of days until it blows up after nearly 10 years hard work :-(

A TOOTHPASTE TALE

I decided tonight that Anna's 2 teeth are now through enough for me to brush them, so went upstairs with her new yellow toothbrush and stuck it in her mouth. Luckily she seemed to quite like them being brushed. Once I had finished, I put back the Colgate on the shelf (we're at Peter and Brita's house) and that reminded me of one of the first things Thomas told me when I moved in with him. He told me his family had always used Colgate throughout his childhood - at the age of 6 he'd misread the tube as Golgotha - obviously a minister's child - I had sure never heard of Golgotha at that age! He had hated brushing his teeth as he hated the taste of Colgate and had discovered with some surprise when he left home at 18 that toothbrushing could be pleasurable if only you used Aquafresh instead. Personally, I had never noticed any difference so went ahead with the new household Aquafresh policy. Anyway - on arrival last Friday Thomas went out and bought a tube of Aquafresh for use during his holiday in the all-Golgotha house. Lying side by side on the shelf tonight, I decided to do a taste test... Hmmm, how am I going to tell him I definitely prefer Colgate!? :-(

A WEBER CHIMNEY

I know that I am 40 but I have never in my life tried to start a barbecue.
This probably is related to my ex-husband's barbecuing habits. Barbecues with André tended to consist of an hour of him lighting copious old newspapers in a vain attempt to light some charcoal. Thereafter, with dinner running late and family assembled, he tended to throw on the sausages as soon as the coals did finally catch fire, leading to black-on-the-outside, raw-on-the-inside sausages which my family constantly cringed at. I explained at every barbecue that we should wait till the coals heated and the flames died but he was a bit impulsive, so we just never got there.
Consequently, I always assumed barbecues were beyond me.
Tonight Thomas asked me to start one and have the coals ready for him coming home from work. Arg! That's a tall order! He must have had faith in me, though. He has bought a Weber Chimney Starter so I figured I could try and if I failed, I failed.
I took out the chimney contraption. I stuffed 3 pages from the Glasgow Herald in the bottom. I put 60 charcoal bricks in the top and I took 1 match. It lit in less than a minute and 40 minutes later my coals were glowing beautifully. The barbecued food was absolutely perfect.
I think this would be the perfect gift for André. If we actually got on these days instead of fighting every time we try to have a conversation, I'd buy him one, but given we don't, I won't! :-\

ON THE TOPIC OF MANUALS

A certain family member, who shall remain nameless, also seems to suffer the manual aversion.
Just yesterday said relative bought a new toaster. I am told by the other relative he lives with, that had he read the manual, he'd have realized that you were meant to put the toaster through its paces by twice running it through with no bread in, and on its third run, setting it to setting 4/9 using a slice of moist, fresh bread. Of course this relative likes well-fired toast, so, ignoring all instruction, stuck an old, dry slice of bread in on its first run and set it to 9/9. Worse still he went for a walk round the house, rather than keeping an eye on it.
After the toast caught fire, shot up high enough to set the pine kitchen cupboard on fire, and fall back on top of the plastic-coated toaster, melting it in the process, he had the cheek to return the 'faulty toaster' to Argos demanding a refund and compensation for his kitchen cupboards! ;-)

DISAPPEARING JOBS

young gran
Originally uploaded by PhylB

From time to time Thomas and I find ourselves discussing jobs that disappear or get outsourced - sometimes in the context of what best to advise the kids to study, sometimes just for fun. Today, it occurred to me that a job that no longer exists is one my grandmother did. My grandmother played piano. She gave lessons and played in a nightclub even when I was a child, but a job she did earlier was a shop job. But not a shop job as I did in my student days! In the olden days when people often bought sheet music, especially as a gift, and often when the buyer didn't play an instrument, people had no way of telling what they were buying. My gran's job was to play sheet music to prospective buyers in a department store in Glasgow. When the buyer liked what they heard, the music was bought, otherwise she'd play piece after piece until they found something that suited their purposes! What a quaint lost world!

EYES

I often wondered as a child or as a teenager, what any kids I may one day have would look like. Would they be smallish like me or taller? Would they have dark hair like my parents or lighter like me? Would they have straight or curly hair as we have that in the family too? In fact the only thing I took for granted was the eye colour. Any kids I had would have dark eyes like me, my brother, my mother, my grandfather etcetc. Of that fact, I was one hundred percent sure. And as you can see I was completely correct?!?!!!
First I had Marcel.

Then Charlotte.

Then Léon.

And finally Anna!

Two green, two blue. How strange - I really haven't mastered the art of making brown-eyed babies very well, have I?!

NISSAN MICRA COUPÉ

a wee red car
Originally uploaded by PhylB

I saw this in ASDA car park today and fortunately had my mobile phone on me. I instantly thought of dad when I saw it.
Dad has had Alfa Romeos for a while now but has been talking about buying something else once he gets his pension this year. He seemed to be tossing up between a Jaguar and a new Fiat 500 (Stop laughing! He's a sweet, if eccentric man!)
Anyway, I thought of dad because mum is constantly complaining that if he has a small errand to run he steals her little red Nissan Micra, as if he almost prefers it to his Alfa, citing fuel economy etc as the real excuse for constantly borrowing it.
Here is the sporty Nissan Micra Coupé, so it is like a dad version of my mum's car.
Better still, it has one of those hard tops you can press a button and fold away into the boot. Dad claims to this day that his favourite ever car was his old Sports Honda Civic with a fold-away roof.
Come on Daddy, I think this would suit you more than a boring old Jag, (though the Fiat is cute).

HOMESICK

Dordogne
Originally uploaded by PhylB

You can't spend 20 years in French family, speaking French and living between France and Scotland without getting homesick once the French life is over.
Of course I miss my family every day, especially my other mum - they were old fashioned - divorce doesn't happen, so they couldn't stay in touch with me and André too. Maybe one day we'll find a way to become friends again. After all it wasn't them I fell out of love with, and I couldn't stay forever just to keep the family I saw twice a year.
For the first time since I was 16 I have not set foot on French soil for over a year and I ache with homesickness - for the smells, the sun, the buildings, the language, the food, the way of life.
When André and I split he kept all the French music, I got the books. I didn't mind because hearing it would hurt too much. Two years on I decided I needed it back - I found my favourite half dozen cds on amazon.fr/used and bought them for less than £20. The first one arrived this morning and it feels so good to listen to - even if all that old stuff: Maxime le Forestier, Brel, Piaf, Barbara, Aznavour, Guichard makes me a dinosaur! That music is part of me. Listening to Maxime now I have to resolve to improve Léon's French level - if André won't take him and speak it to him, I will make sure he doesn't need a dictionary to understand these poetic lyrics when he's old enough to understand them.

WE'LL NEVER HEAR THE END OF THIS ONE

Soooo close to that Hole-in-One !
Originally uploaded by The Scudder

Here's a photo of dad's 2 friends laughing at him when he missed a hole in one yesterday by 1cm! He didn't look like the happiest bunny and blamed the weather of course! Golfers are weird folk!

29 FEBRUARY

Thomas and I
Originally uploaded by PhylB

Feb 29 was always a special day in my family - Granda's birthday - he made it to 18.5 before he died - I was 22 then! Later my  French niece, Isabelle, was also born that day - she's 7 today! Happy birthday to her!
I'm sitting here listening to Jeremy Vine on radio 2 at the moment. It is all about how 29 Feb is the day that traditionally girls should ask their special men to marry them. People have been phoning in proposing on air - and fortunately no one has refused yet - phew! I guess if my divorce had been through already, I'd have liked to have gone to New York today, I'd then have taken Thomas up the Empire State Building, and once on top I would have asked if he'd mind being stuck with a wrinkly old pensioner like me for eternity - but given it isn't, I suppose, I won't :-( 2012 seems a long way off though :-(