PRIORITIES

I rushed back from New York on the Tuesday flight with a list of at least 15 topics jotted on little pieces of paper to blog the minute I got through the door. I'd had the most amazing time and wanted to tell the whole world why New York is the best place on the planet! However little Léon had other ideas :-(
During the overnight flight the 3 little spots I had noticed on his arm at 1pm in New York had turned into a little blotching, but enough that I decided to take him to my GP who said it looked like an allergic reaction to some unknown substance or food. By 8pm though when I went to change his nappy the slight blotching had become an angry red mass and between the blotches his entire torso was covered in bruises that made him look like he had been kicked around the room. In complete panic I threw him in the car and drove to casualty where 7 hours later they were still calling it a severe allergic reaction to substances unknown, though at least they had confirmed his blood pressure, oxygen count, and internal organs were all functioning normally. So no time to blog NY for now - but watch this space for Léon updates and all my NY posts when Léon is finally out of the woods.

FOOTIE

Tomorrow sees the clash of the century, that my poor kids didn't manage to get tickets for :-(

Scotland take on France in a qualifier for Euro 2008. So for anyone who is interested in betting, I have it from my kids that the score is going to be: 6-0 to France (Marcel), or 3-2 to France (Charlotte). Let's see if their predictions are any better than for the World Cup Final?

COLIN BATEMAN

Oh! When looking up the link for my previous posting, it seems Colin has written lots of new books since HarperCollins lost him to Headline Book Publishing Ltd - I must order everything from Murphy's Law onwards used from Amazon - I usually enjoy him - he's a bit wacky. I miss picking them up for 50p at work.

THAT APPLE

apple
Originally uploaded by Nidriel.

Well Pudge and I are getting excited (he doesn't know he is yet but I'm sure he should be!) 14 hours till we check in, just rang the hotel and they have heard of me and wonder if Pudge wants a crib and somewhere to store his stroller and diapers - hmm this is going to be a challenge, not trying to understand them but having them understand me - it seems baby vocabulary is amongst the most altered between UK and US English - it'll be fun!
We'll need to try some pancakes in a diner tomorrow morning before heading up the Empire State building, while fondly remembering Colin Bateman. And we'll see what we fancy after that, within reason of course, as my mommy doesn't want me out in the dark in the big city, but that's a whole other story that I'm still waiting to hear if she'll allow me to blog! ;-)

FIRST NY POSTING

Well I have to start somewhere don't I? I know I'm going to be insufferable for about a week now but it isn't something you do everyday, is it? I thought checking the weather was a good place to start. I'm a happy bunny.

MY BABY BROTHER

Hey cool - just noticed Derek has started commenting on my blog - didn't know he even knew about it - with dad already hooked - it'd be fun if we got another sad blogger nerd to join the clan :-)
(Well as long as it doesn't become a homage to Partick Thistle (nil) fc blog, that is!)

HAUD YER WHEESHT!

I was in a shop at the weekend that sold T-shirts with typically Scottish phrases printed on them. My kids' reaction to the T-shirts got me to thinking, with some nostalgia and some sadness, about quite how quickly language and meaning is lost. The first T-shirt said 'Haud yer wheesht' - instantly recognizable to me as Gramps used to say it to me often when I was a child in the 70s, so it was language I knew but didn't use. My parents, however, don't often use these old Scottish terms, and I, belonging to a generation on, never use them although am passively au fait with them all. They feel alien on my tongue but not in my head :-( The upshot of course being that my kids - born just 30 years after me in the same town, but, significantly, after the death of all of my grandparents didn't have any notion of what it meant - It was as foreign to them as it would be to any Englishman or foreign tourist :-( I tried a few more - for instance asking them if they knew what a 'clype' was, but no - blank stares - I must bring a Scot's Gem home from work and teach them these little gems before it is too late.

A NEW FUJI CAMERA

I have had my eye on this camera since July when mine developed a nasty fault that killed off 80% of the functionality. Because it is still working I find it hard to justify buying a new one, except of course that if it completely dies on me in New York on Saturday I may be a little more than irate to say the least! But when I first started tracking this 3 months ago, it was £30 dearer so in theory if my patience holds out another 15 months I may be able to pick up one for free! Well - that would be nice. I guess the alternative would be to go down the DSLR route but I remember how things were in the old days - 3 bodies, 6 lenses, millions of filters, 2 flashes, a tripod and generally a very sore back as I walked around with all this swinging from my neck. So I think I will resist for now - after all the finepix range (this would be my third) offers great quality and are less than half the price of an SLR so I can legitimately replace them more often.

CLIMATE CHANGE

What on earth is this? They've been building this igloo for weeks now at junction 5 on the M77. It looks like some sort of strange doorless storage facility but it is miles from anywhere. Maybe it is some modern inuit dwelling? Perhaps climate change is forcing them to change homeland? ;-)

BACK TO WORK

Well this is the first time I have had time to sit down in nearly a week - maternity leave has come to an end - alas - and needs must :-( so I am back to being a headless chicken. Started back last Tuesday at 8-15am. The place was pretty empty at first so I waited on it filling up, only to remember that actually half the place has been made redundant so it wasn't going to fill up :-( How depressing! The office is huge, empty and echoey. And worse still my mate Pat who sits opposite me has just resigned so I will soon be reduced to talking to the photos on my wall! I hate to say it after just 4 days but I feel like I need a holiday already! Anyway at least Léon is enjoying nursery. He's been hiding behind his hands and playing peek-a-boo since he started and on Friday they held a wee birthday party for him for his first birthday.

PARENTING - FAWLTY TOWERS STYLE

It is just as well that by child number three you are past the embarrassed when your children don't behave like angels in public stage! Sunday was the September weekend, so obviously Sunday was pouring with rain - an obvious Science Centre kind of a day. I thought lunch would set us up for a trip round the exhibits. So we went in to the Science Centre café. Marcel ordered haddock and chips, Charlotte beans and chips and I had a cheese baked potato. I assumed there would be enough leftovers to give Pudge something to get him through the day between the three of us.

Marcel and I carried the trays to a little round table in the middle of the completely-full café. Charlotte helpfully took the plates off the trays and placed them on the table while I collected cutlery and salt. From half the café away I watched in horror as Charlotte place a dinner plate with chips and beans at the edge of the table just above Pudge's buggy...yes you can see it in slow motion, can't you? The little hand reached up, grabbed the plate and tossed it nonchalantly over his head. It landed on the floor a metre away, beans and chips flying and landing on all the surrounding customers and the floor, Léon himself didn't even have so much as a bean on his clothing. It was too big to deal with myself so I ran apologetically to the till asking if someone could tidy up the mess my baby had just made while 20+ guests gasped in horror at the scene. Charlotte had also ordered a 75cl bottle of Irn Bru. She placed that safely, with its top firmly on in the middle of the table. Two members of staff retrieved beans and chips while another quickly made Charlotte a second plate of lunch free of charge (thanks guys - that was very kind). I came over and placed the cutlery on the table. People were finally stopping their staring and gasping. I caught the Irn Bru with my elbow and knocked it on its side but the top was on so no harm was done. I returned to the till to thank the girl for clearing up the mess. Then in slow motion it happened - I turned in time to see Charlotte pick up the newly-shoogled Irn Bru, unscrew the top and watched in horror as the fizzy juice shot 1 metre in the air and drenched all around and the floor once more.

It is a pity my trusty camera wasn't with us that day - though I guess stopping to photograph the aftermath may have antagonized the victims unnecessarily!

Anyone want to buy three kids?!

BENNY AND BJÖRN (AND LEGO STAR WARS)

Marcel and Charlotte spent most of the past week on their hands and knees scrubbing floors, hoovering and tidying :-) No they aren't well-behaved, delightful, helpful little kids, they noticed that Lego Star Wars Volume II was coming out for playstation and at £17-99, they needed to earn as much cash as possible and as quickly as possible! Anyway, it arrived about a week ago and I haven't actually had time to sit down and watch it till today. When I did sit down today to watch it, it suddenly occurred to me how much the little lego men's hairdos reminded me of Benny and Björn in their heyday! ;-)

WEB TRAFFIC STATISTICS

I now have a statistics counter on my blog page to check how often my page is accessed and by whom (Click on the little graph symbol on the right of the page under the Blogger symbol). I am not sure of the wisdom of this as it could be quite depressing to find out only three people read my blog! Mind you the upside of that would be that then I know only three people know I am actually certifiably insane :-)

HEART ATTACK IN A BOX - £1-80

Tonight the kids and I decided to treat ourselves to fish and chips out of the local fish and chip shop. I probably have a fish supper about once a year but I am never the one who goes to get it. It is years since I was inside a Chippie. Standing in the queue, I was reading the menu. It said Pizza - deep fried £1-80, ovenbaked £3-85! I always thought deep-fried pizzas were a myth like deep-fried Mars Bars - surely people don't actually eat deep-fried pizzas? Interestingly, the batch of chips wasn't ready, so I had to wait approximately 3 minutes. In that time 3 people actually bought deep-fried pizzas! (And worse still no one bought an ovenbaked one). Incredible!

BLOG PHOTOS (UPDATE)

Dad's photo's back on the front of his blog now and on his profile. He's now only missing from the comments boxes. Very curious...

WHAT A LOAD OF MINCE!

Some news articles just make you embarrassed to be Scottish - this could only happen here, I fear (check the photo caption). Oh dear :-(

BLOG PHOTOS

When Dad began blogging I set up a basic account for him to get him started. I stuck on a baby photo of him and it appeared on his blog page, on his profile and was attached to all comments he made on others' blogs. Today, now he's getting more into blogging, he decided to change that photo for another of his personal favourites. He amended the photo URL in the profile, replacing the one I had chosen with the new one and saved. Now his photo appears on his profile, but no longer on his blog and no longer on his comments. Has he done something wrong? I can't find anything? Does anybody out there know?

DAD

I think he's finally lost his marbles - sweet theory, but I have my doubts!

SHOES AND HANDBAGS (WITH THE ODD MOBILE PHONE THROWN IN)

I think there are two categories of women in the world each at opposite ends of the spectrum. The two types will never understand each other, not in a million years. There are what I'd call shoe people and non-shoe people. Shoe people love shoes, they buy shoes that look nice, they have cupboards full of shoes that have only been worn 2 or 3 times. They have shoes to match every conceivable outfit. They look in shoe shops to see if anything jumps out at them, even when there isn't a hole in the sole of the pair they are wearing! And there are non-shoe people. That is to say people who have maybe 2 pairs of shoes - a black and a brown so you have something that will go with more or less anything, these shoes are characterless and very comfortable. The adventurous non-shoe person might even run to a couple of pairs of boots or sandals too. I consider myself a very adventurous non-shoe person as I not only own all the above but even have one pair of (very comfortable) pink(!) trainers. I also wonder if it is a hereditary condition. My sister-in-law likes shoes and her son spends all day chewing everyone's shoes, while Léon crawls past everyone's shoes in complete indifference. Carol too always says a girl can never have enough shoes - what for I ask myself?! Am I strange?

Anyway where was I going with this shoe theory? Oh yes - handbags. I think handbags are an extension of shoes. Kind of like shoes in the extreme. I think shoe people also need a variety of handbags. My mum has different coloured handbags to match different clothes, practical ones she'd use out shopping, little ones she'd take to a dinner dance etcetc. She buys handbags! I find that incredible. I have never bought a handbag in my life. Handbags don't interest me. They are purely functional and can be inherited as mum tosses old ones out! In fact handbags and mobile phones are two of a kind. In a family like mine there is always someone who has a nice handbag or mobile phone that is in perfect working order that needs to be discarded in favour of something prettier or more high-tech. And there is always some runt of the family ready to accept the cast-offs! :-) (Thanks for my new phone mum!)

I'm just looking through flickr and there are actually handbag and shoe fan clubs on there, have a look at this photo - how strange!

GORDON OR GORDON?

What a wild night! I lost count of the number of times the rain and wind woke me up! (Rumour has it, it was the tail end of hurricane Gordon) :-)

CLOWNS AGAIN

What am I saying? - hid under my duvet! It was the 70s, I hid under a nylon, fuchsia pink candlewick ;-)

A MORBID FEAR OF... CLOWNS

When I was little, I was scared of clowns. I loathed clowns. Clowns didn't make me laugh - clowns gave me the creeps. They were terrifyingly sinister. I dreaded our annual outing to the Kelvinhall to the circus with the Cuthbert family because I knew not only would there be clowns but there would also be a revolting smell of animal sweat and pooh. Mum and dad didn't know I hated clowns, why should they - I never mentioned it! So because I was a good little girl they bought me a present. A painting about A3 in size of a sad-looking turquoise blue clown with a tear running down his face! Did I tell them it scared the living daylights out of me? Or did I lie awake under my duvet every night thinking: Can't sleep the clown will eat me! Crazy, screwed-up kid!
Donations kindly received towards all future psychiatrist bills, thanks. (Oh and for the record - I still don't like clowns - they are kind of on a par with monkeys (see posting: BLOG PROFILE) in my book).

CURIOUS QUESTIONS

It's nice to have a library in your house. Mine's a nice sunny room you can sit in a choose something from the shelf and while away your time (usually 35 seconds in my case between screams of Muuuuuuum!) Anyway it is full of 20 years of books - big, small, fiction, fact, silly, intellectual - you name it. Books are like extra little children to me - I may lend them out for a day or two but they have to come back or I start to twitch nervously!

Recently my parents had a guest staying with them for a few weeks so they all came up and we had a coffee in the library one afternoon. This is nice, she said, have you read any of them or are they just for show? Why on earth would anyone waste a fortune on books, and use up loads of space storing them, not to read them? I think I was too dumbfounded to reply at first, but later tried a tactful, I'm about half way through but I intend to get there.

BOARD GAMES

I wonder what you can tell about someone from their attitude to games? As a mother I can see quite clearly that kids fall into very distinct gaming groups. Playing ludo on Saturday, Charlotte was completely indifferent to what number turned up on the dice and if her man was sent back to base she just threw the dice again. Marcel accused Charlotte of cheating if she threw a 6, his lip quivered if she sent him back to base, he got angry and cried if she got to base before him and would have been positively abusive if we hadn't taken a break to eat a pizza. Surely by 9 ludo shouldn't really matter? I believe that kids either need to win or don't give a damn. Derek and I were the same as kids. Derek was a really bad loser as a kid. At 5 he screamed bastard! at a game that was meant teach kids manners, just because his turtle was losing a race! I wonder what all this means for their future? It is odd because both Derek and Marcel were/are easygoing kids, Charlotte and I highly strung and yet games always brought/bring out the opposite trait. Hmmm.

CEILIDHS

Just flicking through the channels and saw a bunch of people ceilidh dancing. I used to go to the Riverside all the time between about 1985 and 1997 - when you aren't the world's greatest dancer, ceilidhs are a fun and easy option.

I have great memories of there. I had to pretend to be a nursing student once to get in as it was booked for a private do. I also vaguely remember Vivian getting us all in after it was full one night by showing someone else's press pass and saying we were writing a piece on it for a big national newspaper! Another time Maree and I had an eye-opening experience in more ways than one. She got a black eye on a night out simply by following me - the problem being she's at least 20cm taller than me so as I walked under a shelf, she walked straight into it! That was a hard one to explain.

Of course the last ceilidh I went to was on 26-7-97. Maybe that Strip the Willow just before midnight was just one step too far at 39.5 weeks pregnant! (And it must not have been a pretty sight). Marcel, of course, showed up on 27-7-97.

I must get back to dancing.

THE SQUINTY BRIDGE - A DISAPPOINTMENT :-(

I heard on the lunchtime news on Radio Clyde that the Finnieston Bridge opened this morning (and is already being renamed The Squinty Bridge by the locals - surprise, surprise.)

Now, I have been looking forward to this as it is an obvious link between the West End and the M77 on-ramp at Springfield Quay and vice versa. Simply cross the bridge, first left and you are on the motorway, excellent!

So I drove down to it from the West End and on to it, lovely view, must come back with the camera! Drove across ready for first left and yes, of course, there it was: the sign saying obligatory right turn. Why oh why can they never do anything right in this city???? So I cross - I am forced to go right, drive 2 minutes to the Science Centre, go all the way round the roundabout and then go back East. This probably still is a good alternative to get to the M77 but it is just so silly and annoying. And of course coming at it from the South Side the same problem occurs - you can't drive west and take a right onto the bridge - you have to go all the way along to the Science Centre again. I get the feeling whoever had it built has shares in the Science Centre :-(

The more I think about this the sillier it is - forcing you to go right means you get sent towards where the Clyde tunnel comes out, so why wouldn't you just take the tunnel? Why does it force you away from all the motorway on-ramps????

A WAVE OF TANTRUMS

Today a new car seat law comes into force in the UK. Which is interesting since no one probably really knew what the old car seat law was, if there was one?

Firstly I see the point, yes child safety is paramount. However, I can already hear the cacophony of tantrums this morning around the UK as most kids who stopped sitting in a babyseat, as they will perceive it, around the age of 6 or 7, ie in their 2nd year at primary school are wedged back into one to go to their primary 6 or 7, or even for the most unfortunate among them, their first year at highschool class this morning! (Yes, I think 12 is a bit over the top!) I am lucky in so much as Charlotte still uses hers so no tantrum there and Marcel is 9 but 1m39, phew because he had informed me he would quite literally rather die than use one! But as one of the tallest in his class, I guess he'll be comforting a good few friends this morning.

The problem I see it is the lack of consistency across Europe. I often drive in both France and Germany, often on the same day hopping backwards and forwards across the border. I rang ahead to Avis in Hahn last time and asked which seats I'd need to fly over with me - the guy said one for Léon, one for Charlotte but Marcel could sit in the car. Believe me when you are flying alone with 3 kids and luggage, you want to fly over as few carseats as you can get away with! At the desk when I arrived they were unsure whether Marcel needed a seat or not so I drove off with 2 on seats, one not. At the French border again there were no signs, no instructions, but my sister-in-law (a childless 50-something - so who knows if she is right or not!) seemed to be under the impression they should all have one and that Marcel wasn't allowed to sit in the front till he was 12. In the UK you can sit in the front from 3 on a booster, from 12 or 135cm without and you can go in the front in a newborn <9kg carrier.

Can't they just publish a list of rules somewhere which are the same in all EU countries to stop us poor unwitting parents who drive around not knowing what the law is or who to ask to get the right answer?

An aside: I actually remember hiring a car in Barcelona when Charlotte was a baby (before I realized you were charged more than a seat cost to hire one for a week) so I asked to hire a car and a babyseat - Here's the car they said - the babyseats are in that hut over there - you can have one if there are any in stock! ...and if there aren't? I guess my 1 year old can rattle up and down the back seat all the way from Barcelona to Perpignan, where I was driving, I guess!

SQUARE YOGURT POTS

I can feel another rant bubbling beneath the surface. Who invented square yogurt pots? Now I don't mean the shallow type of pots with rounded square corners - those don't upset me. But normal, deep, square pots are infuriating and stupid. NO ONE sells square spoons so you can't eat the stuff in the corners, it just sits there unless you are willing to leave it upside down for an hour and leave it to trickle out slowly. So why????

SOLD OUT

Oh dear! Next month's France Scotland football match sold out before I could acquire tickets for it - bad parent :-( Any volunteers to break the news to the football crazy kids?

KRISPIE CAKES AND SNOTTERY VOMIT!

Poor Pudge is sick. It started as a cold and now it is a chest infection. I'd to drag all three kids to the hospital this morning to have him looked at and now have a bottle of baby antibiotics. He is so pitiful. He hasn't eaten since Wednesday so no longer has the energy to crawl about wrecking the place so he crawls one step then sits down and wails. And of course I had forgotten babies don't know how to blow their noses so he's just vomited 3 days of snotter all over my rug. A joy!
There isn't much for the other two to do either stuck in the house because Pudge is too sick for the park so I thought making krispie cakes and allowing them to eat them might avert World War 3 for an hour or two. Fingers crossed.

DAD'S BLOG

Finally dad seems to be getting fired up enough to blog! That's cool because he can be quite witty in a Victor Meldrewesque way. I'm looking forward to reading his rantings and will be checking it on a daily basis from now on (hint, hint).

LINGUISTIC INVENTIVENESS

Charlotte seems to take after her mother linguistically. When I was little and I didn't know a word, I didn't let that bother me, I didn't bother to ask 'what's that?' as most toddlers do annoyingly over and over, I simply chose what something was to be called and called it that, giving no explanation or forewarning! One day a digger was clearing a building site at the back of our house. I was approximately 2. I apparently told mum to look out at the 'jalt'. To this day everyone in my family calls a digger a jalt.
Today I had forgotten to make the kids' lunches so I gave them money for a school lunch: £1-50 each. The problem being that I only had 4 £1 coins. So I handed them each £2. Marcel is good and honest so said instantly: 'You'll be wanting the 50p back, I guess?' I said no he could keep it since he asked and didn't just go and spend it. Charlotte is more of a chancer though so immediately inquired, 'Is it ok, mum, if I use the 50p to buy one vending?', 'what???' I asked, ' a vending, you know, from the vending machine!' As usual she looked at me as if I was the stupid one - that face that says 'Come on mum you write dictionaries you should understand me!' So I guess I need to add the noun 'vending' to the dictionary once I go back to work, or at the very least add it to the family's eternal vocabulary.

CULINARY AND VEHICULAR PREFERENCES - A CORRELATION?

Tonight I passed our local Chinese restaurant, 5 minutes from my house on foot, and very nice too - Lam's Kitchen it is called. Though I've never eaten in, I have had the odd carryout. Tonight there were 12 cars in their carpark, all makes and models, old and new, big and small, all price ranges - but all silver! How strange. Is silver the most common car colour (I once read it was red)? Or do only silver car owners eat Chinese? Maybe the reason I have only ever had carryout is because my car is dark blue?

Oh and Marcel asked for chicken chow mein for dinner - does this mean he'll want me to buy him a silver car when he turns 17?!

YEUCH - IT JUST GETS WORSE (HAIR REVISITED)

He's started poohing hair out the other end, he must have eaten so much of it - how can I stop him? How?!?!?!

WE LIVE IN A CRAZY WORLD

I was listening to PM on Radio 4 while cooking this evening. One news article caught my attention. I listened in disbelief - it was bad enough the crazy banned passenger thought it better to have a blind man drive than to break his own driving ban himself but the bit that amazed me most, not mentioned in the written article, was part of the punishment. Apparently he has been ordered to sit a driving test!!!! (I'll give you a minute to digest that and possibly reread in disbelief!) When asked if this was a wise punishment, the judge said his hands were tied - it was in the rules that the punishment for this type of driving offence (he was charged with driving with no insurance, licence or MOT) had to include making the offender sit a driving test. Surely in cases like this, when the offender has no eyes, the rules should sensibly be bent a little, no???

THE AMAZING, THE INCREDIBLE, GLASGOW'S ONE AND ONLY SCIENCE TOWER!

Recently I took a panorama shot of the Clydeside while my car was in for repair. It is made up of 3 photos stitched together. I was thinking what a great photo you could make of the 360 degrees of the city from up the Glasgow Science Tower. The only problem being that the science tower seems to be closed 999 days out of every 1000 for repairs and has been since the day it opened. (Did it ever really open?) Somebody did their job really well!
Wonder if it is currently open or closed? Anyone know?...or is that a silly question?

HAIR

I guess it has happened to most people at some time. You are sitting in a restaurant half way through your pasta and suddenly you spy it in the middle of the sauce - a disgusting human hair - you know it isn't your own because it is black or curly or whatever. Yeuch! Or you are sitting in Great Auntie Betty's house and there it is again in the middle of your soup - that grey curly hair looking up at you. Your appetite goes and nothing will bring it back.

Here at home though we have the opposite problem. Léon's favourite food is fast becoming human hair! At first he'd just suck on it while you held him, then he started pulling it out at the roots trying to eat it. But things are getting worse - he's cruising the carpet picking up human hairs and popping them carefully into his mouth, savouring the delicacy. With Charlotte and I both having long hair, there are always some hanging about the rug. And worse still, he now even wants to pick them off the hairbrush if we forget and leave it within his reach. What am I going to do with this disgusting boy????

FRENCH TOAST

I just made Léon French toast for lunch. I haven't had French toast for years. It got me to thinking. Why is it called French toast? - given very few French people have ever heard of it. They don't even have the right kind of bread there to make it - a baguette isn't exactly ideal! Language is strange.

A QUESTION OF PERSPECTIVE

One of my favourite quotes if from Doris Lessing's autobiography, Part 1 Under my Skin.

When scientists try to get us to understand the real importance of the human race, they say something like, 'If the story of the earth is twenty-four hours long, then humanity's part in it occupies the last minute of that day.' Similarly, in the story of a life, if it is being told true to time as actually experienced, then I'd say seventy percent of the book would take you to age ten. At eighty percent you would have reached fifteen. At ninety-five per cent, you get to about thirty. The rest is a rush - towards eternity.

As an eighty year old woman she is qualified to describe time from the different age perspectives she can remember. I remember those too, though am not sure they will still be so vivid when I am 80! (If I break the family rule and actually manage to live that long!) I think this strikes you most as a parent. When you are a child, childhood takes forever, naturally, but when you see that same childhood from the parental perspective it is over in the blink of an eye. The first 3 or 4 years take the longest but as soon as they start school, year after year flashes by. Yesterday Marcel was a cute little 5 year old in primary 1, now he's testing adolescence in primary 5. Where did those years go? And baby Pudge who has only just arrived is already walking around the room hanging on to the furniture. We watch them grow so we can let them go, but letting them go is the hardest thing in the world.

Even more poignantly, I've just been watching the interview on Austrian TV with that poor child Natascha Kampusch . I guess the perspective thing probably holds true for her too. For the 44 year old captor 8 years will have passed much more quickly than for the 10 year old captive. That makes what is already unimaginable, even worse, if that is possible. I hope she finds a way to live after this.

I must blog another book that I have read and reread An evil cradling, when I get a minute. That is another one to make you think.

RELIGIOUS LEANINGS

I remember at the age of 7 or 8 coming home from school and announcing to mum: Jesus loves me! And mum nearly falling off her chair in surprise. I had been told by friends that if I joined the Scripture Union club at school, not only would I be allowed to stay indoors at rainy lunchtimes but I would also be given pretty rainbow stickers that told me Jesus loved me. Now when you are 7 stickers are appealing whatever they say and given the Scottish climate I was an instant convert! My religious period lasted I think 2 weeks before I realized I actually had to sit in on bible class instead of running around the playground pretending to be one of ABBA or Charlie's Angels. I was fickle.

Tonight I had my parallel parenting moment, I think. Marcel, now 9, came home from school and asked: Mum, when I'm 13, can I have a Bar Mitzvah. Given that we live in the biggest Jewish area of Scotland and many of Marcel's neighbours and schoolmates are Jewish, I didn't think it inconceivable he might genuinely be interested in a Bar Mitzvah, so I wondered how to break it to him gently that he wasn't Jewish, though I suppose since he hasn't been christened at all he could in theory nip round to the synagogue on Saturday and ask if they'll have him, as it is just across the field behind the house. I asked gently why the big interest in Judaism. Oh I'm not interested in the religious aspect he confirmed - I hear you get a big party, presents and quite a bit of cash! I guess he's as fickle as I was at that age. That and the fact that he'd be loathe to give up his bacon rolls for Saturday brekkie.

SCOTLAND, FIFA WORLD CHAMPIONS (WELL SORT OF)

Marcel just asked me to check the score of the France-Italy match, 3-1 apparently, revenge!

But while checking that I noticed two other more astonishing things (well apart from the score line in the German match which was truly astonishing - 13-0, no they weren't playing rugby, they were playing San Marino, who patently left their goalie at home).

Firstly, I noticed the Italy - Lithuania score from last week 1-1, and the Lithuania - Scotland match today 1-2. So in theory Italy drew against a team we managed to beat away from home no less, that surely sort of makes us proxy World Cup Champions, no? (Clutching at straws ;-) )

The other thing I feel I need to record for posterity is the group table as it currently stands - mainly because in all my years I don't think I have ever seen Scotland at the top of the table in anything but with both the real World Cup Champions and the runners up currently below them, this really must be a one off!

AGING IN THE NOUGHTIES

I was looking though some old family photos recently and I couldn't help but notice how much older people used to look 2 generations ago. Either that or I am in denial when I look in the mirror. Ok, I no longer pass for 25, but despite not spending my life caked in moisturiser or expensive creams that promise to get rid of the lines, I definitely think I'm a younger 38 than my grans were, or am I deluding myself??? See these photos taken when they were approximately 36.

TONY AND MAGGIE

Is any one else bored with all this childishness yet? Am in two minds trying to work out if it reminds me more of the tearful booting out of Iron Maggie back in November 1990 (what a party we had that day) or my two kids playing a board game on a rainy afternoon.

Come on, if he's going to go get on with it, if not can we ignore these squabbling children, please?

THE BOOK GROUP

I'm in this cool book group - Me, Amanda (my brother's wife), and her friends Roisin, Andrea, Jan and Mandy. We started the book group about 20 months ago. The plan was simple - once every 6-8 weeks or so we were to meet, discuss something we've all read and have loads of nice food and wine. Sounds like a good plan but I think there's something gone a bit wrong with the focus of our group. First Roisin had a baby so we needed to have a break for a month or two, then I had a baby so we needed to have a wee break, then Amanda had a baby so, yes you guessed it...and now not only is Roisin pregnant again but both Andrea and Jan are getting married this month so I guess our little group may end up a very big group indeed. Maybe it's time we threw in the towel and just called it what it is - the Literary crèche and babysitting circle!

So the tally stands like this so far:

Babies: Caitlin, Léon, Gordon
Books: A big boy did it and ran away, Life of Pi, Pride and Prejudice, The time traveler's wife, The red tent, Demo, Dropping in on Idi.

I wanted to get us to read I don't know how she does it when it's my turn but at this rate we may need to book larger premises to accomodate all these new members.

HOW FAR IN A LIFETIME?

After my analysis of car miles the other day, I was wondering how far someone is likely to go in their lifetime - unless of course things change and we all start working from home and talking only to other humans online in the near future, God forbid. So I thought a good way to project this was using Pudgemiles! Léon has been and will be sharing all my car trips so we already ascertained that was 10000 a year plus 1000 in the holiday hirecar, ok 11000 so far. Let's calculate how many miles the wee guy is likely to fly in his lifetime. Well looking at the first 12 months of his life he will have flown return Glasgow-Hahn twice (830 miles one way, so 3320 miles), Glasgow-Paris once (661 miles one way, so 1322 miles), Edinburgh-Nice once (1288miles one way, so 2576 miles) and Glasgow-New York once (3221 miles one way, so 6442 miles) - that makes 13660 miles. According to the BBC today the life expectancy for this area of Scotland is 77 for men, though I expect that'll change in Pudge's lifetime. So let's multiply 11000+13660 x77= 1 898 820 miles in a lifetime. I wonder what that is equivalent to? Too few miles to get to Mars or Venus but a good few trips to the moon again I guess!

NYC

Was looking through flickr just now and I came across this amazing set of shots of Manhattan taken with an 11mm lens - wow!

THE CROC MAN

I see the croc man died. Why doesn't that surprise me? I have often watched his documentaries half hiding behind a cushion waiting for the inevitable. Compelling, yes but the parent in me always nervously thought he some how owed it to his kids to do something a little less dangerous till they were a little bigger and needed him a tiny bit less (not that we ever really need our parents less, we just have to pretend to be grown-ups in control of our own destinies!)

Anyway I guess he did a job he loved. Though there is something to be said about dictionaries - they are never going to endanger my life, just my sanity ;-)

DO SOCKS HAVE FEELINGS?

I'm thinking back to the movie Toy Story that everyone who has kids has been made to watch over and over. There's a scene in a garage when the kid, Andy I think, leaves Woody behind - Woody panics and cries - 'Oh no, I'm a lost toy!' I wonder if all 26 missing socks are out there somewhere crying 'Oh no, I'm a lost sock!'

Friends, feel free to disown me if you think I have finally lost my marbles! ;-)

SOCKS, YET AGAIN AND OLD LADIES

Yet another sock problem is rearing its ugly head as the cooler autumn air descends on Scotland...Pudge who hasn't worn socks since early May is now being forced to put them back on. Of course, he hates them and tugs on them while in his buggy. If I go out in the cold and rain with a baby wearing no socks, I get stopped every 50 metres by old ladies in the shopping mall helpfully pointing out that my baby must have cold feet. If I put socks on him, he tugs till they come off and and then the old ladies point out: Do you know your baby is missing a sock? So far in 3 trips to ASDA, two minutes of inattention have resulted in 2 lost-forever socks. I would put on shoes to hold on the socks but he's already sussed velcro and missing shoes are even dearer than missing socks :-(

SHOULD WE REALLY HAVE BURNED OUR BRAS?

Ok those who know me may not recommend I do this for real, it'd be too unsightly after all those babies and they weren't unobtrusive to start with ;-) but metaphorically speaking, did we really think things through and plan them out properly in the 60s when I was a mere 2 year old bra-burner? Ok some coutries may have got it right, if they have I'd like to hear about it, or at least better than us but we in the UK still haven't got the work/life/kids balance right.

Today I had to take Léon to nursery for the first time for him to get to know the women and other kids he's going to have to spend 5 hours with daily from the end of this month onwards. Five hours a day away from his mum and he isn't a year old yet :-( And yet that in itself is an improvement.

When Marcel and Charlotte were little we were told to hand them over at 29 weeks or lose our jobs. Why 29 weeks? - a strange figure derived arbitrarily, I guess. At 29 weeks Marcel was barely on food, he couldn't sit or crawl or walk or talk - he wanted to hug his mum and drink from her breasts, he didn't want to do finger-painting with a bunch of strangers. When Marcel was 29 weeks old part time work wasn't something you could ask for or if it was it was so hidden in the small print that no one had yet found it. So I left my 29 week old baby and I went and wrote a German-English dictionary 35 hours a week and I drove 5 hours a week to and from work so I spent 40 hours a week away from my precious boy.

Marcel didn't sleep well - he first slept through the night at 15 months. So from 29 weeks I worked those hours and I drove those hours without having slept at night. I sat in the office to keep my job with my breasts aching to feed him, my body longing to sleep and my heart quietly breaking.

But I didn't learn my lesson, because I did it all again 2 years later! And this time I went back and wrote French dictionary while the same pattern set in. But this was crazier still - I was paying out £900 a month to have someone play with my babies while I wandered about like a zombie who hadn't slept in 3 years with aching boobs. And there's that unwritten law that you have to look ok, even when you haven't slept, even when you are worried sick because your kid is home sick and you've been up all night, even when you don't know where to take your sick kid while you go in to the office, or when you use up all your holidays at short notice because your child gets chicken pox and then you can't go away for a much needed rest in the summer.

And then someone suggested part time. That seemed like a reasonable compromise. I started working a 23 hour week instead of 35 but I had moved further away so I was driving 10, so I was still away 33 hours a week and earning even less.

I know it was my choice to have kids but neither the full time or part time scenario really works. It doesn't work because they are ill sometimes, they do cry all night when they are teething etc

So now the magic number is 52 - you have to go back to work after 52 weeks off. Fortunately, as you all remember, I had Léon in the office before I went on maternity leave ;-) so I get to stay off till he is 52 weeks old but that doesn't make it easier than with the others - I still want to stay home and hug and feed and nurture my tiny man. The last month off isn't nice, you get up every morning with a brick weighing down your heart like a prisoner on death row.

Now I am not advocating staying home till my kids go to uni - both they and I would go mad but I think 2 or 3 when they enjoy interacting with little friends and playing would be a better age to go to nursery than giving up babies - I mean we should hand over toddlers not babies. As for fulltime work with a baby - I have done than and what you miss out on is so phenomenal that I can't begin to explain. Getting home at 6 every day and spending just 2 hours a day with these precious people simply means you miss out on the most special times you can never regain.

I for one wish we'd simply gently singed our bras rather than fully burning them back in the 60s.

AN OLD FAVOURITE

Strangely enough people seem to like my sock problem best of all - maybe my level of exasperation hit an all-time high that day. People from far and wide, who I don't even realize read my blog, meet me in the street and ask if I have found the socks yet, and some ask after my friend and his owls (obviously your ponderings also inspired them, Sebastian!)

Anyway - I had a vague notion things had improved on the sock-front, nothing tangible, just a feeling of inner calm as opposed to my usual hysterical outbursts as I fished my way through the daily iron. After my May posting, I threatened to amputate the feet of any person found to have mislaid a sock. I told them socks not bound together would no longer be accepted by the washing machine and things definitely seemed to be improving. Last night I ironed 3 loads as usual and set about pairing the socks with glee, knowing I would be proved right. I think there were 15 culprits back in May, so was expecting, I dont' know 3 or 4. However, to my utter dismay, I found this was the tally for today :-( 11 miserable, stinking, single socks...

Any other strategies on offer, guys?

I now feel compelled to follow this up on at least a monthly basis. Maybe everyone should blog their missing sock tally on a weekly basis? Maybe we could project the decline (or otherwise) of the British native owl population, the RSPB might thank us for those statistics...

DRIVING

I was lying awake thinking about my comments on the car repair last night. I drive around 10000 miles a year. I learned to drive in 1985 and bought my first car in 1990. It is 2006. I guess for the first 5 years with no car but access to parents' and friends' and hire cars, I probably only drove about 10000, for the next 16 years I drove 160000 plus say 1000 on holiday every year in the hire car. That makes 186000 miles. That makes 23.47 times around the circumference of the Earth! I'm 38 years old and I have driven round the Earth nearly 24 times. The distance between the Earth and the moon is 238857 miles. Five years from now I will have driven the distance between the Earth and the moon! Crazy or cool?! :-)

THE SCREAMING HAS STOPPED

I see they finally found it - I'm glad :-)

GUYSH!!!!!

For some time I have been wondering whether Léon will say Marcel before Charlotte or Charlotte before Marcel and who will end up killing the other in the aftermath. I did not occur to me that he might address both together. The past 3 nights after the older kids have gone to bed Léon has looked around the room, suddenly noticed they are missing and then shouted 'GUYSH!' very loudly. This morning as I was getting everyone ready for school I suddenly became aware of myself - 'Guys get up!', 'Guys get dressed!', 'Guys, brush your teeth!' 'Come on guys, hurry up, we're late!' etcetc I hadn't realized quite how often I address them together as 'Guys!' rather than individually. So I started to watch Léon - this word 'Guysh' only gets used when both Marcel and Charlotte are missing, outside or upstairs, it is always shouted loudly, so I think we have a first word, and I think we also have a wee guy who has managed skilfully to avoid causing a major battle! :-)

HOW 1 EURO ENDED UP COSTING ME £27

All summer Citroën have been harassing me about my Picasso. It was recalled for safety reasons - something to do with the wheels - apparently if they didn't urgently fit something to each wheel, the tyres were going to explode or something similar. I had a total of 3 recorded delivery letters in 7 weeks. Excuse me for not see the urgency but I have had this car since new, it is 4 years old and I have personally driven 40000 miles in it without a hitch so I assumed it could wait till after the school summer holidays to be fixed so I didn't need to hang about for 2 hours with three kids in their garage service bay. Anyway I gave in this morning and took it in, and had a nice walk by the Clydeside while they were repairing it (will blog or flickr those photos later).

While chatting to the man this morning I happened to mention that Charlotte, in one of her scientific experimental periods had inserted a 1 Euro coin into the cd player 6 months ago 'to see if there was any music on it as it looked like a little cd' and funnily enough my cd player had stopped working instantaneously. So today while fixing my wheels they removed my cd player, stripped it down, took out the Euro and guess what - it works again and it only cost me £27 to have it fixed, or rather Charlotte will be receiving a £27 bill when I pick her up from school later. I hope that will teach her that it is sometimes better to ask than to experiment.

NO MORE HEALTH CLUB :-(

For 12 years I have been a member of Glasgow Jury's health club. No I am not a sporty health freak - I swim (very averagely), I sauna, I hang about in the jacuzzi, I think I did use the jogging machine twice, if that counts. I know all the staff, I know all the members, we've grown up and old together. They've had the delight of seeing me naked in the changing room, 9 months pregnant! I had Marcel not 24 hours after swimming in that pool. Both Marcel and Charlotte learned to swim there when they were four years old. But today I received a letter saying the health club and hotel had been bought over and would be closing down. How sad :-(

TOOTH-TRAUMATIZED BOYS

As a parent I currently wonder if my whole life is teeth?
Léon currently has six - two bottom, four top. For a week now he has crawled up and down the kitchen for half an hour every evening whining and stopping periodically to gnaw on a finger. His 9am wakenings too have switched to 5 or 6am this last week. I guess we are about to get two more incisors on the bottom.
Marcel has the opposite problem. He has all eight adult incisors. Unfortunately though his face isn't adult-sized so the outer two incisors on top are growing behind the middle ones meaning he can't brush the surface so can't keep them clean. So while Pudge moaned this afternoon about the teeth that were growing in, I took Marcel to the dentist to have his canine milk teeth removed to make room for his incisors to move out from behind the front teeth. Now as a parent who has nagged for 9 years that their child should brush his teeth several times daily, and not consume excessive amounts of sweets, I have to say I feel like a bit of a shit when I then say - well done, your teeth are healthy, sparkling white and cavity-free so today we'll get the dentist to pull them out anyway! :-( I, myself, have never had a tooth out or a dental injection so I didn't even know what I was taking him to but Marcel was very brave and didn't complain once, although I somehow got conned out of £2 for bravery he said!
All's well that ends well.

ANALYZING TIDINESS

I don't understand my children! (Who does?) They are not the tidiest of little humans - Marcel is probably average, Charlotte on the other hand will need to study really hard at school because she'll need to earn enough to pay staff when she's older, she's the messiest child I ever met. She has an open empty toy box that you can't reach for the toys in front of it. She has an empty laundry basket you can only just see behind the pile of dirty clothes less than 5cm from it on the floor. On a good day I nag quietly (and get ignored). On a bad day I jump up and down and scream and shout and threaten (and get ignored).
But here's the thing - Léon has been spending the past month or two crawling around causing chaos. One day last week he took all the cds off the shelf in the library, Marcel walked by and spontaneously picked them up and put them back - I didn't ask him to, they didn't block his path, they didn't belong to him - Wow! He happliy cleared Léon's mess whereas his own is a different matter. However a more shocking thing was to happen at the weekend. Léon emptied the kitchen tins cupboard. Charlotte was playing outside and skipped in through the kitchen door. She saw the mess, skipped over and put all the tins away, unasked. Now she hadn't seen Marcel tidy the cds last week so she too has an innate sense that somehow cleaning Léon's mess is acceptable. This is a child who needs to be tortured for a week just to put a single sock in her own laundry basket.

Weird!

AN INTERESTING NEWS ARTICLE

On the BBC today, given I have that delight ahead this afternoon :-( Let's hope they are right and there's no recall. Oh and tomorrow I have my dental check-up too. Since I've been on painkillers for mastitis all weekend, I can hardly wait to see what fun the second half of the week will hold...

THE DILEMMAS OF BILINGUALISM

As a small child, roughly 4, I remember Marcel becoming very distressed one day in a toyshop. He had seen a baseball-type bat in the window and wanted to buy it with some money he had saved. I said to him to go and ask the shop assistant to take it out of the window. He liked to talk to shop assistants and felt grown-up when I let him, but this time he collapsed in a heap of sobs. I couldn't understand his distress but he tried to explain to me that English wasn't specific enough and that if he asked for a bat, the woman wouldn't know if he wanted sports equipment or a nocturnal animal. It was inconceivable to his bilingual brain that a monolingual English speaker could deal with this ambiguity and still give him the correct thing. There was no convincing him that using the simple word bat would suffice. He went into a large description of the type of bat he meant. Sweet!

I guess he was 6 or even 7 before he realized that language differences like this were common and unproblematic.

OLD BRITISH SEASIDE PICTURES

They seem to like this one best! See number 8.

MASTITIS

I woke up this morning with a sore left boob, I'm sure the whole world is interested to hear! :-( A blocked milk duct, I assumed but as the morning has worn on I have gone from feeling uncomfortable to burning up, shaking, aching all over, feeling total exhaustion like I could sleep for a month. I have on 2 jumpers and a jacket though my car tells me the outside temperature is 17 degrees. I guess for just the second time in my life I have mastitis. Anyone who knows me, knows I am a bit of a militant breastfeeder by UK standards but this is the one side effect that has me crying like a little child begging for relief. I can do childbirth with no drugs but I just can't cope with mastitis :-( Anyone got a sedative that I can use to knock myself out for the next 2 or 3 days till I recover? :-(

OH NO - THE UNIVERSE HAS BEEN RESTRUCTURED

It's a sign of the times when the universe gets restructured and even poor little Pluto is made redundant.

I guess that's the thing about science - things are always changing. When I was a little girl my Gran used to tell me how at school she had learnt that we'd never split the atom and I used to laugh. I guess my kids will now be laughing at me when I say I learnt there were 9 planets in our solar system - how old-school is that!?

AIRBUS A380

The other night I watched a documentary about the Airbus A380. When I was little I wanted to be an airline pilot. I'm not sure how I knew since I didn't go on a plane for the first time until I was 15, though I have made up for it since. Anyway, being a bit of a sad secret plane-spotter I enjoyed this look into the future of aviation. One bit did amaze me and that was the aircraft evacuation test. Apparently commercial aircraft only receive a license to fly if they can prove they can do an emergency evacuation in under 90 seconds. Airbus went Hamburg and took just under 900 volunteers - they were all put in the plane, the lights were turned off, obstacles and debris were placed in the aisles, 4 of the 8 doors were sealed shut and they were not told when the test would begin. They had to evacuate 900 people and all crew through 4 doors, my heart sank - I was never going to get a go on the A380 because it didn't stand a chance of passing this test! They showed the whole test filmed on infra-red camera and as all 900+ stood uninjured on the tarmac 78 seconds later, I sat in my seat totally dumbfounded.

Cool! Wonder where I'll fly to one day in that big bird :-)

PUDGE

He's so sweet sometimes. He's sitting here in front of our TV crying. The toy rattle he is playing with has rolled under the TV cabinet on which the DVD player etc sits. This cabinet is glass so he can see the rattle but every time he goes to pick it up his hand hits the glass and he bursts into tears - he has no concept of coming at it from beneath because he can see it through the glass. Awwwwh ;-)

OLD BRITISH SEASIDE PICTURES

I saw the BBC was looking for us to send in old British seaside pictures. I found some amazing ones in my family album from the 1920s. The clothing is quite sweet. Have a look here at my Granda and his Granny!

A WICKED SENSE OF HUMOUR

Surely 10 months is too young to take the piss?! On Saturday Léon was on the patio in the garden, he picked up a stone and put it in his mouth, I shouted at him, he picked up a leaf and put it in his mouth, I shouted at him, he picked some soil out of a plantpot and put it in his mouth, I shouted at him - he crawled a few steps, he open his tiny hand, he picked something off the patio and put it in his mouth so I shouted at him again, he turned round smiled and opened his mouth, there was nothing in it this time, again he pretended to pick something up and put it in his mouth, again I shouted and again he laughed and showed me it had been a deliberate joke. This one is going to be a handful!

RELIGION

Today a jeep zoomed past my car in the fast lane of the motorway. On the back was a large red sticker that read 'Jesus is my airbag'. I was brought up in a family with no religion. From my earliest childhood I remember being taught astronomy, science etc and although religion was a topic we learned about at school, we weren't taught what we could believe, more what others believed. Religion always belonged to other people. I was an outsider and always would be. I smiled to myself as the jeep recklessly overtook me and I thought: it must be nice to have an airbag like that, it must make life just a tiny bit easier :-)

WASPS

Anyone who knows me, knows I am an easy-going person - there aren't many things, or people I don't get on with in this life BUT wasps are a different matter! What are wasps for? Dreadful, annoying vermin. If you could apply to some superior being to have a species eliminated from the face of the Earth, wasps would definitley be up there in my top 3 or 4! One dared sting me on 17-8-03 and I've hated them even more since then - with a vengeance. OK rant over...

SELECTIVE MEMORY LOSS

Léon learned to crawl properly in a park in Edinburgh on 5 August after a month of groaning and creeping backwards and standing on hands and feet looking like a crab. Now I have 2 other kids, so how come I had managed to completely forget the utter chaos that ensues in the first weeks after they learn to crawl? He zooms round the house like a mini-tornado emptying every box, cupboard in his path and knocking over everything that is neatly stacked. As I run around trying to keep up, I spare a thought for these crazy 60-something IVF mums - they must be insane - or they don't know what is awaiting them in a few months time.

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?

Will that crazy child never cease to amaze me? When asked last week by Oma what she wanted to be when she grows up, Charlotte pondered a minute, then announced as if out of nowhere 'a pole vaulter I think!'

WHAT A SHAME

In the future if we're banned from taking our cameras into the plane cabin, this is the kind of image we'll have to try to engrave on our memories instead of our computer hard disks. Why make the world a sadder place by giving in to these people?

:-(

This is the moon rising at 33000ft somewhere between Glasgow and Frankfurt - try describing that to someone who has never been on a plane.

TERRORIST THREATS AND PLAIN (PLANE) STUPIDITY!

So as usual I was abroad when a major terrorist scare took place. Having flown from Barcelona to London the week of 9/11 these things don't really faze me I have to say - I always figure the best time to fly is just after one of these scares.

Anyway my first thought was - hey I'll get my flight to NY in October cheap! My second thought was - shit they'll spend 3 hours checking me in in Frankfurt which'll be a pain with all 3 kids in tow. How wrong I was. I was not well equipped to fly with no hand luggage - I had a camera, a camcorder, a laptop and 2 ipods with me...so I packed for worst case scenario - the small things got wrapped up in clothes in my rucksack, the laptop was put in the case and I hoped my insurance would pay if someone stole them all! The camera is faulty at the moment so I was less than worried about it! I got to the check in and asked what had changed since Tuesday when I had flown to Germany. Nothing! was the reply. So I can take onboard my computer, my camera etc? Yes came the reply - and some juice and crisps for my kids? - again yes was the reply. Oh well. I caused chaos as I repacked my case and rucksack then checked them on and got on the flight home. This flight has a 45 min stopover in Prestwick before turning round and flying back to Frankfurt.

At the airport in Prestwick things were very different. Policemen were patrolling outnumbering passengers and carrying large machine guns. More stood in a ring round the perimeter fence and at the end of the runway. People were being handed clear poly bags for their passport and wallet and being told to check everything else into the hold. Large notices hung everywhere warning all food and drinks had to be consumed before entering the aircraft as they'd be confiscated. This was the same plane I had been on 10 minutes earlier with 5 electrical appliances, two bottles of coke and 3 bags of crisps!

Come on! These terrorists go to all lengths - they learn to fly 757s and crash them into buildings for goodness sake so what is the point in all the security in the UK - surely these guys will quickly work out they have to blow the plane up on their homeward journey and not the outbound flight! That way they even get to have a nice holiday before blowing themselves up! This is just laughably silly.

WORLD CUP FOOTBALL

Marcel, needless to say, still hasn't got over France's loss. Because he had watched the 1998 final from his baby buggy and seen them win, in his head it was inevitable that his baby brother would have an identical experience to recount 8 years from now. Charlotte knew either could win and was quite philosophical, but to Marcel losing was inconceivable. So when he received money for his 9th birthday last week, he went out and bought the Play Station Game FIFA 2006 and has sat day and night ever since replaying the penalties and puzzling over why Trézéguet always manages to score when he, Marcel, is at the controls!

I guess disappointment is part of growing up - he probably felt the same that day as I did at 11 when I queued for hours with my Granny to buy tickets to see ABBA when they came to Glasgow only to be told they were sold out when I reached the front of the queue. I thought the world had come to an end!

ZIDANE

Came in to hear my kids singing this this evening. Quite catchy, apparently it is top of the French charts at the moment. Marcel particularly likes the bit about Trézéguet. It got me thinking about the cultural differences between such a close neighbour and the English. Imagine England had got to the world cup final and lost it because Beckham had head-butted someone and got sent off - he'd be in hiding living with daily death threats - the French however didn't instantly remove Zidane's national hero status after one fault - instead they had a laugh and a party! I guess you can't accuse them of being bad losers anyway!

Oh check this out too!

INFLATABLE WORLD CUP

Charlotte quite fancies a large inflatable world cup. If she happens to find this page, she'll be wanting even more pocket money.

SUMMER SOLSTICE

It is currently 10 degrees celsius outside, pouring with rain and the wind is gusting at 20mph, the height of the Scottish summer - the summer solstice. I have just got drenched standing outside the school gate for less than 5 minutes waiting to pick up my kids and had to switch on my central heating when I got in. See the attached summery shots!

Remind me why I live in this country???

Also I should say Happy Birthday Sorrel! Sorrel is my friend Karen's little girl. She's 6 today. I will never forget her birthday. Karen rang me 6 years ago to say she'd had her baby on June 21st. Congratulations, I said, and on the shortest night...It bloody wasn't!!!, she replied ;-)

MY CLEVER SPECIAL BOY

I've been teaching Léon to dance for the last fortnight by playing the same cd every night as I cook and dancing around the kitchen. Last night he finally understood and when I stuck on 'Kodachrome' by Paul Simon he started bouncing on his bum and waving his chubby hands in the air in time to the music. This alone had me well-impressed but later that evening he stunned me. Charlotte walked in wearing headphones, listening to her ipod. Once, on the 30 of May, Charlotte stuck the headphones on Léon for approximately 10 seconds and he looked puzzled but yesterday as soon as he saw her wearing them he stuck up his little hands dancing and swaying and pointing at the headphones - so even a month on he remembers they too produce music, even when he can't hear it for himself! That's my clever sweetie pie.

GUINNESS ADVERTS

Just saw that backwards evolution Guinness advert... Wonder how Guinness manage to consistently make some of the best adverts on the screen and have done for years? Remember the guy dancing around the pint of Guinness years ago? Well done them! ...Pity I don't actually like the stuff, the adverts almost make me think I should try to make myself like it! ;-)

FILE CORRUPTION

Anyone who knows me has probably spent the past year listening to me moaning about file, and in particular photo corruption. For a long time I assumed hotmail was corrupting my files as people kept receiving my photos, which I had emailed using hotmail, in a corrupted state.

Since starting this Blog and using Flickr, however everything I try to upload to these two sites also corrupts. No one else I know using these two sites has this problem. The magnitude is as great as an 80% corruption rate :-(

It has been suggested it is my Norton antivirus system, however even disabling that I get the odd very slightly corrupt photo. Does anyone out there know how I can fix this problem completely, or why it occurs?

THE FINAL STRAW

I have tried to be pc, adult, modern, and all the rest over the past couple of weeks. That is to say as a Scottish UK citizen, I have listened to the English tell me during every football match in Germany how wonderful they are, how 1966 was a recent event (come on, I'm pushing 40 and it wasn't in my lifetime - in fact is there anyone below pensionable age old enough to remember seeing that match???) and so on without wincing but tonight that final straw, the one that breaks the camel's back, reared its ugly head. It was a prematch studio discussion called 'England's route to glory', or maybe 'England's path to glory' - I was too busy being sick in a bucket to hear correctly! ;-) It was a flowchart, complete with country flags explaining who England would meet in the last 16, the quarter final, the semi and of course the final if they came top of their group, sorry, wash my mouth out with soap, when England came top of their group. This was followed by the 2nd, unthinkable scenario, ie who they would meet if the only came second in their qualifying group. So for anyone who missed it, apparently the most likely scenario is that England will beat Argentina in the final but should their form slip, they will have to beat Brazil in the final. Of course bringing home the WorldCup is an inevitability. Please, don't make us listen to any more of this nonsense...

Wonder how long it would take to dig a large trench along the border and wait for it to fill with water so we could become an independent island???? Hmmmm might take the kids and their buckets and spades to the Borders this weekend.

TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT

Derek and Amanda, my brother and his wife, have just gone on holiday to Italy for a few days. Think they are going to get a shock though when they come back and see what their next door neighbours have been up to in their absence :-(

A SUDDEN REALISATION I'M AGING

Marcel, like all other 8 year old boys in Scotland, is collecting Panini World Cup Football Stickers. Do you want to see my stickers mum? he asked me for the hundredth time tonight. Feigning enthusiasm, I said of course and started to leaf through his album. Now, I have been watching the football with him now for what feels like weeks, but I guess it has only been days. On the pitch I see 22 men running about; men, not children, people I felt subconsciously to be around the age I feel myself to be! In the sticker book are personal details: height, date of birth etc. To my horror, I find most of these men seem to have been born in the 1980s! I thought people born in the 80s were still at high school! Are they old enough to be in Germany alone, I mean without their parents???

How did I get so old all of a sudden?! :-(

NERDS ARE GETTING YOUNGER

I am old enough to still remember gazing on the first ever zx81s in awe of what they could do. I remember when computer games were a line at either side of a screen between which a square was batted back and forth. I went through the whole of university handwriting all my dissertations, without the www, google or anything more than paper books as a reference, and with no need for an email address, I know anyone even five years younger will find that hard to believe. (Yes my hair is its natural colour and I still have all my own teeth!)

Somehow I don't think the next generation, however, will get through life without the life-support system known as the computer.

And, of course, even I now can't get through the day without checking my email.

ONE DAY HEAT WAVE

Yesterday the thermometer reached 30 degrees in my back garden in Scotland! I don't ever remember a temperature starting with a 3 in my lifetime - well not in celsius anyway. It was so hot we had to get out the pool which took 2 hours to fill. The kids had the time of their lives. We left it out to carry on where we left off yesterday. How naive, this is Scotland. Despite the 20 degrees overnight which made sleeping hard and sporadic, we seem to be back to our usual breezy, grey sky and a threat of rain today and our swimming pool looks just a little silly suddenly. I think the neighbours are probably hiding behind their curtains giggling at us :-(

WEST END FESTIVAL

Tomorrow is the big Byres road street party - the highlight of the West End Festival. It should be even bigger than normal as it is the 10th anniversary carnival parade, mind you with the World Cup now on it could be completely deserted, or more likely overwhelmingly female in its participation this year!

BENDINESS

Léon has finally agreed to bend in the middle! Hooray! Unfortunately his new favourite game is to smile, chuckle and then launch himself backwards and bang into your knees if you are sitting behind him. The problem being he doesn't always check you are behind him before doing it and the patio is a very hard place to bang you head. I guess he'll learn soon enough.

CYCLING

Charlotte learnt to cycle on Saturday. With her usual stubbornness, she didn't accept any help, but contented herself with throwing her bike to the ground periodically, kicking it and bursting into floods of tears!

ENOUGH TO MAKE EVEN GRAMPS TEETOTAL

Found an amusing French news and information site. Not sure it is very serious, but quite amusing!