POOR SICK PUDGE - YET AGAIN

Poor Léon was back in hospital again this morning :-( After a full 24 hours in which he didn't pee, 5 days during which he only ate twice and exactly a week with a temperature of 38.5 my GP told me he needed his kidneys checked out, worried he had a problem that could lead to kidney failure and eventually the need for a kidney transplant. As usual a hot, dehydrated baby isn't too keen on giving a urine sample but when eventually he aimed at the floor I jumped in with a plastic bowl and finally got the sample the hospital has wanted for 3 weeks. An hour later lab reports said his kidneys were clear so today's diagnosis is a viral infection, an ear infection, a throat infection, and a sore tip on his penis requiring antibiotics. Any allergies? they asked - so I recounted the whole amoxicillin saga from the last week or two only to be told they thought it couldn't be that and therefore would prescribe it for him again, but of course I should bring him back to the casualty department if he happens to go into anaphylactic shock when I unscrew the bottle top - give me strength :-(

I'd better not buy that car just yet as I may yet lose my job given how much time I seem to be spending in the hospital instead of the office these days!

BYOB

You think you know what this means when you see it on a menu or an invitation, don't you? So did I but times are changing. After the change to the law last September, I notice now that when Charlotte is invited to a party, where she is to be taken on an outing (such as the golf party she is going to next Saturday with all her little boyfriends on the other side of Glasgow) the invite now comes with the instruction BYOB - Bring Your Own Booster - of course! :-)

ANOTHER DREAM

This time not one I dreamt while asleep but more what I hope I will have enough money to buy one day! For the past year since I had my third kid I have been thinking how much more practical a 7 seater car is than a 5. Even going to the shops and taking my parents with me always meant borrowing André's VW Sharan instead of driving my own Citroën Picasso. So I have been looking at the Vauxhall/Opel Zafira or the Renault Grand Scénic while cursing Citroën for making the only small MPV with just 5 seats. Until yesterday when I stumbled upon this ad! Yes the new model of my car has just come out and it has 7 seats! And they even make it in a nice shade of metallic red - cool - now I just need a decent enough income to buy it :-\

HOW QUICKLY THEY GROW

Today is Halloween. That is why baby Pudge is wearing a spider suit for his nursery Halloween party where he apparently enjoyed dooking for apples, a popular Scottish Halloween game, though the mind boggles as to how you make babies play it (and stay alive)! And Charlotte has been dressed as the ever-girlie Darth Vader all day, though, much to her disgust, the helmet wasn't allowed for school in case it frightened the younger kids (of which, of course, she is one!) - she even wanted to take along her voice changer! Marcel however isn't wearing a Halloween costume because apparently Halloween is 'for kids'. :-( So he turned up at school wearing only a T-shirt sporting a skeleton design.

FOOTACHE

I mentioned back in May that I tore some ligaments in my foot trying to eat a chocolate cheesecake (incidentally the worst chocolate cheesecake I have tasted in my life). It has been sore all year. Every time I stand after sitting, get up after lying etc it hurts for the first 3 or 4 steps and then just niggles at me gently most of the day. I have noticed however that since the end of autumn is starting to hit here in Glasgow - the weather has become wet, windy and cold, my foot is slowly becoming torture. Even sitting with it up on the couch is painful. It throbs all day from the ankle to the little toe on the left side and nothing eases it (although there is no visible injury and my foot even fits in my shoe now). How long is it going to take to recover from that 3rd class cheesecake? :-(

A DREAM

Last night I dreamt of New York - big whoop I hear you cry! When I was really there I only used surface transport because alone with a baby in a buggy going downstairs to the subway was a hassle and of course not only had I already seen the tube on TV often enough but I knew I wouldn't pass any fancy touristy buildings down there. So I left it on my 'to do next time' list. So last night in my dream I seemed to be alone, Pudgeless even this time in NY city. Thomas had lent me his DSLR and I was taking photos of vagrants etc in the subway tunnels and stations. In one station I got off a train and there were a pile of 6-8 horses asleep on the platform, their brown hair gleaming in the light. I am not a great horse fan but I am sure I got some superb photos of those horses sleeping on the platform! (Pity I didn't upload it before I woke up ;-) ) Eventually in one station I met a little African looking girl - she looked about 3 and seemed to be alone and homeless with beautiful brown eyes and very big hair. Naturally I picked her up and sat her on my hip, and took her with me on my travels. I guess you don't need to be a superstar in your dreams to adopt a needy, homeless child!

SMELLS AND NOISE

These are two aspects of New York that none of the films or TV capture. The traffic, the taxi horns, the many different languages you hear as you walk down the street and the smells that make the place alive: chicken, lamb and sauces being barbequed on street corners with noodles or rice, sweet nuts being roasted everywhere - cashews, peanuts, coffees, and pastry smells - delicious!

CHEAP CLOTHES

Another rant about prices: if I had known how much I would have to pay for T-shirts in NY, especially baby T-shirts like this one I bought my nephew Gordon (whose parents are lawyers in case you are wondering), then I wouldn't have bothered taking any clothes with me, I would just have taken an empty rucksack. Some shops were doing 5 T-shirts for $10 and I think I paid $2-50 for Gordy's T-shirt.

POOR SICK PUDGE, 4 BATMANS AND FRED FLINTSTONE

Poor Pudge has been sick since he started nursery about six weeks ago. His immune system has been tested to the extreme. He has caught colds, coughs and has had three chest infections. I seem to remember that is par for the course. It makes you feel bad but the advantage is that their immune systems have usually met almost everything before they start school at five and so they never miss any school once they have started. And of course he had that dreadful allergic reaction in NY 10 days ago. At the time I asked the docs if it could be an amoxicillin allergy, given he had finished a course of antibiotics 2 days earlier and given that Marcel is also allergic to amoxicillin, although Charlotte isn't. The doctors on duty that night all ruled it out but they were fairly young and inexperienced. I had my doubts, but often believe a parent of 3 kids could probably fake their way an average GP shift as long as the patients were all small children. So tonight I took Léon to the doctor's again because he's been sleepy, roasting hot and not eating again for another 2 days. The doctor said it was a viral infection but when I mentioned the allergic reaction he said he was 90% sure what I had mentioned was an amoxicillin allergy. He even described the symptoms to me. He could of course be wrong but at least I can now ask my own GP to do specific allergy tests and therefore hopefully avoid another week of this:
Driving back from the doctor at 9pm on the Saturday before Halloween was an experience, that over and above the potential allergy diagnosis, was in itself interesting. I passed 3 Batmans or (should that be Batmen?) walking along the street hand in hand beside a Fred Flintstone complete with one large, hairy club. An interesting choice of costumes - I would have imagined that if four friends had decided to go out to a Halloween party together they would either have gone as 4 Batpeople, or alternatively Fred, Wilma, Barney and Betty. I then passed several brides and grooms, some with daggers through their heads, assorted witches and ghosts and Superman who seemed to be out for a walk with a man wearing a karate suit. It is just a pity you forget to take your camera when you nip out to the out-of-hours doctor's surgery with a sick baby!

COFFEE, CROISSANTS AND DANISH PASTRIES

So here it is in Manhattan - large coffee with a bagel, just $1-25. So why do we numpties in Scotland pay 4 times that much here for the same thing? Today I was in Tinderbox where a 2-drips-in-a-cup espresso costs more than that without the bagel :-(

TIMES SQUARE - AN IMPRESSIVE SIGHT

I don't know what it was about Times Square. I assumed with all that hustle and bustle and neons, Léon would find it fascinating. However, for some bizarre reason, every time I took him there, 5 times in all, he fell asleep! Maybe he'll find in more interesting next time round.

FEELING OLD - A PHYL'S BLOG LEITMOTIF?

So I was driving into town with all 3 kids in the back of the car tonight. They asked me to put on the cd of High School Musical. 'Is that your favourite record at the moment guys?' I asked. Blank stares. 'Record?' 'Surely you have seen a record - you know like a big black cd?' I asked. 'No never', they both replied. Oh my God, how old am I? It is funny to think both my grandmothers died before ever hearing the word cd and yet my kids don't know records. My Granny even worked in a record shop when she wasn't playing piano in a night club! Anyway they eventually remembered they had once seen a record on an episode of Tom and Jerry. When were they made? 1950s?

Oh and Tom and Jerry itself is an odd one. Everyone in the world knows they are both boys but my kids insist and have done all their lives that Jerry is a girl. I thought that they were confusing with the name Geri, but no it is more cryptic than that! Being French bilingual they know it is un chat but une souris but the non-French part of their brains uses this information to assign gender, something a real monolingual French person would never do. How cool is that?

SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES

I went into a chemist on 5th avenue an hour after arriving in Manhattan. It looked spookily familiar - it could have been Superdrug. The lay out was similar and the brands the same: pampers, colgate, ultrabright, snickers, mars bars, Rimmel, Max Factor etc etc you name it. There were fridges along the walls with cold drinks and packaged sandwiches, cosmetics, off-the-shelf painkillers and toiletries in the middle. The one odd distinguishing feature though was at the checkout: cigarettes - this looked really incongruous to me as a Scottish person, where basically smoking has been banned everywhere but in your own house or outdoors because of health implications - a chemist/tobbacconist combined - weird!

LIFE'S REGRETS

Straight after lunch one day in Manhattan I passed this place near Times Square. I was full and Pudge was asleep so I noted it mentally (everyone who knows me know I am more than partial to a slice of cheesecake - preferably chocolate, but blueberry or pineapple also cause me to smile a bit) and vowed to return later in the day. Imagine my disappointment when I forgot and only remembered once I uploaded the photo back in Glasgow :-( Oh well, guess I need to go back.

THE WHINGNING WORLD WE LIVE IN

Am I the only one fed up with all the negativity in the world? I came across this article today on the BBC website. Ok so Ryanair does have cramped seating, crumbs on the floor, extremely grumpy staff, oh and a ludicrous and infuriating baggage policy into the bargain. (And maybe it has delays flying out of Stanstead but having flown out of Hahn twice, Paris once, and Prestwick 3 times this year with all 6 flights taking off on time and arriving ahead of schedule I have no complaints about their punctuality.) Anyway am I the only one who still remembers the world pre-Ryanair and the likes? I used to spend 30 hours on a Eurolines coach to the East of France having paid more than I now pay for a 2 hour direct flight to Hahn at least 3 times a year. For the kids to visit Oma even 5 years ago I used to pay £1000 to fly to Frankfurt via London, or to Strasbourg via East Midlands, Paris and Strasbourg. That took a whole day and you still had to rent a car at the other end, but hey the cabin crew smiled and you got a dod of scambled egg and a sausage and even a free coffee on each flight! But now thanks to Ryanair my annual visit has been able to become a 3 or 4 times a year visit because I rarely pay more than £200 for a whole family to fly and off peak can even get myself and the 3 kids to Oma's for less than £100. The kids' Aunt has managed to visit them twice because as an unemployed pensioner she can afford Ryanair, but she can't afford BA. Ryanair, Easyjet and all their little brothers and sisters have opened up most big cities in Europe to us average earners as a weekend or holiday destination. We will all visit places in the future we wouldn't have seen in our lifetime without Ryanair. I am going to Latvia for 2 days in a fortnight for - I think it was £24, but pre-Ryanair I would never have seen Latvia. Yes we'd all love BA service on a Ryanair flight but I know which is more important to me - it being affordable or it being comfotable? So all I have to say to all the glass-is-half-empty people in this world is would you please 'haud yer wheesht'!
Ok rant over!

WE ALL LOSE IT SOMETIMES

I guess someone had a bad day at work! :-)

DAD'S BLOG

Dad says he's going to stop blogging since no one comments on his blog :-( Come on everyone - start commenting, please!

DRINK

Another astouding thing I found about America is how cheap everything was - the food, the drink, the clothes, the gas. WHY exactly do we put up with the climate here in the UK and pay such inflated prices? (Oh I remember, it is to get away from George Bush, isn't it?) But excepting that - us crazy Europeans pay ridiculous prices for cans of coke etc from street vendors and the likes when in the centre of Manhattan, this double-sized can of grape juice cost me just 99cents. So tall, it was like one of the skyscrapers itself, and such good value Léon and I shared 2 a day :-)

DELI FOOD

One thing I really loved in NY was those food places where you could go in and fill a little plastic tub (or even a big plastic tub) with everything from steak to noodles, to rice or mashed potatoes and then take it to the little park in front of the New York library and eat it at the little tables set out for that purpose. On our last day Pudge and I shared a tangy shepherd's pie, some mushrooms dripping in butter and various beautifully steamed veggies in the sun. Yummmmm.

ABSURD!

It's that time of the year again when all us boring Brits start looking forward to Bonfire night and fireworks displays and such like. When we celebrate Guy Fawkes night, we are celebrating an event which took place in 1605. To my utter amazement however I turned on the radio yesterday in time to hear the second half of a news story. Apparently after 401 years something new and astounding has been discovered. The newsreader was saying that because they had discovered that fires were dangerous!, the council (I unfortunately missed which particular bunch of numpties they were referring to) had refused to grant a licence for this year's bonfire, so instead they would set a fire under controlled conditions, film it and then on Bonfire night project the pictures of the burning fire onto a large white screen at the firework display. I wonder if the fireworks will be real or if they too will be created using torches and drums.

This world we live in truly is an absurd place!

EVER SO SWEET

This shop window in Ayr is just so British Seaside, isn't it? You can almost see your kids teeth rot just looking at it, can't you? I looked at the fry-up in the middle in particular and thought yeuch, just as Marcel and Charlotte said in unison, 'Look at the ham and eggs, they are soooo cool!'

SHE SELLS SEASHELLS

I suddenly remembered today that when I was 7, during a gym lesson at primary school, my teacher called me to one side and asked me to repeat 'she sells seashells on the seashore' three times. I think because no one explained why I was being asked that at the time I had a vague notion the teacher had been abducted by aliens and replaced by someone who was perhaps mildly insane. The reason of course was that my two front teeth had been knocked out in an accident when I was two, you can almost see it on this photo of me at four, so I had a bit of a lisp in those days. Anyway I guess I must have failed the seashell test miserably as I was taken out of gym, told to dress and sent to a speech therapist for the next two years! But it worked - no lisp now.

APPLE UPDATE

Léon tried his hardest to reach them earlier but still couldn't so unless we get a ladder or a broom there is soon going to be a cider factory on dad's garage roof!

FIRST BAGEL

You can't go to New York without eating bagels so for my first bagel I opted for the veggie special: cream cheese, lettuce, onions, slices of tomato (or tomayto), avocado, sundried toma(y)to too - yum!

SOCKS AGAIN

Got you worried there - you thought I was going to rant madly about missing ones, didn't you? ;-) No - just thought you'd like to see the pretty New York socks I bought the kids - call back at my site in approximately 2 weeks to read the rant when they go missing!

WALTER'S WASTE

More and more fall off every day and they look so good but no one retrieves them - they just sit and rot :-( I'm thinking missed crumbles myself. (Dad's garage roof covered in his neighbour, Walter's apples, in case you are wondering).

LONE WOMAN WITH A BABY

When I was a student I backpacked all around Europe alone, interrailing, bussing, even hitchhiking (though not alone). No one ever commented - when you are 20 and alone it is ok to travel far and wide. Now at 38 with a little baby things are different it seems. Women don't travel alone at 38 and certainly not with a baby. The first to point this out to me were my beloved, overprotective parents - mum emailed after a glass of wine or 2 'why are you doing this to us - you are freaking us out!' sweet! :-) But it continued at the check-in in Glasgow airport - the horrified desk worker inquired if I was meeting relative in NY. No, I am flying to Manhattan to spend 4 days walking about taking nice photos of my baby, I intend to go up a few sky scrapers, eat some nice food and then hear Streisand sing! I replied - the look was incredulity. On arrival in Manhattan I stuck out my hand to stop a little blue minibus marked Airport-Hotel transfers, the driver helped me my rucksack and my buggy (sorry stroller) on and then waited with the engine idling. I asked if we had to wait till all 9 seats were full before going as only Pudge and I were aboard. Oh aren't you with someone? he asked - I was waiting for your husband! Then I went out for my first walk - I walked in the general direction Times Square, on my way I passed Grand Central Station. At Times Square someone stopped me and asked for directions to Grand Central Station! I gave them, having just come from there. A second person stopped and asked the same 2 minutes later and so the pattern started - 10 times a day I was stopped and asked for directions all around Manhattan because a woman alone walking the streets of Manhattan can't be a tourist she can only be a local! I was puzzled that the rules for men and women were still different even in the noughties but I was also secretly quite proud that I looked so at home, at ease and confident that even the locals assumed I was a local :-) Because of this I found Manhattan a wholly unthreatening place, I walked about even after dark, though sensibly, and as I merged into obscurity among the other 8 million inhabitants and no doubt several million tourists, I felt like I had come home. All my life I wanted to visit New York, I had taken 9/11 as a personal attack as if they had done it to Glasgow and not New York. In a way I was scared to visit in case it turned out not to be the home I had felt it to be from a distance. Dreams have a way of disappointing you, but this was one dream that lived up to and surpassed my expectations. In a way going there alone probably reinforced the feeling of home because home is the most obvious place to spend time totally alone. NY I LOVE YOU :-)

THERE'S YELLOW AND THERE'S YELLOW

The first thing that struck me when I reached Manhattan was that shade of yellow used for the taxis. Everyone has seen movies set in New York so everyone knows the yellow taxis just as if they had lived there all their lives. BUT what no one actually tells you is that they aren't yellow, they are more orange. Maybe it has something to do with the resolution used on US movies or something but they are definitely a different shade from on the TV. I think this photo of Léon with the duck shows what I mean - the duck is the colour the TV has led me to believe the cabs are all these years and Léon's T-shirt is the colour they actually are. Interestingly, although this shocked me every time I stepped outside on Saturday, by Sunday I was already so accustomed to them that I no longer found the shade disturbing.

FLYING ANGEL

You have to feel a tiny bit apprehensive when you are faced by 14 hours on a plane in 4 days with a baby sitting on your knee. A baby who doesn't have his own seat in the plane and who would much rather get down and crawl and play with toys etc. So I take my hat off to my flying perfect angel who sat happily all 14 hours, sleeping some of the hours and playing and looking out the window the other few, but without even one minute of distress, upset or boredom. On both flights the unlucky passenger who had been assigned the seat beside me looked suitably horrified on discovering that they would be sitting beside a toddler for 7 or 8 hours. By half way through the flight their horror had turned to mild praise for his behaviour and that again had turned to inspired congratulations, mixed with more than a little surprise by touchdown each time. Pudge was a true ambassador for the flying tiny people of the world. Well done Pudge (or should that be 'Way to go!'?)

PUDGE EATING CHOCOLATE

Pudge eating chocolate
Originally uploaded by viralbus.

On Saturday I had to go into town to put my laptop in for repair. All the way the kids moaned about how far they had to walk, how boring walking in town was etcetc...until and old man stopped me in Buchanan Street and asked in that time-old Glaswegian fashion 'Are they weans yours, hen?' When I replied 'yes' he proceeded to explain that kids were receiving free trial chocolate bars behind St Enoch tube station. Suddenly a walk in town was the best possible pastime for a Saturday afternoon. They returned at least 3 times, removing hats, and jackets in a pitiful attempt at disguise to receive extra free chocolate! Even Pudge joined in the fun :-) And tried to regain a few calories lost over the 4 days of his illness...(Was it really only four days???)

CANADA

Eastern Canada looked quite different from I expected. It was very flat, very empty and covered in little ponds and lakes (photo to follow once the laptop comes back from the laptop hospital!) I guess I expected it to be hilly for some reason! It looks very pretty though.

AWESOME WATER

I fly a lot. I fly all over Europe, but that means I always fly above land. Last Saturday I flew across the Atlantic for the first time on a crisp, blue, perfect day. From Glasgow to Halifax in Canada took exactly 4 hours in total, the other 3 hours of the flight were above Canada and the United States. I was struck by the immensity of the ocean for the first time in my life. Before, I have often sat on the edge of the Atlantic or the Mediterranean looking out towards infinity but I have never actually seen it all the way to the other side. I felt much smaller crossing an ocean than crossing land, if that makes any sense. Suddenly the parts of this planet we humans control seemed small and insignificant compared to mother nature. It was truly an awesome experience.

FLYING FANCLUB

Ok, Pudge is out of the woods now so I can return to the pressing subject of New York, although I can't stick photos on my blog for now :-( as my beloved computer (with the NY photos on it) is in for repair at the moment. So here are the words, check back later for any accompanying pics.

The first thing that struck me last Saturday as I boarded the Boeing 757 was the number of crazy people, of which I am one, there are in this world. Most people knew I was going to New York for a long weekend and as I have spent at least the last 20 years going on and on ad nauseam about visiting my beloved New York, they probably assumed I was flying there to visit New York, which of course I was but the reason for the specific timing was of course the Barbra Streisand concert in Madison Square Garden. I guess very few, even of my closest friends knew I was crazy enough to fly intercontinentally just for a concert! I had queued and missed out on tickets for her Wembley gig in 1994, so had vowed to attend her next concert, but of course she next sang on 31-12-99 in California when I was not only in bed with flu but was also 9 months pregnant with Lotsie :-( That day I vowed that if she ever sang again in public I would attend even if I had to fly across the world to do so. Most of my family nodded sweetly, no doubt assuming I was just letting of steam, but... I meant it! And so I boarded the 757 alone with my tiny baby under my arm feeling just a little silly but also very exhilarated. To my astonishment I heard from about 2 rows behind me a woman's voice saying 'I hope the seats are good because I bought expensive ones, but you aren't going to fly all that way and not be able to see the stage'. I smiled and thought, hey I am not the only nutter in this world but like a stack of dominoes it suddenly went round the plane, row after row quizzing each other ' Are you flying over to see Barbra too?' So I happily joined the Babs fanclub in the sky all flying intercontinentally to hear that voice just once before it went into retirement and boy was it worth it! :-)

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES

What a difference a day makes - these two photos were taken exactly 24 hours apart. What a relief to see the hugely swollen, lumpy, miserable baby start slowly to return to our recognizable happy boy. PHEW! So I think after 3 sleepless nights, I can finally contemplate actually shutting my eyes and no longer sleeping with a torch to check his skin and breathing on an hourly basis.

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?! :-)