BIKES

Often in the park over the last couple of years I have witnessed small children zooming about at crazy speeds on little bikes with no pedals. I thought very little about them, though occasionally wondered why anyone would waste money on a pedal-less bike?
At the end of last summer, I took the stabilisers off Léon's little bike and then Thomas and I started the chore of running along behind him breaking our backs as we tried to teach balance to a child who already knew how to pedal. Snow came prematurely and coincided with Léon getting his first glasses so we only got 60% of the way there when we put his bike away for the very long winter.
Last month we started the running again. And as we ran, once again 3 year olds were shooting past us on pedal-less bikes. Suddenly the penny dropped. These pedalfree bikes were 'balance bikes' and were teaching tiny kids to cycle all by themselves so adults didn't need to intervene. I stopped watching Pudge and started watching the tots on the balance bikes. I was right.
I went straight onto ebay when I got home - no luck - all the cheap ones were pick-up only but even on amazon they were only £30 and with three kids who still needed to learn cycling, I figured it was worth a tenner each to save my back and Thomas's.
It arrived last week and within an hour Léon was tentatively balancing all by himself. Three trips out onto the road at the back of my house by himself without us even looking on and he was also shooting by with his feet in the air. I was so confident by today that I dragged out a real bike the same size to test my theory. He hopped on and cycled across the road without the slightest look back over his shoulder. It had taken less than 3 hours to teach my boy cycling, cost £10 and it didn't even make my back twinge!
Today I have lowered the balance bike's saddle to Anna's height and though I guess at three she might take longer than Léon, I will be more than surprised if she hasn't learned to cycle before the end of the summer.
Balance bikes were possibly invented as parents became older. You may be able to run crouched over a bike behind your five year old at 28 but by 43 another solution was necessary! They certainly have my vote. Any idea I had that they were a waste of money is definitely wrong. It made the whole process stress free and Léon looked more than pleased to have taught himself! Three cheers for balance bikes.

NINE HOURS IN THE LIFE OF A PARENT

It started at about 3am. We'd gone to bed too late at 12.30 and at 3 the voice shouted 'Daddy, can I have some water?' The annoying thing when your older kids share the baby's room is the baby monitor doesn't just pick up babies - but given we sleep on a different floor, even screaming kids can't be heard without it. I pressed the button and said 'Sleepy time, Anna!' Ten minutes of silence followed. Just as I was about to drop off a wee voice said 'Daddy, can I have some water?' I repeated my end of the conversation. Water was then demanded at ten minute intervals for the next 90 by which time Daddy and I were so awake we might as well have got up and got dressed but I wasn't setting a precedent of turning up with middle of the night water, hugs and kisses in case she decided it was quite a nice occurrence. Eventually I shouted in a rather short-tempered manner for her to be quiet and not waken the whole house up and that I'd see her in the morning. Nothing for twenty minutes. I'd been holding my breath afraid to move, I relaxed, I closed my eyes... 'Daddy, can I have water!?'Thomas finally cracked, marched up stairs and explained to her how to get out her bed and walk over to the shelf with the cups and get herself water and made sure she knew she was meant to do it herself in future.

Finally we could go to sleep at 5. An hour later we heard a shout. I was ready to nail her to the wall when I realized it actually was the baby this time. She was brought down and instantly fell asleep with us. I was beyond caring, it was an hour till school run time.

Marcel had decided to do his paper round at 7-15 instead of 6-30 because he'd stayed up to watch The Apprentice last night. I expected the extra sleep would put him in a good mood... silly me! He was ranting and grumping about how much longer it took to do it when you were awake and aware of delivering papers, instead of in his usual zombie state! I even missed the odd house and had to go back, he growled! Strange child! So he was taking an age to have his shower and do his hair and all things that teenage boys find important. It was 8-25 and he was asking if he could iron his shirt or if I thought the noise of the iron would wake Amaia! He needs to leave at 8-25 and wasn't dressed. I peeked into my dark bedroom to see him with an iron in one hand and a bowl of Weetabix in the other! I made him lunch figuring he'd never get to that task. As I was spreading his bread, Charlotte walked in, also in morning-mood. You haven't filled in my PLP (Personal learning plan) and it is due in today!True enough, but had she given me it or even told me it had been in her bag since Friday? Nope, but that was apparently my fault! (In arguing with Lots, I managed to forget to pack Léon's lunch and only found it sitting on the toaster six hours later!) At least he was being sweet. I went back to the fridge to get Marcel some cheese, telling Lots there was a ten minute window between High school starting and her bell for me to fill in the PLP. The cheese was covered in cream, as was the cucumber... it turned out absolutely everything in the fridge was covered in cream. Someone had tipped over a 300ml pot on the top shelf and when 300ml runs out it can apparently cover four entire shelves of a fridge. Just what I needed on 2 hours sleep. I went to get the car key as Thomas shouted Quick!!!!! What now???? Someone (I am assuming whichever child got the ice lollies when we were watching Alan Sugar last night) had forgotten to close the freezer. We now had an in-kitchen swimming pool and a choice of defrosted items for today's menu.

So if anyone knows what you can make with:

• 6 Swedish cinnamon rolls
• 4kg of sweetcorn
• 1 garlic bread
• 6 slices of svenskt tunnbröd
• 6 rolls
• 3 fruit scones
• 6 potato scones
• 1 bag of lamb stock
• 4 battered haddock
• 4 chicken breasts
• 3 square sausages
• 1 sage and onion stuffed chicken
• 1 IKEA almond cake
• 1 sticky toffee pudding

please let me know by dinner time or I'll have to go on Ready, Steady, Cook!

NOTE TO SELF

I have spent the best part of two weekends prising open tins of paint, sealant, tile adhesive and the likes in my garage, finding paints have turned to porridge and adhesives to cement over the course of the last winter. I have then had to drag them up to the dump as there are far too many to fit in our fortnightly bin collection. I have owned a garage now for ten years and these last two winters have been the first to see temperatures cold enough to destroy everything water-based stored within. So I am away to write on my calendar for the first weekend in November to bring all surviving pots into the house for the winter. I suggest you do the same.

JAPANESE

Léon announced tonight that he quite fancied going to Japan to see what it's like and to eat sushi (I'd have thought Silverburn was closer, but there you go!) I mentioned that Thomas could read and speak Japanese so was perhaps a handy person to take along. Léon seriously agreed that that was a great idea given he'd be able to read all the road signs and check if there were any earthquake or tsunami forecasts on them. If only it was that simple!

AGGRAVATING FOOTWEAR

What lunatic came up with squeaky shoes? I was in ASDA the other morning half awake when a woman my own age walked past me with a toddler of about 20 months wearing these atrocities. As she walked towards me a pair of pensioners by my side exclaimed how cute they were, and perhaps as the child passes you for 12 seconds, they could be deemed cute but if you are mum or dad and walking beside what sounds like a demented doggy toy all day long, I swear you are going to end up on Prozac! You'd have to be truly insane to buy these things!

LÉON LOVES TIES

Unlike my two older children Léon loves ties and has been badgering me for weeks now not only for a school tie but even a blazer. The other two always wore the casual uniform at primary and have never even owned a primary tie. Léon is definitely not going to follow suit. Today the kids had a dress as you please non-uniform day and whereas most kids turned up in bright cartoon t-shirts and shorts, Léon insisted not only on his party shirt and tie but also his smart cardie! He has definite fashion ideas for a 5 year old - I am beginning to think he may have to change the spelling of his surname from Gautier to Gaultier!

CULZEAN

I went to Culzean at the weekend. I swear in all the years I have been going there, I have never seen the sea so Mediterranean-like! :-)

HE SEEMS TO HAVE INHERITED THE HOACHY GENE.

On Monday Marcel received a phone call from the shop across the road. He had applied for a paper round there a few months back. He was to start Wednesday as the student who had been doing it for the last three years wanted the summer off before going to uni. He agreed to take Marcel out on Wednesday and show him the route. Between them they managed it in just 20 minutes on Wednesday morning and Marcel positively enjoyed the early morning sunshine.

This morning he went out to work at 6-30am, saying he'd return at 7 as he only had 13 papers to deliver. However at 7 there was no sign of Marcel.

Finally he ran in at 8, in a panic. He'd delivered 12 papers but had been walking round in circles for over an hour not finding one street on his delivery round and his phone was out of credit so he couldn't google-map it.

He rushed into the shower, wolfed brekkie in one gulp, made his lunch and googled the missing address which turned out to be at the far end of Greenfarm estate. At 8-30 I threw him and Léon in the car (Charlotte had left on her bike) and drove him round. All the while he was worrying about how it would reflect on him delivering one paper ninety minutes late on his first day, muttering the guy from the paper shop would want to fire him if the customer had complained about him.

As we turned into the street and the garage was half open and a woman was fussing about in the porch of the house getting ready... so I advised him - you can't just deliver it, you need to apologize, tell her it's your first day and promise to be on time tomorrow, etc.

As he walked up the path, her wee yappy dog launched itself at Marcel barking like mad, so she came rushing out to drag the dog off him. They were both looking down at it. And I was in the car watching them. When they both stood up, smiles broke out across their faces and she started patting Marcel on the arm in a friendly manner! I figured things weren't too bad in that case, but was surprised when he walked back to the car shaking his head, looking dumbfounded and muttering a few expletives!

I asked what she'd said. It wasn't what she'd said that had provoked his reaction, it was who she was! If you are going to screw up on your first morning, who better to choose than your (French) French teacher who thinks the sun shines out of your backside anyway! What are the chances - a town with 23000 inhabitants, thirteen papers to deliver and he manages to get lost delivering to his teacher! Hoachy little bugger!

ROYAL WEDDING SCEPTICS

The week started with Léon and Anna blissfully unaware of that wedding. The only concession we have made to it is the 'I'm not a Royal Wedding Mug' mug I bought Thomas for his Christmas last year. Midweek Léon found out about it when he mentioned something he was looking forward to doing at school on Friday and I had to inform him school was closed. He asked why so I explained the Queen had given him the day off so he could watch the Prince's wedding on TV, to which he replied, disgruntled, that he'd much rather watch Octonauts. After today at school and nursery, however, they had both been as indoctrinated as is possible north of the border and infused with a vaguely puzzled scepticism as they came back in home-made crowns waving flags they'd been colouring in. They have now both told me they are meant to watch that wedding. I may allow them to watch three minutes either side of the You may kiss the bride - more than that would bore them anyway! I can't help but think the powers that be did exactly the wrong thing in Scotland by making it a public holiday if they actually wanted to stir up some interest here. Thinking back to my own childhood, I realized the only royal wedding I have ever watched was that of Princess Anne and Mark Phillips in November 1973. This was exactly because it was not a holiday and the entire school was forced to sit through the televised coverage in the audiovisual room. I remember the very shade of the carpet as I lay on it at just five staring into it for what seemed like hours! I particularly remember the contrast between the bright green of the carpet and the black and white of the TV we were all huddled around! I have managed to avoid all royal weddings since. By giving us all a day off we'll nip down the coast in the sun dragging our kids behind us, but if they'd been at school they'd all have been subjected to the Wills and Kate circus. This would have potentially created at least a few people interested in London's Royal Family... not that I'm complaining, of course!

JUST A QUICK WEE RANT

Given the weather has been stunning for close to three weeks I don't want to be a real stick in the mud so I'll just quickly list a few things that have annoyed me this week without over-ranting, just this once!

Rant One: Tesco is pissing me off - signs up everywhere on their garage forecourt telling me how much time I'll save if I pay at the pump. I want to pay at the pump but given they are charging £139.9 a litre and when you stick your credit card in the pump it limits you to £99, how exactly am I meant to fill up my 80 litre car? Maybe I am meant to put in 70 litres and then go inside to pay for the last ten... either bring down the price or update your bloody pumps Tesco (preferably the former!)

Rant Two: Mickey mouse phonetics... when you have spent all your best years working in dictionaries, you find it hard to believe IPA phonetics aren't on the primary school syllabus. And I won't even comment on their attempt at French. This current Stella ad makes me scream every time I drive past it. Grrrr!

And while I am being pedantic... would someone please fire the person who is in charge of the messages on the motorway gantries between Newton Mearns and Glasgow. Mr "Fuller Cars, Less Queues" himself... gimme strength!

Ok, back to the nice weather now.

GLENCOE

I have been a flickr member for five years. On average my photos get five or ten views each, half of those are probably by my parents. Of course if I upload a photo where I am breastfeeding it can rack up a few thousand over the next year or two but this photo astounded me. Within about 9 hours of it going up, it had accumulated 1243 views, and there isn't a hint of naked flesh! Is Glencoe really that popular?

ENGLISH? TULIPS

We planted some new tulips in the garden last autumn - they are very pretty, except they vaguely remind me of the English flag... If enough of them come up, I guess I could pick a bouquet and give them to my dad ;-)

TIDYING OUT THE GARAGE

We spent the whole day tidying out the garage and reclaiming the floor space thanks to a new shelving unit from IKEA. Afterwards Thomas put little labels all over the the place to make sure everything was tidied up in the correct place. Given there was one Bopster-sized space left, Thomas stuck on an Amaia label and tidied her up. She was very pleased with her own special place.

ANNA'S AUTOGRAPH

Anna has taught herself how to write her name. It isn't bad for a three year old, but the sweetest thing is listening in when she writes it. She whispers to herself as she does it: There's a house, then two bridges and a mouse on the end, don't forget the tail!

MORE ANNA WISDOM

 

For the second time in a week Anna's sweet view of life has made me smile.

I noticed a few of my friends had posted this humorous video about the forthcoming royal wedding to facebook so clicked on it to see what it was. Anna was sitting beside me when I did. When the William lookalike came on, she asked naively 'What's that man doing?' I replied that he was getting married. She looked at me as if I was completely stupid and stated quite certain of her facts because she was sure she had never seen a man in a wedding dress: 'Don't be silly! Men don't get married! Only ladies get married!' Patently she doesn't remember being at her own father's wedding just over two years ago, when apparently I was the only one who got married!

CALDERGLEN COUNTRY PARK

We like to drop into Calderglen Country Park once or twice a month during summer time. It isn't far, has a nice play park, café and a few little animals and birds. Most of all it is free of charge... or should I say was. Last Sunday Léon had a party near there so we promised to take Anna, Amaia and Charlotte up to see the meerkats while he was in the softplay. We arrived to find there was now a wall around the pretty gardens and a person at a desk charging each adult £1-10 to get in. The charge is reasonable I guess compared to some places, and unlike many that are completely unaffordable for large families, they have not (yet) gone down the route of charging every child, but it just seemed pointless to pay for only fifteen minutes, as that was how long we had before picking up Léon, so we had to leave with a rather disappointed group of girls. I suppose we'll be seeing more and more of these new types of charges as the cuts bite.

THE WORKINGS OF THE HUMAN BODY FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF A THREE YEAR OLD

Every so often one of the kids - usually but not exclusively the little ones - comes out with something that has you on the floor laughing. Anna got top prize for that on Saturday. We had been on a family holiday with my parents, my brother and his wife and my two nephews, so there were thirteen of us in total. We were leaving early on Saturday so decided to have fish suppers on Friday to limit dishes and tidying. On Saturday morning the eight adults/adolescents were all trying to get up and showered and out before 10am. That meant of course that the bathrooms, which contained the toilets, were almost constantly occupied from 8am onwards. Anna awoke at 8-30 and went to the bathroom next to her bedroom. Amanda was showering. As little girls often do she stood holding her vagina exclaiming she needed in, but of course Amanda couldn't hear her for the running water. Exasperated and trying to get her point across she yelled through the bathroom door - I need into the bathroom Amanda - my vagina's all full of fish and chips!

SPRING AT LAST

Thomas and I have a strangely different approach to the end of winter. Neither of us are great fans of winter and the cold and wet. As the cold finally starts to lift and the blossom appears in the garden, Thomas visibly lifts in spirit and oozes calm and serenity at his new-found spring paradise. I get agitated. My feet become itchy. Suddenly, seeing the beautiful weather I am reminded of how much more beautiful the rest of the year is on mainland Europe and I want to jump in the car, drive South and move into a house by a river in a meadow such as this house in Doubs in France. Thomas thinks I am odd. He finds it hard to imagine that the nicest days are those that make me want to emigrate.

ARE MY KIDS WEIRD?

Though I am not a fan, I have read more than my fair share of Noddy books to my kids over the years. For some reason the little buggers actually seem to enjoy stories about this nauseating little creature. As far as I am aware, I have read them quite clearly, whether in English or in French, so I am more than puzzled that each of my kids in turn has assumed independently (given there are years between each kids' interest in Noddy) that Noddy is female! So far Charlotte, Léon and Anna have all argued with me that Noddy is a girl and even after opening at a random page and reading 'He drove his little car round Toy town' or similar, they still remain unconvinced. I am sure that when I saw Noddy books as a child, I was in no doubt as to his gender, though he didn't look much different to today. Does anyone else have this issue?

MY WEEK OFF

So how did I get on with my to-do list?

1. finish painting the hall YES
2. fix, plaster and paint the hall ceiling YES
3. remove all dandelions from the lawn YES - give or take...
4. tidy every room EMMMM - maybe tomorrow
5. put coat hooks in the upstairs cupboard Hooks are on the floor ready to be installed - does that count?
6. put light in upstairs cupboard NO
7. clear out garage and take rubbish to the dump NO
8. dye old blue shoes navy YES
9. dye purple coat in attempt to save it YES
10. put up hall and kitchen blinds NOT EVEN CLOSE :-(
11. chisel off broken tiles on outside staircase front and back NO
12. paint front of house white NO

I also fitted in making mum Mother's day dinner, making dad a birthday cake and visiting him and mum twice and I spent a whole day weeding too. I guess that is probably better than expected.

THAT COAT AGAIN

You may remember the saga of my Italian coat... the one that faded to oblivion because I left it on my coat stand the winter I was pregnant with Amaia. Ever since, I have been staring at it considering binning it but not being able to bring myself to. Having exhausted all possible professional colouring services, I had been toying with trying to dye it myself but the label did say dry-clean only.

This week I had finally had enough - I was going to bin it anyway, so if I failed all I would have lost was £10 of dye. I ordered the nearest colour I could find, a somewhat darker shade of purple, and threw it in the washing machine along with a couple of the girls' t-shirts and trousers. After two hours I opened up. The t-shirts and trousers were a beautiful dark purple, but the coat had actually faded a little - the dye simply hadn't taken at all. It didn't seem to have shrunk any, so I was back to square one. I took it out and hung it on a hanger to dry while I thought up a plan B.

As it dried though, it suddenly became apparent that the coat had never been colourfast and the rest of the coat had now faded to exactly the same shade as the strip that had faded in the light... my coat was the same shade all over! Though it is one or two tones lighter than the original model I now have a completely wearable pinkish purple coat. I can't believe a coat that originally had a £400 label on it was so poorly dyed... But I am more than happy it was! Bloody genius! I am one happy bunny!

DAD'S NEW HAT

Forty eight hours after discovering his English heritage, Dad celebrated his birthday in suitable style. I think he's making a real effort to adjust here! ;-)

A REVEALING 24 HOURS

It's been an odd 24 hours.

For the first 43 years and 2 months of my life my dad told me I was Scottish and voted Scottish Nationalist. He hung about in his kilt shunning all things English, ridiculing cricket, the English football team, the monarchy, the union Jack and everything else. He often ranted openly that we should dig a moat along the border and the likes. It was all in the friendliest manner of course, his best friend being an Englishman who takes a weekly ribbing from him at golf as dad challenges him on Thursdays to a match between 'auld enemies' that he invariably wins.

Then a week ago Thomas started researching records of births, deaths and marriages to fill out our family tree. He was surprised to hit a dead end already at my grandfather William Buchanan (see above photo: at the back), dad's dad. Although we knew his mother's name Mary Hannah Potter - she didn't seem to exist in any records. Still as you can see here in this photo from 1926 my granda and his mum Mary Hannah clearly existed... But Mary died two years before dad was born so he didn't remember anything about her.

Almost jokingly I suggested Potter didn't sound very Scottish and maybe he ought to check English records. An hour later my father not only had an English Granny, Great Granny and Great Grandpa but also an English Uncle James, Uncle Reuben, Auntie Alice, Auntie Florence, Auntie Amy and an Aunt Rhoda and Uncle Joseph born after his 100% English family moved from Manchester to Scotland! If anyone in the family was to turn out English, dad had to be the candidate with the most scope for comedy... Mum is joking about divorce, Derek is commiserating that dad found out too late to play for the English national football team, Thomas is asking if he wants him to switch on the cricket... the jokes haven't stopped all day! It is hard to imagine my granda never mentioned to his own son that his mother and all her family were English, but there you go!

As we dropped by today to laugh out loud at dad and see his reaction to the shame of it all, things couldn't have been timed better. After just twenty minutes, who should drop by completely by chance other than dad's English best mate Steve - I thought he was going to need resuscitating when he was told, given dad has told him English jokes on a weekly basis since they first met when I was 8! When I left, suggestions were being made that dad should perhaps be considering throwing a street party for the royal wedding later this month!

This one is going to go on and on, I can tell!

MORE EYES

After last Thursday's experiment I decided to extract all my kids eyes. I have to conclude that while Charlotte's are green with a hint of yellow, Marcel's are almost orange with a hint of green, Anna has a pale green and brown right eye but brown and grey left one and little Léon's are blue with yellow blobs! What a beautifully unique (if freaky) bunch of kids I've managed to create! Check them out on largest size if you don't believe me!

A WEEK OFF

Three times a year my three biggies go off to their father's for a holiday. Given I absolutely dread it, I find I spend the days leading up to it coming up with a mental list of chores to occupy all my free time. Today I started to write it down while awaiting the ominous tooting at the end of my path - the man still won't ring my doorbell five years on...

So here we go:

1. finish painting the hall
2. fix, plaster and paint the hall ceiling
3. remove all dandelions from the lawn
4. tidy every room
5. put coat hooks in the upstairs cupboard
6. put light in upstairs cupboard
7. clear out garage and take rubbish to the dump
8. dye old blue shoes navy
9. dye purple coat in attempt to save it
10. put up hall and kitchen blinds
11. chisel off broken tiles on outside staircase front and back
12. paint front of house white

Every year of course when they return after one week away I am utterly dumbfounded that I have not completed my list of chores. I often forget you see that what Thomas and I both refer to as our 'week off' is actually what average couples consider a normal busy week - ie only having one three year old and one baby to look after while working full and part time!

How far will I get this time?

THEY'RE GREEN, I MEAN YELLOW, I MEAN BROWN... GREY... BLUE?????

I have been puzzling over Amaia's eye colour now for some time. So I thought that if I removed all the colour from a picture apart from her eyes, I would be undistracted and pin it down much more carefully. It is so much clearer now - they have a blue rim round the edge of the iris and the pupil and in between is infused with a mix of green, yellowish brown and grey in equal measures... I'm so glad you no longer need to state eye colour on passports!

აჯაფსანდალი

Well what a difference two years can make! Tonight Thomas made აჯაფსანდალი again. He knows it from the year he lived in Tbilisi. It was absolutely gorgeous - I could eat a whole bucketful without ever tiring of it, but Anna, who loved it when we had it in Paris when she was a baby, took ten minutes to chew one piece of aubergine, and I swear she'd have looked happier chewing on a wasp, and when she got to the chunk of peppers, she started gagging as if we were trying to kill her, wailing 'I don't like this!' The solution, of course, is to make it more often so she becomes accustomed once more!

FROST DAMAGE

Like our poor dead palm tree (which was guaranteed down to -7 celsius), the adhesive used on our outdoor tiles crumbled under this winter's abnormally cold temperatures causing them to fall off, shatter or shift. Now the weather is finally improving, we're going to have to chisel them all off before they kill the postman. The big question is what to use in their place given the last two winters have been cold enough to shatter our tiles, and those of all our neighbours?

SPRING IN SCOTLAND

I will never understand this country. Here is a photo of Léon and Anna making a snowman in our garden after a whole-day blizzard last week. It was so bad the high school was considering closing before the roads became dangerous. The next photo was taken at 9-15 this morning, when Thomas and I had breakfast outside in our garden with the girls when they woke up. I was wearing only a t-shirt and a skirt and had bare feet. Anna stopped half way through to beg for sunglasses because it was so sunny!

BELLING KENSINGTON DUAL FUEL COOKER

For want of something better to do, I thought I'd write a concise review of my cooker tonight. Here it is (above): two electric ovens, one slow cooker oven, one grill and seven gas burners: two small burners, three medium ones, one large and a giant wok burner. For starters the slow oven is a non-event - I use it to store baking trays. The ovens are fine, a good size and efficient, as is the grill. The burners aren't 100% ideal. It could use one smaller than the smallest, and one larger than the largest, but on the whole the burners do the job. So what's my gripe? Zoom in and look at the finish. At the bottom of both oven windows the metal has peeled away leaving rusty surfaces, presumably when water on condensation has run down the front of it. This happened within a year of buying it. More rust can be found on the top of the doors and along the rim of the hob. This is hardly what you'd expect from a cooker that is just two years old and cost over £1200. Surely at that price they don't expect you to replace it annually? So I won't be buying this make when this heap finally rusts away completely.

OVER-OPTIMISTIC?

I was reading this article in the Independent today. (Skip down to The seven ages of debt if you are in a rush). I am sure it is meant to shock you into thinking how awful John's future is, but to be honest I think it is over-optimistic.
For starters let's look at points one and two. I have a better degree than John and went straight into Publishing after university. Let me tell you now - no one starts in a publishing house on £30K outside London, and if John's rented flat has two bedrooms and currently costs him £800 a month, he's living too far from London to be working there!
My next quibble with point two is John getting a £170K mortgage. Five years ago John may have got a six times salary mortgage but he wouldn't today, so I can only assume Chloe is earning about the same as John, no less the £25K anyway. If her starter salary is £25K, chances are she too went to uni, so why is her student debt not factored in?
Next, I have an issue with John getting £25K from his parents. Given his parents are possibly around 60, they may indeed have £25K, maybe in equity, to lend him, but pensioners are having interest on savings issues these days, and if they are still working, chances are they will have been made redundant in their late 50s so be less than happy to dish out £25K after doubtlessly helping John through uni. Also, it mentions later in the article that John is one of four. Did Mr and Mrs Skint the elder really have a spare £100K to lend all four for housing? So in my model, John would have a lower salary, Chloe would have a debt and the Senior Skints would not be lending him as much as £25K.
Let's move on to point three... John is 37 and earning £45K. Again unless he's in London, he's got to be a director to earn £45K in a publishing house. He may very well be, but given only one or two in a department of forty or fifty are directors then using the one who made it, rather than Mr Average is misleading. I also believe from the tone of the article that we are meant to believe he is Mr Average. Assuming 37 year old John is Mr Average Middle-Management and has been employed by this publishing house for 16 years then the chances are he will be made redundant between 35 and 45 (and again his salary is too high). My experience says middle management are first to go round after round and rounds happen every two to three years. Also the longer you have been employed, the more likely you are to go so the company can change its pension policies. On average, people in most industries, but definitely this one, do not stay in the same job any more for 16 years without being made redundant. So their average guy isn't following an average pattern.
Also £20K for a wedding, honeymoon and redecoration of a house seems a little optimistic to me. Even your bargain basement wedding and honeymoon would be £10K, leaving £10K for wallpaper, a kitchen, a bathroom, flooring etcetc... unlikely.
Point four is amongst the most ridiculous. He still hasn't been made redundant after 28 years and he is now on £55K in publishing! So if he still isn't in London, he is the MD of the company on that salary. This is highly unlikely in that industry. But better still, after 12 years at home baking cakes and wiping bums Chloe lands a 3 day a week job earning £27K with no current experience. That's a pro rata salary of £45K. Give me strength - cloud cuckoo land, I'm afraid. If you take 12 years out, you go back three days a week as a school secretary or you work in a supermarket or whatever on minimum wage not on £45K, sorry, this is totally unrealistic! And given what I believe John and Chloe would actually be earning, there's no way he'd have paid off his debt in his forties.
Another thing I find hard to believe in this article, call me a cynic, is that if John and Chloe have been together twenty years under quite a financial strain then the chances are John and Chloe would end up divorcing like Mr and Mrs Average in the UK. The divorce rate is over 50% now so to factor a divorce in would make the figures very interesting. Add in the £10K the divorce would cost to fight through the courts, add in buying each other out of the house, add in paying each other their pension entitlements upfront, add in child maintenance, add in perhaps a second family for John when he remarries in his forties, add in starting a new 25 year mortgage at that point and you get something closer to Mr Skint's future.
By point five I am still worried about John representing an average graduate. Aren't two kids more normal than four? And if so John should be paying double for his mother's care home because he should be splitting the costs with just one, not three siblings, more than likely.
Point six - finally he's made redundant after only changing job once in 56 years - sorry this is true of today's over 70s but even my father's generation had stopped getting jobs for life, so I don't buy this.
And finally does Mr Average's mother really not die till he is 75? Wow, interesting. I guess it may be possible by then but we'll have to wait and see.
All in all, if I set out John's life, I have to conclude it looks far, far bleaker than this rose-tinted version from the Independent, I'm afraid!

WHITELEE WIND FARM

Marcel goes to Mearns Castle High school. As you come out the front door you see windmills everywhere on the horizon. Every time I visit his school and see them I make a mental note to go and visit the windfarm, but I always forget.

As we left a meeting there this week, I decided to google the farm when I got home and yesterday the weather was passable enough for a visit. I had deliberately not visited the farm in winter because it claimed to be closed. Now I've been, I realize it is the visitor centre and not the farm that is closed in winter so I am already lining up next winter's snowy pictures of these majestic beasts!

Anyway, our visit was a great hit. Léon was in heaven, zooming about hyper with his imagination in overdrive, Anna was a little concerned by the vaguely scary big windmills, but felt ever so brave for walking amongst them. Amaia liked the walk but had no obvious opinion. Even Marcel and Charlotte didn't ooze teenage indifference as usual but asked about the technology behind them and didn't beg to go home. And it was a free, fresh-air experience! Result!

Thomas and I even discussed going power-walking there with Amaia in her buggy on nice afternoons when the other four are off at school and nursery... camera in hand of course!

How have I managed to live here on and off for the last ten years without ever going there?

LIFE IN A FAMILY OF SEVEN

I was discussing family life with my sister-in-law last week and she mentioned being overwhelmed by washing sometimes (she has a five year old and a baby). Instantly on saying this she stopped and laughed and commented that she was probably saying this to the wrong person, given I was likely to know all about being overwhelmed by washing! So I wondered how many people do washing like us? Let's take my haul for today - we had eight blue IKEA bags (ie eight washing machine loads) today. Of course, as soon as all this was done and put away numbers one through five took baths and refilled the laundry basket in the bathroom bouncing us back to square one! I reckon we average about ten to twelve washes a week.

ANNA'S GRANDPA

Here is a photo of Anna with her two grandfathers. She calls my dad Pumpa, a family word invented by Marcel about 12 years ago, and Peter Großvater because he's German. Up till about three weeks ago, that was that. Then suddenly for some reason, perhaps because she has no one she officially calls Grandpa, she decided to invent one. I was driving home from nursery when she first mentioned Grandpa: My Grandpa likes to play tennis, she announced. I asked if she meant dad or Peter but she said she was talking about her Grandpa. After that we have had a piece of random information divulged daily about this grandpa. He has green hair, he likes beans, he has a bum at the front and a tail, he likes to go to the park, he bakes cakes, he sometimes wears skirts, he can hide in her sock drawer, his car is pink, he likes to ballet-dance with Anna and so on. And when I ask who she means by grandpa, she sometimes looks at me as if I'm the one who's daft and says You know, my pretend one!

I wonder if it is normal for your three year old daughter's imaginary friend to be a rather eccentric elderly gentleman!

MULTICULTURALISM

One of the great things about living in a multicultural family is learning about all the other country's little festivals and fun days... of course when you mix Scotland, France, Denmark and Germany into the one family then you get more than your fair share of fun. Last weekend Thomas introduced the kids to his barrel-less version of 'fastelavn' complete with iced buns, while we introduced his mother to pancake day on Tuesday. Just as at Christmas, we have to celebrate Christmas both on the 24th for all our European members, and again on the 25th for the Scots - double meals, double presents and such idiosyncrasies and one set of presents lying under the tree on the 24th (which of course must be in the middle of the room, not the corner or window, because you need to be able to dance round it) and another that appear the next morning... though the first batch does tend to nuke the Santa-myth by about talking age! I don't know about my kids, but I like being this kind of multicultural freak!

THE SWEETEST BOY

I sometimes wonder if it is possible for someone to be as sweet as Léon. Today, as I drove him home from school in a violent hail storm, he innocently asked me 'If you were out in the garden with a coffee when the storm came on, would your coffee end up too sweet?' - 'Sorry, what?' I asked puzzled. 'Aren't these lumps that are falling made of cold sugar?' Awwh - I want to live on planet Pudge!

WHO TEACHES THE TEACHERS THESE DAYS?

Here we are (all six of them, plus Amaia and I) out for a walk in the park this very early-spring day. Why, you may ask? Well poor Pudgeman's homework for next Friday, given he's currently studying 'parks', is to collect 14 different types of leaf in a basket for his teacher. She's been very specific - she wants a Hazel, a Rowan, a Birch, a Chestnut, a Maple etcetc but unfortunately she seems to have forgotten to include the tickets for the return flight to Melbourne in his homework folder because I'm blowed if I can work out how you are meant to leaf-collect when it is neither summer, nor autumn...

NEPHEW MNEMONICS

Derek and Amanda discussed countless names for little Alasdair when he was just a little boy-bump but I don't think Alasdair was ever mentioned to us until he was actually born. All the Als I knew were either Alistairs or Alastairs so when Derek spelled out A-L-A-S-D-A-I-R to me as I sat in the car park of South Devon Chilli farm last August, I felt daunted! I would never remember that! But the kids instantly came up with a solution. The first time I complained, Charlotte told me quite matter-of-fact that they'd chosen the ASDA spelling! Al-ASDA-ir - and it works! I now never forget... I wonder if they have another kid one day if they'll name him/her Al-TESCO-ir, just so stupid auntie can cope?!

CENSUS 2011

We were discussing the census with my in-laws over dinner the other night. Given they are both foreign and both qualified ministers of religion, they looked quite horrified when we explained the great British Jedi faith joke of the last census. Marcel and Lots, of course were little more than babies at the last one so asked with great interest about it. We explained about people with no religion, or maybe a lapsed one giving Jedi. Marcel chuckled and asked to be filled in as that, given he is unchristened, despite not being overly interested in Star Wars now he's 13. Charlotte looked more serious. She often finds others' humour more difficult to fathom, in a vaguely autisitc manner. I asked if she wanted to be a Jedi too. She thought about it for a moment then replied even more seriously - No put me down as 'Sith'. Should I be worried?

95 TODAY

Here's a photo of me (looking not-un-Amaia-like) taken in spring 1968 with my Granny Jean. She would have been 95 today... had she not died 27 years ago. When I was born my parents lived with her and Gramps, so theirs was my first home. After we left when I was six months old, I visited her almost every weekend, staying overnight, until her death when I was 16. I remember her scabby, old pull-down bed in the living room. We used to lie in it on a Saturday morning watching Laurel and Hardy, Champion the Wonder Horse or Cowboy movies... all in black and white of course. She used to tell me stories about being a tomboy at school - in complete contrast to me, but ironically just like my daughter, whom she never met. She used to knit herself what seemed like the same cardie over and over in different colours and would take us shopping for buttons on Saturdays. She ate special k with raisins every night at bed time and washed them down with a cup of hot water in a clear cup! And she spent endless hours doing crosswords, always asking for a new little dictionary for Xmas or her birthday. One of my biggest regrets is that my Granny didn't live long enough to see me work for a dictionary company. I imagine sometimes how her face would have lit up in some parallel universe if I'd brought her home a copy of Collins Large English dictionary instead of the Gems I bought her as a teenager. I like to think she'd have been proud to see her granddaughter's name on the imprint page of so many dictionaries as the lexicographer. I guess people never really leave, they live on in your head forever.

WORKING FROM HOME

Thomas and I have both worked from home now since Léon was three. In the lifetime of a five year old, that's probably quite long. The other day one of his new classmates asked him home to play. His mother invited me along just to get to know another mum from the class. As we went to leave Léon said he wasn't ready to leave and wanted to play another little while. I explained we had to go because Fraser's mummy had to pick up his daddy from the station. Fraser doesn't have a daddy, mum. Léon replied. When I asked what made him think that, he replied that he'd been upstairs to play and there were no men working on computers in any of the upstairs bedrooms! He obviously has no notion of a parent going out to work and being missing for many hours a day. I guess he lives in a happy, safe world where the people you love are always on hand when you need them. I'm so glad the commuting days are over, for now at least.

VULCAN TENDENCIES?

Charlotte is a wee bit of a logic-only vulcan at times, seemingly not seeing what everyone else would do in a given situation but only what makes sense. Yesterday when I picked her up from school it was a beautiful, warm spring afternoon. She remarked as she got into Thomas's car that it was filthy. Given the weather conditions she offered to start up her car-washing business that she had been running all last summer. I agreed. Given her wee pal Demi, who she ran it with, has moved away she asked firstly if she could be paid double this year as she'd have to do the jobs herself. I saw no issue with that. She popped outside and spent a good half hour washing Thomas's car, hosing and drying it. I went out and it looked great, gleaming in the sunlight. She started to pack the stuff away. I walked round it. The passenger side was completely untouched! When I asked why, she told me she needed to do some important homework that would take her till sunset and would wash the other half of the car today, or Monday! Given her availability, she thought that was a completely logical thing to do. She, of course, isn't the one driving around in a half-black, half-red car looking like a complete weirdo. Is it just me?

DESTROYER TROLL

I never understood playpens before. Why would you want to put your child in a small cage while you do the housework or cook? Surely that is just laziness? After all, how much harm can one small, angelic troll cause?
Then I had Amaia...
Amaia has developed her own special method of crawling. It means she can lose things all round the house for you. She particularly likes moving one of each of her siblings' shoes to another room so they run about in a panic before school in the morning. After she discovered shoe moving, she progressed to book-shredding. Despite having all these kids and all these books, Amaia is actually the first of my children to realize you can take the books down from the shelves and rip off their front covers just to confuse the adults. She seemingly has a stash of (fortunately washable) felt tips somewhere that she uses to colour in the wooden floor boards whenever we turn our backs too. If one of the little ones drops a knife on the floor at dinner, Amaia instantly finds it and creeps about brandishing it menacingly. She does a mean impersonation of the Andrex puppy too these days. In the bathroom she alternates between puppy antics and loo-brush sucking. She has a great fondness for bin-emptying and of course eating the no-longer edible contents of bins wherever possible. But I think the thing I am finding most tedious at the present time is the fact that not only has she worked out how to take the lock off the Welsh dresser door where we keep the plates, but she takes them out quietly one by one, puts them all over the dining room floor and today has moved on to colouring in the insides of the bowls once again using her well-hidden felt-tips. The most astounding thing I find is that almost every time we find her in a compromising position, both Léon and Anna are in the room with her and it never occurs to them to tell her off. What's your sister doing guys? Ohhh, emmm colouring in the floor I think!
Maybe a playpen wouldn't be such a bad idea...

CONFUSION

I haven't played at cloning since Léon was a baby. Last night while sitting with the kids editing some photos I noticed I had taken three photos in the bath which lent themselves to a quick cloning job. Once I was done I showed the photo to Léon and Anna. Who's that? I asked. Léon looked along the line Anna, Gordy?, me and Amaia? He asked, dubious. No, look, that's not Amaia! I pointed out. He looked even more puzzled and ventured Charlotte? When I asked him which of the Léons was Léon he was dumbstruck. Eventually I explained it was Anna, Léon, Léon and Anna. I asked if he remembered me taking it. He was utterly speechless. Eventually after a few hours he asked if the whole thing might have something to do with scissors and glue! Finally his brain was starting to comprehend it was a trick photo, but it took a while.

BABAR'S GALLERY

We came across the book Babar's Gallery in the play area of Glasgow's Museum of Modern Art the other weekend. It is very obviously based on the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. Many of the paintings redrawn inside are from the Orsay from what I remember, others are simply extremely famous paintings we all know. The kids were drawn to it in the gallery, so we bought it on Amazon used for next to nothing. Léon and Anna can't get enough of it, constantly asking us to show them the real work of art on google and comparing both. Anna is particularly taken with Babar as Munch's Scream, even going as far as asking what is making him scream and wondering what the elephant might fear. At this rate they'll be able to pass a university exam in History of Art by the time they reach primary 2! I'd definitely recommend it highly to anyone who'd like to get their kids interested in art.

LÉON AND ANNA AND CHILDCARE COSTS

Today when I dropped Anna off for her 2 hours and 45 minutes of free state nursery care, I was handed a letter from the council. The director of education was offering me a holiday cover place for the ten days the nursery is closed at the beginning of April for 'just £32 a day'. It got me to thinking about childcare costs again. Calculating what it would cost me to have all my kids looked after for say the seven weeks of summer holiday alone is of course laughable (£4385.20 if we used the local private nursery for Amaia and the council summer clubs for the other four) but imagine I only had Léon and Anna which is a fairly normal family, right? They still expect me to pay £32 a day for Anna and £29.80 a day for Léon to use the council summer scheme, in other words £2348.40 for the seven weeks and three days they are off in summer.) How is this supposed to work in a city where the average salary is in the low £20k bracket?

BORDER CHUCKLES

If you should ever happen to bump into me in an airport here or abroad with my kids and you wonder why I am having a fit of the giggles at passport control, just remember this scene. In order to get the required 'cream background with no shadows' on his passport photo, my poor adolescent son was forced to lie between my legs looking where he probably would rather not, while his younger brother distracted him with a giant happy sunflower. And to think most people simply pay a few quid to sit in a boring booth - how conventional!

ANNA

There are certain levels of cuteness that are hard to achieve after the age of about three. Take this situation, for example... not many people over the age of three manage to fall asleep onto a cushion while standing beside a couch and land so comfortably that they actually remain standing for the entire duration of their sleep! Anna spent a full ten minutes asleep standing up in our TV room before Thomas carried her off to bed. I missed it, being in the bath, but fortunately Charlotte had the presence of mind to take the photographic evidence I needed! Awwwh, bless her cotton socks!

ISLAND BAKERY LEMON MELTS

I got a box of these biscuits for my birthday last week and they were so good I thought I would recommend them to everyone out there! Creamy, lemony, melt-in-the mouth - delish!

THE BEST £1.50 I EVER SPENT

I was in town on Saturday and Léon was moaning that he didn't have slipper socks like those I'd bought his sisters last week. Given they are only £1.50, I promised him a pair. He is given to imagination and lives in his own fantasy world at times but there was one side effect I simply could not have foreseen. As soon as he put them on, he informed me that the monsters on the front of the socks were tidy monsters and were appalled at the mess in the house. He told me they wanted to tidy up the toys that were lying around. He picked up all the toys in the dining room. I figured he'd run out of steam soon enough but half an hour later I heard him telling Marcel to lift his feet in the TV room, next the kitchen, living room and hall were blitzed. At lunch time I thought he'd gone missing till he was seen backing out of my bedroom with a broom in his hand!! It was too good to be true. His own room was next, then I heard him shouting at both Marcel and Lots to let him in to their bedrooms! I was speechless by the time he forced Thomas upstairs into his office and kept him there for half an hour! After that the monsters were satisfied, so it looks like I've been left with two halls and all the bathrooms to do myself but on the balance I am defintely liking his £1-50 socks quite a lot!!!!

LAUGHING BABIES

Isn't this just a priceless photo? Wee babies really love their grandparents, don't they?

FOOD LOVER

I don't think I've ever had a child who takes so much pleasure out of feeding herself her own dinner. The highchair did need to be dismantled and bleached afterwards but she just loved the independence of feeding herself three whole bowls of spaghetti with tomato sauce! Mum took one look at the series of photos on flickr and remarked she'd out-messied even my messiest child! What a good new word!

THE IMPORTANCE OF LITERACY

I was in town last Saturday in Primark with Karen buying slipper socks for Amaia and some tights for Anna. I returned home and Anna looked more pleased than I expected when I entered with my large, brown, paper Primark bag. She skipped towards me expectantly and said, almost singing 'I know what's for dinner!' Odd, I hadn't been to ASDA yet. 'Fish and chips!' she explained... I forgot that to a child who can't read, a Primark bag looks exactly the same as the brown, paper bag Granny and Pumpa had bought her fish and chips from the local chip shop in last week! Her tights turned out to be a bit of an anti-climax after that.