STIEG LARSSON

Last year when we were in Copenhagen, we nipped across to Sweden for the afternoon because Thomas wanted to buy the Stieg Larsson trilogy in Swedish. Thomas never reads translations... if he fancies a book, he'd rather learn enough of the language to read it than read it in translation! (Yes, I know he's eccentric, but you have got to admire his madness!) That left me with a dilemma... I don't read translations when I speak the language, but I haven't read anything in Swedish for twenty years, and I noticed that even after one afternoon in Sweden, my Swedish was interfering with my Danish. On return to Copenhagen I noticed I was reading the 'K's on shop signs in my head as if they were written 'SH' and I could hear a ridiculous singing intonation creeping into my head as I read station names and the likes on the Copenhagen metro. Had I spoken the sounds out loud Thomas would have fallen over laughing at me. Danish is so much more macho sounding than Swedish! I learned Swedish at uni but given in its written form Danish is about 80% understandable to someone with Swedish, I never officially needed to learn to read Danish. Then I moved in with Thomas and after many years of hearing Danish every day, I now understand that better but in its spoken form it is very different sounding to Swedish. If a foreigner has only learned Swedish and hears Danish they are clueless as to what is being said unless the Danish comes with subtitles in Danish. Swedish is fairly simple phonetically - it looks like the words you hear. Danish is unfortunately like English - full of words like 'light' or 'write' with silent bits and bits that aren't pronounced like you expect if you haven't learned it! To sum it up - I understand spoken Danish easier than Swedish, but written Swedish as well as written Danish.

Having watched the nine hour television series of the Larsson trilogy in Swedish, I am now tuned back into that but if I spend the rest of the year reading Larsson in Swedish will my Danish become laughable? So do I break my own no-translation rule? (I happily read translations when I don't speak the language by the way!) Do I do the ridiculous and buy it in Danish (given the price of books in Denmark) or do I take Swedish to bed every night and start singing my Danish to the point where I start to sound like the muppet chef?

APPLE JUICE

Amaia's linguistic expertise has taken on a new dimension today. Following on from her inventions of her 'tired' and her 'drive' the other day, she has now decided that things are called what she wants them to be called, and if that doesn't match the real name, then that's simply tough - we should learn the new name!

Today she came in and asked for 'apple juice'. It was as clear as day. 'Mummy, I wan appoo juice'. No problems there. So I gave her a glass of diluting apple juice in a plastic beaker. She was distraught! She has an inflated sense of her age, so I assumed I had offended her with the lid (she doesn't use a lid at the table any more, but I'd given her this so she could walk about with it). Even without the lid, this apple juice made her fall to the ground in dramatic, hysterical tears. She stormed through to the living room and started pointing at her auntie wailing 'appoo juice' over and over. Amanda was drinking a caramel cappuccino I'd made two minutes earlier. I took Amaia back through to the kitchen and pointed at the cappuccino machine. She became less agitated. I poured the remaining frothy milk, a dribble of coffee and a spoonful of caramel into a Toy Story mug, half filling it. 'Apple juice?' I asked. She smiled, took it from me and wandered back to the living room where she sat down in front of the patio doors happily repeating the words 'appoo juice' over and over while hugging her mug and sipping her coffee.

If only I had more money I could commission myself to write and publish an Amaia-English English-Amaia bilingual dictionary!

HERE WE GO AGAIN

Eighteen months ago when Hazeldene Nursery told us Léon had failed his eye test, we were more than surprised. Neither Marcel nor Lots has any eyesight problems and I didn't get my first reading glasses till a few weeks before my 41st birthday.

We took him to the hospital follow-up and were told he was long-sighted and would need glasses at least till he was a teenager, if not permanently. So the fun and expense of keeping glasses unscratched, unbroken, unlost etc began.

I immediately tried to get Anna's eyes tested at the time. Opticians refused because she was under four. I tried in vain to get the hospital to look at her when I was there with Léon. I asked for a doctor's referral but was told she would be checked at four anyway.

She isn't four until next month but the nursery contacted us last month to say she too has now failed her nursery sight test.

Yesterday, I phoned the hospital who said she'd be receiving a non-urgent appointment at some point in the future. Léon's first appointment had taken nine months to come through. I wasn't going to put up with that again. After speaking persuasively to them for half an hour Anna has now been given an appointment next week.

Given the hassle value of glasses and small children, I really hope they've made a mistake, but Anna is so excited about being old enough to get glasses just like her big brother, she's already picked out a pink pair in Dollond & Aitchison so if they tell her she doesn't need them she's going to be beside herself!

MEMORY TECHNIQUES

On our way home from school today Léon was discussing his school winter show. He's one of the narrators. I asked his lines, and he told me them. I asked how he knew when to say them and he explained that he knew that as soon as Lily had sat down, he had to stand up and say his bit. Charlotte asked what Lily's words were. Léon looked blank and replied that he didn't know, he just knew she only said one thing so when she sat down it was his turn. Charlotte looked shocked. Ever since p1, I have simply memorized the school play so I know when to speak, she explained, somewhat matter of fact. The whole play? I asked. Of course, she replied! Given last year's offering was a cut down version of a Shakespeare play and she was only ten, I was more than surprised. So I guess I have the two extremes of personality in my kids - one who doesn't know the preceding line, the other who could give the whole half hour as a monologue!

FUNCTIONAL LANGUAGE

Amaia, unlike the rest of my children, has taken to making up nouns by taking the adjective or verb she associates with a particular item and substituting that for the real noun. You can tell her in English (or Danish) that she should go to 'bed' as often as you like but she insists on referring to it as her 'tired'. Yesterday, sitting at a junction, a rather nice car passed. 'Nice drive!' she exclaimed pointing at it.

It will be interesting to watch how this pattern develops.

FUTURE SHOPLIFTER/DRUG SMUGGLER?

I know many people dream of rich and powerful futures for their offspring, but I am beginning to suspect Amaia may simply grow up to be a shoplifter or drug smuggler! :-(

She has a habit of taking things and hiding them in her vest. She pops them in at the neck and we find them at various places throughout the day.

Take this last week. First, ten or so of Léon's lego men, complete with guns, spears, helmets and Viking horns all went missing. No one had seen them until I noticed Amaia had a limp the morning after they went missing. She was wearing her fleecy all-in-one pyjamas. The men were found in her left leg, after she'd managed to sleep a whole night with them.

The following day I pulled off her pinafore at bath time and her cutlery from dinner fell out of that!

Today I was about to change her nappy when I found sound strange dented patterns on her pelvis - I opened the nappy to find it full of paperclips, which once again had been inserted at her neck and fallen down through her vest into the nappy.

Finally, on another nappy change, I opened the poppers to reveal her stomach had various coloured stripes on it... and as I searched further up inside the vest, I of course found various crayons and felt tip pens minus lids.

Given we have so many relatives abroad, I really need to take great care before boarding a flight, especially with some of the more budget-end airlines... Trying to explain that I was not in fact trying to smuggle a knife, a cork screw or various unidentified powders, gels or substances in my baby's nappy might not just wash with them! :-\

O2

Have you ever tried to buy a phone off O2? I wouldn't bother if I were you...

Lots has had her heart set on buying a new phone since her old Sony Ericsson(?) gave up the ghost a few weeks ago. After a rather large rant at her about her not spending half of the savings she's been amassing for over three years, she finally gave in and opted for the lowest spec Smart phone she could afford. Everywhere on the web seemed to be selling it at around £120, O2 had it  at seventy something.

She has her own debit card these days - one of those teenage accounts to get you used to cards but with no overdraft facility - so first she ordered it with her own card, got a delivery slot of the following day and was very happy. I waited in and nothing turned up. She phoned and they had no track of her order. I asked if she'd followed the online instructions to the letter - nothing had gone wrong but she hadn't received a confirmation email so she reordered. She still got no email. I phoned again - no order. Assuming they had maybe tracked it as a child's card and were maybe blocking it that way but giving her no indication she was being blocked, I offered to buy it if she went to the ATM in the sweetie shop and got me the cash instead.

I followed the tedious instructions again all the way through and after a wait, I was told my transaction had been declined. This was the third time with no info. I was seriously annoyed at the lack of explanation. I decided to phone and buy it instead. Another half hour was wasted going through all the same details. And at the end my transaction was declined! At least over the phone they actually tell you why! My bank smile.co.uk wasn't authorising the transaction unless I rang to confirm it was me. For crying out loud! If I can spend £70 in Tesco without being hassled, why can't I buy a phone? Thanks Smile! 2/10 for customer services, but O2's online shop could easily have explained this to me too 2/10 to them as well.

I phoned Smile and told them I was me and they told me they'd authorise me spending my money, (thanks a lot), then I phoned O2 back. No, I have nothing better to do with my time, really I don't! Yes, back to square one, I re-re-re-re-ordered the phone and was given a delivery slot of today between 7am and 9pm! No I really have nothing better to do all day than man the doorbell, honestly.

At 2pm, O2 rang me to ask if I had any suggestions for their customer services department! Communication would be a good start - I explained the saga, and before I let him off the hook I asked if my phone had been dispatched. Yes, at 1pm! Great - no more moody female child to deal with... or?

8-30pm came and I had that sinking feeling for the third time. I wasted another ten minutes with O2 who gave me the phone number of Yodel who were delivering my phone. I rang them. The reference number didn't match anything they had, so I gave them my postcode. Oh yes, that's been dispatched from head office, said the bloke in a scouse accent, it should be in Scotland tomorrow but I'm not sure when it'll get to you. I explained O2 telling me to wait in today and was informed that they'd just leave it with a neighbour if I was out so I had been misled. I also mentioned that I'd been promised a delivery today and told them I'd stayed home to wait on it. Oh some of these companies we deliver for like to promise dates but they aren't set in stone, just best guesses, he informed me helpfully!

Great customer service O2, well done - you just went down to 0/10! Next time one of my kids wants a phone I'll be recommending the T-mobile shop who always dispatch my new company phones on the day I ask and are never late!

Rant over - I'll let you know what (if anything) tomorrow brings!

HOME-MADE POLITICS?

Thomas has always been very political, blogging constantly about both UK and Danish politics but when I found he'd installed a home-made voting booth at the entrance to our bedroom this morning, I had to wonder what he was planning!

It turns out, in fact, to be a puppet theatre that he's been working on so he can throw puppet shows in Danish for the three youngest kids - he has a box of puppets upstairs - how sweet! Though rumour has it he expects me to paint it before use.

It is a shame really - I had this thought that if I installed it in my garden during the next general election, I could  put up posters directing locals here to vote and have some fun with it! It could be quite a good way to influence the outcome of the local poll but it'll probably be less convincing in red or blue!

A CLEAR NIGHT

I was up at the wind farm again today just for half an hour. Unfortunately other commitments meant I couldn't hang about for sunset. I was quite surprised how far you could see. It's the first time I have noticed the sea and the Ailsa Craig in the distance.

PROUD OF THE MAN MY SON IS BECOMING

This photo was taken yesterday... yesterday on my time scale but nearly fourteen and a half years ago in reality.

When Marcel was this small I couldn't begin to imagine the adult he would become but today I am starting to see who he will be.

Life doesn't always turn out how you expected but you do your best for your kids as they grow.

When I left his dad, when he was eight, I was convinced that I was doing the right thing. It was right for me because I didn't love him any more. But more than anything I thought it was imperative for my boys that I show them the consequences of neglect in a relationship. I figured that if I stayed, I was tacitly telling my boys that they didn't need to make any effort with their future partners and the ultimate outcome of that could be their partners walking out on them, potentially taking their kids away many years down the line. I had to leave to protect them from future heartbreak, otherwise I would have failed them.

Although I knew divorce was best, you never know if your kids are going to see that. It takes a certain maturity to get there, I imagine.

Today I was driving my child into town.

We talk a lot these days. Suddenly, spontaneously, he came out with the words I have secretly needed to hear for the last six years, but that I didn't expect to hear until he had a family of his own:

I'm so glad you and papa got divorced, he suddenly revealed. It was the best thing you ever did, mum. I can't begin to imagine our lives if you'd stayed with him. I remember what it was like, the others don't. You two together is unimaginable to me. When you were with him, you were frankly a bit weird, but now you're you!

Phew - what can you say to that? He is so right. André made me a nervous wreck, Thomas calms me but how can one so young, with so little life experience be quite so astute? I'm a very proud mum.

INHERITED CHARACTER TRAITS

Looking at your child and seeing yourself is such a special feeling. You see your expression in eyes of another colour, your smile on a man who was your little boy just a few years earlier, you hear your laugh in a baby - it makes you realize what everything is all about.

Listening to the little ones parent the littler ones is always amusing. I overhear Anna chastising Amaia (or even Léon) in words she could have only stolen from me and I laugh. She accuses me of procrastinating and I know she's heard Thomas and I chatting!

One of the most amusing things when you have as large an age spread as me is hearing the younger ones use their knowledge of what they hear from the older ones when interpreting what is going on around them. Léon occasionally refers to girls as 'fit' when he means 'pretty' for example! Marcel! And tonight Anna was standing on a chair above me singing what she thought were the correct words to the nursery rhyme: "I'm the king of the castle, and you're a dirty wee 'arsehole'!" I'm not sure that happens when three year olds don't have teenage siblings!

It is particularly fascinating to analyse the character traits your children inherit. Thomas hates embarrassing situations. Movies of the Borat type leave him squirming to the point he cannot physically sit on the couch and he dashes for the kitchen at the first opportunity on the pretext of coffee-making or the likes. Anna has inherited this character trait and I suspect from Amaia's concerned look in the above photo she probably has too. It was taken as they were watching the Swedish (dubbed into Danish) film Emil i Lönneberga. It shows a boy of about eight getting into all sorts of scrapes and up to all sorts of nonsense - he upsets his father by filling his wellies with water to check if they are water-tight and drops some black pudding mixture on his head for example. Instead of laughing, as intended, at the slapstick comedy of the situation, as Léon does, Anna squirms nervously on the couch saying he makes her feel ill at ease, while Amaia chews her fist worriedly, neither girl even smiling at the fun goings-on. Thomas came in last night and looked similarly uncomfortable. It is very sweet to watch!

SMARTER, OR... POORER?

When Marcel started primary school back in 2002 the uniform at his school was a white polo shirt with a school logo, a blue sweat shirt with the same logo, non-branded grey trousers and black shoes.

When I was a child standard uniforms for little boys like Marcel consisted of a plain shirt, a school tie, trousers and shoes, as Léon is pictured wearing above. This was the original 1960s uniform and was still an option when Marcel started but was worn mainly for school photographs and perhaps on a child's first day when the parents wanted them to look extra-smart. When Marcel started in a year with 90 children, no more than five or six wore the 'smarter', old-fashioned uniform on a daily basis. I was greatly relieved as I am not in favour of four year olds having to waste time of fiddly little buttons and ties. I don't think they look smarter (after their first toilet visit of the day) as their shirt tails are generally flapping in the wind and after PE ties are backwards and the likes - little boys tend to look a state in the old uniforms! I have taught in France and been married to a highly intelligent Frenchman and Dane who both managed to get a first class education despite sitting in class in jeans and a jumper!

When Léon started at the same school last year, I ordered the usual uniform out of habit. He started to moan constantly about wanting to wear the old uniform. I figured it was a phase he'd grow out of, but he didn't and by p2, I relented, allowing him to wear the old-fashioned uniform on non-PE days. I hadn't asked myself why Léon had taken such a fancy to the uniform until recently. Standing at the school gate I started to notice the percentage of kids wearing the old-fashioned uniform had increased noticeably. Back in 2002, 6 or 7% of kids wore it, today I noticed it was closer to 25%-30%. Maybe Léon was simply seeing more kids in it and that was what was inspiring him?

I started to ask myself why it was coming back into fashion? It is not more practical, it is not more durable, and with the youngsters in charge, it is not smarter... I could think of one main issue. It is much cheaper. A pack of five shirts is £4 in Tesco, five plain grey (unbranded) jumpers cost £15, and a tie (which can be used for the whole seven years is £4.99). So a whole week's outfits cost just £19, with a one-off outlay for the tie. The branded polo shirts cost around £7 each and the sweat shirts are about £10 each. So if you wanted a polo shirt and sweat shirt for each day, a week's uniforms cost £85 plus trousers and shoes.

East Renfewshire contains some of Glasgow's most affluent suburbs. People pay inflated housing prices because the schools are unrivalled in the state sector. Most residents are typically professional or senior and middle management. The current recession is not following previous patterns where low-level workers are made redundant and find a new job or live on benefits. This is a recession where middle and senior management are being thrown out with no possibility of benefits to cover their hefty mortgages, and because their houses have not increased in value in four years, and self-certification is no longer accepted, they are unable to sell up and move unless they can find cheap, rented accommodation, which of course doesn't exist in East Ren. Public sector workers are also now beginning to be hit with pay freezes but rising inflation. I am beginning to suspect that what on the surface looks like people returning to the smarter, old-fashioned look for their kids is, underlyingly, actually something much more sinister.

BEANBAGS

I remember being in B&Q many moons ago with my beloved ex-husband. We were walking past an assistant when he accosted her with the query 'Where can I find beanbags?' She thought a moment, then replied - 'We don't stock beanbags' Now, my ex was not exactly known for patience so he immediately jumped down her throat pointing out he'd often bought beanbags in B&Q. I am not sure if he'd just been annoying me that day or if I was an evil or twisted mood, but I didn't rescue him... You see, after many years together, I immediately realized he was asking about 'binbags', he simply had (and still has) a very French accent. Vaguely amused, I continued to look on as he became more and more exasperated with the poor girl who by then was adamant that B&Q didn't have any beanbags! He just didn't seem to be picking up on her repetition of his pronunciation. Childish, I know but everyone is allowed the odd amusement!

Years have now passed (this episode probably dates from 2002ish). None of my kids, though they speak French, has even a hint of a French accent, having been brought up and schooled here... or so I thought till this week. I was driving in Newton Mearns on Monday morning when all the wheelie bins and recycling bags were out on the kerbside for collection. Léon was riding up front with me when a paper recycling bag blew out onto the road in front of my car. 'Watch out for that beanbag!' he shouted very clearly. I was stunned. 'Binbag' I corrected, and he looked puzzled before correcting his pronunciation. How odd!

Still surprised at that, Charlotte (who had not been in the car when this event occurred) blew me away this evening. I have been negotiating with my ex for a pair of bedroom curtains on and off for five years. Given we don't speak, this hasn't been the easiest task but this week he finally relented and allowed me to have my ladybird curtains back for Anna and Amaia. Charlotte bounced in from the dining room at about 5pm and asked 'Did you see Papa dropped off those green curtains this morning?' 'No - where?' I asked, given I hadn't seen them. Her reply... 'They're in that beanbag on the table!'

What is that man doing to my kids suddenly?!

AUTUMN ENVY

I've just been speaking to my mother-in-law in Italy. She described the wonderful, golden colours she's seeing from her house across the Tuscan valley while mentioning the warm temperatures and outdoor village gatherings she's been attending.

Here I am sitting in my cold Glasgow house watching the wind and rain rip the leaves heartlessly from the trees once more, giving little opportunity for a photo shoot or outdoor gathering.

I loved living in France in autumn. Every day I would get up to a different, more vivid shade of red or gold and sheer joy at being able to walk through the countryside in Franche-Comté in just a jumper with my camera around my neck.

One of the worst aspects of this recession to me is having my wings clipped by necessity, no longer being able to fly over to France for a long weekend on a photo shoot, or Italy to visit my in-laws. Sitting here knowing the autumn photo opportunities I am missing in France, Italy or even NY is just so frustrating. I want to throw all my kids in a plane and show them autumn is a beautiful season that lasts weeks, not one wet, stormy, dark Glasgow day that blows everything off the trees while you hide inside with the heating on. After nearly four years, even the oldest ones struggle to remember those days.

Closing my eyes I can still smell the air in October in Avignon, or the sea breeze in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. I so miss the pre-recession days of freedom.

Is it ever going to end?

OOPS!

Léon is a bit obsessed by Harry Potter at the moment and insisted on dressing up as him for Halloween. I didn't think it would be too difficult given he has a Hogwarts cape and could just use his own school uniform underneath (albeit the tie is the wrong colour for Gryffindor). The one problem was Léon's blond hair. I have coloured the kids' hair before using the water-based face paint and it worked so well, dried immediately, washed out simply with water and was completely unproblematic.

Yesterday, as I went to dye his hair though I realized Charlotte had finished the black face paint making Léon into a pirate last month... crisis! No worries - I noticed there was a box containing just black and white face paint beside the rest. Someone must have had the foresight to replace it - phew.

I was in a rush - I had four witches and a Harry Potter to face-paint in less than half an hour! I got Lots to paint Léon's head while I made myself green. I was struck by the greasy look of his hair while she was applying it. Face paint usually looks powdery and dry on the head. I figured it wasn't dry yet and we set out for the party at Derek and Amanda's house.

At the party one of Amanda's friends was rolling and tumbling with the boys in the bedroom while I was in the living room. Suddenly I noticed her running for a basin of soapy water... some of Léon's paint had come off on the bedroom carpet while she was tickling him. I immediately decided to wash it out of his hair quickly so no further accidents would take place, though I was still puzzled it had rubbed off on the carpet as it doesn't usually... Then the fun began.

I stood Léon (protesting because he wasn't done being Harry) under Derek and Amanda's shower. Why wasn't the water paint running down his body like it was supposed to? Had Charlotte used so much I would actually need to apply soap? I lifted down the shampoo and put it on. His head felt greasy but the shampoo made no impact! I gave him a second shower using shower gel on his head - none of the black came off, then shampoo again, nada! Arg! After a forty minute shower my blond boy was still greasy and black. What the hell had Lots used on his head? The box definitely said face paint. I gave up.

Later that evening Lots was removing her face paint with a make-up wipe. I tried that and it helped a bit. The colour remained but the greasiness started to come out. I figured make-up wipes were an expensive option so after four, I reached for a pack of baby wipes. They worked too. Twenty odd baby wipes later his hair had gone from black to dark brown but he was wailing and moaning at all the rubbing.

Fortunately it was Halloween dress-up day at school today so I had an extra day to get it clean. He came out of school today with his hair now somewhere between grey and what looked like dark green! I had since checked the packet of (German) face paint that Thomas had bought ten years ago... professional, adult oil-based face paint complete with its very own make-up removal oil - for skin use only! I have no idea how it had come to be put with the kiddie face paint. Of course, Charlotte can't read German instructions, can she? I was bemoaning this at the school gate when a friend mentioned she'd managed to remove gloss paint from her own hair last week (after she'd painted her hall doors) using olive oil, so poor Léon was dragged home, scrubbed with a face cloth drenched in expensive extra-virgin olive oil and dooked once more - well actually four more times but he finally seems to be almost blond again, (though the bath is black)!

I'll be ordering more water-based kiddie face paint before I ever attempt anything like that again - assuming any of the kids will let me... not that any of my relatives will ever invite us back after that pantomime :-/

OWAMA

Anna got up this morning with her hair at the more extreme end of her morning spectrum.

Wow, you've got big hair this morning! I remarked casually...
Yeah I look a bit like Owama, she replied very certain of herself.
Who or what is Owama, I wondered, almost afraid to ask as she'd been so dismissive.
Her with the red hair Charlotte listens to - you know - she sing 'Owama - that's my name, Owama, that's my name!
I'm thinking she might be meaning... Rihanna!

I suppose that's what you get when there's and eight year age gap between your kids - 3 year olds who sing Rihanna instead of Twinkle Twinkle.

MOTs

This is my car. It is over three years old so it needs an MOT every September to check it is roadworthy. I care about my car. Life in a family of seven without a big car would be tough. Buying a brand new seven seater would cost me £25K. I don't have a spare £25K so I look after my car.

Since my MOT back in September (it passed without a hitch), I've been wondering about human priorities... Why do we give our cars (that can be replaced for £25K) annual MOTs but we don't give humans over a specific age the same?

Anyone who reads this occasionally knows that my dad is terminally ill and my mum had a stroke in the summer...

Think about it. Dad has bowel cancer - an easily curable disease if it had been discovered before it had spread to his lymphs, lungs, liver and other such places. If he'd had an 'MOT' every year from 40, 50 or 60 - whatever was deemed the human equivalent of the car's three years - then they'd have caught it on time. Mum had a stroke caused by a mix of high blood pressure, thyroid problems and an irregular heartbeat - all things that would have been detected at an MOT too. So dad is terminally ill at 68 and mum has suffered some brain damage unnecessarily at 67.

It makes you think through priorities, doesn't it?

MOBILE PHONES

Much as I love having my mobile phone in my pocket for snapping the odd amusing sign I want to blog and the likes, I despair in the quality of these things. Indoors, they are close to hopeless, even the 5 Megapixel ones, usually because the flash is so dire and outside they are just about passable.

I find it interestingly ironic that my teenage years were documented by me with my heavy old cumbersome SLR Exakta and later SLR Ricoh so are quite clear but today's teenagers are relying exclusively on these poor quality but handy gadgets. Most kids no longer own cameras, opting for these instead. Marcel has even (very occasionally) had the audacity to claim they are no worse than my DSLR! (Rofl as they say in his speak) I am often shocked at the fuzzy, blurred rubbish he and his friends upload to facebook.

As Marcel's kids flick through old albums (online) they may find it odd that the pictures of their grandmother as a 15 year old are of much better quality than those of their father at the same age!

WHO'S THAT?

Amaia is a weird baby!

I have had five kids so I have watched language development over and over. There haven't been drastic variations between numbers one through four but five is a different kettle of fish.
When Marcel was between one and two he referred to himself either as Marcel or moi. Marcel wants sweeties, Moi veux des bonbons. Lots followed suit when she came along (though using Charlotte, not Marcel of course!) Léon said Nénaw - which was his pronunciation of Léon. Nénaw wants... etc Anna never once referred to herself as Anna, simply started by saying 'I want' and 'me want'.
All four when shown a photo of themselves would have pointed and said their first name.
Amaia refers to herself as 'Mine'! Mine want apoo (apple).
And if I show her this photo and ask who is in it 'Charlotte and Mine' she replies, quite clearly!
It is very cute :-)

EBAY

I'm a big eBay fan and check it before buying almost everything but one thing puzzles me... Why do people get carried away to the point of overpaying? Take snow boots... I am currently hunting down snow boots for Léon, Anna and Amaia - the wee buggers have all grown out of last year's and call me cynical, I have a bad feeling about the chances of this winter being snowfree. First I checked for Anna's size (UK 8). I could get 'used once or twice' for £3-50 (plus £3 postage) or new 'buy it now' for £8.99 (plus £3 postage). I check Léon's and Amaia's sizes and find similar. So for a week I have put bids in on the used ones, stating my maximum at £3-50. In the last half hour bidding gets silly and as I watch, not moving my bid, four pairs have now gone for between £9 and £13. Why would anyone pay £13 (+£3) for used when new is £8.99 (+£3). Am I missing something obvious or are they all daft?

PUMPKIN SOUP

I've gone and made pumpkin soup again - probably for about the 15th year in a row. It tastes rather bland... as it did last year and the one before and although it isn't offensive, it is simply a nothing soup... so I'm blogging it in the hope that next Halloween I stumble upon what I am writing tonight and don't, once again, rustle up four litres of pumpkin soup, and instead opt for one of my other, more exciting soup recipes!

SNAP, CRACKLE OR POP?

Anna has been desperate for a Rice Krispies bowl ever since Léon got his Coco pops one last month so we've been saving token codes from the insides of the boxes. (Don't I live an exciting life?)

Today it finally arrived, literally five minutes before I was serving her breakfast. She was so excited. Looking round the bowl at the Snap, Crackle and Pop characters she suddenly asked: 'Which one do you like best mum? The one with the duck on his head, the one with the mashed potato or the one with the snail?' That's a novel way of looking at it I guess!

ANNA'S FAMILY VIEW

My kids are currently 14, 11, 6, 3 and 1. Anna is three. Anna has a bit of an inflated sense of self. Today I had to laugh at a conversation I overheard between her and Charlotte:

C: Is Amaia your big sister or your little sister?
A: My little sister
C: Am I your big sister or your little sister?
A: My big sister
C: Is Marcel your big brother or your little brother?
A: My big brother
C: Is Léon your big brother or your little brother?
A: (looking somewhat scornful and in a dismissive tone) Oh he's just my medium one!

Poor Léon, he doesn't even get to qualify as big in Anna's eyes!

YMER

Thomas has been in Denmark for a week, so I have been gorging myself on ymer and ymerdrys for breakfast since he returned... but, woe is me, the ymer is going to run out tomorrow and I still have a huge bag of ymerdrys. Suddenly it got me to thinking, surely Denmark can't be the only country that sells ymer (it's a thick soured yogurt product). So I wonder if anyone out there has a recipe for home-made ymer?

THE VANISHING

Marcel had been ranting big time on holiday about Trainspotting. He was so appalled at the movie, having read the book in Italy. That's my boy! Anyway, I happened to mention that another similar issue was Hollywood remakes of European movies. I decided a good example to underline my point was the Dutch movie Spoorloos, so I rented it a few weeks ago and he enjoyed it. Tonight I hired the US remake... My boy is such a clone of me sometimes. He's currently jumping up and down shouting at the TV in frustration and horror!

Wait till he sees how they change the ending! Hahahaha!

Why do Americans feel the need to do that?

EDUCATIONAL RANT

I've just been reading the local council magazine. It is bursting with pride at the high standard of educational results in this council area, the best in Scotland. I can't argue with that given that was the reason I moved to East Ren in the first place. The whole education system, however, needs an overhaul - to help the kids, to help academics and also prospective employers.

Records have been broken once again both in Marcel's high school and the local catholic high. Between 30 and 40% of the pupils last session received 5 A Highers. That represents 128 kids in one school alone! Now, the kids have not become major geniuses since my day when two or three pupils a year got straight As in a state school (in the same council area). Indeed many who did not achieve straight As went on to 1st class honours degrees and PhDs.

In my day if you got five As, you knew becoming, say, a top surgeon was within your grasp. The country does not need 128 top surgeons coming out of every school in East Ren and while some of these kids will be capable of that, others, with the same results on paper, would have found university courses hard in my day.

This current system is helping no one. The kid who gets 5 As at 70% believes he's as capable as the one who gets 5 at 95%. Why wouldn't he? This is giving the child unrealistic expectations in a country with high youth unemployment. The (overworked) academic (of which I know many given my line of employment) has no way of seeing which 10 of the 130 kids are to be admitted to the hardest courses so are forced to waste weeks interviewing kids with again, no way of differentiating between good and brilliant. Introvert and brilliant get rejected in favour of average but extrovert and courses, where fees are about to be high, are failed left, right and centre. The employer has the same issue.

I believe it would be less cruel to go back to a system where fewer people received top marks - set the A barrier at 95% if necessary, so we have a way of seeing real genius. I would much rather my kids received realistic grades that reflected their true abilities than they became one of a not-very exclusive club!

BOPPING

I forgot to transfer this from facebook last week... for anyone who ever wondered why we call Amaia Bopster!

SILLY MAD JOHN

Apparently linguistic obsession is genetic. I didn't realize that until today!

You would think that having a mum who speaks English, a dad and grandmother who speak Danish, a grandfather who speaks German and siblings who speak French would be enough for one three year old... Nope!

The imaginary grandfather ('Silly mad John') Anna made up six months ago is apparently Polish and speaks to her in Polish. She informed me of this today at lunchtime and proceeded to tell me his words for various things around the house - a table, chair, bread, butter and the likes, What I found surprising was that the Polish words she made up actually sounded Slavonic rather than Germanic or Romance. I thought that was pretty observant for a child who doesn't know any Slavonic languages, though maybe she was picking it up from Thomas speaking Russian to Marcel over dinner last night (long story)!

Given my Polish only stretches to hello, goodbye and how to read the back of the recipe packets for the sauces I occasionally buy in the Polish supermarket, I asked if SMJ usually greeted her with dzień dobry. She looked condescendingly impressed, agreed that was how he spoke and wandered off muttering dzień dobry over and over to herself!

Life is never going to be dull...

RELIGION AGAIN!

When you have as many kids as me, you need to have some fairly regimented rules. A big rule is 'Don't criticize food at the table' because as soon as one kid mentions not liking something, they all start to develop an aversion to whatever the culprit happens to be.
Tonight Anna asked if the black lumps in the pasta I'd made were mushrooms or olives. I replied that they were mushrooms and she instantly wailed back 'I don't like mushrooms, I only like olives!' Quick as a flash Léon reprimanded her 'No crucifying food at the table!'  Why do I get the feeling that Léon is suffering from Golgotha syndrome just like his daddy?

DADDY AND... DADDY

Amaia has a name for everyone: Daddy, Mummy, Charlotte, Tudge, and Nana. Everyone except Marcel - if you show her a photo of a crowd and ask her to point at Daddy and Marcel she gets it right 100% of the time but if you point at Thomas and Marcel and ask who they are, her response is always 'Daddy and Daddy'! I hope she grows out of this stage soon - it isn't doing a lot for my street cred in public!

TOO MUCH RELIGION!

I can't help but feel sorry for my poor husband sometimes! I'm convinced too much religion can't be overly good for you! ;-) Brought up by a minister (his mother) and a professor of theology (his father), he'd heard of Golgotha long before he could read and wondered as a small child why his parents' toothpaste was called Golgotha, until he learned to read properly. Brought up by second generation heathens myself, I don't think I ever got round to mistaking Colgate for Golgotha! ;-) (Interestingly, my spell checker is currently underlining Golgotha, but not Colgate - heathen spell checker ;-) !)

It never really leaves you. My friend dropped by on Saturday with loads of lovely cheese and wine. I took a packet of Jacob's Savours from my pantry and we had a lovely old chinwag. The box was still on the coffee room table when Thomas walked past today. He muttered something like 'We must get another pack of those Saviours, they are really nice!' Saviours? 'Oh', he said looking closer - 'they are called 'Savours'? - it must be my upbringing!'

WINDFARM

I took the three smallest up to Whitelee for the holiday Monday afternoon.

Charlotte teenagely decided she'd rather sit alone watching TV as Thomas was working upstairs anyway and Marcel disappeared to five aside football for the entire day.

Léon and Anna really enjoyed themselves. Amaia fell asleep on the way but was woken by the wind and therefore not best pleased to be out on our trip.

When you stand under these things they make quite a sweeping sound with their blades - it sounds a bit like standing on the runway at Prestwick. I had to laugh at Anna. Every time she walked underneath one she felt it necessary to duck, as if it was really going to chop her head off!

GREECE

I know I'm getting to be a grumpy old rant (it's genetic - check out my dad's blog!) but is anyone else getting fed up with all this pissing about we're doing with the Greeks?

It is patently obvious that they are never going to be able to pay off their debt so why do we keep playing at lending them the equivalent of about 10p every other week?

I was watching a report on the French evening news a few months back - they were interviewing normal people like you and I in Athens. 70 000 businesses had gone bust or had to close in the previous eight months. Can you imagine if that many businesses went bust in the Scottish central belt in 8 months (the population is about the same)? I remember a man of 50ish who had been running a family lighting shop (as his father had done before him) who had had to go into liquidation. He explained he knew there were no jobs he could get so he would need to go into homeless hostels with his family until he became eligible for a pension more than a decade from now. Much as we all need them to pay their debt, they can't. By taxing them to the point of starvation, making whole towns unemployed and the likes we're going to achieve nothing... except maybe Weimar Germany all over again! It's pointless - so why don't the big powers come up with a grown-up solution rather than attempting to put another sticking plaster on a chasm the size of the grand canyon?

Addendum: It looks like the UK press is finally catching up with the realities of the situation I mentioned the French media were talking about back in June.

PIVOTAL CUPCAKES

Something is happening to my little girl...

Charlotte has been a bit of a tomboy since she could talk. It started at three when she asked for Marcel's old football top. From there she refused (after the first day of primary one) to wear a skirt to school and never ever wore her hair in a ponytail or the likes. She had a football duvet cover and lived in cast-off football strips much to my horror. (In my youth I had been a very girlie child who would have fainted at the thought of tree-climbing and had spent many years painting my nails and playing with make-up).

Even last summer Charlotte was still in camouflage and putting Ferraris on her bedroom wall.

One day in spring I was in ASDA and I noticed they were selling a pink T-shirt with cupcakes on it. Given she hadn't worn anything non-androgynous in seven years, I opted to buy it at a fiver and put it in her drawer in the vain hope her excessive love of cake would invite her to explore her feminine side (before she suggested attending the p7 leaving dance this year in trainers and a pair of jeans).

To my great surprise she took the cupcake t-shirt on holiday and wore it not once but every second day!
Pushing my luck, this week I noticed they had excessively girlie duvet covers on ebay for less than a tenner, again covered in cake. I bought one and left it wrapped on the end of her bed. I didn't dare hope my wee girl would like it. At bed time she came bouncing downstairs excitedly and asked if I would help her put it on her bed so she could go to sleep!

Result!

WHERE HAS BARBAPAPA GONE?

I remember Barbapapa from my childhood. I remember both books and TV shows quite well but it isn't something you come across much these days... I enjoyed them as a kid. I loved the concept of their ability to change shape. It was simple and appealing.

A few years back a friend who lives in Germany sent one of my kids a Barbapapa T-shirt. I thought it was a bit odd that she'd managed to find something so obscure. Then I moved in with Thomas and he bought Léon a ton of Barbapapa books in Danish. Three years ago I noticed in a French supermarket that you could get Barbapapa DVDs. And finally this summer you couldn't move in Italy for cuddly Barbapapas, plastic Barbapapas, posters, school bags, key rings, DVDs, books and everything else. Barbapapa was as omnipresent there as Ben 10 or the likes here.

So why has Barbapapa taken over Europe but not the UK? Did it die out there and then make a come back, missing us out or has it never left the continent?

It is a shame it hasn't come back here because kids do still love it. My three smallest ones request a Barbapapa book daily in Danish. It is a shame English-speaking kids are missing out on it. It certainly strikes me as much more innocent enjoyment than the Ben 10 type action cartoons we are force-fed from the States.

TELL ME ABOUT 9/11 MUM

With all the anniversary coverage, Marcel turned to me on Friday and asked me to tell him how we spent 9/11. So I thought for him and my other children, Charlotte in particular, I'd write it down.

Marcel had just turned four, Charlotte was twenty months old. As neither was of school age, we still took the opportunity to holiday out of season to save money. We had been in Argelès-sur-Mer for about two weeks at the time. Most days we drove to different towns but on that day we decided to spend the afternoon in the campsite swimming and reading while the kids played. This photo, taken on 9/11, shows the exact spot where I was playing with my kids when the world changed forever.

In the ten days preceding the attacks, I remember there had been a slight escalation in terrorist attacks in Israel. A bus stop had been bombed killing two or three, a restaurant too, things were blown up in return in Gaza and the surrounding area. I had been reading about it in the French press.

I was reading a book beside the swimming pool after lunch on a perfect day. The campsite was almost exclusively French.  It was fairly busy with families. André was around but not beside me. Maybe he was back at our hut, or at the showers or somewhere - I can't remember. A couple walked by chatting and I caught the word 'attentat' as they spoke in low but animated tones. A few minutes later another crowd of French people were talking in the distance and the word 'attentat' was repeated again. I started to assume there had been another bus bomb in Israel. The third time I heard the word 'attentat' in five minutes, I began to wonder. However serious the terrorism that was taking place in Israel at the time, I found it hard to believe that everyone around the pool would be so interested in it that no one was discussing anything else. I got up, gathered up Marcel and Charlotte who were paddling beside me in the pool and walked towards the bar where there was a smallish wall-mounted TV. As I approached I was struck by two things. The complete and utter silence inside and the volume of customers. I told Marcel and Charlotte to stay outside as I stuck my head in - there were the usual kiddie play things outside the bar - a  seesaw and the likes and we were far from any roads so in no danger.

Nothing could ever have prepared me for what I was walking into. I am quite small, so with standing room only, it was hard to see what was happening. Several hundred people in various states of undress were standing shoulder to shoulder, many with tears silently rolling down their faces. Almost every man and woman in the room had their right hand clutched across their mouth. I suddenly knew this was bigger than a bus bomb. I tried to stand on tiptoe, then I saw it on the screen. I saw New York, I saw smoke coming from both towers against a beautiful blue backdrop. I knew in an instant that this was my JFK moment. I would always be able to replay this in my head no matter how long I lived. Involuntarily, I felt my own right hand grab for my mouth united with all the others. I looked from the screen out of the window to my two babies in what seemed like slow motion and I wondered what had happened to the world in which they would grow up. I cried silently with all the others, going in and out holding my kids tight and crying hard. No one felt they had to hide their distress that day. Everyone cried together - men, women, kids, old and young - all nationalities.

Many people describe 9/11 as a moment of silence followed by a cacophony of mobile phones. I guess it was like that in offices, schools, cities but the one place you don't take your mobile is a swimming pool, so unlike others who experienced it very publicly, I was not alerted to the magnitude of what was happening by the number of phones ringing simultaneously.

I have no idea how long I stood there. It must have been the best part of the afternoon. I bumped into André and had no idea when he arrived there. No one spoke. We didn't speak either. There were gasps when the towers came down. There were screams when people became aware of the 'jumpers' but no one said anything. People touched each other, held each other, hugged strangers in distress but in complete silence. Only the voice of the French news reporter was speaking in the room all day.

We had no TV or radio in our holiday hut so I found myself driving round in circles listening to the car radio news in French all evening and most of the following week. We took turns to watch the bar TV, one staying out with the kids, for the rest of the week. There was a lot of silence, crying and hugging of the kids. They looked bemused but somehow knew not to ask what was wrong with me! We decided, given we had to fly through London later in the week, showing the kids repeated footage of a plane full of tourists being used as a bomb was unwise. The same news was being played over and over but somehow we couldn't not listen. It was still sinking in. Although the kids never actually saw the news, we later realized that despite their tender age, they were listening to the radio in the car as Marcel asked us to explain the odd French word he didn't know. Although they were both predominantly French-speaking at that time, suicide bomber and the likes weren't terms they'd heard at home.

I remember flying home the day America re-opened its airspace. We flew Barcelona London, boarding next to the Delta flight to Atlanta. I have never, before or since, seen security like that day. For every passenger there were two policemen carrying guns as big as rocket launchers. It made your blood run cold. I presume London too must have been on high alert but we got home. Inside the plane was eerily silent too. We flew Barcelona London Prestwick and no one spoke. There was an audible sigh on each landing but nothing else.

I remember blue sky affecting me for a long time afterwards. From my office window I had a beautiful view of the Campsies and the flight path into Glasgow. I couldn't watch planes flying low against a blue sky without bursting into tears and thinking about my kids' future. Sabine, who I shared an office with at the time also had young children and we'd often find ourselves in tears, hugging, worrying silently about their future.

I guess the ten years haven't brought any distance, I still find it hard to watch. I still relive it as if it was new. I feel there is an invisible barrier in my head sometimes between my children - the pre-9/11 two and the post-9/11 three. Two were brought into a more innocent world but were so young they will never know it, three were brought into this new, tarnished world and there is nothing I can do to change that except teach them to love.

On 9/11 one thing I did do instantly was to resolve to go to New York. I had always wanted to go but after 9/11 I felt I had to go. When I left André five years later the first thing I did was to fly alone, with my baby (Léon) to New York to spend some time healing the wounds of my marriage, and finding myself again amongst the debris. I blogged the whole trip in various postings at the time. It was my Shirley Valentine moment. New York helped me so much. It will always feel like a home from home to me.

MONEY LENDING PART 2

It has just come to me in a flash!

There are hundreds of pensioners and people who've paid their mortgages sitting out there getting no interest on their savings. There are hundreds of self-employed people with perfect mortgage payment history unable to get a  loan.

I was aghast as always yesterday when I read the line on my mortgage statement that the £12000 I paid last year had brought my mortgage down £2900...

How do you go about setting up a bank where pensioners lend to self-employed people who prove they are unlikely to default?

MONEY LENDING

As this recession enters its fifth year I can't help but think that the way money is lent in this country needs to be altered drastically.

Take today for example. The two year fixed rate on the mortgage which we have had since 2007 was coming to an end, so I needed to either accept to move onto the SVR or renegotiate another fixed or tracker deal. If I go onto any of the compare mortgage sites, I can see many more lucrative deals than those the Bank of Scotland is offering me at the moment. Given neither of us has as supposedly secure an income now as when we took out our mortgage, paying less a month would make us more, not less, likely to be able to meet our payments and therefore less likely to lose our house. Our current lender will offer us a new deal but we are unable to move to any of these good deals with the other banks because no new mortgage lender will accept us being self-employed. Given how many middle management people I know who have been made redundant in the last few years, many people must be stuck unable to move either to a cheaper mortgage deal or to a cheaper house if necessary because changing mortgage isn't possible. You have to stick with a high rate at the very time you most need to make savings where you can. Despite having many years proof you have been meeting your mortgage payments (even after becoming self-employed), you can no longer self-certify or even use your current mortgage history as proof that you are able to pay so you sit unable to move while someone who will be made redundant next month is happily offered better rates than you. It is maddening to know I am wasting £100 a month because Bank of Scotland trusts us after nearly three years self-employment but we can't change to a competitor by showing them those three years of mortgage payments.

I am also still amazed they are happily lending 25 year loans on the basis of anyone's current salary, because let me tell you, just because you are employed today doesn't mean you can't be redundant in six months time - in fact I worked for Newscorp so having a job today sometimes means you can be redundant before Sunday! I would go as far as to say that I have more visibility now than I ever had as an employee and I know for sure I will not be made redundant any time soon (unless Thomas decides to fire me, which might not be in his best interest!)

Other loans too strike me as needing a rethink. I know of several people who had fairly successful businesses or positions in the boom. They bought expensive luxury cars at say £30K taking out huge loans. Why wouldn't they when they had had great incomes? Suddenly they lose their job or business and end up trying to set up their own businesses to make ends meet - those kinds of people can't exactly meet their mortgage and car loan on unemployment benefit, can they? Heavily burdened by their huge car loan, they long to offload the jeep or BMW, to trade it in for say a £6K used family saloon so they can still try to work, commute, run their fledgling business. Because they can't prove their self-employed income, no one will lend them £6K so they are stuck trying to pay their £30K car. I know lending £6K to someone who can't prove their income doesn't make sense but not allowing people to swap loans they can no longer afford for ones they could easily meet is crippling families who are doing everything they can to struggle through these difficult times.

GROWN-UP AMAIA

Amaia is starting to observe the more grown-up people around her and has a very definite opinion about how she wants to behave and be treated. Bibs are definitely a no-no. Grown-ups don't wear bibs. The cup with a lid has also been discarded in favour of a big-girl glass. But yesterday lunch took the biscuit. We gave her a plate of garlic lentil soup and a spoon. After the soup we were having a second course so a plate, knife and fork were also at her place. Appalled that she should be handed a spoon, which she considers a baby implement, she threw it to one side in disgust and proceeded to eat the entire bowl of soup using a fork!

THE WORLD THROUGH THE EYES OF A THREE YEAR OLD

We happened to be shopping one day on holiday in Montevarchi in Italy. It seemed like a fairly down to earth town with reasonable prices. Thomas saw a shop that had T-shirts from €3,99 so went in for a look. Anna wandered in behind him.
Neither of us are big shoppers so Anna isn't often dragged into clothes shops. There were mannequins everywhere. Some were standing, others sitting and lying in various positions and states of dress. She looked around them, fascinated. I assumed she was looking at the clothes they were modelling. She certainly didn't seem worried or distressed. Suddenly and quite matter of fact she announced: Ahhh, so that's what they do with dead people? I didn't understand at first, then realized she was touching one of the mannequins! The imagination of a small child is a strange world indeed!

IN A NUTSHELL

As with all siblings, there are times when mine wind each other up. Charlotte seems to take great pleasure out of playing with the little ones at the moment but because of the large age gap (6 years to Léon, 8 to Anna and 10 to Amaia) she sometimes tires of being their play thing and deliberately annoys them.

I often hear myself berating her for this. Anna summed it up wonderfully yesterday shortly after Lots had offered her a toy then told her she wasn't getting to have it after all...'Why are you making me so whiny, Charlotte?' she asked!

THE END OF THE BELLING SAGA!

I know you've all been waiting for the next instalment of my Belling cooker saga.

No, they didn't send another wrong fascia, no Jake, Jack and Robert didn't drop by but we have definitely had a result!

Jack turned up without a new fascia on the right day - the first time any Belling engineer has turned up on the right day (they are usually up to two weeks early). He looked at the 16 doors we have in the garage, and 3 fascia panels and concluded he really couldn't be bothered with us any more so phoned Belling and told them to authorize replacing our cooker! I was out on the school run and came home to a job number and a phone number for a Sammy Davis (!? was this a joke?) who would arrange it for me. Not only did Sammy turn out not to be a one-eyed, black Jew, he turned out to be a she! But she replaced my three year old cooker, which was out of warranty, with and brand new model because she couldn't find a replacement fascia, when in fact it was the door that had broken all along, and they'd already fixed that!

I am puzzled, amazed and feeling somewhat jammy :-)

I had to laugh, when an hour after it arrived the company I had bought it from originally phoned and tried to sell me an extended warranty for just £7-50 a month... why on earth would I need that when all it takes is the charm and patience to spend two months on the phone to them to get a new one completely without a warranty!?

SMART KID

For years I've been ranting about UK school uniforms. My kids' primary has always advocated the polo shirt and sweat shirt option, and although the shirt, tie and blazer that would have been worn when I was a child is still available, only one or two children in each class tend to wear it. Personally I would go further, introducing that in high school (why on earth do girls wear ties in high school?) And what's wrong with jeans or a skirt with it all, like Anna wears to nursery with her polo and sweat shirt? Scotland is grey enough without forcing them to dress in grey (or black) for 13 years!

Occasionally as a small child has passed me in a blazer and tie, I have felt sorry for him or her. I've mentally blamed their parent for wanting to dress the poor wee bugger in such a ridiculous manner. But I hadn't ever considered it could be the child's idea... not until half way through primary one when Léon started his campaign to get me to dress him smartly. He begged and begged for a blazer and tie. Originally I managed to stall him by telling him the school was designing a new tie for its 50th anniversary so their would be no point in buying the old one, but as that project was delayed until later this year, he would no longer be pacified and insisted starting p2 in the smart uniform.

I turned up the first day expecting him to come out with his shirt untucked in a real mess as he's never overly neat and tidy in his usual uniform but he exited as pristine as he had entered, and moreover extremely proud. He is a little boy who never ceases to surprise me!

THE AUTOMATIC LANCIA

We had to hire a car in Italy - Brita and Peter live in a mountain village that is too remote for public transport. Peter picked up half of us so we only needed a small five seater. We opted online for their bottom of the range Fiat Punto (or similar).
Avis in Arezzo don't seem to have a huge number of clients. We arrived to a man sitting on a deckchair on the main square. In front of him were two Lancias. The first was a Lancia Ypsilon, the second a Lancia Delta Sport. The Ypsilon was our Fiat Punto substitute. I could already imagine three weeks of Thomas driving Peter's Fiat Multipla while I listened to the four kids in my car ranting about leg and elbow room.
The nice Italian man asked if we wanted his Delta instead at no extra cost given the length of our hire period. I was about to jump at the chance when he mentioned it had the added advantage of being an automatic. I was struck instantly with a mix of fear and horror. Last time I drove an automatic, I was 17 years old and dad had allowed me to try his Ford Cortina automatic on the industrial estate in Thornliebank. It drove a bit like a souped-up dodgem car. It changed gear just before or after a human would but never at the right time. I couldn't imagine being stuck with one of these on a mountain pass for three weeks and was about to decline when Thomas showed up. He mentioned he'd never tried an automatic and begged me to reconsider. The Italian bloke thought I was insane too so I gave in, reluctantly.
After all, in 26 years automatics had bound to have improved, so I jumped in and started my drive out of Arezzo. It felt unsurprisingly like a bloody dodgem car, albeit a powerful, growly one. When I reached the mountain I started my ascent and noticed the Lancia, like the old Ford changed gears several seconds after I would have manually, jolting me forward or back in my seat. I was already beginning to loathe it with a passion. It grumped at me every time I tried to start it without my foot on the brake. And it didn't have a very obvious biting point which made three point turns on the mountain pass even more fun than usual!
As the three weeks went on, I noticed however that it was annoying me less and less and I even learned to appreciate being able to give the road my full attention in the hairpin bends on the single-track chunks as I didn't need to change gear.
Much to my disgust and outrage I actually began to like my automatic Delta Sport. I can only conclude from that that I am turning into a sad, lazy, old fogey :-(
I'm also wondering why Lancia pulled out of the UK - they make such pretty cars that would easily compete with Alfa Romeos or the likes that sell well here. Any ideas?

BOPSTER

OMG - what happened to my baby? She suddenly looks about 4!

THE MSN GENERATION

On Monday I was in Rome with Thomas and my two oldest kids. We only had one day to see things so we decided to run quickly round the main sights.
At the Vatican, while Charlotte was looking somewhere between appalled and surprised by the number of nuns you could possibly see in one day, we noticed many of the tourists were buying postcards and sending them with special Vatican stamps as it is a separate state. Marcel suggested sending a pc to his French grandmother as she's catholic. He bought a stamp and card. He stood fiddling with the stamp looking perplexed.
What's the problem? I asked. I can't get the back off it, he replied.
I pointed out that you lick stamps and they stick on the card. He genuinely had no idea! While we were laughing and ridiculing him, Charlotte jumped to his defence with the wonderful phrase: I don't know how to work a stamp either! He then asked which side of the card you wrote the address on! He was 14 last week! It turned out he had never sent a card or letter before in his life. At 14 I had twenty penpals and collected stamps. How things can change in a generation! Remind me not to apply for a job with the Royal Mail if that is the way things are going!

INNOCENCE

Léon can be naively sweet and innocent at times.

Two days ago we went shopping in Bibbiena. Because we have hired a five seater car, we have to leave two kids behind every time we go out. We left Anna and Amaia. Léon didn't really want to come either so to bribe him we offered him a fancy ice cream while we were out. Fearing meltdown on return, I told Léon that mentioning the ice cream to Anna might upset her. I don't want any taunting or teasing, I told him.
We returned and sweetly he remained silent all afternoon and evening.
I asked Anna what she had done with her grandmother while we were out and she told me about playing in Margaret (next door)'s paddling pool. Léon was a little put out - saying he'd have preferred to play in the pool too.
Taking them to bed, I assumed I'd got away with the ice cream...
What do you fancy doing tomorrow, Pudge? I asked.
I think I'd like to play in Margaret's pool, he said, then quizzically added pointing at Anna - she won't get a secret ice cream while I'm over there, will she?
So sweet!