Last day of primary

It's a sweet custom. I don't know when it started but they didn't do it in my day! I'd have been hung out to dry if I'd come home from school in that state! But nowadays the last day of primary school is spent having the kids and teachers in your school sign your t-shirt, then proudly walking through town in it (even in the rain!) Lots decided to have two signed and given Anna left nursery yesterday, she got to wear the other one to signify she too was moving onwards and upwards.

Anna was particularly thrilled to be asked to sign Lots's t-shirt too - it definitely made her feel quite grown-up. They were as thick as thieves today, the two of them.

It is hard though to watch them both move onto the next stage of their lives without their beloved Pumpa there to see them. I so hoped he'd hang on long enough to see Lots's dance last week. It would have given him an insight into the woman she will one day become. Life will be filled with these bitter-sweet moments from now on.

Blink and you'll miss it

If my children ask me for advice when they are older, things I would have ideally done differently, I think I would advise them to have their children younger than I did. Obviously, I couldn't have had Anna and Amaia any earlier because I had them within a couple of years of getting together with Thomas, but Marcel was born after André and I had been together 12 years, Charlotte, nearly 15. Time speeds up with age, as we all find out too late. I feel Marcel's primary years just about took a reasonable amount of time, but Lots's seem to have passed by in a flash. Didn't I take this photo (left) yesterday? And yet here we are graduating from Kirkhill already.


I was recently discussing this with Marcel - saying I wished I'd had my kids earlier. He asked 'Why, is it a bit tiring dealing with small kids and sleepless nights at 44?' Not at all, I'd do it again in a second but at 44, with a baby you are painfully aware of your own life-expectancy, of the chances you have of seeing your grandchildren grow up and that hurts in a way I could never have imagined in my early twenties.

Whitebait

I used to get whitebait a lot in the south of France, but I'd never seen it in Scotland till Saturday when I happened to be in Makro bulk-buying loo roll as you have to in this big a household - you know 64 for the price of 48! Anyway, a bag containing four adult-sized portions was only £1.75! And the whole thing took three minutes to cook! That made me a happy bunny!

Absolute genius!

Every so often you come across an idea so simple you wonder why it hasn't been done before, so genius you wish you'd had it first. I came across it in Tesco at the weekend. When you have four school-age kids all wearing grey socks as part of their uniform but in (UK) sizes small 9, small 12.5, adult 3 and adult 9, you become absolutely demented after a wash trying to pair socks and then work out whose are whose. I had even taken to only washing one child's clothes at a time as the only way of getting round this issue. Tesco - I love you! Tesco has started printing the size of its school socks on the inside of the elastic at the tops of the socks. Genius! I take my hat off to them! Praise the restoration of my sanity!

Fiat Scudo

I'd quite like a Fiat Scudo. Unlike most people carriers with their 2-3-2 set-up, Scudos come in a 2-3-3 format, despite not being physically much bigger. We used one in Paris at Easter and it was just perfect for a family like ours. Strangely though, they don't seem to be on sale in the UK. You can buy a Scudo van easily but not a Scudo people carrier. How frustrating!

Vodka, in a sachet!

My mother has a close friend. Let's call her 'J'. J likes to travel a lot. J also likes vodka quite a lot. When I mentioned mum would be going on holiday this year using Ryanair, J rolled her eyes in her head, in a way many people do, in fact when the world's favourite budget airline is mentioned. She went on to offer mum some Ryanair advice. Given how often they've cropped up on my own rants, I fully expected J would warn mum about their hidden charges, their fines for checking in in the airport, their pedantic measuring and weighing of hand luggage and the likes but no, J had discovered a much worse crime. 'You have to order the wine, Ann!' she implored, 'Isn't that right Phyl?' I pointed out that I am always either flying towards picking up a hire car or back to pick up my own in the long-stay car park so don't buy alcohol on Ryanair. I thought J was going to pass out on the spot 'You fly without alcohol?' she said completely in disbelief! Anyway, not deterred J carried on. 'Ann, you just have to go for the wine - it comes in bottles, I once bought a vodka on a Ryanair flight and it came in a ... oh I can hardly bring myself to say it, it came in a sachet! And when I ripped the top, the pressure of holding it made it all pour down me and I had to spend the flight sucking it out of my t-shirt. Can you imagine? - oh the waste!' She sat shaking her head and finally muttered - 'And to cap it all, it contained less than a miniature!'

I have to say, J's view of the world always brings a smile to my face!

The dance

I had been apprehensive about the primary school leavers' dance for about two years! Lots doesn't really do feminine. To give her her due, she has come a mile from where she was two years ago, still in football strips and only talking to boys. She now only talks to girls and wears girlie jeans and pink hoodies - still a dress, shoes, hair and make-up was a bit further to go. When the topic of limos came up a year ago, I figured paying the ten quid to book a place, would at least guarantee Lots going, so I coughed up.

About six weeks ago I started thinking of how to get her into a dress. Obviously spending fifty (or more) quid on a dress for someone to never look at it again isn't ideal but luckily I have some wonderful friends with older daughters who offered to lend me several options for her. As they arrived one by one and I hung them in a row, she simply stared them out in horror. I was slowly expecting the meltdown but it never came. I asked her over and over to try them, getting nowhere until the weekend before the dance. Finally all except one turned up on my bed one night. I assumed a decision had been taken. I turned my attention to hair. I asked her again and again what she was planning to do and was met by a wall of 'I don't know'. With just hours to go, she pointed at a wavy haired model on Facebook and said 'that'll do'.

Not reckoning on her having three times as much hair as me meant it took from she got home from school on Thursday till ten minutes before we were due to leave to do her hair. ( Ninety minutes) So we were left with ten minutes to change into her dress and shoes, put on some make-up and leg it under a huge brolly in the torrential rain.

We managed to get to Sara's without any tears or snapping. 

I know a lot of pressure is put on the kids to grow up now and go off to high school but I definitely think that although Lots may be ready intellectually, I needn't worry she'll be fighting me about being allowed to go out partying wearing tight skirts and too much make-up for a wee while yet - phew! Amazingly, after looking at her hair like that, she concluded she preferred how it usually looks! 

She definitely has a way to go yet!

Anna on the other hand is a whole other kettle of fish. On finding the discarded dresses on my bed, she announced (at the ripe old age of 4) 'Don't bother sending that pink one back, I'll be needing it for my p7 dance (in 7 years!) and I'll also need tall, pointy shoes, sparkly earrings, a hairdresser's appointment, a tiara and lots and lots of of make-up!' - Gulp!

Scotch bonnets

I have to admit to having a wee problem with scotch bonnets. You see they are just so much more attractive that Asda or Tesco mixed medium strength chilis that whenever they have them I buy them and of course, once they are in my fridge, I can't stop myself from tossing one, two or more into my dinner. They just don't look that much more fierce than the normal ones! They are so shiny and I love their shapes. I have had to bulk-buy coconut milk and cream to calm down dinners I accidentally, out of love for their beauty, over-chili. I feel sorry for my poor babies!

Pink Fiat 500s

Utrecht: Pink Fiats 500, a photo by harry_nl on Flickr.

I was talking to a friend today about my ideal car. I was sure I had blogged it before, but it turns out I haven't! How cute is this wonderful photo I found on Flickr?!

Used car dealers

Whenever I've been looking for a used car, whether that is on Arnold Clark, Machargs or Evans Halshaw's websites, I am left puzzled as to why they don't cater for larger families. When you have one or two kids, you can choose any car you fancy, so you often want to put in a specific make or model that takes your fancy. When you have five kids, you want to see what they have with seven seats or more. I can fill in make, model, age, transmission, fuel type, number of doors, mileage, colour etc but I can't specify the number of seats, so I have to google makes and models to find out what has seven seats then look at each make separately. It must be a no-brainer to add a box where you simply tick six seats, seven seats etc.

Frustrated!

Thinking of you today, and every day

Happy Father's Day, dad.

In life I loved you dearly
In death I love you still
In my heart you hold a place
That no one else can fill
You left behind my broken heart
And happy memories too
But I never wanted memories, dad
I only wanted you.

Lots's new favourite hat!

Mum was throwing out some of her old clothes last week when she came across an old hat she'd bought in Turkey in the 90s. It was rather colourful to say the least and a rather odd shape too. I thought the little ones might like to use it when they were dressing up so put it in their clothes box.

Today Charlotte was helping Amaia put on a tutu when she came across it. She couldn't believe I hadn't given her first refusal. She took it and kept it on all day. She then asked me to take photos of her in it and finally suggested I colorize them as it was just perfect for that.

When bedtime finally came, she left saying she intended to sleep in it.

Charlotte can be painfully shy at times, not brave enough to stand out from the crowd in any way but just when you are least expecting it she goes to the other extreme. She is such a complex individual.

(I have to say the hat and long straight hair also reminded me of Barbra Streisand in What's up doc? - It has such a 70s look!)

Awwwh

I love this photo my brother took of my beautiful baby earlier this month. It really captures what a soft, gentle little soul she is. It also shows her fluffy, wispy baby hair and her lovely green/hazel eyes. She's my special little girl.

Happy boy

DSC_0159, a photo by derek1971 on Flickr.

I tried over and over the other week to get a good photo of my nephew heading a ball. My brother must have thrown it at him fifty times before we actually got a decent shot! But he enjoyed the fun anyway.

A black and white world

I was discussing 70s wallpaper today with my niece in France. I remembered some of the horrors we'd had in my home as a childhood so went looking for a picture. Unfortunately, it being the 70s, all my photos were in black and white. I uploaded it anyway to show her the pattern. Anna and Léon noticed it on facebook and  it caused amusing questions from both... First came Anna's take on it 'Mummy, didn't they have coloured-in photos when you were little?' I thought this was an awfully sweet way to describe the concept of colour photography. Léon was a bit deeper... 'Mummy the bear in that photo is blue nowadays, I know because it is mine. So when this photo was taken was it still blue or was it grey back then? In fact was colour added to the world after these photos were taken or did it just not show up on photos back then but the world was actually colourful, even when you were wee?' Good questions, though I have to say they make me feel somewhat old!

Dad's Peugeot

After a month of financial juggling and the selling of Thomas's car, we finally got together enough to buy dad's car yesterday.

The big kids marvelled at the leg room - at nearly 1m80, Marcel hasn't been the greatest fan of the Nissan Micra's back seat of late... The sound system is so good, I'm trying to work out where I can go unnecessarily, just because it is so much better than my ipod dock in the house. Léon was happy to show it off too at school this morning.

But Anna summed it up for all of us on the way home from nursery - I wish we still had the red car and our Pumpa, rather than a lovely new car and no Pumpa.

In the bath

I love to capture language around this age, as they try to explain the world around them using their limited vocabulary but vast imagination.

I have to share tonight's classic with you. In the bath this evening Amaia farted. 'Wow Mummy, bum bubbles!' she announced proudly! I imagine farts will henceforth be known as bum bubbles in this house!

Oops - how was I to know?

So there I was pottering around the kitchen when the theme from Harry Potter began to play on my mobile.
Hello? I asked - it was marked 'withheld'. A half Indian, half Scottish accent replied 'I am looking to speak with Mr Phyllis Buchanan'. He sounded young - 15ish, he sounded like a Scottish kid trying to pretend to be foreign... So I replied 'Ok - are you Marcel's friend or Charlotte's?' He replied again 'I am looking to speak with Mr Phyllis Buchanan'. I replied 'Sure you are, I don't have time for this!' and hung up. It rang again. The same voice replied 'This is Fred again, from ebay support!' 'Fred?' I replied 'Gimme a break, goodbye Fred!' 


I came back to my computer. Five minutes later an email message popped up in my inbox from 'Fred' at ebay customer support!

OMG! I am embarrassed!

John Travolta?

I was taking photos of Amaia the other day when she suddenly started posing and acting cute. I couldn't help but remember the old John Travola Saturday Night Fever Poster when she struck this pose!

Scotland

I couldn't have put it better myself...

I think dad would have liked this.

Anna and her Pumpa

I'm not sure if having kids makes the aftermath of a death easier or harder...

I've spent the last few days helping mum bag up dad's clothes and bringing them here to show Thomas and Marcel before packing them off. I've just walked into the living room in time to see Anna hugging a black bin bag with her head almost inside casually announcing - This smells lovely mummy - it's all Pumpa-y!

Gulp.

Ray Bradbury

I see Ray Bradbury has died at the age of 91.

I have had a curious love-hate relationship with Ray Bradbury since 3rd year at high school.

I was a late starter really in English - never really enjoying the subject until high school. I was just coming around to it in 3rd year, despite a rather fierce 6 foot tall English teacher who frightened me half to death. She was the much-feared Mrs Findlay, I can still hear her today yelling at us "That's Findlay with a 'D'!" As if we'd ever forget! She was a great hater of nail varnish and I remember the girls, and sometimes even the boys daring each other to come in wearing paler shades in an attempt to get through a whole 40 minute period without being dragged physically into her cupboard to have it removed with the nail varnish remover she kept in there!

Anyway, enough about Mrs Findlay's hatred of nail varnish, and back to Ray Bradbury... We had been asked to write a short essay on a subject of our choice. I wrote mine, re-wrote it and was feeling very pleased with myself. I thought I had finally got the hang of essay-writing. I handed it in and waited smugly for a nice fat 'A' on the paper when it was returned. A week later she threw it at me and spat 'I've given this a zero because I refuse to mark plagiarized work!'  I hadn't the foggiest idea what she was talking about. I wanted to cry. What have I plagiarized? I asked. This is almost a verbatim copy of Ray Bradbury's Pedestrian and well you know it girl! she accused. I had never heard of Ray Bradbury! I had never read the Pedestrian and I felt aggrieved that she was accusing me. I felt it was somehow Ray Bradbury's fault for stealing my idea and causing me public humiliation and I couldn't quite work out who I hated more - Ray Bradbury or Mrs Findlay!

Anyway, I should probably finally give up the grudge and allow myself to read The Pedestrian at long last!

Through four-year-old eyes

Tonight the kids and I went up to help mum bag up a lot of dad's clothes and shoes for charity. I can't say it's the easiest thing I've ever been involved in, but the effect on Anna was quite curious...

In a fairly carefree manner she folded many of his shirts and t-shirts and put them into black bags as mum held them open. (I had no idea my dad had more clothes than you can buy in Silverburn :-\) Meanwhile, downstairs, Marcel had put all of his shoes in pairs across the hall floor. He was the only one tall enough to reach the shelf he kept his shoes on. I knew dad was a shoe lover so was less surprised to find more than twenty pairs up there. Anna, again, didn't seem overly worried.

But as we got into the car to leave, she had a complete meltdown, sobbing hysterically all the way home. When I had finally hugged her calm again, she explained: Pumpa loved shoes. He told me he loved my red shoes when I got them at Xmas. I got new sandals last week and if he was alive he'd probably love them too but he died and now he can't see my sandals or tell me how beautiful they are. And there's no way he'll ever come back to life to see my sandals and that's not fair because he'd like my sandals!

Poor baby.

(Addendum: This morning she'd obviously been mulling it over still as she woke up sobbing that he didn't get to see her new flip flops either :-( )

Caramel pecan cheesecake

How is a girl ever meant to lose any weight when living with a guy whose ambition is to make the perfect cheesecake, and who keeps experimenting and deciding it just isn't good enough!?

The Jubilee

I've been wanting to blog my opinion of the weekend's royal shenanigans but I see Polly seems to have read my thoughts in every detail and written them down already. So I'll save my time and simply point you in that direction.

I presume that unless she shuffles off her mortal coil any time soon, we'll have to put up with this every five or ten years from now on - God help us if she lives as long as her mother.

Freedom!

Designer wear

I know I have ranted till I am blue in the face about designer labels - but I still don't get them. Maybe it's my Scottish blood but why would anyone pay ten times the price for a label?

I was out shopping today separately (because of football commitments) with my oldest two kids. Marcel the designer man, and Lots the sensible. For £27 Lots bought herself a pair of jeans, three t-shirts, a jumper, five pairs of pants and five pairs of socks. She was extremely happy and I dropped her at the park with a friend then picked Marcel up. He was given money and told to buy himself clothes too. He first tried Bank, the Jack&Jones, Foot Asylum and then stood longingly outside Schuh for a while but concluded that he could not actually afford even a pair of shoes!

While he looked more and more depressed I looked into Schuh's window to get an idea of the price range inside. I noticed a pair of rubber flipflops - not unlike the ones Marcel is wearing in this holiday photo from last summer - except I bought his in ASDA on the eve of our departure for Tuscany at £2.50 and these ones in Schuh seemed to cost £35! I must be missing a decimal place, surely? Nope - on closer inspection there was a tiny disc on the strap marked UGG. It was less than 50mm across!

I can see the time has come again to go through my two hour rant to Marcel about designer labels - I know it will fall on deaf ears, but I can try yet again (with Charlotte giggling on the sidelines!)

Mini-protester?

Nursery was holding a Queen's Jubilee celebration today. As I arrived at nursery it was draped in Union Jacks, I suddenly remembered the kids were meant to come dressed appropriately for a garden party with the Queen. They were to be served cucumber sandwiches and the likes and wave Union Jacks. I get so many memos from schools and nurseries, I find it hard to always remember who is meant to wear what, bring what etc. I looked down. Anna had chosen her Saltire t-shirt - not as a republican, separatist statement but simply because her big sister had bought the same t-shirt yesterday in ASDA and she wanted to be like her! I am sure, given she has never worn it before, most of the teachers thought it was a silent protest!

I'm sure Thomas is proud of our daughter today but I have to admit it was completely accidental!

I guess this would have made my dad smile too...

Union Jacks

I was in Tesco buying my usual shopping. As I put it up at the checkout, I slowly became aware of how absurd it looked. Everything, more or less, had a Union Jack on it - I am sure that is meant to fill us with pride and enthusiasm - sorry I'm a republican (not in the American sense I hasten to add!) But if I was a monarchist - why do I want Union Jacks on my loaf packaging, my cornflakes, my potato scones, and crazier still on my toilet roll? Am I really meant to feel pride, wiping my bum with some proud, patriotic toilet paper? I mean they even had Pampers nappies with Union Jacks printed on them! So it is ok to shit on it! I am so pleased Amaia is already potty-trained because I wouldn't be indulging them in this nonsense.

It got me to thinking about why I don't feel as at ease with the flag as say Danes do with their flag, and similar. Then I realized it could be a Scottish thing - and I don't mean an Independence versus Unionist thing, I mean unlike my English counterparts, I grew up in Glasgow in the 70s. The Union Jack and the Irish flag represented the two sides of the sectarian issue. It doesn't make me feel all warm and patriotic, it feels vaguely sinister and to be avoided.

Thanks, Hazeldene!

Anna goes to Hazeldene nursery in East Renfrewshire. She absolutely loves it, with reason - it has won all Scotland's top awards.

Over the last few weeks they have had chicken eggs hatching in an incubator. The kids have all been fixated by the eggs opening and thrilled as expectant parents when Fluffy, Sporty, Minnie, Spiderman, Chook and Sunshine "cracked out" as Anna put it!

Today I needed eggs. I was in ASDA. As I handed the box of 15 over at the check-out, Anna rubbed her hands together with excitement. Oooooh pets! What are we going to call them, mummy?!


Thanks Hazeldene!

Pumpa and Amaia

For the last nearly two years of dad's life, as a result of his cancer, he always had a bottle of lucozade in his hand, wherever he went. As long as I live, I will probably associate the small lucozade bottles with dad.

Last night mum turned up with dad's golf clubs. Marcel had been taught golf by dad so was getting his clubs.

Dad's final illness, the perforated ulcer, was fairly sudden and took hold only two weeks after his last game of golf. As Marcel emptied the bags to see what they contained, he found a half-drunk bottle of lucozade. It seemed quite poignant when he took it out, but we got on with looking through them and once he had repacked the bags, he left the bottle on my patio in front of the garden chairs as dad had often done himself last summer and even this year in March. We then followed the sun round to the front garden for dinner and afterwards weren't round the back so forgot about it.

 This morning I found Amaia practically dancing in the living room, singing Pumpa's here! Pumpa's here! Pumpa where are you? I followed her eyes - she was looking out the patio door - of course fixated by the bottle. She's only two - all her life, Pumpa had lucozade. She's too old not to be aware of his absence but too young to have any concept of where he is. She's in a strange limbo that would truly break your heart sometimes.

Make a robot night at Beavers

Sometimes I have to smile about the direction life takes us. When I first shared an office with the young, 30 year old single Danish bloke, I never in my wildest dreams imagined he would one day be taking my son to Beavers and making 'Darth Robot' with him. Léon is a very lucky boy to have such a great dad.

The Takeaway Secret by Kenny McGovern

It isn't really realistic to buy takeaway food when you are self-employed (=no financial visibility) and you have five kids to feed. We bulk buy and Thomas, a brilliant cook, rustles up Indian and Chinese better than you get from the local takeaway anyway. When we were in Paris recently, we decided to let the kids have a treat and bought them kebabs for probably the first time in five years. They really enjoyed the experience. Amaia was particularly impressed, eating her own then the leftovers of both Léon and Anna. We realized after that, that although Thomas is great at the fancier end of the cooking scale, we had no recipes for the sorts of things kids love as a special treat, but in our house never get - kebabs, fish and chip shop fish, pakora, burgers, etc. Then he came across this little gem.

So, first up on Sunday night, was the doner kebab. I wasn't sure how we were going to manage that without the rotating grill but I left him to it and was more than surprised to find it tasted almost identical to the kebab I had in Paris a month ago! The kids were all extremely impressed too. I am not sure this discovery is going to be great for our waistlines...

A wee update

For anyone who was wondering what the inside of the nappy poppies look like, they opened today! Aren't they pretty? (This wee bee thought so anyway!)

Amaia

I know she's filthy in this photo - from a day at the beach, playing with sand and stones, eating ice cream but I love they way it captures her odd eyes. In photos they often just look dark, but they aren't at all - they mix yellows, and cappuccino tones with olive, light blue and more. I love my baby's eyes.

Paper poppies

And still on a horticultural note, our poppies started to come out today too. We have some new white ones I had forgotten about at the back of the garden. I had to laugh though. Anna announced 'Have you seen the new flowers at the back of the garden mummy, they are made out of Pampers nappy material!' And true enough they do feel like that kind of soft nappy paper, I remember so well from before Amaia was potty-trained.

Tulips

We have these rather odd tulips in our garden at the moment. When they first appeared - each with three or four heads per stem, I thought they were quite special but as they've gone further through their flowering cycle, they have become even more bizarre. After each of the heads has spent a three to four weeks beautifully in bloom with yellow and white striped petals, they suddenly turn pink for the last couple of weeks before they die. How fascinating! I know I planted them, but have no idea what type they are so I can't even order some more!

How vain are spiders?

I love the logic of small kids. Our Nissan Micra had a spider's web on the wing mirror today when I turned up at school to pick Léon up (don't worry Linda, I'll dust it ;-))
Léon took one look at it and concluded 'It probably built it there because it likes to look at itself in the mirror!'

Scottish is not English

I was in B&Q today. I think they've somewhat overestimated the Glaswegian enthusiasm for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. They had untouched boxes of bunting, union jack covers for your car wing mirrors and little flags you might want to wave, or might not, as the case may be - typical chain store mentality. Hell mend them!

Cycling

I said it with Léon and I am reiterating it with Anna. Balance bikes are a godsend to 40-somethings who need to teach their kids to cycle! No more back-breaking hours pushing junior round the park. Think about it logically - learning to cycle isn't about learning to pedal, it is about learning to balance. I put Anna at the top of a hill with a pedal-less bike and let her roll down it over and over till she became confident. Two days later she's on a proper pedal bike rolling down the hill, hours away from pedalling back up it under her own steam. If I was a mini-dictator I think I'd ban the sale of bikes with stabilisers as a cycle-training device - they really are much more hassle than they are worth.

Through fourteen-year-old eyes

Marcel decided to write about dad about four weeks ago. He then gave it to his English teacher to read, planning, if the teacher liked it, to let Pumpa read it himself. I can only imagine his feelings today, when it was returned to him, full of praise. 


In the last two years, and more importantly in the last ten days, I have watched this childhood ebb away. He started this journey as a child but holding dad's hand for two years as he slowly died, holding it still after death, hugging and kissing him farewell a few hours after death and then seeing the young man in the suit carry his beloved Pumpa's coffin all in the space of a week is hard to put into words. I think he would have been proud of what his grandson wrote for him.


So for what it is worth, here is a short account of dad's illness by Marcel:


Cancer. Everyone is aware of its existence, its causes, its process, its effect on life, but no-one, no-one ever thinks it will hit home. I used to be everyone, the oblivious majority, but now I'm well and truly aware of just how hard this demon lurking in the shadows can hit home.


Three years ago today, grandpa, born April 5, 1943, aged 66 at the time, had his retirement set out, golf, golf, and more golf (and of course, the weekly family visit.) He had everything enjoyable - hobbies, friends, family, holidays, monthly golfing tournaments, everything. These were soon to become the rock upon which he would rely for support.


One fateful day, life was rolling on as usual, birds chirping in the trees, sun blazing, refreshing summer breeze, lunch in the garden with the family, my favourite. I had just begun being indoctrinated, as now seems to be our tradition, into the family sport, golf. Due to the beauty of the morning I was of course out with Grandpa in the garden practising my golf swing, the casual chat that comes with golf continued as usual, this day could not have started out more ordinary. The day rolled on and the family left but what I had noticed was that mum hadn't quite been herself throughout the day, this worried me. I began to look for her in the house but before I could find her she found me. There I was, stopped, in the midst of a content childhood day, the perfect day, with the cold words I'll never forget "Marcel, sit down, you need to hear something about grandpa", her face screaming with sadness. I sat for what felt like hours, days, this couldn't be true. The man swinging the golf club with such power and glowing with health could not have, as diagnosed then, three months to live. It began to become real, I was broken. It was as if a small part of me had been ripped out and could never be put back. This image of grandpa swinging his golf club in the afternoon sunlight would be the image I would focus on whenever I was in a bad place throughout this experience. It became the embedded image of my grandpa and has remained unchanged to this day. I had now begun my long walk down the path of going from the oblivious majority to the enlightened few.


Bowel cancer. Liver cancer. Lung cancer. Three cancers that standing alone are life threatening but with a full three at once, the way the doctors saw it, he had no chance. Grandpa had gone overnight from a relaxed, care-free lifestyle to a horrible 40 pills a day routine, his diet had to be monitored and he was forever in and out of hospital, the discovery of his cancer being his first visit to a hospital in his life nonetheless. On top of all this came the dreaded chemotherapy, basically a poison designed to take you as close to death as possible in order to kill all the cancerous cells in the body. It certainly brought a great deal of misery to us all. The golf stopped due to a simple lack of strength, rarely did he manage a full game. This was painful for me to watch, a man I looked up to, a second father to me was being deprived of his lifelong hobby and there was nothing I could do. Looking back now, being able to sum up and understand my grandpa's day to day actions after being diagnosed and how he dealt and is still dealing with this really only brings one thought to my head, unwavering courage. Watching my grandpa fight this demon is the most courageous act I have ever seen by a man. Some say that once someone is diagnosed with cancer they begin to hate the world, life and everyone around them for the simple reason, "Why me? Why not them?" but not my grandpa, he blamed no one. I found strength in his strength and in turn I believe he found strength in mine. The open-mindedness and the constant hope shown by my grandpa is why my grandpa is and always will be my hero.


Days turned into weeks, months turned into years and time went by, slowly at first but things soon settled down, life had to continue so it did. Grandpa was back on the golf course on the beautiful fairways of Scotland and now much more often accompanied by me. Two years down the line he's on his 3rd batch of chemotherapy and has far outlived any of the doctors' expectations. Grandpa is still his cheery, golf-obsessed self and remains to this day one of my greatest role models in life. Sure, grandpa has his ups and downs from time to time but here we are, living to the fullest what ever time we have left with him, however long that may be.

English genes?

Here's Amaia with her big, wee cousin Alasdair. Now here's a wee prediction for the future... When Al grows up he will be a sportsman. Given he's a sturdy wee guy, I firstly thought of rugby but since he learned to walk properly a month or so ago, freeing up his hands, he seems to have developed an amazing ability to bowl balls (stones, ornaments, food and generally everything not glued down!) so I'm going to drop my rugby theory and opt for him having inherited the English genes from my father's side and become a cricketer! ;-)

Watch this space!

Optimist or pessimist?

Scotland's weather has been truly diabolical, even by our standards, this year. I think we've probably seen less than a week over 10°C. But I think I can tell who is the half-empty and who is the half-full guy in my house! When 15°C was forecast yesterday, Léon bravely opted for the clothes he got for our last trip to Tuscany, while my little nephew decided a snow jacket was probably a safer option! They did look comical playing together outside my house - though I think somewhere in the middle might have been a better bet!

Waitrose cake

We did a barbecue last night and mum decided to buy us a dessert for afters. While in Waitrose buying some items for the grill we found ourselves in front of the cake display. Running our eyes along the prices they seemed to range from £2.99 - £4.99. Mum opted for this seriously chocolatey chocolate, hazelnut and almond torte. Somewhat surprised at the final bill we later realized they'd charged her £9.99 for it. When I went back later to check, the price label for this particular cake was not underneath where it was on the shelf but almost a whole fridge further up the aisle. Mum was also a tad miffed at how much smaller it was in real life than its box. Delicious though it was, it was not worth double the price of any of the other cheesecakes and the likes they had on offer, so I wouldn't recommend it!

What happened to respect?

OK, so this isn't going to be the most pc blog-rant I've ever posted, but I'm pissed off and under present circumstances I don't see why I should smile and be quietly tactful!

So dad's last wishes were 'I want none of that religious shite!' Whether you agree with this or not is immaterial. These were the last wishes of a dying man and should be respected as such, whether you think you know better or not. So important they were to him, he made them a prominent feature of his will too. As his daughter, son and wife respecting these wishes was paramount to us. We arranged a totally non-religious funeral, spending hours with the Humanist celebrant writing the sermon with her. We had done exactly what he requested. That gave us some comfort in our darkest hour. We felt we had honoured him in that way.

Those who attended the funeral were told in the sermon that these wishes had been dear and of the utmost importance to him... so how dare a certain nameless acquaintance of my father's take it upon himself to contravene this, upsetting my mother and us in the process. After listening intently to all this on Friday, he handed my mother what she assumed to be a condolence card. Fortunately she didn't open it till she got home. It piously and condescendingly turned out to be a stamped letter from the man and his local priest, telling my mother he had taken it upon himself to have the priest in question say a private mass for my father in order to save his eternal soul from damnation! I am utterly appalled. Had he died, I would have respected his religious beliefs, so how dare he not respect those of my family. If he feels it necessary to pray to his God, that should remain between him and his priest. It should not be thrust into my mother's hand in some self-righteous, superior manner.

As I have said before - atheism is the only religion not granted the respect it deserves. It is time that changed. I am passionately atheist and fail to see why that is not respected.

Think about it

I just wanted to share a poem with you, if you missed the funeral today.

Hibiscus

You get a lot of flowers when someone dies... beautiful flowers, treasured flowers.

On Saturday, I returned home not even 24 hours into this new and frightening existence and found a dear friend had left a lovely bouquet of orange roses on my doorstep. I held them and smelled them and then with a sadness I noticed the sticker proclaiming 'Guaranteed to last 7 days'. With a huge lump in my throat I silently questioned - 'Am I only meant to think of him for seven days, surely a lifetime is worth more than seven days?'. A lifetime is worth a lifetime and much more...The flowers were beautiful but bitter-sweet.

I didn't think another thing about it till today, when I was hoovering out my car. A Yodel van came down the street and asked for directions to number 27. I told him that was me and he took out a box that was about the same size as Léon! Interflora was written on the side. The bitter-sweet thought popped fleetingly into my mind again and I set it to one side and finished my hoovering, working up the strength to re-confront the thoughts and feelings I had been trying to avoid with my little hoovering distraction...

First I opened the card and saw the names Karen (Grant) and Siobhan (Macdonald)... two of the best friends I have in the world - my breast friends - we shared having our first babies, we shared our divorces and the rebuilding of our lives. You don't get closer than that...

I took a knife and cut into the box. There stood a tree marked - Plant this in remembrance of your dad always. I fell to pieces, crying like a baby. I went up to Thomas who asked what was up and all I could manage to say was 'I got a tree!' He looked quite bemused but just held me till I calmed down.

It was beautiful, already in bloom and big and strong with roots. I wasn't going to last seven days or even seven years - it can outlast me! I didn't know I needed a tree until I got my tree, but I really, really needed a tree. My tree of remembrance. It is hard to imagine already how much the tree means to me. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to move house again, not without taking my Dougie-tree.

Mother and daughter

I noticed today that a magazine had used this photo of me and Lots, taken from Thomas's flickr page, to illustrate an article entitled '50 Reasons Your mom is so special'. Given the week we are having, that made my day.

Dad

I'm not ready yet to write about dad, but in the meantime I thought I'd share his cyberpal, Alistair's thoughts with you.

Danish culture

Thomas and I were discussing internationality today - how to make your kids bilingual and also bi-cultural. Bilingual, we have succeeded with, given we both have language backgrounds so know what we are doing but bi-cultural is more bitty. Thomas was complaining how hard it is to give the kids, particularly the three wee ones a real insight into Danishness simply because we never, or almost never, go to Denmark now we have nowhere to stay and we also have very few visits from Danes.
He was saying how some things are more important than others - he'd like the kids to be aware, for example, of what Danes expect to receive when they order a hot dog. You get all sorts of relishes on a Danish hot dog and they'd consider it half-cooked if it was presented naked in a bun like the ones you get here at Ikea, for example.
Given he's a republican (not in the American sense I hasten to add!) I teased him that not a single ones of our kids could pick the Danish Queen out of a line-up of septuagenarians. But would they know how to, if they were mono-cultural Danes living in Denmark? Of course, we concluded... they'd have picked it up from media and other external sources... But in retrospect, I think we were maybe wrong. Just an hour later this came on the news. I asked Léon who the man was and he replied 'a weather man?' I guess culture sometimes depends on who you live with more than where you live!

Rhubarb meringue pie

Immortalized, in case I should ever lose it, Thomas's family recipe for rhubarb meringue pie - yum!

250 g flour

125 g butter

65 g sugar

1 pinch of salt

3–4 eggs, separated

200 g icing sugar

some rhubarb (enough to cover the base of the mould twice)

Make a shortcrust pastry of flour, butter, sugar, salt and egg yolks and line a buttered mould with it.

Cut the rhubarb into 3–4 cm long chunks and blanch them briefly.

Make a meringue from egg whites and icing sugar. Cover the bottom of the pastry with a bit of the meringue, then add the rhubarb pieces, and add the rest of the meringue on top.

Bake for 45 minutes at 175–200ºC.

Zone cards - the laid-back approach

I was in Paris last month. Given I was out in the suburbs but wanted to show the kids round all my old haunts when Thomas was at work, I decided to find out about zone cards.

I asked at the local station - Noisy-Champs, a name Léon loved to pronounce in English, - whether they had family cards, or books of tickets or the likes and they advised zone cards were best for stays of more than five days. I asked them to explain their zone cards - everyone 4 or over needed a zone card at approx 30 Euros and we'd be able to use them on all trains, métros, buses etc. Given that meant me and four of my five kids, I gulped. The woman behind the counter asked their ages. I said me, 14, 12, 6, 4 and 2. She gulped back and then told me that she didn't know of a single bus driver who wouldn't wave Anna and Léon on if three of us were already showing a valid zone card on entry to the bus, and as for trains and métros - I could simply lift them over the turnstiles. I was sceptical. Surely I will get fined if I am caught, I asked. The woman on the counter told me I could easily lie that Anna was 3 so that only left Léon and if the driver didn't believe he was 3 too(!) I could pay for the odd ticket for him in buses and again, she guaranteed I wouldn't meet an inspector on the métro or RER! I figured given how insistent she was on me lying and cheating, she'd be appalled if I was to buy Anna and Léon a zone card so I decided to try it for a day and see what happened. A week later I had been on at least 2 buses, 2 RER and 4 métro a day and she was completely correct. Bus drivers even helped me on with my buggy while waving Léón and Anna past. It really was a breath of fresh air compared to the job's worth mentality I would have encountered here, had I been trying to ferry my family around Glasgow, ticket-free!

Different ways of doing things

I've just been watching the French elections on the TF1 news. For me it was most interesting to watch the queues of ex-pats in London, Israel and all around the world queuing at the Consulates to vote. As the wife of a Danish ex-pat, I always feel sorry for Thomas, the most politically aware man I know, as he is disenfranchised by his own country for daring to live abroad, while equally as a UK resident, father and tax-payer he is still not allowed to vote here in Westminster elections. I wonder if my French friends who live here know how lucky they are to come from somewhere that allows them to vote, should they so wish.

One for mum

Mum's never got blogging. She's asked dad and I more than once over the years what the point is. So feel after yesterday's comment I owe her this post! 

After a little chat with Phones 4 U, that took the best part of an hour, she came out with steam coming out her ears, and finally exclaimed - 'God if I was a blogger, I'd blog this!'

It started about six or seven weeks ago... Her old Samsung was playing up and it was her birthday, so dad offered to get her a new phone. She opted for the Sony Ericsson Walkman Mix. When the phone was about three weeks old, dad collapsed and was taken into hospital. Needless to say, mum has had other things on her mind than taking back her phone that had developed a few little hiccups. And with visiting hours the way they are, it was also hard to fit in. Mum needs her phone for two main purposes. 

• So the hospital where dad is being treated can contact her in an emergency
• As an alarm which she sets to remind her to take her own daily medication since her stroke last summer.

So guess which particular faults it developed? The alarm wouldn't turn off once it started ringing, and the phone kept reporting new voicemails when no one had called her - just what you need for your nerves when your husband of nearly 50 years is terminally ill...

So we went down to Phones 4 U and asked for a replacement. It was six weeks old, faulty and hardly used. 

A completely ignorant little boy of about twenty first offered to have it sent away for repair. Sorry, sonny, you misunderstood - it is just out the box and faulty. With all due respect Missus, we don't do exchanges so I'll just send it away. It'll be back in about three weeks. Mum pointed out it was new and faulty, Marcel pointed it out, I pointed it out, Amaia gave him a dirty look but he went on to repeat no less than five times With all due respect Missus... until mum finally told him to kill off the parrot! We're a big company so we have a policy of not changing anything over 28 days old. Mum rang her lawyer, he too explained to the child that he was bullshitting but still no banana. He told her the only thing he could do was to tell head office. At this point I lent forward and said extremely civilly Do you think I could possibly speak to someone more senior, if you are unable to sort this problem out? He immediately and defensively jumped across the table at me with Don't you shout at me! I pointed out that I don't shout at people, I have no need to as I am quite capable of complaining articulately without raising my voice. He looked blank! In the meantime, he actually answered his company phone and spent 3-4 minutes organising a piss-up at a wee bar in Ayr on Saturday night with his friends in the most pleasant of tones before reverting to the obnoxious, defensive tone again to mother. After yet another explanation of how big Phones 4 U are and how they simply follow company policy at all times, I pointed out that mum was an individual with individual problems and should be treated as a human and not a statistic. He opened an email to head office and wrote: 'This woman has came (sic) into our branch with her phone, I have wrote (sic) a report that it is no working but she isnay happy'. He turned his screen round and asked mum to confirm she was happy with his report!!!  Mum's a bit of a grammarian and I could see from the darkening in her eyes that the boy's grammar was going to cause him to receive a knock-out blow, if he didn't watch out! 

So we stuck to our guns and finally got to talk to head office and they eventually admitted it was difficult to leave a woman with a no phone for three weeks in these circumstances so gave in and replaced it - or rather authorised a replacement only to find they were out of stock. But I have to say the level of stress they put my mother through, despite us explaining her personal circumstances, for a phone that was just weeks old and only worth £65, was such that I will categorically say now that I will never consider setting foot in a Phones 4 U for any future phone purchases of my own (and I tend to spend more than £65). When companies become so large that human compassion is completely lost, they need to be avoided in my opinion.

Names

I find it interesting how many divorced women choose to keep their married name rather than reverting to their maiden name after divorce - whether it is a friendly (if such a thing exists, or acrimonious divorce). I would say, of the divorced women I know, more than 60% kept their ex-husband's name.

I reverted to Buchanan two years before my divorce came through. It was a hassle - I had so many different pieces of ID, places to contact, - banks, passports, driving licenses, mortgage agreements, car loans - you name it... I had to pay to change it by deed poll because my divorce wasn't through. But I had to lose his surname to be me. It wasn't that I didn't like the name - you know me by now - a complete Francophile, I'd move there in a flash. More than that - I loved the exotic. It suited my character and interests. It was also good for my career - I didn't need to explain, as I do now, why I am best placed to be your translator, interpreter or why my spoken French is a tad better than you'd expect from someone who graduated twenty years ago! I loved (and still love) my French family unconditionally, so it wasn't them I was distancing myself from either. But the name represented the marriage, my link to the man I no longer loved and whether I had remarried or not, it was no longer me and it felt wrong to be Mrs or Madame Gautier any more. I could understand staying the same name as my kids, but again, it was wrong in my mind. I had to lose the name that represented a period in my life that was over.

I think I am fascinated by it because I can't understand it. I could not have stayed Gautier without losing myself. It would have been a bit too Shirley Valentine for my psyche, I think that's why I wonder about those who manage it quite happily. I guess there are several types of divorcée.

Dentists

I live across the road from my dentist, so I can see his comings and goings from my bed. He seems to work about 28 hours a week and yet he owns both a BMW jeep and a cabriolet BMW that he uses on sunny days. He has both cars fully valeted on a weekly basis sitting outside my door. I am often tempted to park mine beside his in the hope they get mixed up one week! ;-)

Local Council Elections

We all have something to say when it comes to the potholes in the road, the pavements that are falling apart, the plans for an incinerator in East Renfrewshire, the proposed new builds on the green belt and potential catchment changes, the number of staff in the local schools, their uniform policies and their funding, so why is it that we don't bother to vote in council elections? Today at around 5pm one of the candidates for this ward was in our garden (Thomas knows him and they were arranging the vote count tomorrow). He told me at that point the local polling station was running at a 13% turnout. Isn't that absolutely scandalous? I really think any of the 87% who didn't bother, should think twice before moaning about any of these topics for the next five years. They only have themselves to blame!

Charlotte, the face-painter

Every time I have gone out for the last week, I have come in to all three wee ones painted by Charlotte. She really just loves being a big sister. I have tried painting Amaia myself and there is no way to make her sit still long enough to paint anything, so I really have to take my hat of to Lots. What a star. I can't imagine Charlotte's life if she had never been a big sister. She's definitely much more comfortable in that role than in the role of little sister, in general. In any case - if she keeps up the practice, I reckon I know what kind of summer job she'll be looking for when she's bigger!