Whitelee Wind Farm

We decided to resume our windmill walking yesterday. We try to do that every week for an hour but things had slipped over Christmas with all the flu going round. The snow is still deep up there on the moor and the early morning sun was just stunning. Even the wee loch was frozen. I was absolutely thrilled I took my camera with me.

After such a beautiful hour up there, we decided to bring the kids back up after school so they could get an experience of real snow, in case we don't get a significant amount down here in civilization.

The first photos were taken around 11:30am and the second set at 3:30pm on the same day. The crisp, beautiful morning had turned into the beginning of an afternoon snow storm, but the kids still had a whale of a time, even if the views were less spectacular four hours on.

 

  

  

Farewell big blue bus

And off it has gone. For the first time in 25 years I am no longer a car owner. And to rub salt in the wound, I was even charged £50 to cancel my insurance, as I'd paid for an annual policy! I now have a limited window to hold on to my 25 years of no claims bonus too - stress!

It seems a bit odd that it can't be fixed at a reasonable price, given how good it looks externally. Maybe I should have studied to be a mechanic instead of a translator/lexicographer. I could have fixed my own cars and even done homers! No one ever wants a lexicography homer, for some reason!

Anyway, it does make me a bit sad. Even if I do manage to save up enough to buy a new car some time, I will never have a big, powerful seven seater again. That would only make sense for the next couple of years, and it would take me longer than that to get one of those so I'm saying goodbye to the most expensive, biggest and most powerful car I'll ever own. Mind you, I never could scrape the ice off the front windscreen. At 161cm, it was always a bit big compared to me! So maybe it just wasn't meant to be.

Tact - kiddie-style

My little niece, Catriona (left) has a dimple on one of her cheeks. Anna is quite fascinated by it, given none of my kids have dimples. So up she comes the other night and sits on my knee, looking soulfully into my eyes. She takes her right hand and puts it on my face. And then she comes out with it... 'Mum, you know how Catriona has that little hole on her cheek?'

Me: 'Yes Anna'

Anna: 'It's very pretty', then stroking my cheek, she muses 'Your face is quite like that too, only it isn't a little hole on yours, it's more like stripes. You have all these little stripes at the edges of your eyes and more stripes running down your cheek. They are kind of beautiful on you!'

I suspect that last sentence may just have saved her skin, well almost, at least!

Nonsense bag!

Why didn't I see it in her eyes?! (Camera survived - phew!)

Coping with the death of the blue car

It's funny. It looks ok, doesn't it? But it's dead and it's home while I find an undertaker willing to take it.

The kids' reactions have been varied though.

Marcel has many fond memories of me driving him and a combination of any five of Matt, Duckett, Andy, Scott, Ewan, Deeno, & Truesy places all their youth. He can't believe the beer bus has died for good and had admitted all his mates' great love of me and my car (the only seven seater amongst all the parents.) They had even been hoping to insure themselves for it and take it on trips now they are all starting to turn 17 and getting driving licenses. Sadly, that is not to be.

Charlotte is a real family girl so is probably most affected, on paper. Marcel works so rarely comes on outings to town, the beach or relatives' houses, so he will see little change. Charlotte and one of Thomas or I are the only ones other than Marcel who can legally be left behind. So, for example, this Sunday, given Marcel is working in the shop, one of Charlotte, Thomas or I is going to have to stay home and miss an invite for my nephew's birthday.

Léon has taken a while to catch up. Despite us talking about nothing else all week, other than the shock of the car being irreparable, he asked just last night when it was coming back! Pay attention, Léon!

Anna's reaction has been the strangest. She is very tearful about the whole thing, as if a pet has died, rather than a car. It took Thomas to point out to me that this has been Anna's car all her life, so she isn't really aware, like the others, that cars come and go. She thinks of it more like a family member so keeps bursting into tears and now it has been returned to us, she wants to go out and look at it, with big sad eyes. To cheer her up I have had to promise to start saving up for a Fiat 500 (I just omitted to point out that it may be five years before we reach the target figure!) Mind you, she has expressed a desire for it to be 'Buchanan tartan' in colour, so I can just stall her by saying I have not managed to source that model yet!

Amaia seems neither up nor down, but it'll hit her the first time she wants us all to go to the park or the windmills as a family, I guess. She won't want to go anywhere if Charlotte can't come.

As for me... It feels strange not to own a car for the first time since I was 22, or it will next week when they take it away, making me officially carless. It's altogether a bit too stressful trying to work out the logistics of moving us all about and sad to give up on the little social life we had. I suppose there'll be no more summer trips to Stirling or Culzean castle etc. But a new car is out of the question and public transport too expensive. We can't pick up visiting relatives at airports any more, nor can we get ourselves to the airport to visit them. But so far the most stressful thing is that turn of the key in the other car every morning as I know it won't always start, it is seven years old already, so wondering how I'm going get everywhere on time, the morning it lets me down is keeping me awake at night. Sigh.

Reginald Perrin?

I love it when little kids use a slightly wrong word or turn of phrase when recounting a tale...

Tonight Amaia came out with the very sweet: I think Charlotte must love me quite a lot.

Me: Why's that?

Amaia: Well, sometimes I fake my own death to see her reaction and it always makes her cry!

I suspect she simply plays dead, but the idea of her going to the trouble of actually faking her own death is certainly quite dramatic!

Officially dead

Well I said it had to go and it appears it is going, sadly.

The camshaft belt has snapped, whatever that is and has sent debris through the engine destroying all the valves. My mechanic can take the engine out for me (if I authorize a day's labour) to confirm his figure of £1500 to £2000 to fix, but given I had it valued six weeks ago at £1500 to £2000, I guess that's a pointless exercise as it'd cost more to fix than I could sell it for. So off the the scrapyard it will have to go. It's funny - I loved it for the first six or seven years but the last eighteen months, it's been more trouble than it is worth.

But hey - according to the garage I might be able to get £80 for it... anyone selling a reliable seven seater car for £80 please feel free to contact me asap. In the meantime, we'll need to draw straws this Sunday to see which members of the family are getting to go to my nephew's birthday party. Wowser.

2015 sucks so far...

Birthday obsessive

Is five the first birthday you really remember or are really aware of? Or is there some other reason Amaia has become a full-on birthday obsessive in the short week between Charlotte's birthday and hers? She started off slowly enough, reminding us of little things she likes by writing a wish list and expressing her desire for a card with a badge so she could wear it to nursery on Monday. That was nothing out of the ordinary but by Friday she was skipping in from nursery checking the kitchen from top to bottom to see if anyone was 'baking any cakes'. This morning she practically pushed us out the door, saying 'should you lot not be out shopping - you might need to get a present or two' (wink, wink, nudge, nudge!) She's filled the trolley with decorations for the dining table, ordered croissants for breakfast and left recipe books all round the house open at the chocolate cake page! She's checked the fridge twice for mince as told Lots she wants 'mince curry with beans' (aka chili con carne!) for dinner and asked if we're sure we've remembered to invite her cousins and granny round. She's being very sweet about it all but I am beginning to wonder if a birthday that is as well planned in her head as this can ever live up to expectation! Gulp!

Have I mentioned how much I hate my car?

My car is beginning to stress me out. And given I am already stressed enough, the last thing I need is my car stressing me out. Every garage tells me it's fixed, safe and reliable, every time but they are eventually all proved wrong...

For over a year it's been acting up in small ways. It currently needs new wheels, new tyres, its exhaust has been on its last legs for ages and for over a year the turbo was faulty so it kept worryingly losing power. For no reason when driving down the motorway at max speed, it'd suddenly drop to half speed and cars would come up my backside so quickly it would frighten me half to death. I thought it had been fixed two months ago when a garage finally managed to silence the turbo light by fixing some pipe going into the turbo unit, only to find a fortnight later on our way to a meeting with the kids' teacher that the electronics went completely. Then instead of it having a top speed of about 40mph (70kmph), it was completely dead. It spent a week with an expensive real Citroën dealer being re-fixed.

So it behaved from mid-November till now - a whole seven weeks this time. I was almost starting to relax and feel I could go further than Asda. So we went to Silverburn which is fully five minutes on the motorway. On our way home I was driving it at just above 60mph (approx 100kmph) when it died completely with less than 10 seconds warning. It felt as if something popped under the car, there was a whoosh of air and it lost all power on a steep hill. Fortunately, I was not in the outside lane where the fast traffic would have run into me before I could get over to the side. Fortunately, the traffic was light so no one ran straight into the back of me where Amaia and Charlotte were sitting - that would not have made for the best birthday eve for little Amaia. Fortunately, for the 20 minutes all six of us had to stand on the grass verge at the side of the motorway the snow stopped, the gale-force wind abated and the rain wasn't torrential. Unfortunately, given we'd been at Silverburn (which is always way too hot) none of us had on warm enough clothes (though lucky Charlotte had bought a jacket in the sales today, so could take it out!) And fortunately there are still some decent people in the world. A man alone in a car stopped and offered to drive four of us home (he only had a five seater car), so only Charlotte and I remained the whole hour by the side of the cold, dark motorway in the cold and wet.

It has become clear that even though we can't replace the blue car, it has to go. I'm not 100% sure how a family of seven is going to get around in one five seater car but enough is enough. It has to go.

The beginning of the end of childhood

Anyone who knows me, knows I'm French at heart. Some make the mistake of thinking I fell out of love with France, when I fell out of love with the Frenchman, but I will always feel French... and Scottish and European, and now maybe a bit Danish too, even if I sadly never really get the chance to go there... I've lived a multi-cultural life, all my adult life and you don't just switch that off because of one person...

So yesterday, of course, I was glued to TF1 on my computer, le Monde and many other French language news sites. Although Thomas reads French, they speak too fast for him to completely follow the details, so while I watched on my laptop, he watched France 24 (an English-language French news channel) in the TV room. Come 3pm, he stepped in to do my schoolrun. He could see I was too upset to move. Once the kids came in I went through to the TV room where live footage was on screen with a running update along the bottom of the picture. Amaia walked in clasping a PS3 game in her hand. 'Can I play this, mummy?' she asked. Before I could reply, Anna, who has just turned seven, replied for me. 'No Amaia, I'm watching the news. Some bad things have happened in Paris and we need to know about it.' She then proceeded to sit reading the running footer aloud to Amaia, so she could try to follow too, all the while taking in the reports and asking very pertinent questions. I don't know if I'm proud that she is so mature, or sad to see the beginning of the end of childhood so soon.

In any case I'm too upset to analyse it still. I just wish I could go home to France for a few days now.

Gotta laugh

Lots asks me if I'll buy her this text book because her "art teacher really isn't all that good at explaining the new exam to them" and it is recommended by the SQA and gets good reviews. I go on to order it and as I hit buy, I just happen to notice the author is none other than Lots's teacher! Ha ha!

The difference a week makes

I knew it would inevitably happen one year. The problem is Charlotte was born on January 4th and Amaia, exactly a week later on January 11th. So today I asked for help to take the baubles off the Christmas tree and was met by horror, followed by folded arms and the announcement:

It's not fair if Lots gets a Christmas tree for her birthday, and I don't!

Oh-oh...

Amaia's concern

Thomas decided to take a bath when he got up this morning. His getting in the water coincided with Amaia turning up in my bedroom asking for breakfast. She looked somewhat concerned. The following conversation ensued!

Amaia: Is daddy in the bathroom because he's sick?

Me: No, he's having a bath, why?

Amaia: 'Cause I've seen how many sweeties he's eated from the big blue box in the TV room!

VW egg and toast

Since I bought Marcel a toast rack and egg cups for Xmas, people have been popping up asking me where I got them so I thought I'd stick a wee link on here.

They have a variety of VW novelty stuff and ship very quickly despite being in Thailand.

Daffodils in December

They are called Easter lilies in Danish... which makes it all the weirder to find them growing and already in bloom on Christmas Eve in Scotland. Something is seriously wrong with the climate this year.

(Today it is a tad colder... It'll be interesting to see if this little thing survives)

Anna is enjoying her birthday more than Marcel ;-)

We all do silly things when we are young... such as thinking we can go out clubbing in town because it is the second last day of the school term, coming home at 6am and forgetting that we may be dragged out of bed at 7-30am to celebrate a younger sibling's birthday, before being shipped out to school.

I consider it my duty as a mother to digitally capture these stupidities for posterity and file them away to show my grandchildren at an appropriate moment in the future.

Tee, hee - loving the digital age!

Chancer

Me: What shall we make with the leftover turkey?
Amaia: Fish and chips? 
Gotta love her!

(We got her to settle for curry eventually - her arm can usually be twisted by a scotch bonnet or two!)

Exhausted - that was the month, that was.

I need a holiday. I don't mean two weeks on the beach in Barbados - well I do actually, but I just mean a holiday from my life! It's been another tough few weeks...

Stressed out of my mind already having been made to wait a month for a phone appointment with my bank to renew a mortgage that has been running seven years because some new legislation came in last April meaning everyone needs to re-apply like a new applicant every time their fixed rate deal comes to an end (well you have to do that or you have to go onto the mercy of the standard variable rate, which doesn't appeal this close to a general election or with the Tories dancing to UKIP's pull-us-out-of-Europe tune.) A month is a very long time to play over every circumstance in your status having changed since the bank agreed your last mortgage - more kids - tick, changed jobs - 2 ticks, self-employed - tick, changed income - tick, useless ex legs it altogether and doesn't up his share of the maintenance by a single penny - tick... you name it. So 28 sleepless nights fearing imminent house repossession (despite never having missed a mortgage payment in 21 years) is a good starter. 

Then we have all our work drop off a cliff six weeks before Xmas. Where have all our suppliers gone? Lapland to visit Santa, I suspect. Who needs an income anyway with five kids and a mortgage interview coming up? I hate my job instability - wah!

Of course HMRC is on our back for tax returns so we have to squeeze in a year's accounts. That's never the least stressful month of the year. But we make that with a week to spare and even get a nice wee outing to the accountant's office - it's as close as we've come to a business trip in months!

In the midst of all this Rosie the hamster dies and the kids all lose the plot.

Then seven-seater car dies altogether and the garage assures us after a week that they may have found the fault and fixed it for just £300 but if it turns out to be an intermittent fault as you get with cars of that age, they can do me a full repair for just £1500 next time. Of course am I aware the car is only worth £2000 in the first place?! Stress - do I buy a new one, because of course I need a car? But, then again, according to my bank balance I can't afford one, so that's that sorted. I'm stuck with the blue one and my crossed fingers. Sigh! Stress (I think I said that already...)

Then, for some reason, we all start dropping like flies? The weather? The climate? Could it be stress? First Lots gets sent home from school on the 15th. She's so ill by the 16th I have her at the doc who concludes she has flu... that's real flu, not flu as in 'a bad cold'. Next Léon succumbs so he's off 16th and 17th but that's more a gastric thing. By the eve of Anna's birthday I have the cough from the toe  till I pass out but no cold. Thomas is in bed for two days wheezing with asthma and sneezing like there's no tomorrow. Lots is still sitting with her face in a bowl of steaming water with olbas oil in it. But Marcel and Anna are ok! Anna's birthday sees me exhausted, I figure from running about like a headless chicken but some time around 7pm I collapse a snottering heap and end up in bed for two days with the worst head cold I've had in my life. I don't do 'bed' when I'm ill, so I must really be ill!

I'm back on my feet by yesterday, I have to be, but Marcel has succumbed and Thomas is wheezing so bad with his asthma that he's asked me to run him to hospital if he stops breathing! Stressed? Me, never! In the nine years we've lived together I have never seen his asthma this bad and it is starting to freak me out. When you are ill but the least ill in a family of seven, you run the family, ill or not. 

So this morning I get up and book Thomas in at the doc. I then do the final Xmas shopping at Waitrose, Home Bargains, back to Waitrose for the things I'd forgotten in my zombie stupor, up to ASDA, then back home in time to run Mr Wheezy to the doc in case he has a coughing fit at the wheel, then back to ASDA for a prescription of steroids for Thomas and finally home by 7. Where did my day go? I think to myself that a wee relaxing bath would be the ticket. I get in with my book, and a good book it is too. It's a James Robertson all about an atheist son of the manse who decides to be a minister when he grows up (I wonder what made me choose that!) but Anna had other ideas. Somehow she manages to slip and split her chin open on the TV room floor while I am in the bath so I have to hop back out, newly clean, get drenched in blood, drive to Minor Injuries at the Vicky at 8:59pm only to see it closes at 9pm. I then walk to casualty and sit there for an hour before she finally gets her face glued and stitched back together. Back home and ready to get re-washed by 10pm. I find out when I get home that good old Léon has read a Danish book to Amaia and sung her some Danish songs so her routine isn't broken - what a wee star. He's trying to run the family too, wee man.

Now I need to sit down but it's time Santa wrapped her presents - sigh! (thankfully Lots has come on board for that task). And I can hear Mr Wheezy starting up again so I'll be sleeping with one eye open tonight again.

I can hardly wait to see what the last seven days of this year hold for us at this rate.

Glasgow - my first Xmas

Someone linked to this the other day. I remember the Sauchiehall Street lights always being a real treat when I was a tiny child so it was nice to see my very first ever Xmas - even if it is in black and white!

Hmmm, good try

Quote of the day from Amaia (4): But muuuum, it wasn't me who was arguing with my sister... it was my mouth!

Love my kids' outlook on life

So Léon comes up to me and comes out with:

Léon: X (I'll anonymize to protect the spoilt wean! ;-) ) in my class comes up to me the other day and says: You must have a really hard life Léon.
Léon: How do you mean?
X: Well, you haven't got a DS, no ipad, no phone and your family only has one TV. What do you even do in your room if you don't have your own TV?
Léon: Well, I don't have a room, so I play with my sisters in our room.
X: (rolls eyeballs) And your sister only got 50p off the toothfairy last week - we always get at least £5.
Me: So what did you say, Léon?
Léon: I just tutted, rolled my eyes and muttered 'East Renfrewshire' as I wandered happily off! You don't need things to be happy, you need family.

Not a very monarchist family

Conversation overheard this evening between Anna (6) and Amaia (4):

Putting on dressing-up clothes...

Anna: I'm going to be a princess. No, I might be a queen. I'll be Queen Elizabeth.
Amaia: I'll be Queen Ursula then.
(Their Danish cousins are called Elisabeth and Ursula).
Anna: No, Elizabeth is a real queen.
Amaia: Is she?
Anna: Yes she's real and she's still alive. She's the one who lives in London.
Amaia: Oh! I thought she was just a made-up queen they drew on the back of coins.

This made me cry

Baby Lily Mildred Buchanan-Widmann!

After last week's upset, we sneaked out on Tuesday morning to acquire a new family member. We got to see two boy hamsters and four girls. One of the girls, an all-over brown one, had already been reserved. That left this one, one who was almost identical to Rosie, right down to the triangle, but with red eyes (so we ruled her out as being too much of a reminder) and finally a really pretty fluffier creamy striped one. Of the boys, one was also really fluffy and coloured like a ginger cat. Almost immediately I started to toss up between the cream girl and the ginger boy. The owner said this grey one was friendlier so we played with all three for ten minutes before ruling her in and the creamy one out. She was a bit too chewy to live with young children unfortunately as she was stunning. This grey one was a tiny bit more curious, The ginger boy was so laid-back we weren't sure we'd ever see him again once he discovered our deep sawdust compartment, so she was chosen.

Once we picked the kids up from school and brought them home to their surprise, we had a conference on what to call her. Everyone, excluding Marcel who was at work but including granny, who'd dropped in for coffee, had opted for Lily but Anna was on a bit of an over-tired, post-school power trip so dug in her heels. Eventually she gave in with pouted lip and folded arms. The following morning, well-slept, she decided she needed to climb down though. Firstly, she tried to claim she had misheard us and thought we were trying to name a girl hamster 'Louis' and claimed that had been the reason for her strop. But later in the day she decided once again she needed somehow to have one up on her siblings so told me quietly 'Since the others got to choose her name, I think I should be allowed to choose her middle name'. Not realizing such a small animal needed one, I saw no harm in agreeing. Then she announced this tiny ball of fluff would be known forthwith as 'Lily Mildred Buchanan-Widmann'. Apart for making me laugh, I do wonder how she's even heard the name Mildred. I thought they all died out when Phyllises were still in nappies, and that was nearly 100 years ago!

The child of a campaigner?

The local primary must have been doing some slightly premature St Andrew's day celebrations today. Amaia and I were sitting in the living room when we heard lots of children's voices. This isn't unusual as we are equidistant between two primary schools, but this time they were accompanied by a piper, no less. As he made his way past our house we heard the bagpipes being played very well for a good five minutes without a break. Amaia sat quietly, listening and when silence finally reigned, she turned to me, smiled knowingly and announced 'Mummy, I think there is a Yes outside!' 

Rosie Hamster 12-4-13 -> 21-11-14

You can't spend 18 months living with someone without getting attached... On Friday our little Rose Hamster fell in her cage - she was always a climber. She broke her leg too badly to be treated.

At 5pm I was happily making dinner and sharing a slice of the butternut squash with our much-loved hamster and by 7pm I was listening to three hysterical kids as we buried her in the garden. This is the last photo I took of her a couple of weeks ago.

We were already having a shit enough day without that (a combination of watching another UKIP win down south - this time by a man who just last week stated he wanted EU citizens repatriated as soon as 2017 - goodbye husband?) That, and a wonderful new piece of legislation from our favourite ever Tory government stating that people whose circumstances change between taking out a mortgage and it coming to its end 25 years later (excuse me for being naive, but isn't that eventually likely to be almost everyone?) will no longer be eligible for new deals on fixed rates, trackers etc even from their current lender, but will be forced onto the standard variable rate. I don't really understand the logic of forcing people onto a variable rate when they most need stability and visibility, unless it is a way of increasing the government housing stock by repossessing everyone's house. But there you have it, and ours runs out next week! Wowser.

Anyway back to the main topic.

We originally chose a hamster, to be honest, because we couldn't really be bothered with a pet, or rather we wanted one and felt the kids would benefit from one but had so much on our plates that we couldn't commit to dog walking and knew a cat would end up under the number 4 bus that passes our house every 15 minutes all day long. We figured a hamster would serve the purpose of teaching them about care and companionship without us having to get overly involved. I did worry a hamster wouldn't have much personality to be honest. I now ask myself how wrong I could have been?!

Within days of getting Rosie, however, I was surprised to find I really liked her. I guess she entered our family at the point I usually have another baby, so she became that! And once she was installed in our internal hall, the one leading to all the downstairs rooms in our house (except our bedroom), I found myself talking to her every time I passed through. Hamsters are good listeners, especially when life throws shit your way. They look both interested and understanding. They nod a lot when you talk to them. She got to know the family routines and got up every morning at 8 to wave the kids off to school before retiring until about 5pm when dinner smells would again have her up for a chat. She knew us each by smell and was always happy to chat to us as any nosy and outgoing creature would. I'm the family salad maker so whatever I was making, she got a slice. She loved everything in a salad, except tomatoes. Tomatoes were a definite no-no. Thomas and Rosie had a chat at bed time every night - in Danish, of course. Like our kids, Rosie was a bilingual hamster.

Now maybe I'm just a soppy old git but if you'd asked me last week what I was most dreading when she eventually died, which I thought wouldn't be for about a year, so I hadn't even started psyching myself up for it, I'd have said the kids' reaction but today, two days on and having only caught about four hours sleep since Friday, I feel utterly lost without her. I miss sharing my salads, I miss our chats, and the house feels too quiet by half. Unlike the stereotypical mum showing relief at no longer having the hassle of cleaning her and feeding her and the likes, I find myself missing her dreadfully. She had her own wee character, so in a way is irreplaceable but I already find myself googling where I can adopt another little hamster I can chat to about its big sister, who died in such a silly way at just 19 months old. I find myself going through my flickr pictures sobbing, like a daft cow... She was such a sweet baby when we got her, so tiny.

I think one of the things that surprised me most, never having had a hamster, was the fact that she was very like a human, in many ways: curious about the same things and similar in her reactions to situations. Her little hands looked just like mine.

Every two or three months we'd get up and she would have rearranged her furniture - she had a three room cage and we'd suddenly find she'd moved all the bedding from one room to another overnight. She'd suddenly decide to move from living in her cosy glass jar to making a bed under her sawdust with a long tunnel leading up to it and then just as soon as she'd moved her stuff in, she'd change her mind again. I'm a bit like that myself. I like to move furniture, redecorate and move house so I could really relate to that. I like to imagine what must have gone through her mind because her moves always took quite a lot of planning and to-ing and fro-ing. It takes a little hamster a long time to move 2kg of sawdust using only her pouches!

Finally, we were of course very proud when she became the face of Scottish Hamsters for Indy ;-)

But she had a good life for a hamster. She was adored by us all. She had a huge cage thanks to our hamster expert friend who advised us early on that the cages sold in pet shops really aren't suitable for grown hamsters. We changed her toys often so she had a bit of variety and took her out to play with her in the bath (empty of course!) And she had rather a posh diet for a hamster too. Banana was her favourite.

Léon drew this for her which set me off again:

And little Amaia did her own wee drawing of Rosie in a tiara which is too sweet:

The saga continues

This week it is springs instead of gadgets...

First casualty was the mattress on our bed - a spring has popped through along either side - not in the middle where we actually sleep at least so we don't roll on it while we are asleep, but right on the edge so it nips my bum every morning on my way out. Mum very helpfully asked if our bed had perhaps seen too much action?! You've got to laugh!

Next, the couch in the TV room followed suit. I sat down last night and found another one up my backside. At this rate we'll need to buy each other bean bags and airbeds for Xmas. Oh to win the lotto!

I wonder what will die on us next week...

(I suppose after nearly six years of replacing nothing and trying to live freelance, things have decided to self-destruct en masse!) Joy...

First tooth out at last

Anna has been desperate to lose a tooth (any tooth) since p1 when most of her friends starting losing theirs. Now, half way through p3 (with two of her adult teeth fully through behind the baby ones) one has finally given up! She is so pleased.

We've never really done Santa or tooth fairies in this house - it's a bit too confusing multi-culturally, given different countries have different norms. Going to bed on Thursday evening she said quite matter of fact 'I'm putting this tooth under my pillow because although I know there's no tooth fairy, I don't know for sure that money won't appear here in the morning if I do!' Good, strong logic there!

Well, that was my week...

It didn't get off to the best of starts: Marcel offered to make us cappuccinos. He pressed the espresso button - this is usually followed by a grinding of beans, followed by the sound of the grinds moving through the machine to the water outlet and dripping down into the espresso cup while the milk steamer heats up. Silence and a flashing warning light were not a good substitute. A quick check showed there were beans and water, it just seemed to have no engine. We turned it off and on. A second attempt resulted in the beans starting to spin, followed by a hiccough, a whine, and a splutter and the light started flashing again. A third attempt resulted in nothing whatsoever other than a flashing light. Mr Gaggia was pronounced dead at the scene. How the hell are we going to get through a Scottish winter without the coffee machine?

Not sensing he was on to a loser, Marcel's next offering was toasted cheese. I don't mind if I do...

Unfortunately the Mr Rangemaster seems to be in cahoots with Mr Gaggia and decided there was no real need for the grill (top left) to continue functioning. So as of Tuesday this is a coffee-free, toasted-cheese-free, in fact toasted-anything-free household. (Bottom lip quivers.)

Wednesday was parents' night at the primary school. We had gone for 3-20pm onwards appointments so we could just pick all the kids up while we were in to see the teachers. We texted Charlotte to walk to the primary so she could sit outside the classrooms with three, four and five while we had our meetings. A cunning plan, or it would have been had Mr Citroën not obviously joined the same protest as the other two. We went out at ten to three and the engine was sounding vaguely like it had run out of fuel, except I could see it contained 20 litres. Then the immobilizer fault light came on, then the ABS fault light, then 2 other fault lights containing three-letter acronyms I didn't even know my car had. If it was a competition between the three Big Mr C was definitely trying his hardest to gain the gold medal. I abandoned it and took the five-seater knowing that after our meetings there would be six of us to transport home... somehow - sigh.

On our return I phoned the RAC. They always get things going so I wasn't worried. I stood outside in the freezing cold, deafened by fireworks for an hour while he got me to turn it off and on to no avail. He plugged in his diagnostics compter. Mr C refused to acknowledge its presence. So Mr C now needs towed to a Citroën (ouch that sounds expensive when it is already nine years old and showing signs of needing new wheels, tyres and an exhaust) dealer to be diagnosed with something vaguely terminal, but probably not before I've coughed up a wad of cash I don't have to fix it enough for it to limp home, no doubt. Come on, it's less than a month since I had your Turbo fixed, you're not playing fair! Sigh, sniff, sob.

Unperturbed, Thursday was our monthly trip to Makro day. We needed one of their 180 wash washing powders, we needed 96 toilet rolls and similar items you need when you live in a family of seven. By moving our trip to during nursery hours we figured we might manage to fit everything into Thomas's car - just about, anyway. While there we noticed they had rice cookers on special, which was great because another thing that is on its deathbed is our family rice cooker and when you are making a kilo of rice at a time, it is so much easier to do in a rice cooker. We bought one and brought it home. Thomas rustled up some lovely curries then threw the rice in a flicked the switch. The 'red light that indicates your rice is cooking' indicated our rice was not cooking, or rather indicated nothing at all because there was no effing red light! The rice cooker has died before it was even unpacked. Just great... I really feel like trying to visit Makro again, this time with the kids, or rather with the ones that fit in the car... Maybe we should have left buying gadgets to another week...

But my man always says I should look on the bright side of life... So I should try to dwell firstly on Wednesday's meetings: 

Léon was described as delightful, bright, focused, (well, focused when he's not in a chatty mood!), motivated, polite, caring, popular, and having actually got to grips with all the numeracy and literacy concepts that are being thrown at him. His teacher was more than impressed by his bilingualism and even had him teach the class a song in Danish, line by line to the great enjoyment of both Léon and his teacher. She says he's a 'lovely, gentle wee boy' - how can you feel anything but happy, when the woman who spends 6 hours a day with your child, thinks he's a lovely and gentle wee boy?

We then saw Anna's teacher, who gushed with enthusiasm for a bright and positive little girl who is clever beyond her years and motivated and focused all day long. She loves nothing better than to show the teacher how well she has understood everything and make her happy. The teacher seemed almost teary-eyed with enthusiasm when talking about her and she too was thrilled to have a Danish-speaker who could teach the other kids a bit about how life is in a bilingual household. She had taught both Léon and Charlotte in the past too and remarked that 'it must be easy growing up in a family with so many exceptionally clever kids'. That's a nice thing to hear as a parent! She genuinely remembered each of them and came out to talk to Lots too.


On Thursday I also got to meet one of Marcel's teachers - for an update on his crash drama course. Of course, given he's sitting on seven Highers and one advanced Higher after fifth year, I didn't need her to tell me he's clever, but it was nice to hear again what a lovely young man he is considered to be at school. She suggested he could 'charm the birds out of the trees' but I've always known he's a schmoozer, so all I could do was laugh! He's my boy and I'm proud of him. As for Charlotte, her parents' meetings aren't till March so I didn't get to speak to her teachers this week, but she, like every week, helped me look after the little ones, she made me laugh and she even made us impromptu Brownies so I know she is a lovely girl too!



Then on Friday morning Marcel astounded me once again by showing me his schoolwork. I know he's growing up, but I remember giving birth to him so recently (on my timeline at least) that it seems barely possible to me that he can have reached the depth of thoughts he has. It started last week when he was exploring Villanelle in Advanced Higher English. He explored that concept by writing a very strong poem about his father. I will republish it here once his folio has been marked by the SQA in spring, but for now I need to keep it under wraps.

This week in his spare time he moved on to playing with sonnets and decided to see if he could write a few - one of which he composed to a 'female friend' during a 20 minute trip on the number 4 bus. I was blown away. How can you go from baby to writing deep and meaningful poems in just 17 years? Again, I will re-insert it here once it  has been marked.

And there's Amaia - my beautiful baby who came home with a nursery photo this week that surprised me. To suddenly see her through another's eyes, or another's lens, I was moved to realize she isn't a baby or even a toddler any more but a beautiful young lady, already. A bright and gentle soul. A gift to us, that at the time may not have made much financial sense, but who needs money when your life is as full as mine?

Nursery rhymes with a 21st Century slant

I was on bedtime duty tonight. I read Anna and Amaia the book of Toy Story 3 and tucked them into bed. A bit hoarse after all my reading, I asked if they maybe wanted to sing me/each other a wee song instead of me doing all the singing. Amaia jumped in straight away with '3 little speckled frogs'. It came to Anna's turn and she opted for Sing a Song of Sixpence.



The lyrics she sang however (filtered through her 21st century ears) were as follows:

Sing a song of sixpence,

A pocket full of fries.

Four and twenty blackbirds,

Baked in a pie.

When the pie was opened,

The birds began to sing;

Wasn't that a dainty dish,

To set before the king?

The king was in his counting house,

Counting out his money;

The queen was in the parlour,

Eating bread and honey.

The maid was in the garden,

Hanging out the clothes,

When down came a blackbird

And pecked off her nose.

McDonald's anyone? :-)

Spot the 'English' textbook!

Léon's to do some spelling revision for a test this week. His list of words (that apparently he might confuse!) is as follows:

• sore
• saw
• floor
• flaw
• shore
• sure
• poor
• pour
• paw

He read them out once in his accent, looking puzzled. Let's face it, with a Scottish accent you are no more likely to confuse 'poor' and 'paw', than say 'rhinoceros' and 'zebra'! Then he read them in an English accent and fell about laughing! It reminds me of this ridiculous piece of homework Marcel got years ago!

Future Maths teacher?

Anna was sorting through her primary one papers the other day when she came across this, written when she had been at school for about nine months. I thought I'd blog it here for posterity, in case it gets lost over the years.

Firstly, I had to laugh at the way she presented me with it exclaiming how 'sweet and cute' she had been when she was 'young'! She wrote this when she was five and she's now nearly a month off seven! I am particularly amused that she is going to teach 'cids' to 'writ' and 'spel'! Hee hee - maybe she should start by teaching herself! I like the way she constantly refers to them as 'little peple' too, as if she had been 'big' when she wrote it! But my absolute favourite line has to be her explanation of what she's planning to teach all these little people: given 'Maths' or even 'sums' would have been easy to spell, you have to give her credit for her attempt at 'adding and take-away' or as it will be known forthwith in this house 'adng taicawy'. Love it!

Ribbon?

She came down to breakfast with this overlength ribbon hanging from the left hand side of her head...

Me: Shall I tie your bow for you?
Amaia (in a condescending tone): This is not a ribbon! I've had hair extensions!

Who even knows about hair extensions at four? I don't think she's even been to a hairdresser yet! The youth of today!

What's the point of a pumpkin?

I'm slowly concluding that pumpkins are pointless entities...

Every year I forget, and I'm fooled into buying one because they are so much easier to carve than a neep.

This year, worse than ever, the October climate has been way too mild and despite leaving buying and carving it till just four days before Halloween, it had collapsed into a useless pile of fustiness a full twenty-four hours before Halloween and been evicted into the garden. (And had to be scraped off the garden table this morning as it could no longer be picked up without disintegrating!)

This year, inspired by my bedroom wall calendar, we even decided to buy a second culinary pumpkin on top of the carving one and make every American's dream dish - the pumpkin pie. Lots and Marcel managed one spoonful each before declaring it 'just wrong', Léon did better and had a whole slice, but to be honest, it didn't do much for me. I didn't dislike it, but it wasn't special enough to bother increasing my body weight by however many calories it contained.

So next year I will buy a neep for my lantern and skip the pudding.