Granny?!

I took the kids up to Montmartre the other day to see the artists sitting drawing in Place du Tertre. Obviously with so many children, I had to run the gauntlet of artists all saying they could sketch them for some astronomical fee if I had a spare couple of hours. But the most shocking for me was just as I was taking this photo. A woman of about 50, sketch pad under her arm, asked Marcel who was standing less than a metre from me if she could draw his cute, little daughter for him! Arg!

Passport issues

Léon needed a new passport last year. We called up the UK passport photo guidelines which stated that although glasses were borderline acceptable, they much preferred glasses to be removed on your passport photo. This seems ludicrous to me given the great detail they go to about not opening your mouth or smiling as your features will be so distorted as to render you unrecognizable. Why on earth do they want your glasses off? I barely recognize Léon without his glasses as he's worn them all the time since he was four! 

Anyway, we followed the rules and he got a passport containing the above (left) photo.

Then Anna's Danish passport needed replacing. We called up Danish passport photo guidelines and they stipulate that if you wear glasses, they must be present on your passport photo. So Anna got a passport with this photo on it. 

When Léon found out this anomaly at the weekend he stated categorically that he wanted a Danish passport now, and would be refusing to travel on his UK passport henceforth! Emmm - could be difficult. He hasn't had his French passport renewed since he got his first glasses, so I don't know whether French passports prefer glasses on or off, but given a certain person's reluctance to pay for anything I can pay for instead, he's probably going to have to wait till he's an adult before that's renewed!


Life's a bit complicated when you have five dual-nationality kids!

The Eiffel Tower

I don't think I have ever seen anyone look as proud and happy as Léon when he reached the top of the Eiffel Tower. I didn't have the heart to tell him he'd been before - but I guess he doesn't remember!

An enigmatic child

I don't always get Charlotte.


Charlotte has a sweet tooth. She would live on chocolate, sweets, candy floss, nutella, and all sorts of rubbish - preferably washed down with lashings of double-cream - if I didn't ration her. She'd even manage to work her way through a box of sugar lumps if she thought she could get away with it. 


From she first started talking, however, Lots has claimed to hate jam - in all its flavours - with a passion. She'd rather have no breakfast than let a jam sandwich pass her lips. Given the make-up of her character and tastes, she should love jam, but she refuses stubbornly to taste anything remotely jam-like.


I don't get it at all.

Sulley?

Here's Amaia dressed up to look like Sulley out of Monsters inc... And that's as close as any of us managed to get to any Disney characters despite being a couple of stops away from Disneyland Paris all week! Personally, I'm not a fan of all that US, barf-worthy waving and shaking hands with Mickey but I'm not heartless... I am a mother and I know at least three of my babies would have been absolutely bowled over by a day in Eurodisney. However, I fail to see, five years into a financial crash, how the place is still open at all. I did enquire how much it would be for me to take the kids in for one day. Note the number there - it says one day, not one week! £294 for a one-day pass for my family - this does not include food, overnight accommodation or anything like that - this is just entrance to the park! (And worse still Amaia doesn't even pay yet, so this is just mum, dad and four kids inc a 4 and a 6 year old! For some reason both Marcel (14) and Charlotte (12) are both classed as adults already - that's a wee bit cheeky in my book - they must know if you are taking in your teenager and pre-schooler, it is your pre-schooler who really wants to be there and your teenager is already not overly impressed at getting dragged along, so making you pay full adult price is a bit steep!) Given it only cost £430 for a seven bed villa in Paris for seven nights, I fail to see how a day pass for the same family at Disneyland can cost just £100 less. So that's a big thumbs down, Disneyland, from the Buchanan-Widmann-Gautier family!

Mrs Who?

It's never dull being married to a foreigner... I should know, after all I've had my fair share of foreign husbands!

First time round I changed my name - It was more the done thing back in '91 than these days. I wasn't so much asked by the registrar if I wanted to change it, as told when I signed the marriage certificate 'This is the last time you will sign Buchanan'! That seems strangely out of date now - though I have to say I am still more often than not called either Mrs Gautier - when one of the schools phone me, Mrs Widmann, when someone rings my doorbell (marked Thomas Widmann and Phyllis Buchanan) or Mrs Buchanan-Widmann. I even get Mrs Buchanan by people who have sussed that a) I am married, b) I call myself Buchanan. Ho hum! One day someone will address me as Ms Buchanan as it says on my personal documents!

Anyway that wasn't the topic - just one of my bugbears. I keep hoping I'll still be around when society catches up with the reality that Miss Gautier's mother is no longer necessarily Mrs Gautier, and that if Master Gautier joins Beavers, sending a large Beavers welcomes the Gautier family card, though it may be a nice gesture, isn't always appropriate!

So - back to foreignness. First time, as I said, I became Gautier. So I too had all the fun. People, of course, have heard of Gautier because of Jean-Paul Gaultier. Gautier actually has three different spellings is France each with a different frequency. Firstly, and by far the most common is Gauthier, second and not nearly as common is Gautier, third and almost unheard-of is Gaultier. But of course we Brits only know one Gaultier - so I spent half my marriage correcting the spelling of my name from Gaultier to Gautier (and still have to on everything my kids ever sign up for). And that's just the clever ones who actually sussed my name at all. I got various fun ones over the years: Phyllis Gucci (I wish!), Phyllis Gottier, Phyllis Got-here, Phyllis Goatie, Phyllis Goatbeard... Snailmail caused daily bouts of hilarity. 


Then of course I got divorced, but none of the fun was lost, given I still have three house members with that surname. I moved in with a Widmann. That's not too hard, surely? Oh you'd be surprised! Often he simply loses an 'n' and becomes Widman, but we've had Whitman, Woodman, Whiteman(!), Wadman (is that someone with lots of money?), Windman (I won't suggest what that might be!) and finally last, but definitely not least my personal favourite Thomas Wild-man! I have actually had the postman come out with the words 'Do you have a Wild man here?' (None of your business, postie ;-) ) I know I stayed Buchanan this time round but if he gets Wild-man often enough, I might just consider a name change. Life would never be boring being Mrs Wild-man, surely!? It's very Tarzan and Jane ;-)

Film pods

Is it just me or does any one else miss film pods? They were such handy wee things. As a camper and a photographer, I remember their many uses...

I used to take two - one with salt, one with pepper on holiday. They were just the right size. I'd have two or three filled with washing powder, one with a sewing kit, mixed herbs etc. On a picnic, if you'd taken enough photos, you and a partner could use one each for drinking wine slightly more delicately than swigging it from the bottle.

Packing for a trip recently, I did wish I'd kept just a few from the old days! It's funny... I bet if I showed my kids this photo, they wouldn't even know what it is!

Photographic blackmail!

This is one of my all-time masterpieces - even if I say so myself. Given Marcel is the kind of kid who is really quite image-conscious these days, never daring to go to school with a hair out of place, lest one of his many female fans should see him. What better ammo can a mother have to drop on her son's facebook page, randomly, after he's gone to bed at night than a cutesy baby photo, complete with smug blueberry face and jam sandwich stuck to his head! It is just asking to be done, isn't it?! ;-) (He loves me - really he does!)

Personalized number plates

I've never been a fan of personalized number plates. I've always liked to think that if I got to the stage of having that amount of money to waste, I'd rather give it to cancer research, or sponsor an orphan in the 3rd world or whatever - but that's another rant... I'm sure many of my close friends have them, and I can't fall out with the whole world!

Anyway, what I was going to say about personalized number plates was - given they were brought in, presumably to be used as status symbols, are we now reaching a point four years into the recession where not having one is actually a bigger status symbol? I've noticed cars I expect to have personalized numbers - big BMWs, Mercs and even the jeep-shaped Porsches whizzing past me when I am in Thomas's old Micra in the M77 sporting brand new 62 plates instead of ZZ 3 and the likes. Now we can't afford to change our cars every three years in this new economic wilderness, is having a current number plate the new way to show off your wealth?!

Curry torture

With the sudden and unexpected good weather the last few days of March came the reminder of the curry torture we suffer all summer - well on the sunny days anyway! 

The problem is the Indian restaurant across the road from our house. Despite being in business since the Harvie Avenue shops were built, possibly as far back as my high school days, it isn't wonderful. Their curries are watery and insipid and I doubt they have ever used a fresh herb or spice in their kitchen. I think they are more a 'two heaped tea spoonfuls of smart-price curry powder' type of place to be honest. You couldn't pay me enough to eat there... There are so many better Indian restaurants in Glasgow and Thomas is an expert Indian chef. The problem is that somehow despite the mediocrity of their actual food, they somehow manage to emit an absolutely mouth-watering smell, particularly early evening when I am sitting down to consider what we can have for dinner. I have no idea how they do it - maybe they put all their fresh herbs and spices into their extractor fan to tempt people in while simply wafting the odd dried chili at the actual meals! Anyway the result is that if I happen to be sitting in the garden, the smell means I can't think beyond curry, and that's not exactly going to be great for my figure, is it? The only solution therefore is to wish for a summer with temperatures as mediocre as their culinary ability so I don't make it out to my garden bench too often!  But that would be a bit depressing too!

Food colouring

I wonder if food colouring is one of those markers of the thresh hold between childhood and adulthood? Charlotte made these cup cakes on Thursday and iced them herself. Charlotte and her younger siblings thought they looked so appetizing they wanted one of each colour, each. Marcel, Thomas and I couldn't really get past the colour. They were sitting there on the table looking like a culinary ad for Ikea!

Will I finally realized Lots has crossed the line, the first time she ices a cake in a pastel shade... or worse still - dollops on mascarpone instead? ;-)

Oh, and one last bugbear... when did they become cup cakes anyway? They were fairy cakes when my granny taught me to make them in my spotty pinny at the age of five, and to me they'll always be fairy cakes!

Anyway - look how happy they made my Bopster!

American Pie

I don't usually have time for cover versions of American Pie - but Weird Al's just leaves me speechless with admiration! Mind you, both my sons, my nephew and brother are all Star Wars daft, so just put up with me.

Simpler is sometimes easier

Am I getting old, or are kids making the world more complicated than it needs to be?

The other night Marcel, Charlotte and I were watching Groundhog Day for probably the twentieth time! We don't usually watched movies more than once or twice but this is in everyone's top ten so is a good one to unite us round the TV. We got to the snow scene and Phil and Rita started dancing to Ray Charles' old classic 'You don't know me'.

Because we've all seen it so often none of us was giving it our full attention. I was working on my laptop, Marcel was on facebook on his laptop and Charlotte was also playing a game on hers.

Marcel commented how he'd always loved that song, but didn't know what it was. He whipped out his phone

and started fiddling with it and holding it up. I asked what he was doing and he looked at me like I came out the ark and told me he was 'shazaming' it. His phone app would listen to the tune and tell him what it was. He had joined the song too late so it failed to detect it. He skipped back and put the scene and the phone on again. Frustrated when it failed a second time, Lots grabbed her phone too and the two of them started 'shazaming' it! I asked why, given they were both on laptops, they didn't just google it (or better still ask me - the old fogey in the room - as I could actually tell them what it was!) But both were determined to show off how no mortal being could live without Shazam. I turned my laptop round, typed 'groundhog day you don't know me', clicked on the first link and was soon playing them the whole tune on Youtube while they both cursed and spat at 'Shazam', still determined to show me I had simply been lucky to find it before them!

I did feel quite smug though!

Cake-tastrophe

We volunteered to make a cake for Pumpa's birthday... to be more precise, I volunteered Thomas to make a cake for Pumpa's birthday! Thomas and I have a lot of work on this week, and added to that the kids are off school - so without childcare we've both been working past midnight every night. He'd also brewed some beer that needed to be bottled today so things were quite hectic. Running late, around 9-30, I was getting the girls ready for bed when Thomas ran through in a panic - he'd run out of eggs! I ran out to the supermarket, while he kept stirring and by 10 things were back on course but the girls, Amaia in particular, were way beyond shattered. As Thomas finally stuck on the layers and candles, Amaia trudged through to the dining room and used all her remaining energy to pull herself up into her chair where she sat, plate in hand saying 'Granny and Pumpa' over and over. Thomas didn't realize immediately she had it in her head they were about to turn up for cake, so lifted her, resulting in complete meltdown, accompanied by intermittent shrieks and sobs. It was only when I finally convinced her Granny and Pumpa were in bed asleep, that she agreed to be carried to bed, all the while sobbing in Danish 'Granny sover, Pumpa sover, Granny sover, Pumpa sover!'

Marcel, a future economist?

Thomas and I watched Inside Job the other night. Despite both being fairly into economics, following stock markets and the likes it was still absolutely astounding to be reminded of the magnitude of what has been going on for the last decade or more in the US economy. To see all the same culprits pop up in Obama's government and realize they haven't the slightest intention of regulating the banks any more in the future than they did in the past was more than soul-destroying, especially given that any future Republican president would be even less likely to look in that direction than Obama if he scrapes back in... It was thoroughly depressing. 

Marcel was hanging about with nothing to do today - or rather it was too snowy to venture out so I asked if he'd like to see it. I explained it was more or less a documentary and that it might be hard to follow but he should stick with it if possible because it would be very significant, at least historically for his life and understanding thereof...

He disappeared into the TV room. I expected him to last 20 minutes before putting on a different movie - something with Will Smith or Meryl Streep or the likes, but no he remained glued for the entire two hours then came bouncing out completely invigorated, talking ten to the dozen analysing the whole sub-prime market, the insurance, CDO and derivatives issues etc. He was absolutely enthralled and said it was the most outrageous but also most fascinating financial plan he'd ever seen. Unlike us, who found it depressing, his young brain was thrilled at the state-master-minded bank robbery and he couldn't stop analysing all day, how it could have been done better so as either not to have collapsed, or to have collapsed slower so only a future generation would have found out what had happened. He cynically concluded that with a little tweaking, something should be able to be done to make the plan work better next time round. He sat analysing how the CEOs taking smaller bonuses might have made it drag on longer and wandered off to check out entrance requirements for economics degrees here and in the States, muttering under his breath 'There's a shitload of money to be made out of this mum!'
I don't know whether to be proud or scared witless!

Happy Anniversary!

Congratulations to mum and dad - married 47 years ago today. (Looks like it was a snow-free day back then!) I'm not sure many of my generation will make this incredible milestone.

I guess my one regret is that when you don't marry Mr Right until you are 41, the chances of celebrating your 47th wedding anniversary (and still knowing who you are(!) is fairly slim). I don't think anyone in my family has ever lived to 88 :-( Well, it gives me something to aim for...

Face paint

I had forgotten how much more face paint we go through when the biggies are away on one of their three compulsory annual holidays with my ex. Anna just doesn't know what to do without them and constantly mopes around until I cheer her up with a bit of face paint. I should charge it to my ex!

The other issue, as time goes on, is her incessant chatter. I think she feels she has to compensate for all three missing children single-handedly talking, talking and talking without ever stopping for a breath - my nerves are frayed!

When she finally runs out of things to talk about, she either makes something up about Silly Mad John and his family, or counts to one hundred over and over!

I guess unless you've been in the situation, it is hard to understand my kids' world. They are together 80% of the time and then suddenly they are wrenched apart through no fault of their own. Anna and Amaia don't really understand where their family goes to or why. Léon's not overly sure either. When you are little, time passes much more slowly so it is hard for the little ones to remember after their July separation, that another week like this will come again at Xmas and in April. They feel like lost souls at times.

Paddling pool in March... snow in April!

Well it looks like Scottish weather has nose-dived off a cliff this morning. I'm sitting here in jeans, a long-sleeved t-shirt, and a cardie, with the central heating on. No one (funnily enough) is outside in the paddling pool today because it is currently snowing... Yes it is bloody snowing! There's exactly one week (not to mention 19°C) between these two photos.

Expanding on the Batman theme

Ever since we had the front of the house repaired, Léon has been inventing wilder and wilder fantasies about Marcel being batman. It seems a shame to spoil his fun by painting over the bat in white, so I decided a more appropriate course of action was to extend the theme onto the cladding on the front of the house. It is looking good, don't you think?

Dandelions for mummy

It's the thought that counts, I guess!

I spend every spring, summer and autumn on my knees pulling dandelions out of my lawn. I hate them with a passion. Turn your back for ten seconds and they multiply like rabbits. And they always come in twos. This year we have more dandelions than lawn.
Given the beautiful weather this week, I have spent more time on my knees than usual! I am totally scunnered with dandelions.
Today I had to work so Thomas took the kids out for a walk. Amaia came bouncing in afterwards with a bouquet for me! Dandelions - thanks Bops, that's lovely. Followed closely by Anna who had not only picked me twice as many and even stuck them in a vase!

My kitchen is now overflowing with dandelions! Thanks kids!