Keir Royale

So where’s the silver lining?

Above you see our “back garden” at home, where to play swingball you have to position the water-filled base carefully so as not to bash a wall, another wall, a shed door, or your opponent.

I must add this is an old photo. There is now a good deal of greenery clinging to the walls, but the grass is considerably less green and healthy-looking.

As soon as we walk through the door, fresh from six hours on the ferry, Hannah declares,
“I hate this house, it’s so boring with no garden.”

I can’t help feeling some sympathy with her, but have to come over all “make the best of it” and “this is home” and “you’ll see your friends tomorrow.”

“Only at school,” she moans.

Once we’ve harangued them through hands, face, teeth, wee and bed, we start the Herculean unpacking task and I ponder on what I have to look forward to now we’re back in Blighty.

I manage to come up with a few flecks of silver shimmering beneath the fog of shattered  homecoming…

- I am at last back in synch with Radio Four, and no longer have to feel slightly at odds with the world through listening to everything an hour late.

- I can listen on FM and kiss goodbye to all the dross that the Suits at the Beeb don’t really want on their airwaves but have to keep on broadcasting for the sake of the licence fee, so they shove it onto LW.

I hate bloody Long Wave. Morning Service, Shipping Forecast, Yesterday in Parliament, and hour upon hour of men whittering on endlessly about other men batting cricket balls.
There always seems to be a Test Match Special or the Cricket World Cup or a Let’s Piss Off Everyone who can’t get Radio Four on FM Cricket Bonanza when we go to France.

It got so bad this time that I even started developing an interest in the night life of the cricketers in the West Indies.
Apparently they had one really nice evening on the beach, drinking beer and singing songs, relaxing after a hard day on the pitch.
And I learned that one of the players had only just gone back to cricket after a few years trying to do a proper job. He found it hard to support his new wife and baby on what he could earn in the real world, so he worked himself back into shape and is now totally focussed on the game (which suggests he was merely dabbling the first time round) and is playing really rather well.

- I can turn on a tap without worrying about receiving a bill the size of the National Debt. Here we pay enough to service the National Debt every year, but we pay it regardless of how much water we use.

- I don’t have to be continually lighting things with matches - cookers, wood fires, paraffin stoves. This also means Mike can’t light the oven and leave the matches in the lit oven, prompting me to run to the kitchen to see what’s burning, only to find he’s cooking a box of matches for supper.

- I can simultaneously use the kettle, toaster and microwave. If I’m feeling really reckless, I can even do a bit or ironing and vacuuming at the same time WITHOUT a fuse blowing.

The electricity in France seems especially designed to tease…
“You think you’ve got electricity, but it’s only pretend, it’ll stop working if you actually use it, and then you have to fiddle with a little screw thing underneath the place where you plug in the appliance. You’ll find it’s melted and you can’t get it out, hee hee hee.”

- I’m back on broadband, and don’t have to grapple with a French keyboard in an internet cafe, where the letter “a” is where the “q” should be, and everything I write looks like I’ve suddenly started typing in tongues.

- And joy, oh joy, I can re-acquaint myself with the goings-on chez Grissom, Horatio and Mac.
I find the New York posse almost impossible to understand, but there are always subtitles, something we discovered could help no end when trying to keep up with French TV.

I even managed to watch CSI in French. They got Grissom’s voice completely wrong, but an addict has to take what she can get.

Perhaps if I were smaller, and furrier, the children would want to cuddle me more often. They certainly lavish lots of squeezy hugs on the poor little guineas, who’d rather be foraging happily in their marvellous new enclosure, pretending to be wild and free.

“Get off me, I’m busy.”

“You smell Mummy.”

The writer Joanna Trollope once said in an interview,

“The tragedy is that men love women, women love children, and children love guinea pigs.”How true. Except for the first bit.

Well, he probably does love me, once he gets past Lincoln City and vintage board games.I suppose there are similarities between me and the mouldy old sub-subuteo games he’s picked up at car boot sales. We’re both missing a few counters, and some bits don’t work as well as they used to.
Like my right knee - fine while I’m enduring my 22 minutes of jogging three times a week, but stabbing with pain when I’m walking home afterwards. 
The guinea pigs are well though. Their enclosure is finally finished – costing just 20 euros in wood, chicken wire and nails, but almost six hours of Mike’s time.
Still, at least he’s proved he’s not such a useless townie after all.
When we put the little creatures into it they wouldn’t come out of their box for minute upon minute of anxious waiting.

“They’ll get used to it, eventually,” I say, willing the pigs to venture out of their hidey-hole.

“Why don’t they like it Daddy?” says Hannah.

“If they don’t like it, they’ll be on a plate tonight, next to a portion of potatoes and some lightly steamed spring veg.”

We are in France after all. Guinea pigs are food.They do get used to it eventually, and love it. It’s great to watch them foraging in the grass and sniffing the air like proper animals.

It’s another day in paradise and Mike sets off to buy croissants. He returns just minutes after leaving, tight-faced, arms flapping, mouth stretched into a grimace.
“What’s happened?” I ask, assuming he’s forgotten his keys, his glasses, or perhaps even his brain.

“Just look,” he says.
So I put my head outside the front door. The car is wedged, its back end on the grass outside the house, the front end on the road, a low wall dividing the two, jutting up into the middle of the chassis.

“How did you do that?” I’m astounded. He’s driven off the edge of a bloody wall. And it’s not the first time. He’d already cut the corner the last time we were here, dislodging the back end of the bodywork. This time it looks bad.

“What shall I do?”

He’s pacing in a panic. I suggest the AA, as we joined Euro assistance a few years ago. We don’t know the right number, so he calls the UK service, waits in a queue for minutes of furious huffing and puffing, finds out the right number and calls it. It seems he didn’t renew the policy last July.

More panic, veering towards a Ben style paddy. Then he goes off to ask for advice from the bar owner up the road. I tell the children they won’t be getting their chocolate croissants this morning, and they just about manage to leave Mona the Vampire for long enough to look out of the window.

“Why’s the car stuck on the wall?” asks Hannah.

“I’m still not eating my cereal,” complains croissant addicted Ben.

Mike returns with local bar owner, who kneels down to check the damage. Another villager stops as he passes in his car, followed quickly by another. Any more and there’ll be the full Saturday afternoon boules team standing around sucking their teeth, amazed at the foolish shenanigans of the mad Englishman on the corner.

One chap reckons we should take a few stones out of the wall to stop it cutting into the car, so Mike fetches a chisel that he bought at a vide grenier (a car boot sale to you and me ) and he finds the hammer we use to put pictures up.

This is dismissed as a toffee hammer by two of the assembled throng. So one of them goes off to get some decent tools while another advises us to pile up more stones underneath the wall and then reverse the car back up the way it came.

Sounds simple enough to work, so we try it, but not before I take some photos for posterity. Perhaps if I blow one up and put it in the hallway it’ll remind Mike that there is, in fact, a wall outside the house that should be avoided when driving.

So we fetch the rocks piled up, for some reason by the previous owners, under the house and the practical men of the village stack them next to the wall.

The children stick with Mona and miss out on the exciting moment when Mike reverses the car, three men push down on the bonnet and it lurches back up the rocks and over the wall.

A miracle. No damage that we can see and our car is back on the road. We will be able to get home in time for the start of term.

There is though, the matter of a few stones missing from the wall, which is owned by the commune. So Mike walks up the road with a bucket to beg a bit of cement to stick it all back together.

His first foray into brick-laying, and probably his last.
Unfortunately the same probably cannot be said about his predilection for driving off walls.

And now they’ve come on holiday with us.Sandy and Phoebe are now happily foraging in the corner of the sitting room, since the intended purchase of a run to put in the garden has been foiled by the apparent DIY know-how of rural France.The people here must make their own runs, or perhaps they just keep their cochons d’Inde in cages until they grow big enough to eat. They certainly don’t spend good money on a concoction of wood and chicken wire from a pet shop, when they can easily knock up a shelter themselves for a couple of euros.

We can’t though. We’re a bit townie and useless.So the Guineas are living in a thrown together run of three boxes, now soggy with wee, in the corner of the sitting room. They seem happy, but it wasn’t the Big Idea.

The Big Idea was to liberate their inner South American free-running rodent; to watch them trotting about in the succulent French grass, rendering lawn-mowing unnecessary and showing the children how wild animals really live.Instead, the poor defenceless creatures are prey to enthusiastic kiddy cuddles at any hour of the day, not just after school, and they’re so institutionalised they don’t even bother to make the small step that would take them over the edge of the box and into the sitting room.

And what have the children learned? That they’d rather have a dog that comes when they call its name and doesn’t scuttle back into the safety of its pen, in fear of its life.Les Cochons d’Inde have tasted grass for the first time though, and they love it.No dried hay nonsense for them from now on. Just real, locally sourced, carbon neutral fodder.

Ever heard of Agent Cody Banks? No, thought not.

In fact I’ve endured his Baby Bond antics almost every day since we got here. It’s become the new Tots TV. I know every last nuance of the plot and most of the dialogue, now often accompanied by,

“I love this bit.”

“Me too.”

It’s their new fave film, and has me longing for the days of The Tweenies and Fimbles.

I thought we’d finally graduated to something a little more watchable, but at least the pre-school programmes were shorter. Now we have to suffer almost two hours of Agent Cody’s special brand of Groundhog Day before we can move back into the present.

Today Hannah asked,

“When we watch Agent Cody Banks, are they really doing it when we watch them?”

I replied,

“No darling, it’s recorded and edited and then dubbed onto DVD for us to enjoy at our leisure, or not.”

Ben scoffed,

“Course not Hannah, otherwise they’d have done it twice in one day.”

I bet they’re glad they’re not performing it live; otherwise they’d all be hoarse by now.

Ben may be a little more sophisticated than his little sister, but he’s not smart enough to twig that the actors don’t do their own stunts, despite having met a stuntwoman friend of mine and having seen her in action in Dr Who. She had to kick open a coffin in the Victorian episode, in case you’re interested.

So, Agent Cody Banks, what is he good for?

A little light entertainment, the first time.

A target for rotten fruit, the second time.

A broken DVD, the third, fourth or, if you’re very patient, the fifth time.

“Sorry kids, seems it’s broken.”

“Ah Mu-um…” moans Hannah.

“Never mind, we can watch Zathura again,” squeaks Ben.

“Yeah, Zathura again,” says Hannah.

And again, and again, I think, until…

“Oh dear, seems this one’s broken too. Sorry.” Not.

Out of the two of us, Mike is the one who finds, buys, collects and stashes in our attic, numerous board games from the nineteen-fifties onwards.

One of the few things that gets him excited, apart from Lincoln City Football Club on one of their rare and short-lived winning streaks, is explaining the rules of a new game he’s managed to persuade the rest of us to play.

So who is that spent much of yesterday playing assorted games with the children?

Well, I’ll give you a clue. It wasn’t Mike.

Yes, it was me, the game-hating harridan of our family who has never in adulthood  succumbed to Monopoly but can just about manage a few rounds of Uno, if drunk or in a good mood. Sometimes, when both states coincide, I might even be up for a quick game of Cluedo.

But yesterday, in one day I managed –

-         Badminton in the garden with Ben

-         Ballons (a French card game involving no skill but endless finger-crossing that maybe this time someone will win) with both children

-         Silly Sentences with Hannah

-         Cranium, well I admit Mike joined in with this one, but only after I pointed out my stratospheric score of Top Parent game-playing points

And today was no better. This time it was –

-         Badminton with Ben

-         Football with Ben (come on Mum, footballers do run you know)

-         Yet more bloody Ballons

-         And I took them swimming while Mike swanned about with his French Boules playing cronies

But when will they enjoy the games I can just about stand?

I rejoiced when they got past the Snap and Snakes and Ladders stage, after the horror of trying to get a two-year old Ben to concentrate on throwing a dice and taking turns to move his counter up a ladder or down a snake, constantly interrupted by baby Hannah demanding yet more access to my milk bar boobs.

I didn’t much like Ludo even when I was of an age to enjoy it, and I can only manage chess for long enough to beat an eight year old with less patience than me.

So that’s it; the answer in one fell, if a little cruel, swoop.

If he says,

“Can we play a game Mummy?” I need to reply,

“Sure, how about chess?”

Game set and match in ten minutes, followed by up to an hour of peace while he gives his toy soldiers hell in his bedroom.

Unlike Veolia.

We arrived at a freezing cold house after a night on the ferry, a fog-brained trip to the supermarket and an unscheduled stop on the N176 to reclaim a big box which had sprung loose from the roof rack and distributed long metal poles into the path of passing cars.

We were keen to drink tea, make supper and warm the children up with a bedtime bath. But when I turned on the water, nothing came out of the taps but a pathetic dribble.

When I called the company to pay, I was told we couldn’t use a card over the phone, but had to drive to the nearest big town, half an hour away, to pay by cheque.

So we made the children some sandwiches, discovered that the house had been so cold that the Nutella had crystallised into unspreadable little chunks, stuck another story tape on and headed for St Malo, where we drove around looking for an obscure industrial estate so we could stand a chance of getting the water re-connected that day.

We found the office, thanks to un homme tres gentil who took a break from serving in his restaurant to look up the relevant street on the internet and print off directions. And there we experienced Veolia’s customer interface.

Good service is obviously not in the company mission statement.
I would imagine it goes more along the lines of –

-         Ignore all the poor suckers who manage to locate the office. They’re obviously bad customers or they wouldn’t have to be there.

-         Shrug your shoulders like a Parisian shop keeper who doesn’t stock anything bigger than a size ten

-         Suck your lips in that peculiarly French way that leaves people in no doubt that they are being despised

-         Stare at the computer with your nose scrunched up as if you’re watching a really gruesome episode of CSI

-         Take the cheque while on no account looking at the person who’s proffering it

-         Explain that the water cannot be re-connected before tomorrow, “pendant la journee”

-         Show no compassion for the fact that customer has two young-ish children who will have to go to bed dirty

All this is obviously in French.

I did manage to communicate that we weren’t keen to pay the extra forty-five euros imposed as a forfeit for having our water turned off, as it had been an error in which they had played their part.

So we left, bought some water at ten pence a bottle, probably straight from someone’s tap, and headed home for a spot of indoor camping.

The children were more than happy to go to bed dirty.

Questions, questions, questions
Bears can’t make pancakes,
can they? Why can’t we see God?
I’m worn down, tired out.

Answers
My head is fizzy
from questions. Do mermaids have
bottoms? Tails they do.

Hannah’s Rituals
Ben prays every night
at bedtime. I don’t, I just
stick lick barn to me.

Keir Royale » Jersey Cow

It’s not what you expect when you Google yourself, to find on the first page of results, loud and clear and in bold,

“Cathy Keir is a slag”.

It was a shock to see it in its first incarnation, thirty years ago, scratched onto the back of a bus seat in Jersey, and it’s a shock to see it again now.

It’s my fault of course, first for Googling myself (mind you, I defy anyone internet-literate to claim they’ve never done it) and second, for sending out into the ether an article about my formative years on The Rock.

Those formative years included, as they did for most people, a weary familiarity with public transport and a certain amount of warring with teenagers from other schools. This etched bit of bus graffiti was one of the results.

And you can trust me, after all I’m a responsible parent and school governor these days, it wasn’t true, even then.

But even knowing that, I’m not sure how I feel about those words being out there. After all, not everyone’s coated in Teflon.

There are ways of doctoring what Google will come up with though. Apparently if you compile a profile for yourself on sites like Zoom Info, that information will come up first in a search. It’s a way of sanitising what prospective employers will discover about you.

But can it create different profiles for different searchers?
Can it be programmed to work out whether it’s a high-paying employer or a potential hot date who’s clicking the keyboard in search of the real you?

Perhaps it could prepare a tempting “Foxy chick, a degree more than the average” to sit on a server ready and waiting for any chap with one head, a reliable job and a brain located where it should be, rather than where they often are.

And then somewhere nearby, another profile for the Decent Employers of this world, which would read something along the lines of “Dedicated, conscientious, imaginative, Big Picture thinker with an eye for details”.

Now that would be a service worth paying for. Perhaps Mr Gates could set to it?