Keir Royale

“During the war…”

Uncle Albert’s merchant navy past is but a speck of dust in a far off mote of memory, as he sits on the settee tending to the guinea pigs.

Here he is, getting to know Sandy and Phoebe, while they gaze adoringly into his beard, hopeful of a few tasty titbits from within its luxuriant curls.

We’ve had visitors, we are soon to receive more visitors, we have just the one bathroom (also contaning the only loo) and we’re considering installing a libre/occupe light system in the kitchen to save on wasted journeys up and down the stairs in the vain hope of being able to brush our teeth.

Hannah has taken to writing stories, and her current oeuvre is ten pages long.
It’s called The Adventurous Eight but already the original eight are down to seven, as one of them has been turned evil by a baddy.

Hannah informs me the story will be at least ten chapters long, so we’ve got a way to go yet.

She reads it out to us every now and then, and I would place its influences firmly between Enid Blyton and Harry Potter with perhaps a touch of Milly Molly Mandy.

Uncle Albert had never held guinea pigs before, but doesn’t he look at home with them?

I think I know what Santa will be bringing him later this year.

Car trouble again. Not quite so dramatic this time, but a lot more expensive.

Un pneu creve.

And we didn’t notice in time to avoid wrecking the tyre, which meant buying a new one.

We found the local equivalent of Kwik Fit, and arrived there at about ten to midday.
I asked how much it would cost to replace the damaged tyre, and Monsieur retreated into the office to check with the computer.

Computer says bloody loads of euros, twice as much as they cost in blighty.
Anything cheaper? I ask.

Lots of chewing of teeth and discussions about how you have to have the same type of tyres on the front otherwise who knows what unimaginable disasters may befall you.

There is though, a cheap tyre already lurking on one of our back wheels.

How about swapping them round? I suggest, so the two cheap tyres are on the back and the two Pirelli A1 specimens are on the front?

He accepts that might work, peut-etre.

So how much is a cheap one? I ask.

More teeth sucking.

“Je ne peux pas maintenant, il est midi,” he shrugs.

It’s lunchtime, and he can’t consult the computer until after 2pm, or we’d be cutting into his stomach break.

It’s a cry that goes up across France a midi, and woe betide the person who expects decent service from someone who could easily check a price on a computer and be back in two minutes.

I know we’re on holiday, but really.

So we order the Pirelli and return the next day to have it fitted.

Next time we come we’ll bring a spare spare with us, then if we don’t need it we can sell it to pay for the fare home.

And so I find myself without access to my usual forms of exercise, many of which have gone by the board in recent years anyway.

And if I am to enjoy all the croissants I can lift, followed later in the day by lashings of tarte aux pommes, mousse au chocolat and crepes aux marrons glaces… well I shall have to get off the settee every once in a while.

Otherwise I’ll be turning up at my school reunion (first weekend in August - quelle horreur) as an unrecognisable blob.

This leaves me little choice but to sqeeze into my sports bra and ten-year old trainers to pound the mean streets of Brittany.

I managed to force myself out of bed this morning and had to stop after two minutes of light jogging. I think someone must have moved this bit of Brittany up to the top of a high mountain, as the air is unbreathable.

After just ten minutes I had to walk up the hill back to the house. This is not a good start. I will try again in two days, giving my muscles a chance to recuperate, like those of a top athlete.

Then, perhaps, I will get all the way around my self-appointed route without stopping, wheezing, or expiring.

The alternative, to just “dit non” when offered a delicious treat, is unthinkable.

Since we were last here, there’ve been one death and two heart attacks, and some friends have had more bad luck with tenants.

Their first was a former foreign legionnaire who murdered his ex-wife in their dinky thatched cottage, the second paid one month’s rent in a year and showed no signs of paying any more.

As landlords in France can’t evict tenants for non-payment of rent during the winter, they had to wait until spring had sprung before kicking him out. Then he skedaddled with most of the contents, including plates, casserole dishes and rubbish bins.

Now they’re wondering if they should sell up and spend the money on annual fortnights on the Costa del Sol instead.

The local youth – les jeunes – have taken to using the bus stop opposite the house we’re staying in as a meeting/partying/listening to music zone.

They screech up on those little motoclyclettes that sound like chainsaws, turn up the volume on the one car stereo they all share, and stand around chatting.

Eventually they tear off somewhere else, presumably to do the same thing all over again near someone else’s children at bedtime.

I remember being a teenager.
We were wild and crazy too.
We’d break into empty buses at the terminus, pass round a half bottle of vodka between fifteen or so of us, giving each one a swig and a half, and listen to David Bowie on a tinny portable cassette player.

We felt like we were living on the edge, a wild bunch in waiting.

There are no floods here - unlike Gloucestershire, where my parents had to be taken back to their house by the rescue services. They’d been stranded at a WI sale in the village hall for eleven hours.
Death by victoria sponge…

The best thing though, is that we’ve been here nearly four days and Mike has yet to drive our car off a wall.

There’s still time.

And this is the piece of work which brought tears to the eyes of Hannah’s teacher.

Where does she get her all-embracing love for the Little Ones?
I love the way she capitalises it as thought they’re some other breed. A very different breed from the big, grown-up six year old who’s soon going to be in Year 2!

Lots do to today. Packing. And I mean packing.

We’re going on the ferry to France, we’re taking a roof box for the car, which will soon be filled with Stuff, the bikes will be fixed onto a wobbly bike rack, and the guinea pigs will be cowering in their cage on the back seat.
Oh, and the children will be crammed in too - if there’s room.

At least we seem to have coincided with the smart ferry this time, the one with the on-board swimming pool.
We normally get one of the old tubs with nothing more than a slide and a place to sit and draw pictures: and on a six hour journey you need a bit more than that.

A bientot.

Mine’s not what it was.

There’s the lack of a secure, well paid, management position with people looking to me for guidance and, well, management.

There’s the sagging and dribbling that comes with middle age.

And there are the children.
Aren’t they supposed to bring joy into our lives? Well, they do, sometimes.
But they also bring worry, fear, paranoia, anger (plenty of anger) and a need for rock-solid self-esteem in the face of constant criticism.

On the way home from school the other day (this seems to be the time and place of many a revelation) I was explaining that Daddy was at work so Ben would have to accompany me to ballet with Hannah to sit in a small changing room for half an hour, and he replied,

“I don’t know why they still want him at work. He’s got a hole in his head and he’s old.”

This is a reference to his bald patch (which he dismisses as a pixellation problem when it’s clearly visible in photographs) and his advancing years.

Then later, when chatting to The Lodger, I mentioned needing my glasses to read some tiny speck of writing on the back of a postage stamp, and he burst forth with an uncharacteristic sense of drama,

“And even when she ges her glasses they don’t work. She needs to be sitting under a spotlight to be able to read anything.”

What with this kind of comment being bandied about, and the constant references to the size of my stomach, it’s a wonder I have the confidence to get out of bed in the mornings.

And here we are being reminded that it’s important to build children’s self esteem, when from what I can see, mine have plenty of the stuff and it’s me who needs a bit of a boost.

Where are the manuals for that?

We promised our daughter a trampoline for her birthday, which was in March. And we still haven’t got her one. How Beta is that?

I’m overwhelmed by the choice - you can get a piece of equipment to bounce on for anything from £80 - £600. Presumably the £80 ones won’t last the summer, especially if they’re prone to rust, but how much do we need to spend to get one that’s big enough for two, strong enough for me to have a go, and sturdy enough to last until they’re too old to get out of bed in the morning?

We could always give her an I.O.U.
She’s used to those.
She went to her purse the other day for a spot of Scrooge-like counting - they both like to know exactly how much money they have at any given time - and found very few coins, but a piece of paper instead.

It said -
“I owe you £4. Love from Daddy.”

And it wasn’t the first time he’d filched from his six year old daughter.
Last week on the way home from school Hannah suddenly complained that she had less money in her purse than she thought.

This simple statement escalated into full-blown attack and counter-attack.

“You took it Ben.”
“No I didn’t, you always blame me. I didn’t take your money.”
“Are you sure Ben?” from me, trying to mediate, but suspicious given his past history.
“Why do you always believe her and not me?” from Ben, quick to twist an accusation into a counter-accusation.

And so it went on until we reached the house, where we found Mike sitting at the kitchen table engrossed in the crossword.

It took him a few moments to register -
a) our return
b) the ongoing conflict
c) the reason for it

“Ah,” he said, finallly putting his pen down, “it wasn’t Ben, it was me.”
“You?” I thought I was the only one who would stoop low enough to steal from our children.
“Yes, er, I needed some cash. It was only £1.50.”

Hannah, not one to miss an opportunity, countered with a quick -
“It was £2 Daddy.”
And so she was reimbursed, with interest.

Ben felt he deserved compensation for libellous assumptions about his behaviour, but had to make do with an apology.

At least Mike averted another war by using an I.O.U. the next time.

But I don’t think a large piece of paper with “I.O.U. a trampoline” would do the trick, so we will have to make a decision and fullfil our promise.
Otherwise she may move back to her original request - a real dog.

Ever had one of these?

I don’t mean all the Sundays you have to spend cajoling, bribing and then threatening the children to do their homework.

I mean proper work. Outdoor work. The kind you return from with mud under your fingernails.

I spent this morning at the children’s school, along with a few other misguided parents, a teacher and the headteacher. We were tearing down a massive fence and replacing it with a neat wooden picket fence.

I was operating under instructions, as fence building is not my forte. But our gazebo had another outing, as it was needed to keep the electric buzz saw dry.

The fence is the final job that needs to be done to allow the children access to the newly refurbished wildlife area - after work done by us, with help from the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers, Devon Wildlife Trust, a scientist from the university (who supervised special areas for bugs) and a couple of grants.

Last year we put up a traversing wall…

So what next year?

A tennis court?
An athletics ground?

At least the children now have two wildlife ponds to go dipping for newts and tadpoles, and to chuck their empty crisp packets into.

The difference between our two children was starkly illustrated yesterday, with the help of their head teacher and a water bottle.

Hannah came out of school spilling over with the news that she’d been sent to see the head… (dramatic pause while my face fell and I wondered what Miss Goody Two Shoes I’ve Never Been Sent to the Head had done) …

“For good work!” she announced, smiling.

It was hard to extract from her exactly what this good work was, something to do with imagining what would be the best thing about being in Year 2 rather than Year 1.

As yesterday was school disco day, I saw her teacher later and she explained a little more.

“She wrote some lovely things about how she’d help the little ones from Reception settle into their new class. It made me cry!”

So there we are. An empathetic little sausage who brings tears to her teacher’s eyes.

Fast Forward to discomania… after a manic hour of Haribou sweets, skidding and playing tag, with thudding background music and flashing lights as accompaniment, it was time to extract Ben.

He was sweaty, wired for action and said he’d had a great time.
Then as we walked home, he had a different tale to tell,

“Something bad happened at the disco Mummy, and I want to tell you about it. At home. Just you.”

So we walked one of his friends home, fetched his sister from another friend’s house, and walked back.
My mind spun with imagined horrors,

- he’d been caught smoking
- he’d put the entire contents of the school down the loo
- he’d got into a fight and his opponent had been hospitalised

When we got home, I put Hannah to bed, then he beckoned me into his room.

“So what happened?” I asked, settling myself on his bean bag.

“Well…” and he explained how he’d managed to throw an empty water bottle at one of his friends.
“I shouted catch, but he didn’t hear me,” explained Ben. And amid the disco din the friend turned and caught the bottle with his eye rather than his hand.

This resulted in a lot of crying and a red mark, which then led to Ben being told off by the head and sent to stand outside his classroom for much of the disco.

He was obviously upset and worried, so I didn’t feel another severe telling-off was needed.
But I did trot out a few of the following…

“did you say sorry?”
“throwing things around is not what you should be doing, not at a disco, not indoors, not unless it’s a ball and you’re playing a ball game”
“you need to think before you act”
“what have you learned from this?”
“what do you think you can do next time to prevent anyone from being hurt like this?”

At this last question he retreated to his bed in tears and refused all offers of hugs.

I’m wondering whether he should write a note to his one-eyed friend.
It’s one of those accidents that happens sometimes when children are playing, but it does seem to happen to him a little more often than most.
He has the “stop and think” mechanism of a bull at a gate, but I did feel sad when he said,

“I’m an idiot, aren’t I?”

Mother at Large has passed me an award, for which I thank her profusely.

Her post today has also got me thinking about the perils of working from home, stashed away at the top of the house, out of reach of the shaky central heating system.

External deadlines suddenly disappear, and fantasy ones just don’t cut the mustard.

Telling yourself things like,

If I get this project done by Friday I’ll take the afternoon off…

will merely succeed in getting it planned by Thursday, after which you will take the whole of Friday off because…

I worked so hard to get this far, and really all I need to do now is to write the damn thing. How hard can that be? I deserve a day off and the deadline’s only been set by me anyway, I can always hand it in on Monday.

Tuesday would actually be better because the editor has meetings all day Monday and she’ll be busy catching up on her e-mails on Tuesday.

Yeah, Friday off is nothing more than I deserve after four days’ hard work, well, three and a half days really, as I had to go to the supermarket on Monday morning. Well, someone had to or the cat’d still be eating leftover turkey, which must be off by now.

Better go downstairs and chuck it out actually, I can finish off the plan on Monday and still have it written up by Tuesday.

Thank God I don’t have all those meetings to contend with now I work from home. I save so much time I can pop out pretty much whenever I need to. Better nip into town this afternoon, we’re running low on coffee again.

Never mind, at least not being at the office means I save all that commuting time - half an hour each way, five days a week, that means I can stop work now and not start again until, well, Wednesday probably, and I’ll still get it done sooner than if I’d been at work.

Right, better be off.

What you need is self discipline, but not such a debilitating fear of bankruptcy that you go to the opposite extreme, saving just a few hours to call your own on a Sunday afternoon.

What you need is Tony’s Middle Way, but by the look of him after three terms in office he didn’t ever manage to find it himself.

He did work from home though.

And now to pass on the compliment -

I hereby send the Rockin Blogger award to Not Wrong, just different - a glimpse into the life of a Brit trying to cope in the American midwest; and to Mutterings and Meanderings, a fellow Bowie fan who keeps me in touch with rural life, while I stare out of my window at houses, trains and dog poo.

Keep on blogging.