Trapped!

As I have arthritis in both hips (proof that I am an old witch), I am currently unable to walk.

As I walk eight miles every day taking the children to school and back, this is not good news.

And so I have invested in a bike.

It is a while since I rode a bike. About 25 years, to be precise.

How glad I am to have rediscovered this! I think as I sail down the hill across the racecourse in the sunshine.

It is quite a steep hill and involves hefty braking at the end. I heftily brake, skid, and almost fall off.

That was close, I think, settling myself back onto my seat.

Or, rather, trying to. Why can’t I move?

Then I realise. My oh-so-practical coat (calf-length, waterproof, zip-up) is trapped between the rear brake pad and the tyre.

Hmm, I think, giving it a futile tug.

But I was once a Girl Guide, so I have a plan. I will take my coat off, roll it up, trap it on the rear parcel rack, and wheel the bike home.

Undressing while attached to a bike is not easy. Nor is wheeling a bike that has a coat attached to the wheel. In fact, it’s impossible. The coat is so severely trapped that the wheel refuses to turn.

And then it starts to rain.

At this point, I do what all self-respecting women do. I ring my husband.

“I think I need your help,” I say oh-so-casually.

“Humph,” he replies. It is not a good idea to detach a man from his hammer at 9am.

“Yes,” I say. “I seem to be trapped in my bike wheel.”

Silence.

Then laughter. Lots of it.

“And you presumably want me to rescue you – despite what you wrote about me and my jumpers?”

“Ah. That. I do like your old jumpers really. And you I think you might need to bring a tool kit.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

And so I spend ten minutes affecting nonchalance on the racecourse, smiling at the passing dog-walkers. Yes, I make a habit of standing here enjoying the view. Particularly when it’s raining and my coat is huddled up on the ground beside me.

One elderly man realises what has happened, and chortles at me. As he is walking his ferret, I really don’t think he ought to be chortling at anyone. Fortunately the swarming teenagers are so absorbed in themselves and their cans of Red Bull that they don’t even notice a bedraggled middle-aged mother attached to a bike wheel.

Eventually my knight in shining armour (husband in DIY garb) arrives on his white charger (old bike).

“Ho, ho,” he says. “I think I might leave you there all day.”

But, of course, he doesn’t. He dismantles the bike, detaches me, and puts the bike back together again. And as I cycle home with my long coat knotted around my middle, I remember why I keep him after all.

Mr Predictable and the New Jumper

My husband is a man.

Therefore it goes without saying that he does not like change. Particularly not when it comes to buying clothes.

He will buy several identical pairs of cords and wear them until they disintegrate. He will then curse M&S for no longer selling exactly the same cords 20 years later.

So it was with some trepdiation that I ventured into Austin Reed, clutching a £20 voucher (courtesy of the Daily Telegraph). Surely I could get him a nice packet of socks for £20.

I inspected them. No: they were not exactly the same as the M&S ones. Quite apart from anything else, this would lead to panic about mis-matching pairs. Then I look at the voucher’s small print. Excludes socks.

Well, obviously it does as they are the only things under £20.

I turn to skulk away.

But then I see them. Cotton jumpers in a fabulous shade of blue – a snip at £20 with the voucher.

I think of the current Jumper Collection. There is a definite theme: woollen, orangey-grey and patterned. If, that is, the pattern hasn’t been eaten by moths.

Yes, I think. Time for a change!

At home, I put the bag in a prominent position on the kitchen table, where it is ignored.

“I bought you a nice new jumper,” I declare.

He looks suspicious.

“It’s blue,” I say helpfully. “Blue cotton.”

“Cotton?!”

“Yes. Nice cotton.”

He retreats behind his newspaper.

I move the bag upstairs and put it on the bed. He sniffs around it cautiously, but doesn’t open it. My guinea pigs do this too when something new is introduced to their cage. After a bout of suspicious sniffing, they then try to eat it. They are also male. Hmm.

Three days on, the bag is still unopened. But I know him. In a month’s time, he will try it on. Then he will say he is so glad that he thought of buying it. Then he will buy four more identically the same and will wear them for the next 200 years and will be sad when Austin Reed no longer make them.

Not that men are predictable or anything.

Newspapers, poospapers

It’s Monday morning – so it’s time to read last week’s newspapers.

Well, that’s not strictly true. It’s actually time to clean out the guinea pigs. But as lining their cage with old newspaper is my sole opportunity to catch up on all the news I’ve missed for the past week, cleaning them out takes a while.

While it’s quite good fun finding out what happened a week ago, it’s even more fun deciding who the guinea pigs get to wee on. When Gordon Brown was still PM, there was no competition. However, that was just a teeny bit dull. Now I get to choose. Is it going to be Wayne Rooney or Anne Robinson? A foreign dictator is always a good poo-receptacle. So is a Miliband (any one will do).

Sometimes I get a nice surprise, and some forgotten object of irritation presents himself to me. Today’s was Paul Daniels. There is no satisfaction quite like it.

Tee hee, I think to myself as I launch the piggies back into their nice clean cage.

Then my mother calls.

“I’ve just seen your  last Daily Mail article,” she says.

“Oh goody,” I reply. “How nice it must be to sit and have coffee and read the Mail.”

“Yes. I just retrieved it from the chicken coop. I’m afraid you’re covered in chicken droppings.”

I think I have got my come-uppance.

Hermann the German

I have a horrible feeling that I am about to commit  murder.

I have a house guest for half term. Hermann only arrived five minutes ago, and he is already dominating my life.

He is sitting on my worktop covered loosely with a tea-towel.

Hermann, lest you wonder, is a German sourdough friendship cake. The idea is that you add to him, then give bits of him to your friends and eat the remainder.

As my daughter has lots of friends and likes cake, I agreed to let Hermann into our kitchen. He comes with instructions, which are always scary.

‘If I stop bubbling then I am afraid I am dead,’ the instructions declare gloomily.

Oh no. I have my family squawking for food. I have my guinea pigs bellowing for veggies. Now I have to remember to feed Hermann as well. I really do not want the death of a sourdough cake on my conscience.

But then I remember the last German house-guest I had. He used the mixing bowl for his cereal. A mega-pack of Shreddies lasted two days.

Compared to that, the cup of flour, sugar and milk that Hermann requires is a doddle. Long live Hermann!

 

What is the Point of Men?

I find myself asking this question at least every, ooh, 30 seconds. Anyone who works from home and also has a husband who works from home will understand why.

They take up space. They are fussy about children’s wet feet, and don’t notice their own large footprints on the carpet. They ask you if you saw ‘that article in the newspaper’, when the only time you ever get to see the newspaper is when you are lining the guinea pigs’ cage with it. They take root on the computer, un-glueing themselves only to watch news programmes. They forget entire conversations (“yes, I have told you at least fourteen times that I am going out tonight so you are looking after the children”).

Small ones aren’t much better. They shout. They get you to time them on a stopwatch while they try to beat their record for running around in pointless circles. They forget to put their pants on or take their smelly socks off. They kick every passing lamp-post (what is that all about?)

In short: we should just go off and live in a female commune and knit lentils and breastfeed our teenagers (girls, naturally).

But this morning I was reminded why it is worth keeping a pet man.

I forgot to set the alarm for son’s Wind Band rehearsal (Wind Band being something for which he is eminently well qualified. Like father, like son). And so we had to go to school in the car. Only the car was snowy.

I do not need a man to scrape snow off a windscreen, I thought. But then the car refused to move from its comfy white bed.

Definitely a job for a man.

While I’m at it, the decorators who are currently transforming our house are men. Only a man would be crazy enough to balance ladders on stairs to paint an attic ceiling 500 feet up.

The postman who has just slithered through the snow to bring my Boden summer dresses is a man. The one who will return them to Boden when I look in the mirror and see a middle-aged frump staring back at me will undoubtedly be a man.

And best of all: while I was busy being late for Wind Band, my husband went all the way down to the vegetable plot in the snow (which is rather like walking to the moon and back), retrieved my full green bin, and put it out for the bin men.

I think I see the point of men after all. Especially mine.

Eating My Words (with a side order of fries)

A couple of weeks ago, I pontificated in this very blog about how McDonald’s should stick to providing plastic tat with their plastic tatty Happy Meals. My children want junk, I said proudly, not yet more books.

As with so many things to do with parenting, I was forced to eat my words on Tuesday.

My daughter has been nagging for several weeks for a Happy Meal. As we had to wait for an hour for her brother, I spotted my opportunity to be a good mother (while granting her wish) and an even better one (knowing for sure that she would reject junk food unless it came with an equally junky toy).

“Very well,” I said. “But they’re giving away books, so you won’t get a plastic poo-ing reindeer.”

“I don’t need a plastic poo-ing reindeer,” daughter replied. “But I do need some chicken McNuggets.”

Humph. Well, at least I got the Good Mother points for saying yes.

In we went. “Don’t forget you’re getting a book,” I intoned. Memories of the plastic voice changer that enabled us to do convincing Justin Bieber impressions are fresh in my mind.

We sat down. She opened the box. “Ooooooooh!” she squeaked. “A sheepdog story!”

My daughter loves sheepdogs more than anything on the planet. She has two sheepdog hand-puppets and a life-sized stuffed sheepdog in her room. I had to sign up to Facebook solely in order to follow the antics of her all-time best friend ever – a sheepdog called Mineshop Muttley.

And then she spots what comes with the book. A sheepdog finger-puppet.

Well, her joy knew no bounds. We spent a happy time popping cardboard Muddlepuddle Farm animals out of the Happy Meal box and playing at schools with them. Then she read the sheepdog story to me. She even enjoyed getting her chips out of the stable door.

“Mummy,” she said as we left a convenient hour later. “That was the best Happy Meal present I’ve EVER had.”

Well, what do I know? After all, I’m just a parent.