This is how bored I am:
I just washed my hair at 2pm.
I am considering going through my clothes, ironing the unloved, photographing them, listing them on ebay.
I am ‘supervising’ the holiday homework. (I am secretly actually AGAINST holiday homework. Who cares if they cannot write their name when they get back to school? Who cares if they have forgotten how to hold a pen/sit at a desk/count? Not me. But that is because I am an apathetic middle-class parent who is a bit lazy and disengaged. At least I am self-aware, if not actually good at the hard parts of parenting).
I am not only bored, but I am sulking. Because I would like to spend the last 12 days we have left of these holidays staying somewhere where there is
a)a sun
b)no rain
But we are not going anywhere. And so I will have to get used to wearing jeans and weatherproof boots. IN AUGUST.
We are all so bored and sulky we are making involuntary low moaning sounds. We are half-dressed, we are cranky, we are finding toothpicks and are making small holes in the leather couch with the pointy end. We are also wetting our pants and then hiding.
That is what happens when you are five weeks into a holiday but you go NOWHERE. Bad, bad things.
Anyway. Sigh. Low moan.
Kerry sent me this, and I am to post ten interesting things about myself. This may just alleviate the deep pain of my holiday ennui but it may not be interesting.
1. I studied film and art history at university. Swedish Film was the best. It involved long Friday afternoons in the AV department basement, watching Ingmar Bergman movies. I was “learning”.
2. We own a property in Auckland. It has two houses on it, some chickens and some rotting verandas. We used to think we would like to come back to it and live there. That was before we had hundreds of children who now will not fit. Planning ahead FAIL.
3. I have no parental panic button. It is entirely missing. When the children do dangerous things, I merely shrug, if I bother to look up at all. Two years ago, Noah fell from a cafe chair into a small Greek harbour. I just kind of watched, interested. Mark dived in and saved him. I think this lack of panic may be our downfall.
4. I am seafood-phobic. It all disgusts me. I won’t touch chips if they have been wrapped up in newspaper close to fish. Prawn crackers are revolting. I am nervous of fish sauce. Anchovies are the devil. Seafood, in all of its slimy stinky guises, is my krypotonite. (As is maths, to be fair).
5. My mother is a very good landscape painter. I used to be fairly good at art at school. Now my genius six year old firstborn is impressing me with this kind of stuff:
Meanwhile, his brother, who is perhaps less artistically gifted but no less perceptive, has come up with this lovely drawing of him and his enormously-wide-girthed dad:
So.
6. I had a very large mullet while growing up. It started off quite flicky and manageable, but, post-puberty, my short mullety bits grew outwards from my head like a bushy lion’s mane, with long silky wavy brushed pony hair running down my back. It was a bit like this:
It was a very difficult mullet to deal with. So at about 12, I sacrificed the long pony hair at the back, to allow the lion’s mane to ‘join in’ with the rest of my head. It worked. I have been mullet-less for 22 years now. *proud, sheds a tear, high fives self*
7. I speak no languages other than English. I know little about politics and I am embarrassingly ignorant of current affairs. Yet I think I am quite smart. It may be all relative.
8. My parents took me to Disneyland in California twice when I was a child. My much older brothers and sister stayed home. I cannot comment on it all really, except to say it was awesome. For me, not so much for them.
9. I met my husband when I was 14. I used to think I was somehow disadvantaged by meeting him when I was so young, but I now think I am lucky.
10. I believe in God, and think that that is why I am not often glum. My cheery disposition is directly related to my thoughts about God, or so I think. I used to be a Sunday School teacher but I was a bit rubbish. I also used to play this rather averagely:
In a group a little bit like this:
But I was younger, and sporting a mullet.
The Harridan 
You’re hilarious! You might be bored but you gave me a few minutes of entertainment distracting me from my studies!
Thank you! Always happy to be a diversion tactic from studying!
I am hoping against hope that it’s not you who is weeing and then hiding. Or your husband.
It is really boring for kids when they are stuck indoors in the wet. One should do something interesting with glue and pasta shells, but there’s nothing to beat a bit of telly and a glass of wine or four.
Mullet is an interesting choice of haircut *nods sagely*. I tried to do The Purdy in the 70s but ended up looking like an inmate in a secure institution. The Farrah Flick just wasn’t an option #badhairdaymywholelife.
Your 10 facts are excellent. Well done you on meeting your man at 14 😉
Ali x
Ali, you KNOW it was me with the wee. it just gets a bit embarrassing in front of the kids, is all. And I am with you on the “wine makes things less boring” front. I polished off a nice prosecco yesterday afternoon. It made things waaaay more interesting.
You have verily made my day with your brilliance. I love that I get to read your blog first thing in the morning when you no doubt write it late in the night. Oh how I wish you would come to NZ, get Mark to knock down the two properties and build a lovely huge one for you and the chillun. Or get the boys to sleep in a tent; it would be good for them, if perhaps a little cold in winter. I bet it must be horrid stuck at home in the hols – and I can’t say that dragging 500 children around one of London’s many attractions sounds exciting at all. Sending all love, and all chardonnay.
We will come to nz in dec; it will be a test-run. I think it will go badly. Low expectations – things can only be better, right? Thank you for the virtual Chardonnay x
Hilarity! No.3 particularly tickled me.
Is our super-exciting outing still taking place next week? Or are you going to Spain?
Chris is taking the girls to a Dads and Kids thing at Mickey Star tomorrow – get Mark to take the boys?!
Spain was simp,y an unrealistic dream, as I feared. We are here until school starts again. And the early mornings, the shouting, the school run, the homework, the lost school ties, the shouting. And a little bit more shouting. Anyway, we are not going anywhere. Might move the trip to the southbank to thurs?
bahahahahaha!
awesome
ew I’m feeling your pain on so many levels re holiday boredom. Hate that part.
Thanks. I have another 11 days of this Boredom to ge through. There shall be MUCHO TV
Timbrals and mullets. Brilliant. “Walk and Talk… Walk and Talk” *shakes bushy frontage of mullet* x
Haha! You had a bushy head too! I remember……
Holiday homework!?! I’m half asleep but this post has made me smile, thank you! x
Yes, in the UK, they make the kids go to school at 4 and they make them read in the first year and they badger them with homework at weekends, every evening and the holidays. It is AWFUL.
Bahaha! Was just talking to someone the other day who was so sad about the army tambourine players being so few nowadays. You should totally get back into it.
So, so funny!!
I can also relate to not having a panic button. And I think it becomes worse as people start to realise and then constantly panic for you. I did laugh and laugh and laugh at your wharf story especially as we nearly experienced the same thing on Friday afternoon, as we sat down with a glass of wine in the sunshine at a bar on the waterfront in Auckland 🙂 – great parents that we are!
PS My son constantly has at least one head bruise from trying something new :0
I too have had enough of the holidays. We didn’t go away either and instead spent two weeks unpacking back into the house after being away for 5 months building work. Joyous. At least my lot had no holiday homework.
Spotted you distantly on the pirate ship yesterday, mobile in one hand, baby in the other, you had great hair. One day meet up? Hope the homework is not too unbearable (Fox gives No Homework for Holidays, hurray – except that I then went and bought some maths book and insist on postcards to obscure family members being written every few days just to make sure that offspring doesn’t revert to feral state completely. Came across this blog which I like a lot, she’s writing from a very different family situation to yours, but thought you might find it interesting. http://www.starkravingmadmommy.com
can you please do a post about how you met your husband? i very interested 🙂 🙂 🙂
What a great idea Jodi! I’d love to hear!