Fake Rain

Posted on August 6, 2009 by theharridan

It is raining, in a monsoon-like fashion, and the light has gone – a peek out the window into the murky darkness reveals oily dampness and  – bugger! The pushchair. Which will still have bits of food stuck in various folds and crevices, and these will mash up into unidentifiable greyish stinky pastes to be discovered over the next few weeks. The pushchair will slowly dry over time but will retain the persistent whiff of wet dog, and maybe some attractive mildew spores. What a big bore a washout summer is.

On Monday we got another letter from Woody Allen’s film lackeys, to tell us that they will steal our parking spaces a little longer and just one terraced-flat away from us  – where they are to film yet more WASP 09 scenes – they will be turning on the Fake Rain Machine. No. 25 is close enough to our flat at No. 23 for me to see rain out of my basement window, whether from God or Woody Allen, ALL WEEK. And it is the middle of summer. The only consolation is that:

a) the film lackeys by that stage will have passed on to Woody tales of my stylishness, adorable children and loudly-voiced, savvy and humorous quips and will be insisting that Woody screen-test me as I will actually make the film the masterpiece it was always intended to be; and

b) either Josh Brolin or Antonio Banderas (or both, come to think of it) will have had a brief but delightful love affair with me, and will leave a parting gift of Tiffany Celebration Rings so I do not forget what we shared. 

It is only these things that will keep the rain despair from overwhelming me. I am quite, quite fragile, you know.

 

And if anyone recalls the ancient Twirl bar I accidentally hoovered up after walking past it for so many YEARS as it sat all ignored on Mark’s desk, well, it turns out that Mark had been saving it for YEARS to eat one night when it took his fancy. And that he liked to walk past the Twirl and give it a nod and just KNOW that one day it would be his. When he decided. So all this time, he was having a RELATIONSHIP of sorts with this Twirl, one of desire and delayed gratification and self-congratulatory-ness. And then his dear wife (that be me) just TOOK it and ate it and didn’t even rate it. 

The SHAME! Apparently, it was that bar that he wanted. So I can’t even placate him with Dairy Milk. This is what my face would have looked like when the enormity of my folly was brought to my attention (if I had been two years old and was a small boy):

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New Baby

Posted on August 3, 2009 by theharridan

I am certain my last baby will be another boy. Which is fine, although it does narrow my chances of being able to legitimately stockpile  feminine trinkets ‘to pass on’. Any cool stuff I do have that is worth saving will have to go to some horrid daughters-in-law who, I tell you now, I will Not Like. It is the way of the in-law relationship. It is destined to be a little uncomfortable. They won’t be good enough, they won’t cook well enough, I will find them a bit annoying, and young and thin and I will roll my eyes and sigh when they are not looking. Probably.

But my point is that I am expecting to have another boy in January, and I have run out of names. So I am scratching the bottom of the moniker-barrel, so to speak. Here is a list of possibles:

Ned

Jethro

Sid

Gus

Henry

Wilbur

Here I run out. And they all sound a little wet and dribbly, anyway. This new baby is DOOMED.

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Unfortunate failings

Posted on July 30, 2009 by theharridan

Things that I have discovered about myself this week:

 

1. I am intolerant of sickness. Which is Bad Luck for my poor children. Barnaby has some sort of devilish ear infection which makes him freak out in the evening, turn quite blue in the face and makes him mutter “OW OW OW” in long, pained, monologues. And I kind of do a bit of patting, and say “Shush” and then look wildly around for something to distract him, or me. TV? Chocolate biscuit? Wine? WINE! Except I am pregnant, and so can’t actually do that.

And I wish for someone else to be here because I cannot stand it. Not a sympathetic bone in my body. I grew up in a household where any symptoms complained of to my mother were quickly redirected to my father because he was a Meat Inspector (“go show him your swollen tongue/burning forehead/oozing scab”) and he would take one look, tell you you were fine, and nothing more was said of it. Which I have to say has made me tough, robust, not the least bit worried about pesky epidemics such as swine flu, and ultimately a low-maintenance kind of girl. It is just a bit unfortunate that I do not have the skills to soothe my poor babies. Noah, too, has a scabby rash all over his face. The kind man at the off-licence today was trying to engage Noah by asking him something about his Batman shirt. Noah slowly turns his head to answer the man, the true skanky rash-horror was revealed, and the man quite quickly made his purchases and left. Noah, frankly, looks a bit leper-esque. And again, I find myself lacking in the requisite mothering skills to help the poor guy out. 

I have made one concession – we will all go to the doctor tomorrow to make sure there is no permanent damage, and will get Custard some overdue immunisations. Because I FORGOT to immunise my son. Who does that? I am about a year late. Tsk.

2. I am good at cutting calories down until I, say, spy a Twirl bar which has been sitting on Mark’s desk for nearly two years.  I eat it, even though I register it tastes sort of sour and sort of cardboardy. And then I eat a Solero “because today was hard.” Sigh.

3. I am fixated on eating as many plums from the communal garden as I possibly can. I have tried all of the plum trees, moved on to the cherry tree, and have concocted quite complicated table/chair/table towers in order to reach the best clusters. The Proper Gardening Lady may regret she ever gave me the go-ahead.

4. I am spending a disproportionate amount of time on Farmville. This, for those of you normal people who act, well, normally, is a pointless Facebook application. You make a farm, plow, buy seeds and harvest. Should I visit my farm throughout the day? No. But I do, and I am shamed.

 

I am now going to watch “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”. Apparently, Custard is a dead-ringer for Benjamin. Good to know.

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The garden and a plum tree

Posted on July 27, 2009 by theharridan

As the entire world knows, thanks to my annoying and never-ending supply of tweets about it, there is a Woody Allen film being made in my garden. Which is a bit lovely and exciting. I know there is the whole “I marry my step-daughter” malarky, which is creepy no matter which way you look at it, and of course some of his movies ae terrible and cheesy and embarrassing. But it is Woody Allen – and he is in my garden. And he is the embodiment of 80’s New York. Fabulous, and as far removed from 80’s New Zealand as you can get. So he is over there filming with Anthony Hopkins, Josh Brolin, Naomi Watts and Freida Pinto. I am unashamedly star-struck.

So on Friday Sue and I and the bucket-load ‘o’pesky kids were in the garden watching. And there was not much going on, so we instead turned our attention to the enormous, elegant, ancient purple plum tree shading the western edge of the garden. All over the ground were ripened, bird-pecked plums, starting to squish a little bit underfoot. And the tree is covered, laden with shiny, crimson plums, hanging like grape clusters. So we did a bit of jumping and Sue tested one. And it really was a plum, not something poisonous (phew, Sue lives to see another day) and what is more, these were not just ripe and edible, but gorgeous. It must be an old variety, small, slightly tart skin, but busting with sweet warm juice, and soft, light-coloured flesh. So so so delicious. And we jumped some more, and a tall man came over and he jumped and we all had ourselves a bit of a 4pm snack.

Innocent enough afternoon activity, no?

Well, no. As it turns out. Yesterday, back in the garden, I did a bit of plum-hunting with my eyes and discovered there were some more within reach. There were lots more people in the garden, it being a Sunday and all, but I was filled by plum-lust and fuelled by my earlier plum-gluttony and so didn’t pay no mind to them. And so I did a bit of jumping and grabbed a few. I was thinking about dragging a chair over to really get stuck in, but thought I should run it by Fellow-NZer-Who-Owns-Her-Massive-Flat-With-Rich-Sexy-French-Husband first. Now, Fellow-NZer is actually rather nice, if a bit steam-rollery when chatting and maybe a bit starey with her starey eyes, but this time, after I asked her whether it was kosher to eat the plums, she was very chilly. She cuttingly told me off for touching the plums and said that I had better be careful, in a vaguely threatening way, of the Gardening Committee because it may be that the plums were “purely ornamental”. Visions of serrated horses’ heads lurking beneath my sheets crossed my mind, and I backed away from Fellow NZer, who was clearly not impressed by my outrageous and presumptuous plum-grabbing acts. She added that she has never tried to eat one, in all her years of living on the Square. I have decided I am now no longer going to discuss placentas and contraception and Taranaki tribes and the pros and cons of living in Geneva with Fellow NZer because she is a bit MEAN and pulled rank on me and I think there are less scary friends to make in the garden. 

In any case, when asking the Proper Gardening Lady today about the forbidden fruit, it turns out that Fellow NZer was wrong. We are all allowed to eat them, and she showed me where the cherry trees are and pointed out the best place for the plum clusters. I am so going to gorge myself when I see her next. Ha! 

But wait. What is better and more exciting than any fruit-related drama is the fact that I am now, finally, at 31 and a half, the owner of a fabulous, 80’s, kind of ugly but more stylish-than-I-can-bear CHANEL BAG! At last. Here are two (badly taken with unfortunate spotty cushion background) pictures of it, inside and out:

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I bought it from Buy My Wardrobe, which is a funny little biannual second-hand clothing and accessories sale from the overstuffed wardrobes of 20 handpicked women who off-load their stuff to make way for new season things. It is full of tiny, fabulous clothes, shoes, bags and jewellery.  Last year I got a Luella wallet, Marc Jacobs tee and Chloe sunglasses – this year the bag, Chanel sunglasses in original case (£30) and an amazing YSL boned and draped jacket (£100). The bag was £120, which is about £200 less than I would have paid at a designer recycle place. And I have researched it for days and am convinced it is not a fake – authenticity numbers, aligned quilting, the weight of the chain, etc. Details which are Very Important, you know.

Lovely, eh?

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Quite cranky

Posted on July 22, 2009 by theharridan

I am really getting tired of Noah. He is 3, and very naughty. It is 8:13 pm and he is awake, after a long day at the beach. And he is banging his legs against the radiator in his room which causes the whole flat to reverberate. It is very irritating.

Other things that suck:

The broken washing machine. Yeah, cos a family of five can totally do without a washing machine for 6 DAYS (thanks, speedy and vigilant landlords to which we pay a fortune). The laundry pile is snaking around the hallway and seems to be growing fur. There is the faint smell of wet dog, but that could be the festering pushchair. Or the children.

The antenatal clinic. Three hours it took to have blood taken, two scans, one 10 minute consultation with the midwife and a urine sample squeezed out and presented in hastily-wrapped tissue because apparently that is urine sample etiquette. Oh, and the best bit was having to have an internal scan because the pesky little egg-sized baby refused to show his/her neck, despite my frantic stomach-wobbling. “Shake like a belly dancer” commanded the scan lady. I really tried, but the Probe had to be resorted to. All while Barnaby watched, wide-eyed and fascinated.

The midwife. She was nice, and jolly, but she did weigh me. Which is enough to put her into this category. Because she exposed The Truth. Which was, I am waaaaay fatter than I used to be. She said that it wasn’t enough to refer me to anyone, ha ha ha. Just stop eating cake.  Ha ha ha. Sigh. And then she did a BMI calculation and I swear there was some kind of sharp intake of breath. 

Stupid laundromat. They close at 8pm! What kind of laundromat closes before you have the time to put your overdue manky washing into the dryer? They are going to tut at me tomorrow when I arrive at 8am, children all whiny and breakfast still stuck to their faces, and my Washing Shame will be there for all to see. Taking up TWO machines, and probably stinky. And then I won’t have the correct change, and will have to ask the lady for some, and all eyes will be on me and everyone will know that I do not belong in the laundromat. That I am not of their kind. 

Pasta. With cream. Why did I put the cream in? I know now that I am heading towards obesity. I really should have been like The Harridan of Old, who would have avoided such gluttony. I am weak, Dear Reader, WEAK. There was a time, before children, that I was disciplined. Then it all became about cake and breastfeeding and mid afternoon treats. And incidental exercise. And now THIS. Fatty Boom Ba-itis. 

 

Luckily I have the Woody Allen movie to cheer me up – they are filming in our street and so I can sort of be an extra, just an inside/down in the basement/not actually appearing but kind of present type of extra. And seeing Woody in a towelling hat is quite cool. And if Freida Pinto makes an appearance alongside Anthony Hopkins and Antonio Banderas, I shall totally give up my cool exterior and will take many snaps for YOU GUYS. 

What is more, I do have a cheering picture of that naughty Noah on a pony. That goes someway to melting the bitterness and anger in my heart.

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Dorset

Posted on July 19, 2009 by theharridan

We came back from Dorset yesterday. We were camping in a tent. It rained. There was a fair amount of chip-eating and body-slamming with air beds. Camping in Dorset is an Experience, yes, and probably the children loved it deep down (somewhat deeper than the place that made them say “Can we go back to London?”)  but it was not a villa in Greece, with a pool and warm air and goats tinkling in the distance. If you know what I am saying.

 

Ode to Dorset

Dorset, you are green and lush,

And you have some cute villages in the style of the Cotswolds,

And your pubs promise things like cream teas and apple cakes.

There is much to like.

BUT! Dorset! You are WET! You rain,

And you blow a wind that makes me shiver in my summer frocks.

To be fair, it is mid-summer,

But hardened campers know that jeans and raincoats are appropriate attire.

And you have an alarmingly high number of

Pregnant teenagers.

And too many chips on the pub menus.

Not even Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall can save you. 

Dorset – you need to sharpen up.

 

Yeah. Camping is kind of cold, windy, and rainy. We were camping on a farm, in a paddock. There was very little to do, once one exited the tent, other than to visit the toilet blocks or wash the dishes. Never before have I witnessed such competition as to whose turn it was to wash them. We were overlooking Chesil Beach, which gave me some literary excitement, but not much. The children were excited to be sleeping on airbeds, but soon discovered they could double-up as a)weapons; b)castle walls; and c)mini trampolines, which upset Mark who was taking the camping trip Rather Seriously. And sincerely too, I think. He wistfully remarked, during the first downpour, that “the sound of the rain on the tent roof is so relaxing, isn’t it?”. I do not think the rain + tent equation is ever really good, especially when I am pregnant and have to traverse three paddocks to get to the loos at 3am EVERY MORNING.

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Glamorous? Stylish? MY ARSE.

We did have a trip to Weymouth, which of course involved chips. And some insane large seagulls who kept diving in to steal the very food off our plates. They made the thieving London pigeons look like lightweights. Here is Weymouth:

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We also did the obligatory hour-long trip to the River Cottage Canteen where I ate Hugh’s mutton merguez with lentils and spiced yoghurt. That was good. As was the little farm in Abbotsbury where the children paraded goats on leads, rode ponies and worried the guinea pigs. And then the rain came.

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Our camping buddies asked us “Will you camp again?” to which I replied that I would. With warm clothes, rugs, cocoa, more novels and dvds, a nanny, red wine, thermals and the promise of a remedial week in Greece. Maybe.

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A Bit Sad

Posted on July 11, 2009 by theharridan

Ah, big sigh. Today was the day that my best friend and her husband left us to fly home to NZ. NZ is so ridiculously far away. Like a joke place. Like Atlantis or Timbucktoo. And so we all said goodbye, once again. Now I no longer have a statuesque, bronzed, nicely highlighted, archly-browed and toned-of-thigh Amber asleep in our living room. It is EMPTY (and clean, which is a slight bonus). Honestly, look at that fabulousness:  

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It turns out that running gives you those legs.  And three months in Europe gives you that tan. Apparently. Another sigh.

Anyway, my wallowing is becoming boring. Even the children have asked me to stop. So I will list those things that you could do with your best friend on her last week in a town she has lived in for five years and that she still loves.

Saachi Gallery. Free. Easy to get to, big, always interesting, and FREE.

The Tate. Ditto.

The Serpentine Gallery. For rooms filled with Jeff Koons’ blow-up poolside animals made cleverly out of aluminium. But do not touch, or the gallery assistants will GET YOU. I know this for a fact.

The Selfridges sale. For pink Chloe jackets for the miniscule sum of £70. The kind of jacket that is tailored, and has a little almost-bow, with clever pleats that look expensive. Bracelet sleeves and slightly cropped. Just right for tall blondes who look good in jeans. And Michael Kors wallets that are reduced at £55.00. Bargain.

The Trinity Hospice second-hand shop for Marc Jacobs metallic platform sandals. For £20.

The Old Vic to see Sinead Cusack, Rebecca Hall and a vaguely creepy Ethan Hawke in The Cherry Orchard. My first Chekov, thank you very much. Unfortunately we were about 7 minutes late and so had to sit in the bar watching a white-out monitor for the first 35 minutes (!!). We drank gin and tonic.

Dinner at Le Cafe Anglais. Which used to be McDonalds, but is now gorgeously turned out to look like a 1920’s Art Deco steamship.  The starters were fried artichokes with aioli.

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All was going swimmingly until we got to the mains. The roast ham that we sauntered past on the way to our table that beckoned so enticingly and crunchily was actually a little like mainlining Maldon seasalt. But the gratin dauphoise was like slipping into silken sheets and going to sleep. In a creamy, cheesy, potato-y kind of way. So it was win some, lose some.

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And so the tricksy little ham gave us the dry horrors all night.

Westfield. For a Karen Walker robot necklace for about one third of the price in NZ. And stuff from the COS sale. And the very best Pho spicy chicken noodle soup in maybe the WHOLE WORLD. 

Westbourne Grove. For coffee and antipasto platters from the slow, slow, slow staff in Carluccios. And birthday presents from SCP. Never, ever, get the staff to giftwrap your purchases. It is like psychological torture. It is so slow you want to bite your own arm off.

The Communal Garden. For the summer party. Where they fed us Costco burgers, and made us barn dance. The less said about that, the better.

Anyway, last week shall settle into my Amber memory bank. And I will wish for her to be here, and it too shall settle into a comfortable kind of missing.

Note: I miss Glenn too. He of the cardigan-denial.  

Tomorrow we go to Dorset to camp in a tent. It will probably rain, and I may return a broken person. More broken than today, I mean.

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What £465.00 gets you

Posted on July 5, 2009 by theharridan

On Thursday night, we went to Helene Darroze at the Connaught for her signature menu. Tasting menu, in fact. And it was fabulous, and fabulously expensive and actually verging on vulgar if you think too much about the recession. So I will skip over the vulgar part and tell you what £465.00 gets you of a Thursday night at a posh hotel in London town.

Note: I took no photos. Eejit.

 

 

Complimentary framboise virgin aperitifs

Connaught Collins (gin, lime, cherry)

3 bottles Badiot sparkling water

1 bottle wine (didn’t see what it was as PREGNANT, remember, and don’t want cone-headed infant)

4 x ham and cheese croquettes

4 x parmesan and tomato pipettes

4 x freshly sliced parma ham in a pink salty fruity bundle

4 x gazpacho topped with a basil foam

(here is where I parted company from the rest – it was a fishy kind of menu and as fish and seafood FREAK ME OUT I got lots of substitutes) so I had:

an aubergine and anchovy wanton with spanish cheese and relish in a gazpacho bath

baby mushrooms, turnips and celeriac served with a yoghurty herby sauce

foie gras with french country bread and rhubarb relish (The best – the star. In theory, ’tis bad, but in practice, ’tis GOOD)

lamb with spicy crust with haricot beans and bean puree

pigeon with peas and pea puree. (This was a bit frightening and so I gave it to Mark. The pigeon breast was pinkly bloody and fleshy and felt a bit wrong)

panna cotta with biscuit crumbs and jelly and strawberry sorbet

chocolate sponge, chocolate icecream and frozen milk chocolate with a fizzy spun sugar top

petit fours – chocolate and basil ganache on wafer, pistachio tart with apricot top and lime leaf, red pepper turkish delight, and frozen berry ice with banana and blackberry on a cassis wafer

a take home french regional cake in a Connaught box

 

To be included in the price must be:

attentive waiters who bring out each dish on a platter covered in a porcelain lid with the help of an assistant and who then describe each dish and who keep pouring wine/water and who silently point you to the loos in elegant manner; 

toilet lady who turns both taps on for you so to get a nice tepid flow, and then who hands you a hand towel in discreet and non-eye-contact kind of way; 

plush armchairs to sit in, that envelop you and suggest sleep and comfort and wealth; and

crockery and cutlery that is beautiful, and stylish and covetable.

 

What we could have blown the money on:

Stella McCartney boxy jacket from the Matches sale

What we maybe should have blown the money on:

Mortgage

 

 

This is how we normally eat. My cooking. Less glamorous, but cheaper.

SANY0055

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School

Posted on July 2, 2009 by theharridan

It is hot, and most of us (well, me, Barnaby and Custard) have some form of hives/eczema/dermatitis AND it turns out that the pirate park sandpit is riddled with sand fleas. Noah has a permanent whiff of peanut better about him, and Custard cannot keep his hands out of the toilet bowl. Luckily I have my new Mulberry bag to stick over my head when it all gets too much. Deeply sniffing that (Turkish!!) leather is very resorative, and stroking the enormous Mulberry logo is calming to my nerves.

Tonight, we are off to the Connaught to go get bankrupted by Helene Darroze’s tasting menu. Men, apparently, should wear a jacket. That is going to be tricky as it is: a) far too hot; and b) Mark does not have one. I just KNOW we are going to have a frenzied, panicky yelling argument just before the cab arrives about WHY he doesn’t have one, and WHERE are his one pair of wedding/good occasion/funeral black shiny shoes? He will be muttering “I must have left them in Greece” which is the one holiday destination that gets the blame for all missing things. Somewhere, in a villa on the hill near the beach in Kefalonia, there must be an entire storage cupboard filled with Mark’s film canisters, wedding shoes, swimming goggles, Garth Brooks CD’s, extra spades and house keys. And those inanimate objects are cruelly LAUGHING at him.

And of course I must find something to wear. Not so easy, these days, as the 10-weeks-pregnant belly is hardening and spreading and all the other bits of me are swelling in sympathy. So somehow, between the both of us, we must leave the house looking dressed, shod, and not too enormous. This is going to require some thought.

 

Yesterday was memorable, not just for the hayfever and the quick burst around Selfridges and the attempted but failed trying-on of the DVF dress which was simply TOO SMALL, but because Barnaby’s next year teacher came  for a home visit. Which of course was a terrifying prospect. Does one turn the TV off in the hope of sending a “we don’t let the kids watch TV” vibe? Does one tidy up better than usual? Does one put makeup on/buy in some cake/hide the FHM magazine with nearly naked lady on the cover? Anyhoo, I was frozen by indecision and inertia and did none of the above, and luckily she seemed to be quite normal and young and not too scary. She did say “Aw, Bless” a lot, which made me feel she was probably from Hertfordshire, and was maybe quite a bit younger than me. This I shall have to ponder more deeply.

It turns out, in the course of the visit, that we can only get a uniform from John Lewis on Oxford Street, which makes me feel poshily reassured. Going to Tesco would not have had the same sense of occasion – after all, I am a bit snobbish. And we agreed that Barnaby would have school lunches in the cafeteria, rather than last-minute manky peanut butter one from me. I figure one good meal a day would absolve me from feeding him well. So it was all very nice, and I have the profound feeling that sending my firstborn baby off to school is going to be GOOD! The tears will cease after about a week, she tells me. His rather than mine, I am thinking.

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Resignation

Posted on June 26, 2009 by theharridan

This week has been long and slow and punctuated with squealing and more nappies that I can frankly be bothered dealing with. The fun:work ratio has been waaaay off kilter, and so I suggested to the children that they may wish to consider my resignation. I was thinking I could finish on a Friday, get some nice Romanian nanny in the weekend, and they could all get to know each other on Sunday. Then, on Monday, I would go to an internet cafe and job search for a few hours, maybe nestling a chai latte and a Grazia while I waited for the sites to load. I am flexible, and have been doing quite a bit of work for which I am overqualified, and so would be happy really to try anything. I understand the market is tough, but I am Not Fussy.

The children, however, were not that interested in discussing it. In fact, they barely looked up from watching the Tweenies while the baby was too intent on mainlining toothpaste from the tube. It would be incorrect to say I got any suggestion of agreement. So I have been thinking up some further supporting evidence to help them see the light, as it were.

1. I am not that interested in their dental hygiene. In fact, not just dental – I am not that good at keeping them clean and groomed and brushed and washed. Toothbrushes are rarely-sighted sneaky little things, which move from room to room and are often to be found covered in hair and shoved under the couch. They tend to be shared, as well. There is some sort of colour-coding system but I cannot always remember who gets red, who gets blue, and so on. So we are flexible. And inconsistent.

2. I am not very good at Keeping House. In between the Beautiful Brazilian’s visits (twice weekly these days) I do a bit of putting away, but it is always a bit half-hearted. The washing is done, to be fair, but I have never even turned on our vacuum cleaner. It is big and industrial and confusing and I think it is best to consider that it belongs to BB in an abdication-of-responsibility-kind of way. Sheets are changed fairly infrequently, and the festering pushchair is possibly giving them skin rashes. (Apparently, some people vacuum theirs. Oh, if only I knew how to work the beast. Must ask the BB).

3. I am not convinced that Barnaby needs to know his letters just yet, and so we skip all that. The nursery staff have asked me to try and do some with him, but he likes drawing treasure maps and dinosaurs, and I think that is much more fun. He is 4. Enough of the hothousing.

4. I do not keep much of a close eye on the kids in the park or the garden, and I am fine with Barnaby and Noah scooting off  in front of me because they are not dumb and they stop at the kerb. We taught them that. But the Rest of the World are always FREAKING OUT.

5. Leftovers are repackaged and represented to the children as I am from the ‘don’t waste’ school of thought. So yesterday’s pasta and broccoli becomes tonight’s, erm, pasta and broccoli and chopped up bit of chicken from, ah, yesterday’s lunchtime. And I do not monitor what goes in. I figure they will eat what they need. 

6. I can be a little inconsistent with discipline. One day I may tolerate the wrestling to the ground and poking with a stick, while another day it may get to me and there is the threat of the Bathroom (3 minutes in the hallway bathroom while child wales and shrieks in unholy manner) or toy confiscation. In public, however, I am oft to be found whispering in a menacing, quite unhinged and spitty way something about “If you do not stop giving the baby a chinese burn I will take you outside and make you sit there BY YOURSELF and who knows what might happen and then we are going to have to tell DADDY and there will be no more ice cream EVER in your WHOLE LIFE!” and I may finish off by surreptitiously squeezing his upper arm in a hurty way. Which is mean. 

7. In the middle of labour with Noah, I started rabbiting on about a new lemon-coloured Anya Hindmarch wallet. It became my sole focus, and got me through to the transition stage. And when he was 6 days old, I used the money he got from some DK Publishing new-baby-modelling to buy it. What kind of mother does that? (It was lovely, though, and lemony and so useful for summer). 

See? There are many reasons why a kind nanny may actually save my children from years of expensive therapy. I shall put it to them anyway. You never know.

SANY0181

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