Surely not

I passed a newly-opened restaurant on my way home from work this evening. It looks pretty nice, modern decor and so on. Its windows advertised its cuisine as "gourmet kebabs".

Oxymoron, surely?

Hey! I've got green fingers! No, wait, that's dirt...

Well we all survived the lurgy - Husband in fact got off relatively lightly and FB seems to have either escaped entirely or had it so slightly that no-one noticed.

Friday was SB's 9th birthday and he had, by his own declaration, the best birthday ever. The gift that elicited this statement was not the iPod or the electric guitar or the Red Dward videos or the Top Gear annual, but the jar of hair gel. SB is (a) fashion conscious and (b) easily pleased in some ways.

Given the choice of whatever he wanted for dinner, SB chose a sausage supper from our local chippy, for we are nothing if not classy. So he accompanied me down to the chip shop wearing his leather jacket, iPod earphones plugged in and the front of his hair gelled into suitably cool spikes. The ladies in the chip shop wanted to adopt him. SB ignored the adulation and slumped against the wall in the corner, looking cool.

And the rest of the weekend has been just as nice. Lots of lazing around, walks up to the park and eating. I made SB the traditional vegan chocolate fudge birthday cake (so his brother can eat it too) and I am embarassed to say we have nearly eaten the whole thing already.

On Sunday, SB got a couple of sizeable Easter eggs and FB scored several bags of Thorntons dark chocolate covered marzipan which is not only delicious (I do love good marzipan and he appears to have inherited my weakness) but it is also dairy free! It is such a bonus to be able to buy FB chocolate that he can eat, which is actually tasty and doesn't cost the earth.

We had roast lamb with garlic and rosemary for dinner - accompanied by roast potatoes and yorkshire pudding which is not what you would call traditional but we like it and there is no better means of conveying lots of gravy into one's mouth that a yorkshire pud. So there.

Today (Easter Monday) I finally bit the bullet and cut the grass in the front garden (not the back though - no-one can see that so I don't care about it so much!) Not only that, I weeded the little flower bed in the front, planted SB's sunflower seedling for him and the primrose that FB got at the garden centre last week. What's more, I tidied up my herb garden, pulled out as much of the mint as I could and replanted it in a big pot. The sage plant that had originally been in the pot I transplanted to the herb garden proper alongside the new parsley, the very old and rangy lemon thyme plant and the chives that I grew. FROM SEED! You are impressed, aren't you? I can tell. Exhaused with all that gardening, I am now sitting here reading blogs and trying to figure out if I can pinch some of FB's marzipan without him noticing. I hope you all had a good Easter too.

The House of Plague

It's official. Husband has the lurgy. We have named it Swallowed Alien Syndrome on the basis that your stomach doesn't so much hurt as feel like you have eaten an alien lifeform which has happily taken up residence in your abdomen. Not one of those John Hurt, bursting-out-of-your-belly aliens, it's not that painful. More like an alien that has moved in and invited its alien pals over for port and cigars. In other words, there is something in there that isn't quite right, it's not pleasant and occasionally quite deeply uncomfortable. Oh, and it doesn't like many kinds of human food, and if you try to send in anything it disapproves of, it will be rejected and sent back, pronto. Experiments have shown that milk and bananas are on the no-no list. Soup, on the other hand, it seems to quite like.

So here we are, waiting for the alien visitor to get tired of this family and move on. It's SB's 9th birthday tomorrow and I am not sure if it likes cake.

Thankful

It is on days like today that I am really, really grateful for my life. I finished work at 1, drove home and released Husband to go into work for the afternoon. The boys had been in the house all morning, amusing themselves to let Husband work from home and they were champing at the bit to do .......... something. They didn't know what that something was, but they knew it had to be done, and quickly. Preferably while consuming sweets.

The weather today was encouragingly spring-like and we decided to walk up to the park and, on my suggestion, to then continue the walk a bit further to a nearby garden centre (I needed to buy some parsley plants for the patch of wilderness by the back door which I laughingly refer to as my herb garden). I have mentioned this particular park before - it is only a 10 minute walk from my house but feels like you are out in the country. And the daffodils are out at the moment, and with the sunshine and the blue sky, well, it was lovely. Look.


That is the lane leading to the park. Nice, isn't it? I released the boys into the park itself and just enjoyed the fresh air and the view. Edinburgh is really quite a nice city to live in you know.


That bump you can see is Arthur's Seat with the Crags to the left of it. I'm not sure if you can see from that photo (you can click to enlarge) but you could see right across the Forth to Fife and out to North Berwick too.

I had cunningly supplied myself with a book before leaving the house, so as the boys tried to make each other throw up on the roundabout, I lazed on a bench, reading. This bench, to be precise.


And I chatted with a lady exercising her dog and I ate a mint Aero. Ahem. Eventually the boys got tired of spinning themselves senseless and we headed off beyond the park towards the garden centre. Luckily we were able to use a "back route" which goes through fields and woodland rather than along the road. We met more dog walkers and everyone today seemed happy and stopped to chat while my children fussed over their dogs. Horses were grazing in a particularly picturesque way and the odd rabbit was spotted hopping about in the woods.

We passed the area known as "The Schtump", famous for the running route which SB and I like to call "Schtumpenback" because it involves running to the Schtump. And back. There were a couple of weird creatures on there claiming to be The Lorax. I was not convinced. They were not in the slightest bit mossy, for a start.
Just a bit weird really. As we walked on, SB commandeered the camera - he has decided he likes a bit of photography and he knows from our previous runs that there is a herd of Highland cows which hangs out near the garden centre. Assuming three or four cows count as a herd. I certainly feel they ought to, seeing as how they are very big cows. Anyway, SB snapped away taking pictures of coos and in particular, of one coo's backside. I kind of like that one.










The garden centre was duly visited and my parsley purchased. I bumped into an old work colleague who is still in the property side of the legal profession and has been working a 2.5 day week since Christmas. Things are still not rosy for lawyers, I am afraid. SB spotted strawberry plants in pots and decided he wanted one despite the fact that (a) I know nothing about growing strawberries and neither does he and (b) he doesn't even like strawberries. Apparently in the unlikely event that his new friend ever bears fruit, I get to eat it. Bonus! Not to be outdone, FB plumped for a primrose plant. Called Sonny.

Bearing our new purchases, we wandered homewards, chatting about what to have for dinner (sausage and mash) and where we were going to plant the new arrivals. SB continued to take photos all the way home and I silently gave thanks for digital cameras where you can see your results immediately and junk what you don't want. This photo of the local rabbits coming out for their evening meal, for example, will not win any photography prizes but FB and SB were so delighted to see all the rabbits venturing out that the photo was definitely worth taking.
And then we went home, as all my stories at primary school used to say, to listen to FB's drum practice and play poker with SB (what? you don't think poker is a suitable pastime for an 8 year old? I'm grooming him to be a card sharp and then I'm going to release him on the internet with a £50 stake and see if he can pay for next year's Canadian extravaganza! The boy is good, I tell you!)

Husband came home later and is not quite sure if he has caught the dreaded lurgy from which I have now recovered. I hope not. I would hate to spoil a good day.

*cough cough* sigh

I have been ill, in case you were wondering about the bloggy silence. I got my just desserts for doubting whether SB was really ill last week: I came down with the EXACT same bug he had and it is horrible. Sort of sicky and don't-want-to-go-too-far-from-the-loo-ish and just-want-to-lie-in-bed-and-sigh-and-groan-in-an-exaggerated-fashion. Serves me right.

So my weekend was a wipeout (Friday was nice in a way, because although I was ill and stayed in bed most of the day, SB looked after me, bringing me water and going over the road to the shop to buy more milk when I decided I wanted Cheerios). I hauled myself back into work on Monday and today, and thanked heaven again that I now work part time. I could manage a half day but definitely would not have held out till 5pm.

What else? Oh, I took FB for his introductory drumming lesson last week and he LOVED it so now he owns his own drumsticks and a practice pad and I've just realised that by the end of this coming weekend I will have one son learning drums and another with a brand spanking new three quarter size electric guitar for his birthday. Add that to the Husband's fourteen or so guitars and assorted keyboards etc and I think I may have to move out. Anyone got a nice quiet cupboard under their stairs going free?

Nothing else to report so I am off to have some toast (to see if that will stay down) and attend to my offspring who have been very patiently waiting for me to finish this and take them to the bookshop like I promised.

Saving up for the therapy bills

One of the fun things about being a parent is abusing your children for your own amusement when they are vulnerable.

What? Don't judge me - those of you who have children have almost certainly done it too and those of you who don't, well you're just missing out on the fun.

The abuse may take the form of putting sunglasses on your baby and taking photos (virtually compulsory that one) or just mocking them gently without them realising it. However if you get the chance to have a really good go at them, you don't pass it up lightly.

First Born is a heavy sleeper. When he is out, he is out. When he was a toddler I always said that once he was properly asleep, you could have dangled him out of the window by his ankles and he wouldn't wake up. I suspect that is still the case but given the size of him now, I would need a lot of assistance with the dangling thing. He is no lightweight.

This morning I went into the boys' room to check on SB who is unwell at the moment (as a side issue, is there anything, ANYTHING in the world more annoying than paying huge amounts of money for Easter holiday activity camp and then STILL having to take the time off work because your child is horking his internal organs into the toilet on an hourly basis? No, I thought not.)

Anyway, SB was wan and slightly pathetic and it looked very much like Mum was not going to work today. FB was asleep, rolled up in his duvet with only his nose, eyes and mop of really-needs-cutting blond hair poking out. I called to him. He didn't even flinch. I shook him. Nothing. I pulled the duvet down below his shoulders. Zero. I chortled to myself. "Who wants broccoli for breakfast?" I said. I lifted FB's arm straight up in the air"Me!" Not a sausage. I snapped the waistband of his pyjamas. Not so much as a flicker. I recruited Horny the stuffed water buffalo to stomp on his head and butt him in the face but to no avail. He was really REALLY asleep and it was genuinely time to be up and about and getting dressed and eating toast (hot with melty butter. I wonder sometimes if he is really my son)

I rolled him over on to his back and contemplated holding his nose closed - if he can't breathe, he'll wake up, right? Then I wondered just how traumatising it would be to startle awake in your bed with your own mother trying to suffocate you and decided that I couldn't afford the therapy bills. (I'm pretty sure that would have woken him though.)

At this point Husband came in to see what was going on. So we decided to play a sort of Jenga-inspired game we call "See how many cuddly toys you can stack on the boy before he wakes up". We pulled his duvet right back and set to work. Water buffalo, dragons, rats, bears, several dogs, Basil (who might be a dog or a rabbit, it's hard to tell 'cos he's flat) and a plush Mario, all were placed carefully on top of our snoozing offspring. He never moved. Husband was just expressing the view that he really ought to go and get the camera when FB finally shifted slightly, causing a minor avalanche of stuffed menagerie. "What's all this stuff doing on me?" he said (remarkably placidly in my opinion). He then crawled out from under the pile and stomped off to the bathroom, shaking his head in wonderment at our frivolity.

Tomorrow morning I am going to try and dress him up without waking him. We have an old Dracula dressing up costume from last Halloween. Maybe I can convince him he's been out stalking the streets by night?

Be still my beating heart

The Apprentice is back! Oh how I have missed it. The utterly pointless and totally unconvincing bravado, the odd haircuts, the curiously childish ineptness (we are going to clean luxury cars - bring the cans of oven cleaner!) and the bitching. Oh. My. God. The bitching.

I hate to say it but this programme invariably makes me ever so slightly squirmingly embarassed to be female. The boys may tear each other to shreds in the boardroom but at least they pretend to be team players for a while. The girls start having at it with the sharpened cutlery before they have even started the task! And they don't just bitch and backbite, they whine too. I am female and have worked in business for over 20 years and I have never, ever met anyone who approaches work like these so called high fliers. Maybe I have just been lucky.

Or maybe these people aren't real. Maybe Sralan has a secret farm somewhere in the depths of Essex where he breeds contestants for The Apprentice (he probably has a lucrative sideline in mind-buggeringly awful contestants for The X Factor too - you are not telling me those people are real either). Perhaps in some quiet little English lane, tucked away from sight, if you listen carefully you can just hear the plaintive calls of Sralan's livestock: "I am the complete package!" "I am totally ruthless and totally focussed" "There is no point in coming second" "I am not here to make friends. If you stand in my way, I will destroy you!" Makes you wonder whether the ones that get fired end up as cat food.

Roll on Wednesday night!