Sally Writes

The Plum Jam

2011-08-16T00:23:00.011+01:00

It was that time of year again. Well that time of "two years" actually.

We have two plum trees, and every two years they produce prolific amounts of fruit. In years gone by I have eagerly helped to pick and de-stone said plums and then make huge quantities of "Sally Jam", only to give most of it away and be left with maybe a jar for us. The "children" complain bitterly. "Don't give it away Mum. You're too generous with it. You even give it to people we barely know... Grumble grumble grumble..."

But every "other" year it is the same. The joy is in the making and the knowledge that you can, even just for a week every two years be an Earth Mother type and create your own little cottage industry in your kitchen... Or something like that I think, as I run round the kitchen finding old jars, empty them hastily, get as much of the labels off as possible and stuff them into the dishwasher. Not quite Nigella I guess.

This year though it was different. "We must get the plums" said Hubby. "Make the jam." "Yes"

I kept saying. "Soon."

He clearly wasn't convinced by my eager responses. Perhaps he thought that the mere triviality of having five "lively"* foster children aged eight and under, two of my own aged thirteen and eleven, my two big teenagers and twenty one year old and mad collie dog, all living at home, might put me off my stride. As if?

So then he picked two bowlfuls and plonked them on the kitchen table. And, thinking that we didn't have enough, Gymnast, Tinkerbell Mushroom and one of the younger ones went out and picked some more.

"Shall I de-stone them tonight." Said Hubby.

I looked wearily on. "I was thinking of freezing them. I can make jam when everyone has gone back to school." "I'm not sure the fruit would be as nice." Said Hubby. He can drive a hard bargain at times.

So that was how, with two of the youngest at nursery this morning and another at a holiday summer school and the baby in bed having a morning nap and my lovely "Help sent directly from Heaven" cleaning the house, that TM, Gymnast, one of the younger ones and I, sat down to de-stone the plums. That was after of course a mad panic on my part because I had lost the recipe that I always use. Hasty look in all the cookery books for slip of paper that recipe is printed on. No recipe. Quick look on Google to "re-find" it. No recipe. In the end I found a new recipe and adapted it to make it more like my original one.

Then of course the doorbell rang and it was Tesco with an obscenely large amount of food. We do eat it of course. There is very little waste. And there are a great deal of people to feed in our house, so we need it.

But I have to put it away in the cupboards...

And so it was that by the time that I had done that, the plums had been nearly de-stoned. They left a few of the trickier ones for me to do, which I think is probably fair enough really. I had just enough time to throw sugar on them before the afternoon "pick ups" began.

ESOS walked in. "Plum jam?" He said, looking on eagerly. "Don't give it all away this time mum." His two houseguests looked a little disappointed. Sensible, who was busy planning a results party two nights before the results come out (Sensible is awaiting AS level results and ESOS is awaiting A level results) asked me to go to the local supermarket to buy something for the party. (Tescos hadn't delivered enough.) "Why isn't the party on Thursday" I asked. "Because it might be too depressing" said ESOS. "We'll have a pre results party."

Whilst I was at the supermarket Sensible made the kitchen look as sparkling "as you can get for old house in need of renovation, especially of the kitchen with broken drawers and broken other stuff..." And someone helpfully threw away the plum stones which could or could not have formed some of the recipe, but they did very much look like rubbish and I really should know by now how to give clear specific instructions.

One of the children asked when we were going to make it into "actual" jam. Thinking that Social services wouldn't be best pleased if enthusiastic foster child got scalded by being part of some jam manufacture I hastily replied that I would make it when all others were in bed. "But that's not fair" said the little one. "We've done all the work. We should be able to make it." But, as the lion says, "sometimes....."

I finally got it boiling. Once all the younger children were in bed. Once Sensible had had a driving lesson, and once the kitchen was vaguely clear again, following its nightly ordeal of using some of huge amount of food from fridge in the "cooked" version. The concoction needed a while... and some lemons too ... which I hadn't bought from Tesco. So Hubby bought some lemons from our local late supermarket and kindly zested them for me and then, with jam boiling merrily, we sat down to watch an episode of "House" on my laptop, in the kitchen, while the jam was cooking. "House" is the de-stresser of the universe. Hugh Laurie, medical drama and pithy wit. What better combination could there be? ESOS got me into it and I am hooked.

It was a good episode which meant that the jam had even longer to boil, which it appears is the answer to success.

And this time am going to put my new recipe on my blog, lest in future years I yet again forget its whereabouts, and especially as this recipe is really a "Sally's own", it having been adapted and combined with a few.

"Sally Originals" Plum Jam

What's in it:

8 lb Plums

4 lb Sugar

2-3 lemons

How to make it:

Split the plums and de-stone them

Place sugar on the top and mix in carefully

Leave for at least ten hours (This allows the fruit to ferment a little and really makes a difference to the taste of the jam).

Put the fruit and sugar in a supersized saucepan, add the juice and zest from the lemons and boil. Keep stirring.

(Optional) Place stones in a muslin bag and boil with the jam. And/or break some of the stones and add the kernel into the mixture.

After fifteen minutes, lower the heat to medium hot and keep stirring from time to time. (It can cook at a relatively high temperature without catching as long as you have a big enough pot to ensure that it doesn't boil over.)

Cook for an hour and a half to two hours. The longer cooking time will allow the jam to develop a lovely mature flavour.

Grab newly sterilised jars from dishwasher.

Put jam into jars being careful not to splash any on the hand. If this does happen grab a leaf of handy Aloe Vera plant to cure burn. (As I did.)

And there it is. "Sally Originals" Plum Jam...

*polite speak for "challenging in the extreme"...

The Alternative Bear Hunt and Shrugby now complete. Click here...

2011-04-06T23:24:00.004+01:00

Time for tea? Get it right! (As posted on Chris Evans' blog on Monday 4th April 2011)

2011-04-04T11:32:00.007+01:00

Dear Chris

Firstly: Happy Birthday for Friday!

Secondly, I wondered if we could start a (slightly tongue in cheek) campaign across the nation please?

The thing is this:

In no other Country do they get the names of meals confused.

In Germany for instance, lunch is Mittagessen, evening meal Abendessen. France, lunch is Dejeuner, Evening meal, Diner. etc.....

But in England we have great confusion.

Surely luncheon or lunch has always been known the meal that comes in the middle of the day? This means that the evening meal must be dinner. Supper is something before bed, a light snack and tea is an afternoon meal, eaten around 4 p.m. with sandwiches cakes and scones etc?

But no!

We are so complicated as a nation...

Instead we call lunch dinner, dinner tea, supper at some time during the evening. We do call dinner dinner, that is "dinner in the evening" if you are going out to dinner or having a dinner party. Ladies who lunch don't do "ladies who dinner". If you go out for afternoon tea you would certainly be eating tea and scones. Not to be confused with the tea that people eat for their evening meal.

Of course if you are really in the know, there is High Tea too, which is probably what many would call tea, dinner, evening meal etc.

FOR GOODNESS SAKE!!!!

Can we please sort this out Chris? As a man who can talk to the nation I am asking if you would please talk some sense into the nation:

Lunch when it's light

Dinner when it's dark

Tea at teatime: 4 p.m.

Supper: Shortly before bed.

Thank you!

Sally Lomax

The Alternative Bear Hunt and Shrugby.

2011-04-01T01:18:00.009+01:00

It started off with mayhem.

ESOS (who is in the 6th form and wears a suit for school) had given me his trousers to wash the night before. Suit trousers. Non washable. Took a chance and put them in the washing machine as the mud wouldn't come out any other way before the next morning. 7.00 a.m. "Mum, where are my trousers?" "Oh.......... bad words bad words...........more bad words.............they are still in the washing machine......" Went to see Hubby. Have you got a suit that ESOS can use for school today?" Hubby found a suit which thankfully fitted. Made ESOS PROMISE that he would not play shrugby* in Hubby's suit.

Meanwhile Hubby went to get out the bread from the bread maker. For the first time in many years it was flat. Hubby was about to blame me, me having put the bread on the night before........... then we realised that the breadmaker had in fact died a sad death.... Phew. I was off the hook.

Then, Hubby, eldest four children and dressing up trunk piled into the Fiat Punto at 7.30 a.m. to go to Gloucester. ED is in a play this week and needed dressing up trunk as a prop. They must have been crowded in that little car, and of course it left me with just the six to deal with.

My saint of a help arrived at 8.30 a.m. then burst out of the front door at twenty to nine with eldest foster child (EFC). But not before an unwelcome encounter with the potty and two year old foster child...

Went back through the front door. Collected sandwiches, fruit and drink to go with the crisps that had been put into the lunch box. Ran her across the road to the primary school. Kissed her goodbye and ran back. Jumped into the car with Tinkerbell Mushroom (youngest daughter) and Pre School FC. (Foster child.) Drove to TM's school. Drove back. Remembered that we had left Pre School's book bag at home. In the tumble drier. Had been subjected to being dragged through the deep oozy mud the night before. Squelch squerch. squelch squerch. Went through the front door. Opened the tumble drier. got the bag. Retied on name label. Put book into bag. Got into the car. Round to the pre school. Back home. Got two youngest ready for my "three hours off a week" when I take both the youngest two to a day nursery for three hours and go out on the razz or something. Like supermarket shopping.

In fact I had arranged to meet Sensible who was in need of serious "tlc" having not been selected to be Head Girl of her school.Whizzed into town. Went on a seriously therapeutic shop with Sensible: I needed to buy a sewing machine to make curtains... and Sensible helped me. Thank you Sensible.....Will buy you a nice coffee out soon...

Pulled out of multi storey car park. Drove over invisible hump. Thought had damaged car. Apparently not, so drove on home.

Mayhem ensued for the rest of the afternoon, but peace was in sight as Gymnast and I were due to go the the theatre in the evening. Hubby was needed late at work to be very important, so Sensible offered to babysit until he got home. Finally escaped. Car wouldn't start. Has strange quirk where if it is parked at the wrong angle (i.e. on the pavement) and is only a quarter full it thinks that it is empty. ESOS helped me push the car off the pavement and I drove off happily across the road to the petrol station.

Oh....Not so happily. Car shaked and trembled. Shaked and trembled. Got out of car. FLAT tyre. Seriously flat. Seems that the invisible hump was far from harmless. Tyre had apparently been deflating all afternoon.

Went back into the house. Threw down keys. "I can't go." I moaned. "Yes you can. Said Sensible. "Go in the minibus." The minibus, it transporting so many of us, seats seventeen and to say the least is a little on the big side to park in Cheltenham. "I can't park that by the theatre." I remonstrated. "Park it on the road" Said Sensible. "Go!"

And then thankfully I had a brainwave. Called Hubby on his way home from Bristol. Arranged to swap cars en route. Got into seriously small Fiat Punto and did rest of journey.

Got to the theatre a couple of minutes late. Not bad considering. Saw all but first two minutes of the play...

The next day, ESOS, back in his suit asked: Is it possible that my trousers have shrunk? Yes indeed. Completely possible but I fear he will be wearing them until the year end nevertheless, and preferably without the Shrugby please!

(*shoe rugby, a weird version of rugby played by ESOS and friends at school, which involves much mud and serious abuse of nice clothes)

The Hillbillies

2011-03-10T12:51:00.008Z

Life is mad.

We are probably known amongst our friends as "The Hillbillies".

I always remember shortly after having baby number five, being left alone at home with baby number five only, whilst Hubby went supermarket shopping with the other four. Or something equally exciting. The exact details elude me. I seized the moment, baby asleep, and slumped in front of the TV. It was before the days of Sky in the Lomax household and so daytime tele was uninspiring and dated at best, so it was no surprise when The Waltons made their appearance. Nonetheless it did give rise to a chuckle on my part.

For many we were at that point the "Hillbillies" amongst our little social set. As my own mother had so pointedly said at the time of my pregnancy announcement "Nobody has five children nowadays Sally"......

So when child number seven, eight, nine and ten arrived last July by way of foster children it was possibly unsurprising that many more of our friends started to steer clear. Invitations stopped - fear perhaps that this phenomenon was possibly catching and that by inviting us to parties they might too end up with ten children. And of course, there is possibly the fear that they might actually get a visit of twelve guests should they invite Hubby and me round for a cuppa. And believe me dear friends you would probably NOT want that. Some of our charges do not always have the sunniest of dispositions, putting it mildly...Visits from relatives and friends almost completely stopped - understandably, as the noise levels in our house do now reach unbelievable decibel heights. And sanity? Well THAT went out of the window long ago.

The weight fell off though. I took the pills from the doc, but to be honest, given the number that I forgot to take due to ridiculous schedules, sleepless nights and tantrum ridden children to deal with, I am not really sure that they have been fully responsible. What is possibly more relevant is the lack of time to actually eat properly and the extra running up and down our stairs.

The latest four children are in fact a sibling group, the eldest being 7 and the youngest a baby of just 1. (She was four months on arrival...) We already had one foster child in place with us, a little boy of seven who is severely developmentally delayed and doesn't speak. Actually, we had two other foster children in place for a few weeks, as, in their wisdom Social Services had arranged for the placement of "the four" on the day that the eldest foster child was leaving us. They didn't anticipate however that "eldest foster child" wasn't happy with his future plans and had got himself an advocate... who said that "he was NOT to leave the Lomaxes until a suitable alternative arrangement had been found." He was happy with us and, although he wanted to move on to live in independent accommodation it would not be until he was happy with the proposed plans.

It was a busy summer...

Eldest foster child finally left us mid September, leaving us with just the five and it was at this point that I was offered the opportunity to act in a theatre tour in December and a bit of January.

"Do it" said Eldest Daughter. "Where there's a will..."

"We'll manage" said Hubby.

Now luckily, I already had a saint of a cleaner in place by this time. I say saint because I am not quite sure how she can come in here as often as she does with a smile on her face and still have a smile on her face when she leaves. The mess that she encounters from our lot, the constant overturning of a day's good work sometimes only a matter of hours from her last visit must be demoralising, but still she continues to smile. And not only does she smile and clean, but it just so happened that prior to having her own little girl 18 months ago, she had worked with children "in care" who were SO challenging that they had had to be moved on to some form of institutional housing. So that is how the perfect babysitter arrived. Probably the only person in the world at the particular time in question, who would be mad and capable enough to help us out, happened to land in our lap via the cleaning agency.

And so it was, we did manage. For a couple of months I did it all. Ten children and a professional acting tour.

Not something that I can repeat too often of course in the current situation...

Which is why dear friends my writing has come to almost a complete standstill of late.

The future?

We know not... there are talks of possible adoption plans for the children afoot. The courts will decide all that in due course. Until then they will stay with us until more permanent arrangements have been made for them. Meanwhile the baby and the two year old are becoming more attached to us by the day. The baby especially has had us as her parents from four months old and really sees us as the significant people in her life. It is going to be very hard on all of us when they are moved on.

I suggested to Hubby that we adopt the baby ourselves.

He looked at me as if I had gone completely mental.

Social Services then asked us if we would consider adopting the eldest of the four - because of course to have three aged 4 and under adopted together is a more likely adoption scenario and would make their job more doable. But adopting a reluctant seven year old who is fully aware of where she has come from is not something that many would take on easily.

So then it was my turn to look at the social worker as if she had gone mental.

And in the meantime we live day to day in our little haze, juggling from one moment to the next.

But thankfully we do have babysitters and very useful older children who babysit, so we do still try to accept invitations with enough notice. But not at Christmas and Easter and other major bank holidays.......

And when out, we can still make ourselves look quite respectable, for Hillbillies.

Obese

2010-06-25T11:45:00.006+01:00

I first heard the word "obese" from a doctor when I was fourteen, nearly fifteen.

At the time I was not as skinny as some of my age, but I was certainly not fat. I wore size twelve and, as a modest and respectable type, did as my mother told me and wore things slightly big. Too tight was considered tarty...

I was a teenager of course in the post Twiggy era. It was the late seventies. The "perfect" figure was some sort of straight up and down gamine type look. Boobs were definitely out, hips considered pure fat and waists were the bit in the middle of your body with no defined shape. Size twelve was big. Fourteen huge. Sixteen? Unspeakable. A size reserved only for grannies and spinster schoolteachers.

The sizes were different too. A twelve then was more or less what a ten would be now. I know this because as an incurable hoarder I still have clothes going way back and can see the difference in sizes.

So, when I went to the doctor, aged 14 and a 1970's size 12, but convinced that I was "fat" due to my "bust" as we called it then, no-one batted an eyelid, when (without weighing me) he handed me a booklet on " How to deal with obesity".

Except me.

"I'm not obese," I yelled to my mother! And of course, I seriously wasn't. I weighed under 9 stone with a small waist and a bust size that matched my hip size. Doctors knew best though then and so my already low fat diet became even lower fat. Everything was "fattening" in our house. My mother is the only person I know who considered grapefruit to be fattening. We never had biscuits. Crisps were only for parties and cakes for birthdays, Christmas and Easter. Unless we had visitors of course and then there was no end to my mother's culinary brilliance in the cake and pudding department. It was a mortal sin though to eat anything remotely fattening when visitors weren't present.

I remember the new strict regime lasting a few days and then, my Dad, who never publicly disagreed with my mother about our welfare, invited my mother and I to meet him for lunch. I remember he took us to very trendy looking wine cellar brasserie type restaurant and told me to order some food.

"I'm on a diet". I protested. "Well, you've not eaten much for the last few days, so now have a bit of a blow out" he said. On reflection, it was I believe my Dad's was of saying that I really didn't need to lose weight. That is a nice memory.

Unfortunately though, the magazines of the day, the straight up and down models, the seventies and early 80's film stars all seriously influenced our generation for the next decade or so. It was such a strange era in which to grow up. Those who went ten years before us had flower power, mini skirts, glam rock and hippy fun. We had tweed skirts and high necked frilly blouses. There was a very brief interlude in about 1978 when tiered skirts and a little bit of girly prettiness and even "ra ra" skirts came in. But that was shortly followed by punk, grunge and for the less adventurous of us, "The Lady Di" look.

And the need to be thin.

Thin was pure beauty. We didn't even give it the nicer title of slim. We all wanted to be THIN.

I look back on photos, and other than my ridiculous calves which have always been the bane of my life, I was thin. But I thought I wasn't. And the sad thing is that according to weight charts then I wasn't. Aged 22 after a heavy university year I decided that I was by now seriously overweight and so, in the summer holidays I went to Weightwatchers, I remember that, fully clothed and in the evening... I had crept up to a MASSIVE 10 stone 2lbs. God........ how did I sleep at night with all those extra pounds on my body? At Weightwatchers they told me that I should have been 8 Stone 11 lb as an absolute maximum, based on my height and age and so I had to lose 19 pounds.

I followed that diet religiously. I did everything that it asked for to the point that when I accidentally tasted a cup of tea with sugar in it I went nearly mental with worry. And I got my self down to 8 stone 13 lb, in the evening, fully clothed. But I could not shift the final 2 lb, and so was not considered a success story by Weightwatchers and as such not by me either.I managed to keep most of the weight off for the next ten years however, despite three pregnancies, never weighing more than 11 stone even at 9 months pregnant. I then got myself a gold medal status at Weightwatchers between baby number one and two and after baby number two by finally managing to meet their criteria for being "THIN". I was so happy about it and never once noticed that I was looking seriously gaunt in the process... I thought I looked great.

But then....it went downhill. After baby number three I got chicken pox shortly after giving birth. We all got it, including my then ten day old baby. (The one who later became "Sensible" in my writings.) She and I recovered together in her isolation ward in hospital whilst the others all recovered at home.....but that's another story.

It was after that though that I really did put on weight. A doctor I visited when in my mid thirties offered me a skipping rope. As a mother of then four children aged 8 and under I felt a little cross that he didn't acknowledge that I was actually quite active. Well, very really.

A few years later still I was finally diagnosed with an underactive thyroid, but not before my weight had crept up to a little over a shocking 12 stone. And that is where it is now. During this time of course I have tried EVERY diet that was ever invented: Some sensible. Some less. Cabbage soup, Atkins, the Hay diet and many variations on the same theme, Weightwatchers, Tesco Online Diets, Unislim, Rosemary Conley, Slimming World. I even bought some of that ridiculously expensive wacky tea and many may more. I can name most periods of my life by the diet that I was following at the time. Most recently I have been chewing the "Chew Chew" diet. Yes, well ...

Of course the biggest irony in all this is that I currently still wear a size 12. Sizes being so much more generous than they were a few years ago have allowed extra pounds to arrive without the extra sizes. I have of course variously been size 14 and 16 over the years, but in recent years, my daughters have put me straight and put me into less baggy smaller sized clothes. and so now I wear a twelve again. Much of the time.

But ... when I went to the Doctor about something unrelated in January he just "popped" me the scales. (It's a funny term "pop". Do you think that they teach Doctors that at medical school?) Ummmm he said. That's crept up a bit. ("Yes, I've been telling you that for years" I wanted to say...) "It really is quite dangerous of course," he said. "You are in the obese category."

Such an emotive word. The very word "Obese" brings up images to mind of people who make my figure look more akin to Twiggy herself. It is not a word I associate with a size 12. Even a 2010 size 12. And I have muscles too. I'm not flabby I thought. Well ... apart from the baby tummy, and my horrible calves, and I have had five babies all together. Surely that allows for SOME flexibility on the scales. AND I have got an underactive thyroid... (See think bubble above my head and doctor on the other side of the desk.)

"What you need to do", he said "is to cut down on your portion sizes. Eat less fat. More vegetables and fruit. And if that doesn't work, come back and we'll give you some diet pills."

I smiled weakly. Inside I wanted to scream at him...

I went home and ate for Britain that day...

But, for the next few months I tried to be sensible, to chew my food, to exercise and to just eat properly. I have lost a few pounds but it really wasn't shifting enough. And to be honest, the ingrained "thin thing" is always there in my mind. Of course I am not looking to be 9 stone. I would look haggard, but I do seriously need to lose some. Well, quite a lot actually.

So. I went back this week and accepted the Docs fab diet pills. Medical pills are the only thing that I haven't actually tried yet. It's another trick of course. Eating fat with them makes you so seriously uncomfortable that what you do is train your body not to eat any excessive amounts, ever again hopefully.

So wish me luck ...

And if you ever need a diet book writing...

Let me know.

It's all down to "Feng Shui"

2010-05-11T15:35:00.006+01:00

It's all down to "Feng Shui" I said to Hubby.

"Oh right" he said. With Hubby of course there is actually a continual subtext. As a sort of "nearly a proper actor, maybe someone will spot me one day" type I have over the years done quite a few workshops where you improvise the subtext of what the character is really saying. I always find those exercises quite easy myself. I just think of Hubby's subtext moments and "hey presto" we have a result.

Of course, the subtext on this particular occasion was...." Yet another HBS*. Smile sweetly and agree. She'll move onto something else quite soon."

"We need to change the front door colour" I said.

"Oh" he said. Subtext "What is she going to suggest now"?

"I've been reading up on it." I went on. "It faces west and a little bit to the south, which means that gold or white would be a good colour. Probably white. I don't fancy gold."

At that the subtext moments stopped.

"You can't change the colour of the front door" he protested.

I looked at him. He was serious. And of course, he was right. We live in a Georgian house which is grade II listed. The "You must have a BLACK front door" has been engraved into the "What you are allowed and what you are not allowed to do with your house" book in the Forest of Dean council offices. And of course, added to that, it has always been black for over 200 years. Or currently a slightly off black greyish in need of a paint version of black. But black. Definitely black.

I knew that I'd lost that one. The front door had to stay as it was however "un feng shui".

"The thing is" I went on "is that our house is a bit of a Feng Shui nightmare.

It's not pronounced "Schwee" Mum. It's Schway. Feng "Schway" said Sensible. "Oh, right" I said. It's a nuisance being older sometimes. I get all sorts of things wrong. I like to call Gok Wan for instance Gok "warn" as in "arm", but apparently that is wrong too. It is perhaps a right of passage though to pronounce things wrongly. My mother is a expert at it. Everyone takes delight in her "pittzzas" for example with her emphasis on the double "T" and she is of an age where she either doesn't hear or doesn't really care. Probably the latter. She has always called them pittzas. She likes to call them pittzas and even though the rest of the world calls them pizzas, she will continue to call them pittzas. Good for her. And when I get to the purple hat age, I too will relish being able to call things what I like and be too "deaf" to hear people correcting me. But right now, while I'm in the middle bit of life still I suppose I still have to try to conform.

"OK then" I said. Feng "Shway" nightmare.

And, according to the experts, it is.

You see, the front door faces the back door, which to all intents and purposes is sort of another front door, it being a double sided house, which means that the money comes into one side and out of the other, which it certainly does for us. And then the staircase is in the right place for one door, but in completely the wrong place for the other. In other words it is directly opposite the back door, or the other front door, which apparently means that the "chi" goes straight upstairs, leaving the downstairs devoid of all the good stuff.

Then there is the question of the doors themselves. The ideal is that you use one door for almost all of your outgoings and incomings. Well ... that's great if you are one person with one job and nothing too complicated to manage. Try a family of nine residents, all with different missions, all with different reasons for entering and leaving the house, all at different ages and not one, or even two, but three very used doors. Some of the family catch buses from the front of the house, some get into cars, using the side door. Some just go and play in the garden, using the back/ other front door and some walk to places using any of the doors available.

Oh dear...

"Oh for goodness sake Mum. People were burnt at the stake for believing in such stuff not so long ago" said ESOS. "It's all mumbo jumbo."

"O.K. then clever clogs", said I. "So why, since living in this house has all the money literally come in through the front door and disappeared out of the back, when before we lived here we were reasonably comfortable, for a little while at least?"

Meanwhile Sensible came back into the room.

"Mum? Why is your necklace hanging from the ceiling?"

"It's a "crystal" I explained, to divert the energies. It will help the fact that at the moment they are all going from front to back, up the stairs and in my lady's chamber and stuff."

"It looked nicer round your neck." She said.

"Yes, well I am going to order a proper one for the purpose, but I thought that it would do for now."

"I think it looks fine." Said Hubby. Subtext: "She really has gone completely mental this time. Best not say too much. Just wait for the men with the straight jackets to arrive."

"Well, what we really need is a round table there" I said.

So, today I got our white metal round garden table and plonked it in the middle of the hall. And I decided that I could actually put conservatory type furniture into that bit of the hall and make a feature of the fact that it opens onto the garden. In essence I would in fact make no pretence of the fact that I would be directly copying, with limited resources, my lovely friends in Effingham, who have a tailor made very posh and stunningly beautiful new garden room in their house.

Gymnast arrived home. I explained my plan for my "sort of" garden room. "Oh, awesome" she said. "It'll look cool." One vote at least.

"Mum, why is the garden table in the middle of the hall?" said Tinkerbell Mushroom. "It's Feng Shui" I said.

"Feng What?"

I got one of those "Mum has really lost it this time" looks. And then "Oh...What's for dinner?"

True to form, Hubby said nothing derogatory. He just smiled and said. "Yes. Feng Shui." Subtext: "Silly old bat. Where are those men with the straight jackets?"

To which of course, my subtext was: "Wait and see. Just because not every person in China is a multi millionaire doesn't mean that Feng Shui is a load of baloney. You never know just WHAT might be around the corner..."

*Hair Brained Scheme

Tonight

2009-04-07T17:02:00.007+01:00

"You're not going to like this," said Hubby. "How about tonight?"

"NO!!" I said.

It was one word, with serious feeling. And then I put the phone down.

Hubby called again. I ignored it.

And again,

And again.

Still I ignored it....

How could they do that I thought? At the risk of being seriously prima donnarish, as opposed to just a bit, this was MY night. Eleven years after having got an Equity card I was finally getting an agent to come and watch me act. Anyone involved in the luvvy arty stuff will know that this is no mean feat. It takes a lot to get an agent to take you seriously, and even more to get one to travel as far as Cheltenham - a hundred miles from the big smoke - to come and watch you.

But they were coming. Tonight. Now.

I had had nothing else planned for the day. I was simply going to do a very simple dinner to leave for everyone and take it easy. It was my first night of my play and I was to say the least, nervous.

Hubby on the other hand had taken a call from Social Services. They were desperate. They had to place someone forthwith, now. It was another asylum seeker and it turned out that he was in fact a thirteen year old, in need of a home.

Hubby rang again.

"Fine. I'll do the room." I yelled down the phone.

I rang the social worker to find out a little more about the boy in question, including his name. I then rang the person that he was currently with to find out a little more.

It seems that she was aware that this boy was to be placed with us three days before.

But ...... no-one had remembered to call us, the people who they were planning to place him with for the next two and a half years. Nor had anyone remembered to to a "pre placement visit."

Unfortunately his emergency 28 day placement had now run out and he therefore needed to be placed in a home by the end of the day or else the social worker would turn into a pumpkin or something.

"Why didn't you just say no?" I eventually asked Hubby.

"Well I did effectively. I said that it might prove difficult."

"No." I remonstrated. "You said that it 'might prove difficult.' That means, in translation, that you will go back to 'Mrs Awkward', ask her, and then give an answer. If the answer is YES, then 'Mrs Awkward' has consented. If the answer is NO, then clearly she has acted awkwardly, and has put her foot down. Either way I look like a class one bitch with no feeling."

Hubby agreed to pick up the new incumbent on his way home from work. I left for the theatre feeling cross and a little upset that I had to leave Tinks and Gymnast waiting for our new arrival with no other adult in the house. I pleaded with ESOS.

"Would you mind just watching tele with them until Dad gets home?"

"Oh Mum".

"Please?"

Grudgingly he relented and went to watch his beloved (not) 'Hannah Montana.' "Have you any idea how much I HATE, and I mean HATE this programme?" he complained loudly.

As I drove into Cheltenham, I saw Hubby's car driving past me in the other direction. I called him.

"Why are you just leaving Cheltenham? I need you to be at home with Tinkerbell Mushroom and Gymnast!"

"It must have been some bloke that looked like me." He said. "Wasn't me."

.........The flowers left at the stage door were very nice.

And the new boy is very sweet..................

But next time..................it would be very nice to have at least twenty four hours notice please Mr Social Worker.........................

Time Out

2009-03-15T16:16:00.004Z

It was a day off.

I had arranged to go out with the girls in London.

The "girls" of course, are also in their mid forties and are in fact my friends from school. I have known them over thirty years and to me we all look and act in exactly the same way as we did thirty years ago.

Especially the "look" bit.

Sensible had a Duke of Edinburgh bronze medal training day in Gloucester. Amongst other things they had to cook their own lunch. So I dropped she and her friend off en route with their walking gear and lunch ingredients and went on to park the car, so that I could get the coach from Gloucester to London. This cost a stunningly low £11 for the return journey, including a mobile phone message with my ticket details.

"What if I lose my phone though" I'd said to Hubby.

"When have you ever lost your mobile phone." He said

"Well what if it runs out of charge?"

In the end, on his suggestion, I had texted the number to Hubby's phone, so that "just in case the worst happened" and I was left stranded in London without my phone I could grab a complete stranger on the bus, take their phone number and get Hubby to text them my ticket details ....................

Quite what that would have made me look like is debatable, and it's probably even more debatable as to what it would have made Hubby look like...

I got to Victoria Coach Station at 12.00 on the dot and tried to look for the bus stop. I mean of course the sort of bus that takes you around town, as opposed to one that goes from one town to bigger town. I must be getting a bit blind in my old age though, because try as I might I managed to walk to Victoria train station, a few streets away, before I found a suitable stop with the right number buses attached.

So, I got my ticket and waited in the queue.

Which is when the mayhem began.

It seemed from the phone call that I received that ED needed some help sorting out a problem, fairly urgently. This was fine. Except... I was in London and Hubby was out at a kickboxing class on the other side of Gloucester. The other problem was that due to standing in a busy London street with buses and cars going past at twenty to the dozen, I couldn't understand a word that ED was actually saying to me except that whatever the problem was, it was URGENT with a capital U.

"Text me" I shouted down the phone.

And then, when that apparently hadn't been heard at the other end.... "TEXT ME" in an even louder voice.

I started to get "looks..."

So I smiled at the onlookers....

The bar that my friend Jane had chosen was ... interesting. I hadn't been able to find it to start with and so had phoned my other friend Debbie, not having Jane's mobile number. Debbie was still on her train. "I think it's right at the bottom of the street." She said, "just by the tube station." If you can't find it, come up to meet me at Charing Cross."

I eventually found it. From the outside it looked like a Cordon Negro bottle, and on the inside it looked like um ... a Cordon Negro bottle.

I texted Debbie.

"I've found it. I think that it must be one of Jane's haunts from her journo days. Think Cordon Negro."

I was desperate for the "ladies" but still needed to continue texting Hubby, about Gloucestershire logistics. He was due out of his kickboxing class any second and so could take over at the Gloucestershire end, but it all needed quick action once he was back in circulation so to speak.

"Whoops. Sorry..." said the woman who walked in on me in the loo.

I shrieked, closed the door quickly and recovered my modesty. How did that happen?

I found a nice table though, in a relatively lighter area of the bar.

A waitress of about 150 came up to me.

"You can't sit there." She said. "It's reserved."

I looked to see how and where it said that it was reserved. There was no evidence of it., but being in a compliant mood, I moved.

"You can sit here if you want." She said, showing me a very dark area of the room.

At that moment my friends arrived.

"This table's a bit dark isn't it?" said Debbie.

I explained that I had tried to sit on the one on the other side of the room. "Oh I know said Jane. "I tried too, but that waitress over there said that it was reserved. I couldn't see any sign though. She's very old. I think that she probably worked here when I used to come here twenty years ago."

"Aahh" I said, "so who did you interview in here then?" Feeling pleased with myself that I had "guessed" correctly.

Oh no-one, she said. "I just used to meet friends here."

Hubby called. The lack of reception down in the cellar meant that I needed to go upstairs to take the call. Hubby had though taken charge at the Gloucestershire end. "It's all sorted." He said. "So just enjoy yourself."

We had a brilliant afternoon.

My friend Debbie treated me to a lovely lunch in a very nice Italian restaurant in Covent Garden. We could see each other in there too, which was a plus. On the downside, we weren't relying on nice dim candlelight to hide away the wrinkles of the last twenty years. Candle lit cellar bars do have some advantages.

It was over all too soon sadly.

Back at Victoria Coach station I went to where the buses looked as if they were departing. The only thing was that I was unable to see how to get into the departure lounge. There seemed to be buses in the way, which were being sprayed with water.

I looked around desperately for a door, and in the end decided that a bit of cold water wouldn't hurt, so walked through the shower.

It was very wet. I was... a little soaked.

I asked a man where I could find the bus for Gloucestershire.

"Over the road Madam. This is the arrivals area."

So that was why they were washing the coaches.... on their way IN to the bus station......

Ping, went the phone. Message from Hubby, with the ticket details...... thank you Hubby.

Ensconced on my coach finally with a nice cup of tea, I immersed myself in my book. It's good to have journeys every so often....

Just before I got off at Gloucester I thought that I would use the coach "facilities", before my drive home.

And then ................. the door swung open on me as we turned the corner ............and for a second time that day I had been "seen" in a somewhat uncompromising position. I walked back to my seat, averting all eyes..... and immersed myself in my book, once more.

I finally got home. Sensible was back home from her rugged training day.

"Was it good?" I asked.

"Yes." She said. "The only thing is. You know the tinned tomatoes that I took to cook?"

"Yes," I said.

"Well. They weren't tomatoes. It was a tin of custard.."

"Oh," I said. "Not so good on pasta then?"

We Lomax women have a way of doing things.........

Big Dilemma!

2009-03-12T12:02:00.012Z

It's a dilemma.

You see, I have been doing a maternity cover at a very nice comprehensive school in a very nice rural area. It started half way through the summer term last year and was due to last the best part of the year.

It's been a mixed bag of course. Somehow I seem to have managed to end up with a seriously large proportion of bottom set teaching, which can be ... challenging, and the journey in is, at 38 miles each way... tedious.

On the other hand, teaching does have huge advantages. Not many kids want to be taught in the holidays or after school, and as such you are usually free to be at home when your children are. Plus, as I am only working three days a week, I have time to do vital planning and preparation ...... on blogger and facebook.

So when I found out last week that it would indeed be coming to an end half way through May I was gutted. Of course, there was a little issue of hurt pride perhaps in that no-one wants to be rejected... and the little fact that as a trained teacher who had previously spent very little time in formal classrooms over the last twenty years, despite much teaching and dealing with children by running theatre schools, I have had to put in quite a lot of effort, just to do the job properly so to speak.

I moped.

And I moped some more.

In the end, Hubby could stand it no more.

"I don't understand you he said. You can use the time to do more acting, to be freelance and to work around the family commitments more. That is what you have always wanted. Now that we are fostering, it means that you have more flexibility. So what is your problem?"

What indeed? He had a point.

For the first time in twenty years I could actually do what I wanted to do, and life would and could be better.

I went into school on the Monday, feeling much more positive. Only eight weeks to finishing with a holiday in between. The end was in sight.

Then the Head called me in... "Would I possibly be interested in more work in September?" Very unofficial as yet....... But they want me it seems.

I am of course the girl who can't say no, so me immediate reaction was.. "Yes", "Great"...

"Why?" Said Hubby when I got home...

I went to Actors Lab in the evening. My acting class for the not quite made it, maybe they will maybe they won't professional actors.

"Don't commit yourself" my friends said. Everyone loves each other at Actors Lab. And I love Actors Lab. "Do some acting. It's what you have wanted to do but you have too been committed previously".

So ... I tossed and turned... and tossed and turned that night.

And then I tossed and turned some more...

If I took teaching seriously... maybe I could head up a drama department somewhere in a couple of years... I would have professional respect. A good salary...

But on the other hand... may be I could act in something like Waterloo Road....

Oh ... O.K ...

But I could do my workshops, role play work and voice overs and some stage acting...

And I would have time to write.

And as I would have large proportions of time not working, I would be there for the children even more than teachers are...

But on the other hand... I could teach until I was sixty and then act..

But then the parts are so LIMITED for sixty year old women...

So, maybe I would be better getting established now while I'm still young enough....

You get the gist.

It's a BIG dilemma...

P.S.
Thank you for all your kind comments about Abdul. Sadly, we have now had a letter from the Home Office saying that if he turns up now he is liable for detention.... I do wish that Social Services would tell them the whole story before they placed them (as non English speakers) in families. He probably had NO idea of all this......

And ..... Very sadly Hubby's Grandmother died this week. She was 91 and at the end very poorly. But.. it was all very quick. She had been healthy only a couple of weeks earlier. So it was still a shock for all concerned and very very sad.....

Somebody's Son.

2009-02-19T22:51:00.017Z

It had been a normal weekend. Until late Sunday afternoon.

And then he didn't arrive home for our very late traditional Sunday lunch.

"He's possibly just got tied up with friends and forgotten that the buses don't run late on a Sunday." Said Hubby.

In the two months that he had been living with us as a teenage foster child, Abdul Qudoos had always managed to get home before the buses "ran out" so to speak. But not on this particular day.

Arriving in England as an Asylum seeker hadn't come without its difficulties. It appears that anyone in danger, for whatever reason, can pay a "people trafficker" to get them out of Afghanistan. The service doesn't come cheap however and so it's not for the fainthearted. They pay something in the region of 12000 euros - to someone who is really little more than a criminal. And for all that money, with mothers often selling their dowries to ensure that their sons have a better or safer life, the families have no guarantee that their children will arrive safely in England, or anywhere else.

All have a "suitable" birth date. This is always on the 1st of January of the relevant year that would make them just under 16. (They don't admit to knowing their actual birthday. They are possibly trained by the people trafficker to sell themselves as being under 16. This was they can be "looked after children", educated, and in with a better chance of asylum.)

We are fairly sure that Abdul is probably older than 16. We cannot know for certain, but the signs would say that he possibly is. However, as someone pointed out to us, he is "somebody's son." If he were your son, you would I am sure feel differently.

It is a seriously precarious business.

They travel via the underside of lorries, cars, trucks and anything else that you can think of, but not in any conventional manner or by any conventional form of transport. They arrive some months later in a very dirty set of clothes and no paperwork, to be picked up by the police. The lucky ones are then picked up by the Social Services and put into care - as is hoped for. From there they are usually put into emergency care for 28 days, and then onto a more permanent arrangement, such as our house. This is where we came into the equation, a month after Abdul's arrival. As far as we know he has been in England three months. A month with the first carer and then two months with us.

The boys, having established themselves in a foster home undergo a number of interviews with the Home Office and over the course of months and years that follow, their fate as to whether or not they can stay in the UK is decided.

Having put yourself through all that, it has got to be something seriously unnerving to make you risk everything and run away.

Back to that Sunday.....

Our other Afghan boy, also being fostered by us, started phoning round their mutual friends.

No-one had seen Abdul, so it appeared. Not since the day before.

At 6 o'clock Hubby went in search and I called the police and Social Services. As foster carers we do not have full legal guardianship of our charges, although in practice it is clear that on a day to day basis we are the ones who need to do all the things that any caring parent would. In fact it wasn't possible to get hold of Abdul's social worker, but the police were happy to come round and take a statement, and of course search our house. I had often wondered what it must be like to be at the receiving end of police searching your house for evidence. Now I knew. Nothing was left unturned. I went back into Abdul's room and put the drawers back. The police were polite and kind, but I couldn't help but think that they could have put the drawers back. Maybe I am just fussy. Or maybe I hadn't expected that we were being treated as potential suspects.

The next morning hubby scoured Gloucester again. I rang the lawyer that Abdul had been due to meet. They had been planning on discussing his immigration procedure. The lawyer, also in Gloucester, clearly needed a bit of clarification. I rang Hubby. "I'll go down there" he said.

Between them they deduced that possibly Abdul had become frightened about his story that he was going to present to the Home Office. It is a scary business telling the Home Office why you might want to stay in this Country, especially when your story isn't quite what the Home Office may consider a good case for political asylum. Especially when perhaps someone has maybe pointed that out to you. You may just be tempted in Abdul's situation to want to "tweak" the story slightly, to what you think might ensure that you do get whatever it is that you intended to get when you came to England.

This is what we think happened. Of course, we don't really know. We hope and pray that he is not hurt or worse...

Perhaps he has run away with a view to fixing his story and starting again as a "new" asylum seeker. Perhaps he intends to be "found" on a lorry. He possibly hasn't anticipated that the fingerprints that the Police took on arrival can be cross referred, and so even giving a different name wouldn't help.

Or perhaps he is hiding with friends in Gloucester in the ever growing Afghan community, with a view to maybe re-emerging at some point as an adult asylum seeker. This really wouldn't be a good idea. He may have to be there a long time...

Sadly, we really have no idea though, and we really would like to just know where he has gone. If he comes back soon, then we can help him. If he misses his appointment with the Home Office on Monday though, he will possibly be considered an absconder. His chances of getting asylum from then on in will be considerably reduced. And, of course he is almost certainly misguided if he thinks that he can restart the whole process again by being "found".

In the meantime ... having turned over every stone that we can think of, asked everyone that we know to turn over all their stones and turned up nothing ... all we can do is wait.

If you see him though, please ask him to go home to Sally and Derek's house. Soon.

Running the Country

2009-02-12T13:03:00.017Z

"What they should do is use sea water," I said to hubby.

"What for?" he asked, clearly quite bemused.

"For the salt," I explained. He still looked at me blankly.

"When you were on your submarine," I said, "you drank drinking water that was made out of sea water."

Yes. Said Hubby

"Well then, surely it must be possible to do the same thing and use the salt from the sea for the snow. Also, there must be a way of pumping it directly onto the Severn Bridge to keep the ice at bay."

I was really on a roll. Buzzing from building snowmen and being out in the snow with the children sledging had seemed to make all my thoughts much clearer. The children had had a ball. The improvised sledges around the village were brilliant. In the absence of being able to buy a sledge when needed, we had used the bottom part of the slide, which, upside down had worked very well really..... but possibly not quite as well as a real one. I put a sledge onto my mental shopping list for next year, despite hubby's protests that we get snow like this once every 20 years, and as such "what is the point of buying a sledge now?" We could always use it for our first grandchild I thought.

The way that the snow had been managed by the County Council though seemed to be bizarre. I did wonder quite how they had managed to run out of salt when, even on a very "bad" British winter like this one, we have less than two weeks snow a year. I could certainly agree with the speculation that maybe that this was an excuse for the County Council not to spend, given that much of their spending power had been absorbed by Iceland. It was slightly ironic that they seemed to have given us a barter deal of some of their "weather" in exchange for our money.

My friend Jane came round for a cup of tea. "What they should do" I said, is so simple, "they should have a shorter working day for all schools in the winter and a longer one in the summer. That way schools wouldn't have to close every time there was snow, but the children could go in habitually later during the winter and come home before it gets dark." Jane, having lived in Germany as a child, where they did just that, agreed with me. Between us we came up with a way forward for the next time we have snow which didn't involve parents skidding around in their four by fours, or worse skidding around in non four by fours, just to get children to school by the start of day.... They would instead arrive once all the roads had been gritted, with the salt from the sea of course, all salt mines having been stripped bare by all accounts.

"We should be running the Country." I said.

"We'd probably get something done if we did." Said Jane.

"It is very expensive." said Hubby.

"What is?" I said.

"Making drinking water from sea water. So it wouldn't be a cheap way of getting salt."

Oh well. There go my plans for running for MP. And in truth, it is of course much easier to run the country from your kitchen table, over a cup of tea with a friend, than it probably is from Number 10.

Just then one of our Afghan boys came into the kitchen.

"I am going into Gloucester."

"There are no buses." I said, and the roads are sheets of ice. That is why you are off school." He looked at me bemused. It clearly hadn't occurred to him that the reason that he was not at school was because of the snow. Perhaps he had thought that it was some sort of occasional day. He looked positively disappointed. No school and now no town. Coming from a Country where education is still considered a gift, they find our own children's rejoicing at having snow and missing school slightly strange. Nothing would have allowed ESOS to exchange a snow day for a school day.

I had a sneaky look at my Facebook. There was a message from Sensible who was in Germany on a school exchange.

"Brilliant" She had written to me.

"The one time when everyone is actually off school for snow and I am not in the Country. There's snow here too, and we are at school."

My point exactly... They have twice as much snow in Germany, and they manage to handle their roads safely.

Still....

It was very nice having all those days off. And the snowman's good.

The day that I looked like a Cavoodle - A cross between a King Charles Spaniel and a Poodle

2009-01-31T12:55:00.009Z

The "Cavoodle" version of Sally ......Why did they think that I might want to look like this?

The Improved Version. (I think)

The "do"

I looked like some sort of cross between a King Charles Spaniel and a Poodle

2009-01-23T14:41:00.010Z

It's hubby's Christmas do tomorrow night.

Well... they are scientists, details such as it not actually being Christmas are not important, and anyway it's very nice to go to a "do" in the middle of January.

So I booked a hair appointment. "Lucky you" said ED, "having a day off. I have to do 9 til 6 tomorrow at Uni." Never mind ED. One day you too will be a "desperately seeking to be a desperate housewife" and you too will get the odd day off to do little more than have your hair cut.

Hubby always groans when I go to the hairdresser. "Just why do you pay them to do exactly what you don't want" he says. "I need them to cut it." I reply. "But you always hate it." He says. "Why do you keep going back?" "I like the cuts" I say. "And the colour? And the styling?" "You just don't understand" I always retort.

He is right of course. Just why I spend money at these places is beyond me. That said, I do need my hair cutting properly and the wash in rinses did leave my hair in a dreadful state last year and grey streaks are just not my thing at the moment. Yet. Will never be.

Roll forward, to today...

Half way through having my hair done, my hairdresser says to me, "Sally would you mind if Jodie finishes off your hair, only I have another client waiting, and you are easier to ask than her.." "Of course," I said.

Jodie took charge. "So, do you want it straightened?"

"No thank you" I say. I have views on very straight hair. They come from having naturally dull drab and straight hair. "I am going to my husband's office formal tomorrow night. Do you think that you could make it bouncy please?" She starts to dry it. All seems to be going well. "Shall I make it spirally with the GHDs?" She says. I do now know of course that GHDs can make good curling tools, and so I accepted gratefully.

When she got to the bit where I thought that she was going to use a comb to put it into some sort of style I sat back and relaxed. Instead though, she said "I won't use a comb, I'll just get the spray and that can hold it in place for you if you don't comb it between now and then." I half smiled. I looked at myself. I looked like some sort of cross between a King Charles Spaniel and a poodle. The top was flat and the sides looked as if my hair hair been curled with corkscrews, horizontally from the ears. She sprayed it.

"Thank you." I smiled.

"Ooh, very glam." Said the owner of the salon. I had been there ages. I needed to get home. Please don't anyone see me, I thought. Please don't let anyone see me. I walked home quickly, averting all gazes from oncoming cars so as to avoid seeing someone that I knew. Got inside, took a photo with my mobile phone, confirmed that I did indeed look like a corkscrew head and then went upstairs to adjust the damage. The back was beautiful and the curls can definitely be used tomorrow night and once I had changed the appearance somewhat, I was after all quite happy.

I went to check my emails. There was a message from ASOS saying that my order for shoes had been dispatched and that my niece and nephew would be receiving them by next day delivery tomorrow, just in time for the ball.

The only problem is that they are in Bedfordshire and I am in Gloucestershire and they are for me, not my niece and certainly not my nephew.

It seems that the last item I ordered was dispatched to their address, being a Christmas present and, as such that for some reason has become my regular address... even though the billing address is my address.

I am currently waiting for a call from the Customer Services Department.

I have a new Face!

2009-01-14T15:14:00.006Z

You need a Facebook Mum.

"Why do I" I started to protest.

"I'll make one for you."

Before I knew it, Sensible had created a profile for me, put my picture on and brought me firmly into the 21st Century.

"We'll get some friends for you." She said.

"I thought I already had friends."

"On Facebook," she explained patiently.

She then contacted all the people in my hotmail address people who have Facebooks asking them to join. That was fine.

Then... She clicked on all the people who didn't have Facebook, asking them to get one too.
"What have you done?" I exclaimed. Do you realise who is on there?

"People you email." She said.

Oh Sensible, what have you done? Who did you contact?

Well... apart from the Managing Director of a company I no longer work for, who for various reasons should possibly not be invited to join my personal friends on Facebook, the tax office, every bank and building society that I am in email contact with, Next Directory, any insurance company that I have had a discussion with over the years, somebody who we have been in legal dispute with........ well nobody really......

I cringed with embarrassment as I thought of various people that possibly I would prefer to communicate with only on a professional basis ..... But it was too late. They were all invited. You too I expect.

Not all accepted the invitation to be my friend. ED was reluctant to accept me at first, but has now become my best instant messaging friend. Her reluctance was possibly due to her not wanting me around her personal life which is fair enough really. What she won't know until she read this however is that due to a blip in the system, I discovered by accident that I was able to click on her profile, but not leave messages on her wall, prior to becoming a friend. She had always assured me that no-one can enter another's site without permission. Not so ED. Look again. If anyone sends you a message, and you respond, it seems you can in fact see their "wall".

So there you go....I'm not such a dinosaur after all......

and.... Facebook is great. You should all get one.

Guests from Hell....

2009-01-04T17:22:00.013Z

And so, after a very busy Christmas, where night and day and sleep and waking seemed to merge continuously into one long blur of chocolate, wine and turkeys, on 28th December we managed to get ourselves out early enough to drive over to Bedford for a 24 hour "family do" with one of my brothers and his family.

Bravely they had invited all nine of us. My parents not wanting to spoil their nice relaxed Christmas memories of the 2008 Christmas, decided not suffer the chaos that the Lomax family brings in its wake and escaped back to East Grinstead before we arrived...

Of course, "all of us" also means bringing the dog...So technically there were ten of us. She is however a reluctant traveller and so it took a while to gather her up and get her into the bus. Bus for once was the true definition of our mode of transport. Needing to transport nine of us, plus the dog, we had hired said bus from the local garage. They didn't have a 12 seat one available though, so the 15 seater it was. Much to the kids delight....Children never cease to amaze me when it comes to what is and isn't acceptable in the form of transport. Somehow, ordinary space buses that seat seven are loser cruisers. And yet to have us all rattling around and being shaken from here to Bedford is just fine... "Cool" in fact. "Although possibly it is a bit of a loser cruiser anyway, but a cool one all the same," said Sensible.

As we arrived, the bitches looked at each other. A faint growl escaped. Then, without further warning it was a full scale fight, collars, ears, fur and all. Lucy was put outside and both were seriously told off. This was not a good start to the day.

We had arrived with plenty of Christmas goodies, but we sort of have this arrangement in the family where we don't buy actual Christmas presents for the adult children. Or maybe we do. Or maybe we don't...... Needless to say, when ED opened her very nice present, and our two Afghan boys also opened theirs..... I realised that I should have bought an actual present for my niece and nephew who are now 18 and 20. I cringed with embarrassment. It had been a bit of a rush, as with two new residents arriving just before Christmas, present buying had happened very late. In fact it had really happened in earnest when we had a Father Christmas type delivery of money, in the form of some pay for the boys, just a few days before Christmas. We then found that we could actually buy things at normal prices with normal paying methods. This was a new experience for the Lomax family as previously, everything including barter with the dog biscuits was a normal form of tender. But sadly communication between my brother and me had failed somewhere....

We sat down to dinner. My sister in law had cooked a gorgeous Nigella style mutton stew. At least, it was gorgeous until her foot slipped as she was getting it out of the oven and the beautiful ceramic pot landed on the floor. We ate fantastically well non the less and we all pretended to those who had less command of the English language that the words that came from the kitchen were some sort of English pre new year ritual.... or something like that... Actually in true British style we all pretended that we hadn't heard anything.

All was forgotten however as we all tunelessly ploughed our way through their Karaoke DVD, Tinkerbell Mushroom and Gymnast taking leading roles, and my niece actually singing in tune. Our Afghan boys looked on with what looked like a mixture of amusement and horror. Coming from an entirely different culture just a few weeks back, they must wonder about this very strange family that they have landed with.

I went to bed very late. It was imperative that my sister in law and I put the world to rights before heading upstairs. So we did, and went to bed feeling very pleased with ourselves, as you do on family Christmas get togethers.

It was a bit of a shame though to find on arriving downstairs the next morning, my brother, cleaning the carpet...... Mad Dog Lucy, traumatised by car journey, other mad dog and lack of any available adult on hand to let her into strange garden had disgraced herself. My poor brother, who recently lost his job, whose computer and telly had both broken in the course of the previous few weeks, and whose daughter had decided to leave her university course just before Christmas was wondering by now what it was that he done so badly in a previous life. Was there anything else that could go wrong for him?

We really were by this time the guests from Hell.

Our profuse apologies to bro were interrupted though by strains of a sort of singing. Karaoke is tricky of course....Even when you more or less know the tune... For those who have not been brought up with any exposure to Western music at all though, it is a very different experience. It was a bit like the bit in the second Bridget Jones movie where Like a Virgin is sung by the girls in the Bangkok prison........ This was Hey Jude... with a tune like you have never heard before.

My sister in law then went to turn up the heating. At that moment they realised that the boiler had gone wrong too....

Thankfully Hubby did manage to fix their flame lookalike fire for them. That having gone wrong just before we had arrived. So we did have some use as guests, but they did look as if they were smiling with quite some relief we drove our massive vehicle back down their drive.

And they really had made us all so welcome too.....

The Yule Blog 2008..... Or...The cleverness of FC

2008-12-25T01:26:00.011Z

Before I help Father Christmas each year, I always have a little tot up of what has been spent on each child. It is of course imperative that each child has the same spent on them. This is however quite a challenge, as I never actually count either numbers of presents or total up monies spent as I go along. So... come Christmas Eve it would of course be too late if it were wrong.

This though is when I realise that there is a Father Christmas, for every year, including this one, miraculously we have the same number of presents per child and the same amount spent almost to the penny.

"Oh the cleverness of me," from Peter Pan springs to mind... it being the play that my mother used to take me to see every Christmas when I was little.... But, just like Peter Pan, I somehow think that it is not me, but my magical friend FC who is responsible. Hubby is not really involved too closely on the present front, so it isn't him. It is just pure magic......... It's the sort of magic that happens in families. Like the magic that means that by some strange coincidence if you do a certain mathematical exercise with our children's DOBS, then they all add up to 27. And it's only in our family that that happens.....

Meanwhile, with seven children to entertain this Christmas.... (Yes that's right, seven. We gained two that we are fostering, just last week... Two boys from Afghanistan...)... With presents all dispatched to FC..... With the children nearly all in bed (please GO soon kids.... I need to go to bed myself, and I CAN'T until you do..... if you get my gist.......)

The thing is, with little or next to no English available, and no former understanding of western culture, let alone Father Christmas, how do you explain to the newbies that they need to go to bed now, otherwise, Christmas cannot happen as it should???!!! One of the said guests is currently sitting at at Hubby's laptop with headphones on, singing along to Indian music in a voice that if it were based on volume it might just win him the Afghan version of the X Factor. Ever the tactful, Sensible, not wanting to draw attention to herself, has just sent me a text asking me to ask him if he could perhaps sing a little more quietly.... as he is keeping her awake.... Thanks Sensible....

In the meantime, just before I do some pigeon English explanations of why my new guests really should go to bed..... I wish you all a very merry and very lovely Christmas...

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!!

Freddie's Mum

2008-11-18T12:49:00.007Z

I blame Freddie's mum myself.

Her father was a GP we were told. Unfortunately he hadn't appeared to have passed on his medical knowledge to his daughter, and so when Freddie aged three got chicken pox, she sent him into nursery school.

This would have course have been fine, except for the fact that the nursery school that he attended was also attended by ED. Freddie's mum arbitrarily decided that it would be fine for the whole nursery school to get chicken pox in one go. That was of course very generous of her, but some of us were less decided as to the appropriateness of the timing.

For me personally, being heavily pregnant with Sensible, with ESOS aged just nineteen months, the timing was perhaps a little off.

ED went down with it first, just in time for her to not be allowed to visit me me in hospital with Sensible. She and ESOS had to stand outside with Hubby and I lifted Sensible to the window to show her to them. It wasn't my happiest moment of motherhood. My own post natal room was nice. Even if it was for isolation purposes.

Next of course came the injection. The Human Varicella Zoster vaccine - to build up antibodies, as neonatal chicken pox is very dangerous.

"It won't stop her from getting it, but it may help," explained the Doctor.

"Please could I have one of those too?" I asked.

"Why?" said the female military doctor.

"Because I have never had chicken pox, and I may give it to her."

The Doctor looked Heavenwards.

"You are breastfeeding." She said.

"Yes." I said.

"So you will give her your antibodies."

"But I haven't got any antibodies against it. I have never had chickenpox." I protested.

My mother was visiting. She adamantly confirmed that I had never had chicken pox. The Doctor smiled at me in that "sympathetic, poor woman, just had a baby" sort of way, that sort of "she clearly doesn't know which side of her brain is which any more" sort of way, and in that "don't be so stupid love, I'm related to Freddie's mum, and I KNOW that everybody is exposed to chicken pox" sort of way.

"Neonatal chickenpox is very dangerous." She concluded, pulling the needle out of Sensible. "If you get it, it is one of those things."

I started to protest again that I was likely to give it to her, because she was exposed to me, and I was breastfeeding her, and that therefore instead of giving her my antibodies, I would instead give it to her.......... My voice wasn't being heard. She had packed up her belongings into her military style doctor's bag, and was gone from my isolation room.

ESOS got chicken pox on my return from hospital.

I got it when Sensible was 10 days old. I wasn't offered an anti viral drug, because it was too expensive to give to someone in a non high risk category. Apparently, a mother of three children, one of ten days old, and the other two recovering from an illness isn't vulnerable... It's not a nice thing for an adult to get though, especially ten days after giving birth. That was an interesting breastfeeding experience...

When, at three weeks old Sensible was rushed into hospital, this time to Queen Mary's in Roehampton, so as to be given intravenous acyclovir, it was no great surprise. I had of course given it to her, lock stock and barrel and I was in a different hospital, so I couldn't even gesticulate at my Army miss who had told me that this wouldn't be likely to happen....

Sensible, having been born sensible and stoical, coped remarkably well with the prodding and poking and jabbings over the next ten days. The maternal viewpoint was less desirable. Once, I just couldn't watch the procedure of changing over the cannula yet again as yet another tiny vein collapsed.

I was angry. Angry that it had come into our family at the wrong time. Angry at Freddie's mum. Angry at the Doctor who had refused to help me avoid having it, or at least suffering so much. Angry that I was not able to be given a drug to suppress it, so that my bout would not have been so bad, and .......... most angry that due to all those things that Sensible at three weeks was being subjected to a form of torture.

We all recovered.

As you do.

The torture techniques did pay off thankfully, and Sensible was well and healthy again quickly, and apart from the fact that she was the youngest ever recorded case of a very minor case of shingles in Northern Ireland two years later, has had no side effects ....... we hope.

Personally though I put on loads of weight and suffered from TATT (tired all the time) syndrome ... for the next ten years. I probably have TATT written all over my medical notes much to my various GPs' annoyance.

And I do of course blame it all on Freddie's mum.

Luckily for her, not only do I not live near her or know her, I am not sure that I ever even met her. I was just TOLD that it was SHE who brought the chickenpox into the nursery school...

So, when last week this strange rash appeared on my tummy, my immediate thought was that it looked like chickenpox.

I've had chickenpox though, so that's all right I thought.

More blisters appeared. It itched and drove me crazy, small as it was. And, by Sunday afternoon I was ready to collapse. I went back to bed and slept..... all afternoon, all evening and all night in various feverish states. I NEVER take a day off from work. But even Hubby, who also never takes sickies, told me that I was too ill to go in. So, I slept again.

My funny patch on my tummy was still itching, had largely scabbed over and was in fact possibly starting to subside. Hubby looked at it.

"It looks like chickenpox." He said. "Do you think it's shingles?"

We looked it up on the Internet. At first we found some pictures that looked like roof tiles. I knew I wasn't suffering from those. Then we found some more pictures, and for a forty something, as opposed to a seventy something with shingles, it looked seriously likely.

"We've got some Zovirax in the cupboard." Said Hubby. Put some of that on it. Now Hubby is not a Doctor, but he is a Cambridge scientist, and unlike the Medics who I acted in plays with at university, he spent considerably more of his time at college in classrooms, and considerably less of his time out of his head. And um.... he was by no means sober all the time either....

Needless to say, when it comes to science, I trust his judgement.

I put some Zovirax on.

By morning, the rash had reduced so much, that by the time I went to the Doctor, he was dubious that it was indeed shingles. He did however listen to my self diagnosis.... and did concur that the other symptoms made it more likely, and that I should definitely be off work.

Just think, if it weren't for Freddie's mum I wouldn't have written this blog today.

So... thank you Freddie's mum.

All we can do is to think positively....

2008-11-01T16:49:00.010Z

We have always called him the"Milky Bar Kid" because, just like the traditional "Milky Bar Kid" he has blond hair, glasses and a very cute "butter wouldn't melt in his mouth look." And, just like the "Milky Bar Kid", he always has a twinkle in his eye that just says, "I might get up to some mischief later.... but mostly Ill just be a nice kid."

Until two year's ago, when they moved away from here, I would regularly meet his mum in the playground. Regularly of course because, like me, she was always running into school with the MBK. We would all arrive sometimes just before the bell, but often just after. They, like us, often had no real reason for being perpetually late, other than the fact that her mind, like my mind is often full of "other" stuff, and she just needed to do twenty things prior to going to school... and think about a further forty.... and each every every task and thought all just takes a little bit longer than you think it will......

But she was great company and as friends we could always have a laugh about our complete inadequacy in the timings department. In a strange sort of way we possibly saw ourselves as slightly superior to "seriously on time mums". Of course, that was then. Once they moved away, and everyone else was "on time", I had to change my routines so that the children got to school on time. You see, as a late person, it is one thing being "late", but it is a different ball game all together being "last". I reckon that my lateness stems from being born three weeks early. By the time I die I should have caught up with those three weeks. It must be getting closer of course because I am definitely becoming more punctual as the years go on...

We have all kept in touch since MBK and his family moved away, and every so often we talk on the phone or we get together.

So, it was an ordinary phone call to start with.

"How are you?" I asked.

"In what respect?" said MBK's Dad.

Immediately I knew something was wrong.....

He put me onto MBK's Mum.

As the conversation progressed, I was told about how three weeks ago he had collapsed at school and how he has been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor.

He is just a normal, lovely, fun loving, easy going nine year old.

He has a wish list of things that he wants to do.....

It includes a trip to Legoland and a visit to the cinema to see the new James Bond movie. They are just ordinary requests for any little boy, because that is what he is.

A kid.

And that is what he should be allowed to be.

I went to the cupboard and found my Tesco vouchers. I calculated that I had enough points to send a normal sized family to Legoland, so I wrapped them up and enclosed them in a card. It's hard writing a card in such circumstances. You feel completely inadequate and... guilty for having completely healthy family members. But so grateful. So very grateful.

Hubby, a confirmed aetheist does every so often question the things that non aetheist's question. His questioning confirmed what I was thinking. My religious thoughts over the years have blown hot and cold. I believe, but what exactly I am not always sure.

"If there is a God," said Hubby, "How could he possibly be so cruel?"

"Not everything is perfect." I say. "Perhaps even God makes mistakes."

I cannot hold with the view that these things are done for a reason, despite my very Christian based schooling.

It puts everything into perspective.

All we can do is to think positively, and, if you believe, pray.

P.S. ...... If there is any possibility that you could tell others, please do..... So that we can have as many people as possible pulling together......... Thank you.... S

Poor Banks....

2008-10-30T20:02:00.018Z

"Mum, can you pick me up please?"

8.30 a.m.

The two night camping trip had lasted just 12 hours.... We had said of course. Camping on the coldest night so far this year is not exactly my idea of a picnic. But then being parents, of the older generation: those boring old and unfashionable remnants of society that we are.... how on earth would we know anything about what might or might not entertain a teenager? Of course, I hadn't quite bargained for what I was met with as three teenage boys piled into my car whilst their "stuff" was piled into the back.

As I drove along, I smelt a faint "whiff" of alcoholic breath. "It's a good job that none of you boys are driving" I said. "I am not sure that any of you would pass a breathalyser."

We stopped at the first drop off, and unloaded the goods and the boy........ looking seriously worse for wear.

After he had gone, the other two then proceeded to tell me the real reason for their early homecoming, and it seems that my son and friend, uniquely had managed to drink, well ..... shall we say, "slightly less" than the others. "Drinking sensibly" would be too strong in the circumstances. It did appear though that they had more or less saved some of the the others' bacon. Ten boys camping and drinking far too much...... Not a pretty sight.... I was assured as I did the washing later that day, that the "debris" shall we call it, on the sleeping bag, was out of others mouths and not my own son's. "So it's all right Mum, at least it's not my sick." As Esos's friend pointed out, from a domestic viewpoint, your own son's vomit is possibly slightly easier to deal with than that of AN Other's random teenager's vomit...... LOVELY!

So that was a good start to the day... Meanwhile, life should have been rosy in one respect, as it was payday. And so, I went to check my bank statement online, so that I could make a payment to someone.

But the bank wasn't playing.... it appeared my account had been made "dormant" for no apparent reason. It was very confusing. I have had a few run ins with banks over the years, but this was the first time that the account had been made dormant....

I picked up the phone.

"Oh yes, Mrs. Lomax. I'm really sorry, but it's because you have moved house, we need to check your identity at a branch."

"But I haven't moved house" said I. "I have lived in the same house for six years."

"Well it says here that a piece of post was returned to us, and so as such you need to go into the branch with a passport and address ID to verify your new name and address."

I muttered plenty about it being half term and having all the children home, and friends, and that the last thing that I had time to do right now was to drive six miles to the nearest branch. And that I DIDN'T have a new name and address.

Now.... ironically..... the "payment" that I needed to pay was to another bank account of ours. You see, Hubby and I are complete masochists. Not satisfied are we with the poor treatment of one bank, we spread our misery around and actually have a few accounts in our name.... for different purposes.... sort of.....

But, I digress... The reason that I needed to make a payment was because last Friday, we had been expecting Hubby's expenses into the "other" account, but by 2 p.m. they hadn't arrived. At this point panic mode set in, and I phoned our bank's branch. This particular branch is the NatWest, who uniquely amongst the banking fraternity seem to have worked out that customers are actually people. Well, mostly. At least, the manager at our particular branch has worked that out. So, as long as you phone in banking hours, and ask to speak to the Ross on Wye branch Manager you will get completely human treatment.

And so it was that I rang her last Friday. "One of our payments is going to bounce." I had said. "We need to cancel something quickly otherwise it will cost us £35.." She and I agreed a strategy to cancel something, and she meanwhile recommended that we also change our insurance company and managed to save us £40 a month into the bargain. Clever woman.

Roll forward to Monday...... the day that the said payment was due to go out. The money was in the account (late, but there) after all. I rang Mrs. Bank Manager again. "Don't worry she said. It's not too late. I can uncancel it and it can be paid."

But lo and behold.... Head Office Natwest thought differently, and despite there being funds in place, and despite Mrs. BM having "paid" the bill, they decided not to pay the bill.....

To cut a long story short, by the time I had caught up with this company and paid the bill, they had charged me extra for the privilege, and the bottom line was that we were just £3.50 short to pay our final bill of the month. We run a very tight ship in the Lomax bank accounts, despite what the banks actually think. We move Heaven and earth to try to avoid those £35 charges, but usually fail at the last hurdle.... It's a tough game they play. If we were in the days of Robin Hood, they would probably be the Sheriff of Nottingham....... but sadly there is no Robin to get those charges back. Yet....... (But just you wait Mr. Sheriff the law could be changing......)

The hassle that that £3.50 caused me....

I feel really a bit sorry for the banks really. It must be quite tough being overdrawn by
£40, 000000000. Their charges must be phenomenal.

So this is why I was in Ross on Wye at 4 p.m. this afternoon, literally running from one bank to another.

The first bank were sorting out if I was indeed a real person and if the passport that I was carrying was indeed me and if I had, as I said I had (although I appreciate that my word cannot be trusted without the robotic quoting of fifteen letters and numbers), lived in the same house for 6 years, and been married for 22. Or if in fact I was really a hologram with a false passport.... It must have its uses at times, being a hologram with a false passport, but um.... not in Ross on Wye on a Thursday afternoon................

I left them to it and asked them to phone me once they had decided if I was allowed to spend my salary or not this month....

Meanwhile, having raided the dog's piggy bank (the children's having been long since been spent out) for the last few coppers in the house, I went to the Natwest and paid in the necessary funds to allow the bill to be paid when it is requested very shortly......

And there I found out that not only had Friday's direct debit not been paid, but that that particular direct debit now remained cancelled and that the NatWest were unable to reset it up ............ because.................... the company that had needed paying had cancelled the direct debit themselves.

Que??

Confused?

You will be........

(Answers in a postage stamp (or in the comments box) please for which programme that last little quote came from, and when.....)

Star Treatment

2008-10-24T11:22:00.017+01:00

"I'll get a coach said Hubby. Save the cashflow."

Cashflow is always a big thing in our house, and so even when someone else is ultimately picking up the tab for Hubby's "very important Government business.... shhhhhhh" we do still tend to take the low budget options at all times.

We are so boring.

So, he booked a ticket from Gloucester. £9.50 return "Funfare" from Gloucester to London on a National Express Coach. Fantastic. You can't really go wrong. Well... until he got a phone call, asking him to be in London an hour longer than previously expected. So... he booked an additional later single from London. That one cost another £4.50. We were still winning even on our tight budget.

As he left at 6.15 a.m. I dragged myself out of the bath and started to get on with the day. It all seemed relatively easy, especially as everyone had made an effort to get up early and get themselves organised. Quite the domestic scene really. There was I ironing (!) my skirt for work, Sensible was making a cup of tea, ESOS was working out how to bring himself into a compos mentis state for the day and Gymnast and Tinkerbell Mushroom were getting themselves some breakfast....

Then the phone rang.

"There's been an accident on the A40. I'm going to miss the coach."

Hubby was on the A40 to Gloucester. Traffic jams have been seriously common along the A40 for weeks. You see, what they are trying to do is to make two lanes and a bus lane into, as I understand it, two lanes and um... a bus lane. And, even without accidents added to the mix, it's taking six months, driving people semi suicidal in their attempts to get to work on time and costing the tax payer a fortune......

"I'll go onto the internet, and see if I can find out where the next stop is."

Crank up seriously slow computer... and eventually find out that it stops first at Longlevens and then at Cheltenham. Call Hubby back.

He aims for Longlevens... but misses it there.

"Where can I park in Cheltenham?" He says on his next call.

Having spent five weeks earlier in the year, acting in a play for minimum pay, I am, despite my serious navigational handicap disadvantages, actually an expert at where to park in Cheltenham for a day, for free. So I direct Hubby to my very secret free parking spots.

"No" he said. "I haven't got time to walk from there, and get the bus at 7.30 a.m." "O.k." I said, "go to the NCP and park there for the day. You can claim it back."

I go back to the business of getting myself and everyone else organised for the day. Sensible and ESOS disappeared off on the bus, leaving me with just Tinks and Gymnast. I needed to get out by 7.55 a.m., as I had to drop them off at school seriously early, at 8 a.m., so that I could get to work.

7.35 another call. "The driver wouldn't let me on the bus, because my ticket was to travel from Gloucester. I would have had to have bought a full ticket for £20." At this point, had it been me, I have to say that I may have said, "Stuff the cashflow. Take me away driver..." But Hubby is more prudent than me... and he knew that he had only £23 on him, of which he needed £14 for the day's parking, and that was his budget for the day without causing ripples for the Lomax financial front.... And so he was by this time walking back to the car, with a view to possibly going back to Gloucester to get the coach there at 8 a.m.

"No, don't do that" I said. "I'll ring National Express and see what I can do. You go and move the car to my very good and very free parking spaces and I'll sort out the tickets for you."

I rang the enquiry line. There would be no-one there until 8 a.m. Hubby would have to sort it out himself. I would text him the number. But ... it was one of my old friends, an 0845 number, which of course would cost dearly on a mobile... So I went in search of a new number on the "say no to 0870 website." I found a number, and just in case it didn't work (which sometimes they don't, because for some reason companies want us to use the lines that cost them more and put money into the phone companies pocket, and cost us more in the process) I checked the number by calling it, before I called hubby again. And lo and behold, my standard 0121 number was in fact a 24 hour helpline. "Oh said the woman" (imagine Birmingham accent here), it's a great pity you didn't phone before he tried to board bus at Cheltenham. I could have called them and asked them to let him board...." "Yes, but I didn't have your number then ... I started to mutter weakly... while storing the VERY USEFUL number in my mobile phone for future use. "The thing is, I said, I need to get him another ticket from Cheltenham, and really I want to get him another cheap fare, but you have to book those online, and I can't get the voucher to him...." "Oh you can" said my helpful Birmingham lady. "Ask to have the ticket sent by text to his mobile phone."

Absolutely brilliant.

It was by now however, quarter to eight and I realised that the lunches weren't finished for Tinks and Gymnast. I barked instructions to Gymnast. "There's one sandwich made" I said. "Can you put that into your lunchbag and get fruit and stuff organised for both of you? The bread is cut. I'll make the other sandwich in a minute." "Don't worry Mummy, said Gymnast, we'll do the other sandwich." I thought for second that I perhaps ought to tell them what to put in it, and then decided that for one day, it would be just fine ... whatever it was.

So..... I spent another £11......... By now the cheap ticket to London and back had actually cost £25...

I called Hubby.

"Right, I said. "You are on the 8.30 from Cheltenham. It's all paid for, and you will get a text in a minute or so to give you the details. If it doesn't work call me back and I have a number for you to ring, but right now I have got to GO."

I went into the kitchen to find Gymnast and Tinks struggling with the clingfilm for the sandwich. "It just doesn't seem to want to go round the sandwich" said Gymnast. I took over, got the last few bits together, threw some lettuce into what appeared to be a half made pasta salad from one of the older kids, for me, got two children into the car and went. I left all the cereal packets and used bowls out for the burglars.

I then drove the very long distance to the front of the school (across the road from our house) and dropped off Tinks and Gymnast. I looked down at my fuel gauge. Nought miles. (It very kindly tells me when I have zero miles left). 8.02 a.m. I had to be 37 miles down the road in 53 minutes, actually teaching. (That was having missed the early morning meeting... Given fact that I would not make that anyway on this particular morning...)

Drove into the petrol station. Waived to the cashier to start the pump. And helpfully, as soon as she had finished her conversation with her colleague, she turned the pump back to nought for me. I threw a minimum amount of fuel into the car, ran in, paid, ran out and back into the car. It must be a bit like being a racing driver... Sort of....

8.04 I was finally on the road. Sped into school at 8.50 a.m. It did occur to me that it had cost me more in fuel in order for Hubby to have a cheaper ticket to travel, which ultimately meant that I was spending more to save the Government money. How charitable of me. After all the Government needs to save money at the moment, having spent so much on the banks...

I looked at the salad had made for myself and realised that it was actually not a half made pasta salad, but a left over pasta salad from a few days before, got out of a school bag in a hurry on the way to a bus by one of the older children..... with lettuce added by me.

Nice.

Meanwhile I got a text from Hubby thanking me profusely. "I'm on the coach now. Thank you. You're a star." He said.

And for once I thought...... without being too conceited. "Yes...... Just for today...... I know."

Little Steps

2008-10-17T09:56:00.009+01:00

I was in that sort of "drifting in and out of sleep, sort of waking up period," half listening to Sarah Kennedy. We always have her programme on. Hubby loves her. I moan that she was "clearly in the right place at the right time", and "what's she got that I haven't got on the broadcasting front?" And that: "Really it should be me doing the Dawn Chorus show on Radio 2." Hubby assures me that she really is indeed very good. His faith in me is inspiring....

Then I heard her talk about her headmistress .... and she mentioned the name... I did a double take. Good gracious. She went to my school. That's MY school! The school that wore a very strange looking brown uniform and was across the road from a racecourse, with a load of nuns present.

Immediately, all negative thoughts about Sarah Kennedy vanished. I decided that I had to "claim kin". I ran downstairs and went straight onto the computer. She did indeed go to my school, but as she is 12 years older than me, we didn't coincide. She would have been just about finishing secondary school, as I started Primary School - then in a different part of the country. Nevertheless, I just thought that I would still claim kin.... and send her an email. I was quite excited really. Little things.....

The BBC website let me down however, and try as I might I couldn't get a link. So, giving up, knowing that really the day had to "begin" anyway, I had a quick look at my emails....

And there it was.

Th opportunity of a lifetime.....

Well, it's all relative....

I had had an email from someone replying to a CV that I had submitted for an acting job. For a webcast company. Not only did they want to look at me, but all the children and Hubby too. How exciting. I told the children. "I'll arrange for a haircut for you for this afternoon ESOS...." I said, before I take some photos to send to them. This caused an uproar from Sensible, who at 14, and seriously in touch with her looks and her acting ability, decided that he didn't need a haircut from a hairdresser and that Hubby could do it with his clippers. Not wanting to look like a Home Ed crew, I made the decision however that ESOS needed a professional cut for the camera.....

Meanwhile.. I had to think about my diet. Would it be possible I thought to lose a stone and a half in four or five days prior to the audition? Probably not... but I decided that less carbs between now and then would definitely be a step in the right direction. They want a normal looking woman. At a stretch, I could probably do "normal." It's normal looks they want, after all.

And then, having caught it successfully for a week, once half an hour earlier indeed for Sensible.... the bus bus went past the house, and of course ESOS and Sensible were still arguing over haircuts....

Hubby got into the car. Got them to the next bus stop. I put the kettle on again.

He came back in: "I'm really excited about this" I said to Hubby....

"Pity it's not a feature film though" said Hubby.

"Yes, well, I'm not sure that Stephen Spielberg's "A list" includes someone who has worked for the Government for 25 years." Small steps Hubby....

Meanwhile, it was time to get Gymnast and Tinks to school. Tinks was coughing like there was no tomorrow. Hubby and I decided that she could have a day off, especially I wasn't working. At this, Gymnast saw red. "Just why exactly should SHE have a day off?" And "I don't want that drink bottle, it tastes mouldy."

My children are in good training to be prima donnas fortunately.....

Let's hope the web cast film comes through, and then maybe I might be able to go to ASDA or somewhere to buy a new drink bottle......

Not Quite Redundant

2008-10-10T17:09:00.014+01:00

Of course I needn't have worried about the possibility of being a redundant mother.

Hubby thoughtfully decided to do a residential course this week, thereby ensuring that if I ever thought that I may no longer be useful in the parent department, that I wouldn't, so to speak.

It's quite tiring running our lot single handedly, so I do tend to fall into bed as soon as is manageable. When I am woken up from my comatose sleep by a call at 11.30 p.m. from ED, it is surprising that I actually register what is being said.

"Can you make sure that you call me at 6.30 a.m. please? I need to get a train, and I am worried I may not get up in time." "I was asleep" I moaned as I looked at the settings on the alarm clock and turned the light back off...

6.30 a.m. Called ED.

6.50 a.m. still couldn't get hold of her. Began to worry. Called Hubby.

"She must already be up." He said. There's no way she would miss her room phone. It's right next to her head".

The university has very kindly put room phones into the rooms. You can call in, but she can't all out. This means of course that she has two ways that parents can contact her. Well three actually, because I can still phone the university itself. And of course, I can email her, night and day. This is progress apparently. When I was a student I quite liked the fact that the only way that I could talk to my parents was via a call box. It would have had to be a dire emergency for them to call me via the college phones. And as a student that anonymity was possibly a benefit at times.

Meanwhile I was beginning to panic. It did also occur to me that I had dreamt the phonecall at 11.30 p.m...... Was I indeed going completely mental - as opposed to just a bit?

In the midst of getting other children up for school, making sandwiches and getting uniform sorted I kept calling her, alternating between her mobile and landline numbers. I ignored Hubby's advice, as my only thought was... she'll miss her train... By 7 a.m., I had just about decided that either she was sleeping eleswhere ( in which case WHY did she ask ME to wake her??!! ) or that she had left the room already and gone off to get an earlier train.....

I tried one more time...

"Hello?" said a very groggy voice. "Sorry, I didn't hear the phone..."

Your neighbours must have done though ED...

Sensible and Esos appeared downstairs, arguing, with Esos directing insults in both her and my direction. He accused her of suffering from PMT. "Your the one with PMT" she retorted. "That isn't actually physically possible, in case you didn't know", he replied in a smart alec type voice... to which I retorted that, maybe not, but that boys certainly had hormonal influence affecting them...... This wasn't a popular comment...

Finally they got on the bus. Rang ED again to check she had caught her train. Whilst she was talking to me the ticket inspector arrived to check her ticket. I heard mutterings. "No," I heard her say. "That's a return ticket."...........Except it wasn't.... the first half of the ticket was in the machine at the station.......

Made several phonecalls on her behalf.... And meanwhile she managed to persuade the ticket inspector to let her travel anyway on the basis that it was booked originally on the internet to be picked up at the station........

Progress again...... Do you remember when they had people at stations who passed you the correct tickets?

Roll forward two days. 7.30 a.m....... the school bus drives past the kitchen window. "Bye bye Esos and Sensible."

.... But no... they are still sitting in the kitchen.....

Into the car, coat over dressing gown and boots without socks. Drive to the next stop.......

Not quite redundant yet then.

Pensieve

2008-10-01T09:12:00.010+01:00

"Your blogs are like buses. You don't write one for months" says Hubby, "and then they come in threes."

This is of course true. And like Meredic, it's not because I haven't had anything to write about, because I have, but more perhaps that my mind has been so full of thoughts that I just haven't been able to separate them out and put them into bloggy form. One of these prepossessing thoughts is the fact that time has just gone. It didn't ask permission. It just left me standing and rushed on ahead.

Now you understand, I do fully appreciate that I am not yet old really. But I want to know why the last ten years have travelled past at lightning speed, without much thought in the process to the fact that those years were indeed "travelling past at lightning speed", all of a sudden leaving me here in my mid and a little bit forties - with children starting to go off to university.

I mean, when I last looked, I had five children. Only three and a half years ago for instance, just before the yearly round of birthdays started (and the round lasts a while in our house), I had five children aged 4, 6, 10, 12 and 14. And now, suddenly I have an adult of 18 who has just left for university, a 16 year old in his final year of GCSE's, a fourteen year old starting her GCSE's, a 10 year old due to leave primary school in a few months and an 8 year old also heading speedily towards the top end of primary school.

So, more to the point.... where did the last three and a half years go, and why am I so relatively old all of a sudden?!!!

It was a big shock ED going to university. Parents are very strange creatures. We hope, dream and wish for our children to grow up and be successful, and then all of a sudden, when they do grow up, be successful and go off, you feel completely bereft.

No-one prepares you for that feeling of loss. No-one tells you when you are changing the nappies that one day you will actually look back nostalgically on changing nappies. At the time you are so immersed in the daily drudgery, that you get on, you cope and you survive day to day.

And then it stops.

And it's lonely. And sad. You want it all back.

It's not that you want even more children. You want the same ones, but you want to do it again, more slowly. You want to take your time. You want to savour the moment. You want to not tell them off when they throw flour, ketchup and mayonnaise around a neighbour's kitchen in an attempt to bake you a cake with ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise. Or at least, tell them off, but not feel so cross about it.... Or to not feel embarrassed because - just because your neighbour has been put out.

You want to capture all the little moments and put them in a box. and look at them from time to time and relive them. In fact I need a Harry Potter style "pensieve". JK is indeed a woman of fine taste.

And maybe, once or twice I would take the "pensieve" back to a day when ED was 6, ESOS was 4 and Sensible was 2. At the time we were living in Northern Ireland, and I used to teach drama in ED's school, just one morning a week. It took HUGE organisation that one morning....

One the particular day in mind, Hubby was away doing important stuff in England, and I was singlehandedly in charge of the brood. It was a chaotic morning... as it always has been in our house, for as long as I can remember. I finally got all organised and dressed and ready to leave the house at 8.30. Hubby ordinarily at that time was taking the children to school en route to work, leaving me, with Sensible to have a more leisurely start. Except of course on the "ONE DAY A WEEK" when I had to put in army style organisation to get out on time.....

So... when the stress levels had risen on this special "one day" to the levels that they rose to on the work day, ED, quite sensibly thought that it simply must be Mummy's work day. After all, Mummy was taking them to school and Mummy was stressed.

As we were leaving the house she suddenly turned back.

What NOW? I thought.

She came back out with my (quite big and heavy) basket, full of books that I used for teaching.

"Mummy, you've forgotten your basket" she said.

I looked at her, and I wanted to cry. I gave her a hug and explained that I wasn't working that day..."

And I saw her at that moment, not as the very grown up and eldest child, but as a very intelligent, but still very vulnerable and very young little girl. And even at that moment I knew that it was a memory that I wanted to savour forever.

I miss you ED.... but I do want you to grow up and have the best possible adult life imaginable..... So have a ball!

Good Turn.

2008-09-26T13:42:00.017+01:00

It was Tinkerbell Mushroom's enrolment at Brownies.

Do you know your "promise", I asked. She looked at me vaguely. "I didn't know I had to learn it." It was five minutes to going time. I called in some extra resources. Gymnast who was enrolled much more recently than me to Brownies was able to provide us with the right words for the "promise", and so then all three of us practised it whilst walking to Brownies together. So do you know the Brownie Guide Law too, I checked with Gymnast? "No" she said. I never learnt it. Someone else said it for me when I was enrolled." We got there and I went to speak to the Brownie Leader. (They aren't called Brown Owl now. Perhaps it's because such title shortened to BO. I know not.)

"I'm really sorry I said, but I've been really busy, and I forgot to help her with her vows. She knows her promise, but please may I have a look at the Brownie Guide law, so that I can show her?"

BL obliged and TM and I learnt it together very quickly, the whole thing being a total of sixteen words. Perfect for remiss mother. The ceremony started, minus hubby, who being on a course on the other side of the country, was still skating across Gloucestershire to get to the Brownie hut on time. Fortunately he made by the skin of his teeth, just before she made her promise.

And not to be smug or anything. Well... ok... a bit. But, having learnt it in 30 seconds flat, she said the BG law on behalf of all others present. Apparently she was the only one who had learnt that bit! She has a deep clear voice, and she made us very proud, and made me forget that I'd been a bad mother in forgetting to teach her said words. Brinkmanship had worked, clearly...

I then got home to find a phone bill, for an extraordinarily large amount. I had been coerced into returning to BT again recently, after numerous hassles with every other provider out there. Regular readers will remember only too well.

Well... apart from the fact that they had charged me for all daytime calls, despite having an "Anytime" line. And apart from the fact that there were £17 worth of 0845 calls, I was also seriously unhappy with the number of mobile numbers called to various teenagers' friends phones. I wouldn't mind, but they all have mobile phones, linked to the same network as ours, which WE pay for. "We'll have to have a word with them" said hubby.

"And I shall have a word with BT" said I. "I'm not working tomorrow. It can be my good turn for the day."

I dialled the number given on the bill.

After pressing every option available and then pressing star zero several, (many several) times, and still not getting through to a PERSON, I gave up and had another look at the bill. I found another number to dial. I still couldn't talk to a person, but did eventually get the promise of a call back via a machine operated voice.

"Mrs. Lommax?" "Yes" I said. And then, after making me jump through five hoops, stand on my head and say my alphabet backwards to verify that she was indeed speaking to the person that she had called, she eventually asked me how she could help.

So where did I need to start?

Well...

Clearly the mobile phone number calls were not their problem, but the daytime calls, and the 0845 numbers not being included in the "Anytime" plan were a different matter.

Not wanting to fall out with the poor girl on the end of the line I asked very nicely to be put though to the manager.

There wasn't one.

I finally managed to persuade her that perhaps she didn't own BT and she eventually agreed to put me through to someone else. I then had a serious rant about the inefficacy of 0870 and 0845 numbers and the outrageous charges for such.

He listened, and informed me that they were nothing to do with BT, and asked me why I thought that these should be included in the plan. I was very confused by this, because as I pointed out, in the days when BT were the only telephone provider in the UK, there was no-one else to invent the concept of the "local call for everyone line." But local call rates they are now definitely not, and what's more they are not included in your general calls, and so, whichever plan you opt for, such calls are charged for on top.

SEVENTEEN POUNDS worth of them!

He was having none of it, but he did nevertheless reduce our bill by a sensible amount, on the basis that obviously the person who had resold me back into BT had misinformed me. (Which of course really reads, "Because as one of our customers, you are clearly a little bit stupid, and so we will give you a stupidity discount...." Something like that anyway.)

In the meantime, no teenagers in the Sally household will be allowed to call mobiles from landlines ever again, and the "say no to 0870" website will be seriously encouraged for all at all times.

Oh yes, and he also took off the daytimes calls.... as that was a genuine error......

And to think that in days gone by I would pay bills without checking the items therein. Just think of the pounds we could have saved when we weren't so poor. I should have listened to my Dad all along.

p.s. Gymnast quite rightly reminded me that she too should get a mention... as that very evening she too was promoted - to a sixer at Brownies..... and we are very proud of her. Well done Gymnast!

Late Night Shopping.

2008-09-24T13:41:00.016+01:00

Hubby had man flu.

"On your way home, could you pick up a few bits from the supermarket?" he asked.

It was late. I had been working all day and hadn't had time to get home in between, before going to my "every so often acting thingammy bob" in Cheltenham. We're all a bit luvvy with it really... but the company's great and I get the odd bit of acting work through it.

"I won't see you all day" complained Tinkerbell Mushroom earlier. "No" I reasoned, "but you will see me every other day this week, and you have got Daddy at home all day, and I am normally home by the time you get home, and I am not working at all on Wednesdays and Fridays, or at the weekends, at the moment, and I'm home for you every school holiday......." Unpacified she gave me the look which 8 olds perfect beautifully in order to make mothers feel just that tiny bit more guilty than they already feel.

I arrived at Tesco at 10.30 p.m. Naturally, as you do, you go in for a loaf of bread and end up with a full trolley. I arrived at the checkout at 11.15 p.m. It was a self scanning till. Not being my favourite pastime, I glanced around for an alternative version of paying device. There appeared to be no manned tills at all. An assistant walked past.

"Is this the only type of till available I said?"

"'Fraid so," She said. "They have taken us all off tills after 11 O' Clock. Trouble is, one of us still has to be around because there are always problems with these."

I smiled sympathetically, and grimaced as I did the self scanning. I think that I just can't be very good at finding bar codes because I clearly take longer at self scanning than other people. When I was a student I worked in various shops, but they hadn't invented bar codes then. It must have been a long time ago.

Eventually I got to the card payment bit. I put my card in. Then I remembered that I had some money off vouchers, and a club card to scan too. I looked at the machine and realised that if I were to pay first I wouldn't get my money off, or my Tesco points. So, I did the sensible thing, cancelled the payment and removed my card. Not wanting to have to rescan every item at another till I tried to put my various cards and vouchers in again, but the machine just beeped at me and flashed a warning signal. "Card removed too early, call for supervisor help." Thankfully it didn't instantly lock me into the till for non payment of goods, which was a bit of a relief.

I smiled at the attendant. "It won't let me finish my transaction I said, explaining what had happened and looking weakly." She put in her card and pressed the "override for stupid customers button." I'll be out of here soon I thought. Wrong....

Unfortunately, it was by now 11.20 p.m. and it appears the time when Tesco decides to add up its daily millions of pounds turnover. Well I suppose it might be many millions less one in the current climate, but it is undoubtedly still into the millions I am sure.

The till was having none of it. I was certainly not going to be allowed out of the store just yet. Supervisor called for fellow supervisor. More magic codes were put in. Still no joy.

"It's doing its banking" she explained. "It" being the till.

"I just want to go home." I said. "I'm tired. I've been up since 6 a.m." It was a slight exaggeration, as our alarm doesn't actually go off until 6.30... but it had been a long day nevertheless.

"Look" I said. "Can I leave you my card details, and you can take the payment tomorrow once the machines are all working again?" "No sorry." Clearly it said somewhere on the invisible card details that our cards can be on the um... shall we say...unreliable side...

It was 11.40 p.m........

11.45 p.m. She managed finally to free my shopping from the till and go to the customer service desk. But no.... that till was having none of it either.

I just wanted to pay.

Finally at 11.45 p.m. I had a brainwave. "I'll get some cash from the cashpoint outside, and I'll give you cash!"

Real money.

Ran outside. Got some cash out of the cashpoint and ran back in. I hadn't got the exact change, so, I got out the amount to the nearest £5, rounding up the payment by £1.50. "Please keep the £1.50" I said. "Here's my money. You sort it out. I'm going home." And with that I flounced (as much as a forty six year old with big trolley can flounce) out of the store.

As I was loading up my car, the assistant came running out after me with my £1.50. "Did you sort it out" I asked, surprised. "No, she said, but we at least managed to get the till open, so here's your £1.50." I gratefully accepted the changed and went home arriving home at 12.15 a.m.

Hubby grovelled. "I'm really sorry Sal. I could have nipped out to the shops. I'm not that ill....."

We share guilt lovingly in our family.

Meanwhile, if the tills are still not working at Tesco Gloucester...... then I suggest that Tesco put on some more staff for their late night shifts. We didn't ask you to open your stores 24 hours a day. We simply took advantage of the facilities provided once there...

Happy Birthday!

2008-09-18T05:34:00.002+01:00

A very happy birthday ESOS!!

16 today....

Barking!

2008-08-03T01:01:00.003+01:00

(Started to write this on 27th June, but finally posted it on 3rd August... Catching up for the summer! See note above here, and the blog prior to this one, about ED's 18th Birthday, and have a click on her Spanish Orange Ad too...)

It had a been a long day.

I taught all day and then did a parent teacher evening. It went reasonably well. Well reasonably. Apart from explaining to one mother how the system works, in quite some "just one page ahead" detail and explaining to her that a reading paper is really what we would call a comprehension. She sat and listened, and then, right at the end of the conversation dropped in that she taught English at a neighbouring school. Oh... I groaned, covering my face with my notes to hide my discomfort. "Oh don't worry." She said. "You're doing fine." At least I was very nice about her daughter........

I finally got away at 7.15 p.m and raced down the motorway to collect German Exchange student from ESOS's school. Arrived in good time for the 8 p.m. pickup.

9 p.m....... the coach finally arrived. apparently the flight was diverted to Outer Mongolia first and seriously delayed, before landing at Stansted. Very close to Gloucester...

Got home and showed guest "The room." Switched on the lamp. "Oh sorry" I said, as the shade fell off in true Lomax "nothing in huge house with huge mortgage for huge family either works or is efficient" style. "It's broken." I'll find another one. Went upstairs to where I know that there were was one other unused shade. Brought it down to put it on.

"You can't use that." said Hubby. It's the wrong sort.

"I can put it on upside down." I said. "At least it will take away the glare of the bulb."

"He'll go back to Germany telling everyone that the English are barking mad."

"Well, not all" said I. "Just us."

I then realised that whilst I didn't mind the thought of being thought of as mad, I did mind the thought of reports going back to Germany that we weren't clean. The state of the bathrooms would have been great for your average rodent or teenager... but there was always a chance that this one was of the hygienic variety. So, I set to and cleaned said bathrooms, found some blue things to go into the loos to keep everything smelling vaguely sweet, and explained that he would have to use the baths, as the showers are both broken. Well... one decided not to work at all a few weeks ago and one, despite the new central heating system, is seriously on the cool side. German Boy looked very unimpressed at the thought of such a primitive way of keeping clean.....

Fell into bed, exhausted.

3 a.m. Little head apppeared in our doorway.

"They're having a party in the flat. I can't get to sleep said Tinkerbell Mushroom."

I went into her room. Thump, thump, thump. yes.... I agreed.

"I'll go" I said to Hubby.

Put on large winter coat over dressing gown and unglamorously appeared at the flat door. They agreed to turn down the music and I returned to bed.

Ten minutes later TM appeared again. "It's still noisy".

Not wishing to make another Nora Batty type appearance on the street, she was invited to climb into our bed and we all went back to sleep. Fortunately I am well versed in the "on the shoulder, nearly falling out of bed," version of sleep.

The next morning I thought I would be hospitable to our German guest.

"Guten morgan" I said, in my best school girl German.

"Haben Sie wohl schlafen?"

He looked at me strangely.

ESOS looked at me strangely.

"Mum, what are you trying to say?"

"I was asking if he had slept well," I said, a little put out that my best attempts at German were not quite appreciated.

They both laughed. It's not "wohl" Mum, it's "gut"......."Haben Sie gut schlafen."

Fortunately said German guest did speak good English...................... and has now safely returned to Germany away from the barking barking!

Happy 18th Birthday ED!

2008-07-17T11:29:00.001+01:00

To our very beautiful eldest daughter............

Happy 18th Birthday Emily!!!

Happy Birthday

2008-07-01T05:36:00.001+01:00

To our own Little Gymnast...

Speaking of telephones.....

2008-06-18T12:09:00.008+01:00

Speak Speak ring me.

(Well, actually they are not really called Speak Speak, but, shall we say they are called something a little similar... They are of course the same company that I have had "dealings" with in the past, on a different telephone line...But that's another story)

A nice girl comes on the phone." I am doing a survey, and we just wanted to ask you Mrs. L, why have you decided to leave us?"

"Well", say I. "I actually find your service a little inefficient."

"Why is that?" Says she.

Where shall I start? I think.

"Well....

I ran a small business from home, running a part time theatre school, and I changed my telephone line over to "Speak Speak" on the recommendation of a friend, who also at the time suggested that we change our personal line over to you, but that's another story. Then you said that, as it was a business, I would need to have a business line. I couldn't really understand why, as it was only me making the calls and one person really can't make that many calls in a day, but nevertheless I went along with it and paid twice as much per month as I would have done for a private line. Then I sold the business back to my franchisor, but continued to run it for them for the next period as a manager, and my ex franchisor, who was by now my employer paid my bill.

Then I resigned from the theatre school, and we asked you to change the line back to my name and make it a residential line."

"Sorry" said you. "We can't do that, as you have signed a three year contract with us."

"If I have" said I, "I certrainly can't remember doing so, and if that is the case, then surely, given that in effect the business in my name no longer exists, that contract is null and void....

In the meantime", said I "please can you show me a copy of the contract?"

Silence.

And then.......

"It was a telephone contract", said you.

Great.

"Send me a copy of the conversation." Said I.

Nothing happened.... and then I got a letter telling me that the record of the conversation appeared to have gone missing, so therefore I was free to change my supplier.

I hadn't actually wanted to change my supplier necessarily, just the type of contract... but when the original of original suppliers came back to me and offered me an alternative far more atractive contract, I said: "Yes please" as, it seemed to me that you weren't too sure whether or not your left hand was speaking ....... or even talking to your right."

So, where were we?"

"Actually Mrs. L, I don't seem to be able to find any record of these converstions. Can you tell me when it was?"

"As I said, I closed my account because I found your service a little inefficient. I think that that is the only comment that needs to go on the survey really...."

Our turn?

2008-06-09T17:19:00.012+01:00

They say that good things happen together.

Is it our turn yet please?

So far this year...............

1. Nearly died.

2. Walked out of a supply teaching job after nearly being killed.

3. Was put in a difficult situation and felt had to resign from much loved stage school after seven years as Principal, and have lost that income as a result.

4. Have managed to do all the things that I was cross with my mother for doing as a teenager and have therefore managed to cause a "situation" in relationship with ED.

5. Have run so badly out of money that we now have to borrow all the children's money to fuel the car just to get to work and eat.............. and have now just about used up all their funds too in a vain attempt to keep those miserable so and so s (who steal our money in bank charges anyway) at the bank and various other people happy. ("You really do have to learn to keep better control of your finances Mrs. Lomax." Yes, well I would.... if you didn't take your exorbitant cut. Just you wait Mr.Bank Manager. When I'm rich, you will know about it, and I won't be banking with you.)

6. Have been miserable for so long now that I now seem to fail dismally most of the time in getting Hubby to see things from my point of view.

7. Have failed completely in trying to find a babysitter for a day in July for the two youngest. A babysitter who would be able to drive them around the country to their various commitments that is. This was so that we could go to the Henley Regatta. A rare social occasion that we had been invited to by lovely long standing some of best friends in the world. So are now likely to upset said friends as have shambolically managed to mess up their arrangements as well as ours. Plus, even if we now found a babysitter we have such limited shekels currently that we wouldn't even be able to buy a round of drinks when we did get there.

8. Have failed to read any blogs for weeks or months, and so am now likely to have upset my virtual buddies too.

9. Have lost all sense of humour and ability to be funny, so can no longer have a career as a comedienne.

10. Have failed yet again to get off that excess three stone during the winter and so now even Hubby thinks I'm fat.

11. Have got a nice maternity cover in a really nice school, but have realised that I am too old to be a career teacher and am still not sure that that is what I want anyway, which is why I wasn't, aren't and haven't been to date. Also the school is 38 miles away, so although nice it takes far too much in ridiculously overpriced fuel.

12. On the fuel note, have managed to have my bank card rejected on three occasions at fuel stations, having filled up.

First time: cried and shouted at the bank, on my mobile phone, in the middle of the garage, asking them to refund offending bank charges which had caused lack of much needed funds on that particular day.

Second time, different garage: kept calm, and, when the cashier refused point blank to put through £67 on the card - the only available funds, and the other 66p in cash I insisted.

Calmly.

"Can you not get someone to pay for you?" He said.

At 38 miles from home, and 100 miles from any other family, quite frankly, the answer was no. I HAVE the money here I said. £67 on my card. 66 pence in cash. "There is no need to get stroppy with me Madam. We are simply unable to split the payment." Heckles rising slightly I firmly pointed him in the direction of the supervisor, who came back and allowed him to allow me to pay by manual payment. "You'll have to wait here though, so that I can check that it has been accepted by the bank. We will ring the bank to check that there are sufficient funds." He sneered at me.

I waited, patiently.

Another customer came and went.

Still I waited.

"Yes Madam?" he said.

Suddenly, the moment reminded me of "Dory" in Finding Nemo.

"I'm waiting to see if that money has cleared I explained in my 'patient but feeling slightly tested' voice. "Oh yes." He said. It has. "You're free to go."

There were lots of things I felt like saying. LOTS. I didn't. I simply withdrew, embarrassed and upset. I kept my dignity and then burst into tears in the car.

Third time was due to our wonderful British Banking system who believe they have the right to have the cheques that I pay into my account in their account for a few days first. It makes sense of course. It's another way for them to make a few quick million a day. Well not on my funds you understand.... but on the collective majority of funds. They will probably have made a million or two in bank charges to me though, by the time I die.....

So... back to the - third - petrol station... (That's gas for all you over there in the other side of the Atlantic. And actually I usually buy diesel anyway if we were to call a spade a spade.... But we aren't of course talking about spades. We are talking about fuel.)

I put my card through. "Sorry" said the cashier. "Insufficient funds." "No." I said. "There are definitely sufficient funds." I rang the bank. The cheque that had those sufficient funds was still being looked after by them. How kind...

"Can I write a cheque?" I asked.

"No Madam, we don't accept cheques."

"But, you see, the money is in the account, and if I write a cheque, by the time it gets to the bank, the money will be there, cleared, for you."

"It is company policy Madam. We don't accept cheques."

Fortunately, this time, it was a smaller amount. I gave them the sum total of the remaining cleared funds, and scraped around my purse, bottom of my handbag and bottom of the car and for an extra few pounds cash. I left, red faced and upset again.... with a promise of the remaining £5 to be brought to them by the following day.... once the funds had been released by the bank. And the children ate gruel again..... Well OK.... no, but not far off....

On the positive side:

I do now have a proper acting agent, as of today. I got my Equity card (British Actor's Union) ten year's ago. So at that rate I might get an audition for a soap in about 2020 or thereabouts....

So, I'll buy you all a drink when I get that part.

Happy 14th Birthday Sensible!

2008-05-16T11:39:00.000+01:00

To our lovely Sensible!!

Happy Birthday!!!

Happy Birthday Tinks!

2008-04-29T05:38:00.003+01:00

A very happy birthday to the one and only Tinkerbell Mushroom!!!

BHT

2008-04-26T21:08:00.007+01:00

"You're blogging!"

Says ESOS.

"I'm going to write one." I say.

" About how I'm feeling." I add.

"What, about being depressed?" He says. "Then you'll be like every other blogger."

The vote of confidence is inspiring. It does however have a good effect, in that suddenly I see humour in what I am about to do.

"Say "hi" from me to all your bloggy friends." He adds. "Make sure you do." I smile again, and as I start to write, I remember BHT. Similar to BLT in its effect but quite different in form: Blogging Humour Therapy.

It is the first day back at my Stage School. We hurry all the children out of the door, as usual. We all leave at the same time as usual. And we all arrive, as usual.

It has of course been a very busy few weeks. Two parts and several performances in two shows. Easter. Some teaching. A surprise party from the stage school teachers for me. Masses of presents and thanks from wonderfully grateful parents. A positive whirlwind of events.

And now it is a usual Saturday again.

And there the "usuals" end. For in fact, I personally was never there usually when the others were getting ready. And, on a "usual" Saturday I was always already at my stage school when the rest of the family arrived.

But not today.

For it's finished. I am no longer Principal of my stage school. Instead I am a parent of attending children. The whys and wherefores are extraordinarily complex and far too emotionally draining to explain in detail at this point. They will of course be written about in full when I write my autobiographical novel. That will in turn require a modicum of fame and a little more money to allow such a luxury. Neither of such seem to be imminently around the corner - so you'll have to wait......

As I wait today. Sitting outside the stage school as Hubby follows the offspring inside.

Nine years of my life.

Nine years ago I had started. Teaching the 4-6 year olds. Seven years ago I had taken over as the School's principal. Hundreds of children have passed through the school, some briefly, some for quite a while, and some for the whole period that I was there... and now beyond.

ED goes in. She, as well as being part of the most senior set is now also teaching ........... ironically, the 4 to 6 year olds. She teaches brilliantly and fully deserves the job. I am proud. Very proud.

We return at the end of the day to collect. Some of the parents come up and hug me. Some of the children run up to me gleefully. One of the teachers Looks at me doefully and puts her arms around me. She barely speaks, but we both know what is being said.

"She's nice" says another teacher about the new Principal. "It's odd without you though." He adds, almost as an afterthought.

I think back to a few weeks ago, to a very emotional leaving party with everyone declaring undying allegiance to me.

Well........ of course........ they can't really, can they? They all need their jobs. The school still needs to run. The children need to adjust. The new Principal needs to do her job.......... and life must go on.

As the weeks pass they will all miss me less and be involved with the new routine far more.

As they should of course. That is how it should be.

I cry inside. I irritate the family by crying openly.

And then I decide to write a blog.

BHT.

And I start to feel a little better.......

The Supply Teacher's Walk.....

2008-02-10T10:41:00.000Z

The agency called me.

Would I be interested in a full time long term sick leave?

"It's quite a challenging school though Sally." They warned.

Full time is a relative word of course, as, at this particular school they finished the day at 2.40 p.m. But, when you consider what you have to deal with on a daily basis this was perhaps fortunate... And of course I haven't actually worked full time, out of the house, for many years. So that was a bit of a shock in itself. Well actually. Big shock...

I had thought that the last school that the agency had sent me to was "challenging". It's ok I thought. I can do "challenging". How wrong could I be? By comparison the first school was, Heaven. The Head was on the boys case (it being a boys school) all the time. And when - and it was always when in that school, rather than if - they misbehaved, the senior staff dealt with the matter very quickly and efficiently and supported the teaching staff. On the whole they stayed in their lessons, did some of their work, and sometimes allowed you to get on with yours. The school had a very well designed central behaviour management policy - and it worked....

This one was a different kettle of fish.......A few days in to the job, already realising that I was not on a winning streak here, I was "teaching" a group of Year 10's. A student - a girl - started being abusive. I called the senior management and asked for her to be removed from the class. The deputy head arrived. She kicked and screamed, and eventually after a long verbal struggle, conceded. Thinking that the problem was solved I got on with the lesson. The next thing that I knew was that the girl in question was back in my class, giving me more abuse. Supposedly on her way home, she had called by my classroom. I suggested that she leave once more, and so she did, closing the door on her way out. She had though deposited (I realised later) part of a pencil into the door mechanism, thereby jamming the door. I was locked into a classroom, with a bunch of year 10s. I called for help via my mobile phone. "You're not allowed to use mobiles in class Miss". "It doesn't stop you", I felt like retorting. Help came and the door was kicked open by a member of staff.

The next lesson was with some year 8's. Drama. But the drama room wasn't available, so it was to be held in my classroom. Having heard what had gone on from their peers, one of the delightful team, a girl with a mission to destroy anyone in the teaching profession: "Evil Child", thought that it would be a good game to close my door again. "No, don't touch that" I started to say. Too late. She had already closed it, and (from reports that I later heard) had also videoed the moment of glory on her phone. The year 8's, being year 8's in a drama lesson, dived under chairs and tables in panic mode, as yet another member of staff kicked the door in, again. A fellow teacher offered us another classroom to resume the lesson..... Evil Child returned into the classroom, with an innocent look on her face. She had denied all knowledge of knowing anything about who had locked the door and nobody was able to take any action....She then continued to seriously disrupt the lesson, and it was at this point that I noticed a report card in her hand. "Should I have that EC?" I asked. She handed it over, as she knew that unless I signed it, she would be in bigger trouble. She then talked, ran around the classroom, threw paper across the room and generally caused chaos. I gave her an after school detention. At this point, she went to grab the report card back. I swiftly put it into my handbag. "I want it back". She protested. "You won't have it back until it has been via your form tutor.” I said. You can't do that Miss". She went towards my handbag. "You dare touch my handbag EC and you will be in front of the Head more quickly than you can say report card". Even EC realised that it was probably a bad idea to touch my handbag. So she stole another report card on the desk and ran out of the class. Realising that she could go nowhere, she returned two minutes later, demanded her report cared back and then continued to cause havoc in the classroom again, until, I had no choice other than to ask for her to be removed from my class. She was removed. I later wrote a report, telling all, but being unable to prove that she had also, quite significantly, locked me into the classroom....I went to find her form tutor at break time. Unfortunately, she did not have a current form tutor, because she too was off on long a long term absence.Therein lies a problem...

The following day, a child was kicking a football around my class.I asked him to stop. I tried to confiscate it. He refused. Eventually the ball got kicked into my direction and I swiftly grabbed it, ran down to the staffroom - thankfully just a few doors away from my room, and then ran back again, without the ball. I told him that he could have it back at the end of school. Later that day I went back into the staffroom, and saw that the ball had gone. Where is it? I enquired. "Oh, that belonged to the PE department," replied another member of staff. "The PE teacher took it back....... "

I removed the door mechanism myself, with a knife - no screwdriver being available. It was at then, with the help of a boy student who seemed to understand DIY that we found the bit of pencil jammed into the door.That in itself was not a deterrent to one child who grabbed the mechanism from my in tray on my desk and jammed it back into the door, causing a class and me, to be locked in, yet again.The door was kicked in for a third time, and this time I hid the mechanism in the staffroom..... I didn't see it again. Perhaps it's in the PE department. I wouldn't know.

The caretaker was called, for, by now, a new door, but no-one arrived, and so I taught in a classroom with the door virtually off its hinges.

I discussed it with Eldest Daughter. Together we decided that posters would brighten up the room. She went to the local theatre and asked for some for me, and I took them in one morning. I got there a few seconds too late however, and the desks were all over the floor (the wrong way up), with paper strewn everywhere.I straightened the room up. I put the posters up. I resolved to continue and to not let it get me down.

It was the Year 8 class again, with EC.....But it wasn't EC who got me in the end. It was a combination of a series of events that made me realise that some things in life are simply not doable....

Another Year 8 child walked into my class (not part of my set) and refused to leave. When challenged, she said: I'm not listening to you you f*****g b***h". I looked at her, with an apparently scary look. "You touch me," she said "and you'll see what will happen to you." I called for senior management, and the Head came. He thought that I had simply wanted to tell the ones present off. I explained. He started to walk off again. I explained that I had been verbally abused and that we didn't know who the child was. At least - no one was grassing..... He eventually established who the offensive child was and he asked me to write a report on it......After he left, the year 8's then started to throw aeroplanes (paper of course) around the room. The day before they had thrown the contents of an entire box of pens around the room. Two other girls thought it funny to draw felt tip dots on everyone, and went into the next door classroom to continue their mission.Meanwhile, yet another child appeared, from yet another classroom.... I asked her to leave and she proceeded to walk out at 1/2 mile an hour. Can you walk more quickly please? I said."No. I’ve got a bad leg". She eventually left, only to return two minutes later. "So your leg's better then?" I said. Yes she said, and then continued to walk out at 1/2 mile an hour again.

I went next door to ask the teacher there if she knew who she was. No, she said, but EC2 and 3 have been in here drawing dots on everyone. We went back into my class together. I awarded EC2 and 3 with a detention, and EC1 who had previously kept a low profile in this lesson started giving both of us some verbal abuse. The other teacher awarded her with a detention.

I tried to resume the lesson. We were now 52 minutes into an hour long period. I had an Irish story to read to them, and a comprehension to do. I started reading.EC2 piped up."I'm going to report you to Shire Hall." (The local Education authority). She said."Oh?" I said. "Why is that?""Because we have learnt nothing from you since you've been here. Have we?" She asked the rest of the class.

And it was at that point that I made the decision.I had tried, really very hard. I had given it three weeks. I had battled and struggled and mentally given it everything I had. I had taken it on myself to stop a child being bullied - two in fact. I had tried to organise a school trip. I had asked if one of the texts for another group could be changed to something more relevant to their way of thinking, and against the odds had tried to be creative and clever in the classroom. I was preparing my lessons. Marking the work. Doing a job far beyond the call of a supply teacher.But I was on a losing wicket. I am not a quitter. I have been married for 21 years, have worked at my stage schools for nine years....I always try to work thorough difficulties.I was being paid a basic supply rate. The same rate that I would get in any school....... It is not a rate that would take you to the Caribbean on holiday each year......But I could not teach with the constant interruptions from other classes. I could not battle an entire school. As a supply teacher I would be unlikely to get any respect for a very long time.

"Do you know what EC2? You are right. I have got better things to do with my time."

And I walked.

Out of the class.

Out of the school.

Home.

Angel Delight

2008-02-05T12:38:00.000Z

They nearly killed me again.

They didn't mean to of course. They just didn't expect my blood pressure to drop so low. And nor did I really. I was in for an arthroscopy on my knee. Piers had been in a good mood prior to the op, and had explained the process of what they were about to do in sufficient medical detail to satisfy my medical curiosity. It was only after the op, when I realised that he wasn't to be seen for love nor money that it dawned on me that his good mood might have been due to a jolly weekend looming.....

So there I was, coming round from a general anaesthetic, feeling isolated, and gutted that I wasn't able to have a full breakdown of everything that they had done to me, with uncontrollable tears streamed down my face. "Are you all right?" Asked the nurse. "Yes fine", I said. I don't know why I'm crying. "Anaesthetics sometimes affect people like that." She said.

And it was after that that it happened.

I started slipping slowly into a land of furry indefinite lines and bright lights beckoning - and no-one realised very quickly, because nobody had been given any reason to supsect that this might happen.

I must have been looking particularly grey however as my friendly student nurse passed my bed.

"I think we'll take your blood pressure again." She said.

It was sixty eight over thrity six, which apparently is a bit on the low side, even for someone like me who habitually has low blood pressure....

She called over her senior colleague.

"It's that machine." I heard her say. "You're not feeling particularly faint are you Sally?" I lay back on the bed, feeling so faint that I was unable to answer. They took the blood pressure again and then decided to call for a doctor....

Of couse, it wasn't nearly as bad as the last time that the medical profession tried to kill me. Nearly seventeen years ago.. That time, in for a minor op, I had asked for an epidural so that I could return to my then nine month old not feeling too groggy from the anaesthetic....

This it seems was possibly a bad choice on my part.

The anaesthetist wanted to get home for his supper , and um... wasn't too keen shall we say, on doing an epidural...

As such, on completion of the op, he sort of forgot to tell the nurses in recovery to lay the bed flat again, instead of tilted up at the foot end, as it had been in theatre.

So... when the epidural started creeping slowly back up the spinal cord and caught my lungs, it did get a little tricky to breathe. That wouldn't hve been so bad, but for the fact that without the use of my lungs I wasn't able to speak either. This of course was a little bit of a problem in attacting the attention of those that could at that split second save my life.

I found that I could wave my arm, and fortunately, just before I slipped away forever I managed to attract the attention of someone medical, who tipped up the bed and gave me some oxygen.

Quite quickly.

Clever stuff this medical business...

Meanwhile... back to last Friday

There was a light on the horizon to my blood pressure incident.....

A doctor arrived.

An angel in disguise clearly.

She explained everything that had been done to me, showed me the piccies of my knee and made me feel completely happy again. The blood pressure righted itself thankfully, and I no longer felt neglected.

I had been saved by an angel.

Post Script.........
A sad irony in today's news.

The Title

2008-01-07T21:34:00.001Z

And so we set off from home....

Confident that everything was in hand.

ED, left to her own devices for a night, would definitely be locking up the house. The train ticket, for her to join us the following day, had been bought. We had a "talking book" playing for the journey. There was no arguing.

It was.......... bliss.

ED was going to her own New Year's Eve party, but was then to be joining us the next day, on New Year's Day, when we would be paying a trip to see a lady with an umbrella in the West End by the name of Mary. It was our Christmas present from my parents to us all, and ED was happy to forfeit all sleep after her New Year jollies rather than risk missing out on Miss Poppins.

I was confident that nothing would or could go wrong.

Then the phone rang.

"Mum?"

"Yes?"

"You know the ticket that we bought for the train?"

"Yes?"

"We bought it on your card."

I thought back. Yes, it was true. We had bought it on my card, as ED's bank card wasn't suitable it seems for an online transaction. They needed a card that took money out of a bank, as opposed to a card that took money out of a bank.

"We did." I said, wondering why there seemed to be an urgency in her voice.....

"You've got the card."

"Well.... yes....."

I was beginning to wonder by now if I was going mad. I mean OF COURSE I had my own bank card. There may never be any money to spend, but I guard my bank cards like the crown jewels. After all, you never know who might want to spend your overdraft for you, and you wouldn't want them getting up to the limit before you do would you?

"The thing is Mum, I need your card to validate the ticket tomorrow morning, at the station."

Silence.

"Oh."

Think quickly Sally. Think very quickly.

"O.K." I said. This is what we'll do. We are twenty minutes from Swindon. We'll call in at Swindon station. I'll explain the problem, and I'll sort something out."

I tried to sound like the confident maternal type.

I was bluffing....of course.....

I had no absolutely no reason to believe that I would be able to come out of this sensibly, without turning round the car, driving back home, taking ED to Gloucester station, validating the ticket, and then setting off once more.

Still, in the light of what could or might happen, what was a forty minute detour to go via Swindon and buy some time?

We got to the station, and within seconds of explaining the problem, the woman behind the desk triumphantly printed off the tickets for ED.

Silence...........Again.

"No" I said. Quite quietly.

"That's no good. My daughter is in the Forest of Dean. I am in Swindon. We are on our way to Kent for a New Year's Eve party in a few hours, and my daughter is an hour a way from me in the wrong direction..... I have the tickets. I can't get to her. She can't now collect these tickets. I came in to ask your advice as to who we could deal with this "problem." "

"Oh" said the cashier. "Well I'm very sorry, but there's nothing I can do."

"But this isn't my fault." I said. "What are we going to do?"

"Well I have apologised Madam."

It was one of those wonderfully superior moments, when you know that despite having started off completely in the wrong, by a trick of fate, all of a sudden you are completely in the right. In those rare moments in life you do of course rise to the occasion and take on a serene and calm approach to the problem.

As such I calmly asked to speak to the supervisor.....

"Surely there is something you can do?" I said. "A few minutes a go, these tickets were not printed off. They have been paid for. My daughter needs these tickets tomorrow morning in Gloucester......"

There were of course a number of things that they could have done.....

They could have for instance have stuck the tickets into an envelope and taken them via a guard and one of their "trains" to Gloucester..... by hand. Now there's novel. Direct human communication.......

No.... the answer was instead for them to suggest that the tickets were faxed over to Gloucester and that ED would be given a "permission to travel docket" there. She would then travel from Gloucester to Swindon with the docket, get off the train at Swindon, run down to the ticket office, collect her "proper" ticket, and then run back up to the train, and travel to London.

Now ED has many qualities. Many qualities.

She dances beautifully.

She is irritatingly clever.

She speaks excellent German and French - as well as English of course.

She can act.

She can sing.

She can cook.

There is however one thing that she doesn't do well.....

And that is "direction" as in "sense of".

If you asked her to get a train from Land's End* to London, and told her that she will need to change trains at John O'Groats**, she'd believe you. To put it into perspective, Hubby thought that my sense of direction was seriously bad, until ED grew into the fine young woman that she is today. Of course, Hubby didn't know me when I was ED's age..... It is a genetic problem that one learns to deal with a little better with age, and I do actually fully sympathise and understand why North, South, East and West merge into one. After all, a weathercock spins round happily enough.

I was, shall we say, "doubtful" as to whether or not getting on and off trains at a particular station and running back to the right platform, without time to think about where she would be going, was a good idea. Especially given that she would have had very little sleep to add to the problem....

"How long has she got at Swindon?" I asked.

They looked at the timetable.

"Not very long. She would have to be quick."

I was still calm.

I looked at the woman..... and in the words of another well known West End musical, I said.......

"I think we need to think this out again......."

Well... o.k. maybe not... but it was along those lines.

At that moment, I looked down at the printed tickets, and to my absolute horror realised just quite how embarrassing teenagers can be.

"Lady ED Lomax" it read.

"Lady??????"

"LADY??????"

Oh ED!!!!!!!

In her wisdom. In her teenagery prank mode. In her infinite stupidity.....

When asked for her "title" she had put in "Lady".....

She often drops hints about the fact that she would quite like to go to Finishing School, but sadly, the parents that she chose are short of a few bob, and a few titles for that one....

OH ED!!!!!!!!!!!

How could you do this to me? To your poor poor mother who's trying to sort out this little problemette, just for you???!!!

I smiled sweetly at the cashier, praying to God that she may not have noticed that my Eldest Daughter had been playing at "Lords and Ladies" when she booked the tickets, and still thinking frantically about how we could sort this all out.

"Hold on a moment, said the cashier. We'll talk to Gloucester and see what we can do."

A long time passed. Hubby came up to the kiosk to see how I was getting on.......

Then eventually, they came back, cashier and supervisor.

"What we'll do" she said "is this. "

I waited, with baited breath.

"At Gloucester, they'll give her a permission to travel docket for the whole journey from Gloucester to London."

"So, she doesn't have to get off the train at Swindon?"

"No"

And she can use the docket for the whole journey?

Yes.

It was amazing. They were going to give her, what we would have called in the "olden days" a ticket. Not a computerised one. But a paper one.

A ticket.

Technology is a wonderful thing.

"She will have to get off the train at Reading though. Said the cashier. "It's a New Year's Day Service, so there will be a bus from Reading to London. it will take an extra hour all together."

And so I rang "Lady" Lomax, and told her the good and the bad news.......

And errmm, despite the "royal" service eventually given.....she'll probably put "Miss" next time.....

*Farthest South Western point of England.
**Most Northerly part of Scotland.
(London is in the South East of England...)

Cluedo Collusion!

2007-12-29T19:13:00.000Z

It had all gone quite smoothly really. Considering that not a single Christmas preparation had been made by any adult until a week before Christmas.

Somehow, miraculously, every present arrived safely through the chimney, the mince pies and Christmas cake got made iced and decorated, the turkey hit the table on time and enough alcohol was consumed to make a merry Christmas for all. And apart from Father Christmas giving Tinkerbell Mushroom and Gymnast some size 8 to 10 underwear, instead of aged 8 to 10 he did quite well really. It's an easy mistake to make. Especially when you have been up all night. I know how he feels. I too was up until 5 a.m. on the night of 23rd... It happens at this time of the year...

There were sadly one or two blips in the proceedings, due to the lurgy hitting the household at a very inconvenient time, which sadly put various ones out of action for a few hours in the lead up to Christmas day, and then Sensible and ED on the day itself.

But...when we had drunk and eaten merrily for a few days and the last of our Christmas guests had all gone home, we sat down to play Cluedo.

Well... that was after we had got the set out.

"The revolver card's missing" said Sensible.

Being a man, Hubby seemed to think that that would not allow us to play the game.

"Can we not just take the revolver out of the equation?" I asked. A general concurrence spread round the room, and Hubby conceded that this was perhaps possible.

"These aren't the right cards" said ED. They belong to another game.

"Shall we play something else?" Said Hubby. "We really need a new set."

"Give me five minutes." I said,rushing to the computer.

I ran off some game cards from the Internet and came back into the room, seriously pleased with myself at my ingenuity.

Hubby doled out the cards to everyone.

"Oh" said Sensible. "I've got the revolver card."

We put the revolver back into the game.

Hubby doled out the cards again....

And then we finally played.

Tinkerbell Mushroom got the hang of the game very well indeed. And her asking several times if one or other of us had Professor Plum simply added to the entertainment.

As for the older three colluding on the evidence I raised an eyebrow.

"Look Mum" said ESOS, "If there is a real murder case, and the Spanish Police have some evidence and the British Police have more "different" evidence, do you think that they withhold the information from each other? Absolutely not. It just makes the whole thing more efficient."

You could course call it cheating.....

But that would be boring....

In the meantime........................

I wish you all a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS and a VERY VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR.....

A varied occupation!

2007-12-17T20:44:00.000Z

Ever short of money and always willing to try my hand at something new, I decided to take the advice of Meredic who suggested to me earlier this year, that as a qualified teacher, I might do some supply* teaching. I thought about it. I looked at the state of our bank accounts. Again.

And then I decided that it was actually a very good idea.

And so when the fourth CRB** check for me this year finally popped through the letter box I ventured forth into a school to do my stuff.

Yes. Well......

They are not likely to send you to Roedean now are they? THEIR teachers don't have days off sick...... They work full time.

Only the schools with, shall we say "challenging" individuals require plenty of supply teaching.

And so it is that for much of the last four weeks I have been teaching in a school with boys who seems to think that detentions and homework are virtually synonymous, and whose teachers frequently look as if they might need a gin and tonic by 10 a.m.

In fact, as I walked out of the staffroom the other day, with a cup of black tea in my hand (tea being my preferred beverage, and in particular black tea) I bumped into the head. She looked into my cup. I smiled and went on my way. It was only afterwards though that I thought that perhaps I should have reassured her that it was in fact black tea and not whisky.....

Thankfully, my really crazy moments in the classroom do seem to be diminishing as I actually get to know the students. They are nice kids really. A little rough around the edges, and good training for any would be teacher. Keeps you on your toes.

And..... thanks to Sarah who is willing to have Gymnast and Tinkerbell Mushroom at some unearthly hour in the morning... I have been able to leave the house in time to get to the schools on time.

I got confused last week though.

A different school asked me to go in.

The kids sat down when asked.

They got on with their work.

They didn't throw anything across the room.

And no-one got a detention all day.

Teaching is a varied occupation.

*Substitute Teaching
**Criminal Records Bureau - Used to check people when working with vulnerable types. I now have four of these, as you need to have one for each different situation that you are checked for, even though the information comes from the same place. I have one for my stage school, one for the fostering team, one for the supply teaching agency and one for the local primary school, so that I can go on school trips with my youngest two. It keeps a Government department in full time employment, so we are all doing them a big favour really.

AWOL!

2007-11-27T09:42:00.000Z

So where has she been?

That Sally Lomax woman.

Two weeks without posting.

It's unheard of..

Oh... She's probably run out of bank accounts to talk about.

Got bored with blogging....

Got a new blog somewhere?

Been offered a big writing contract?

An acting job?

ALL WRONG.....

Life is not nearly as exciting as that.

However, I did get home from work a week last Saturday, and find a parcel.....

From Beccy!!

Some of her lovely handmade jewellery. It was for winning a competetition of hers, and it's beautiful.

Thank you Beccy!!
x

p.s. I'll tell you what I've been doing in the next installment...... Sorry not to have been on any of your blogs recently either.....

Bankers

2007-11-13T15:49:00.000Z

I need to transfer some money from one account to another.

Easy job.

I do it by electronic transfer using the phone. It is the same bank, different accounts, so it goes in immediately.

Cash transaction really. Simple. Bank Account A to Bank Account B.

Then I realise that actually it is not a good day to do it, and so ring the bank again.

"Can I transfer some money from Bank Account B to Bank Account A please?"

"No, sorry. Bank account B is the wrong type of account. To do electronic transfers you need to have the accounts linked."

"But it's the same bank. I have simply moved the money from one pot to another, and now I want to move it back again."

I'm sorry but to transfer money into Bank Account A which is a particular type of account ... (and a different particular type of account to bank account B)... you will have to link the accounts first, and then transfer the money."

"How long will that take?"

"About four days."

"Can I do it another way?"

"You can do it in person at the branch. Move the cash.

Nearest branch is 12 miles away and we are now out of opening hours anyway.

"So why can't you do it now?"

"Because the system doesn't let me."

"But it was less than half an hour ago that I moved the money, and now I realise that there is a cheque going through on the account from where I have moved the money and if I don't move it back there won't be sufficient funds to pay that cheque, and then you will bounce it."

"Yes."

"And then you will charge me."

"Yes it will probably incur a charge if there aren't sufficient funds in the account when the cheque is presented."

Do they teach these people to speak bankese I wonder when they join the bank?

"So what can I do?"

"Well, you could phone us when you get charged, and we will probably remove the charge, as you have phoned us to alert us to the problem."

"But you can't stop that happening now by simply transferring he money back into the account?"

No.

"But I transfer money from bank account to bank account all the time and I never had this problem before."

"Yes but......" ............Bank account B needs to be linked to bank account A to do this type of transfer. You have said that already I think....

Now of course, had I known that I would need a degree in banking to run very meagre funds in different accounts I would perhaps have taken one....

On the other hand, life is quite short.

Singers Anonymous.

2007-11-06T09:47:00.000Z

It all started in primary school.

It was a typical audition. Dear "Miss" Lavender, our teacher, played the piano. It was in the days when, with no keyboards available, her back was necessarily to the class.

I did my song.

No-one told me to stand up, so I didn't. Being a law abiding student.

When the person who went after me was singing, the teacher turned round half way through and asked her to "STAND UP YOU SILLY GIRL. HOW DO YOU EXPECT TO BE ABLE TO SING SITTING DOWN?"

I wanted to put my hand up and tell her that I too had been sitting down.

But I didn't.

I sat quietly, like a mouse, and accepted my fate when I was told that my voice wouldn't make the choir.

I knew it to be the case of course anyway. My father, who has a lovely singing voice had told me that I wasn't a singer. My brothers 8 and 12 years older than me, constantly reminded me that I couldn't sing.

I never understood it though.

You see, my speaking voice has been my trademark. Throughout my life I have been praised for it, have acted with it, passed exams that needed "speaky type" things for it, and have been paid many mars bars worth of cash on occasion to use it for voice overs.

I used to say to my Dad. "I don't understand why I can't sing, when the same instrument provides my speaking voice."

"We can't all do everything." He would say. "You have a beautiful speaking voice"

I have sung of course over the years. In my way. I sing loudly at the children's Harvest Festival Services and Carol Services to the annoyance of my children. I sang children's songs when acting with my Theatre in Education Company, and I sang dozens of nursery rhymes to the children when they were little.

But Karaoke?

Well. What a mistake that was. Every time I got up to sing a song that I THOUGHT I knew, to a backing track that I definitely didn't know, I failed dismally, and of course reinforced my opinion and everyone else's that singing was just not my thing......

So then..........

I recently started going along to some acting workshops. As my last dramatic exit off the stage in March had made me vow never to return again to an Am Dram Society, I took a brave step. I dusted off my Equity Card and got in touch with some kind people at the theatre in Cheltenham who run courses for professional actors. I sent in my CV, half doubtful as to whether or not I would have had enough experience to be accepted. But they did. Accept me that is.

And it has all been going very well. I have really enjoyed myself over the last few weeks.

Then.......

Next on the list was the singing workshop. "How to pass a singing audition".

I quaked with fear. I had to prepare a song.

This was "Singers Anonymous" BIG TIME.

I had to do it. I had to overcome my fear.

I chose one.

"Maybe this Time", from Cabaret. Brave choice considering it was made famous by dear Liza Minnelli. But, in my wisdom I decided that I would and could do it. I grabbed my singing teacher for ten minutes in the break at my Stage School on Saturday. "You can sing. " she said. You just need to learn how to support your voice. She got me to belt it out like no tomorrow. I wasn't sure that I could do it......

Then in the afternoon, I grabbed another singing teacher, who said that
I could sing too, and that ideally that for the long term I should work on it in a lower key..... And that I should sing more....

Singing teacher number one very kindly offered me a lesson prior to the workshop. I set off, backing track in hand, determined to crack this singing thing..........

And in true Sally style, Hubby had the new car so I was driving ED's mini...And.... um... the clutch started slipping.

I rang Hubby. My singing teacher happens live in place where Hubby works. "You'll be fine he said. Carry on, and we can swap cars, and you can go home in the new one...."

I struggled on for a few more miles and then......... made the decision to return home, before I couldn't. Bar having to drop it back down a hill, so that I could get it going again, I managed to get it as far as our house, where the clutch went completely, just in front of our door......

It was fate.

But I didn't get my singing lesson.

Hubby got home with the other car, in time for me to get out to my workshop.....

The first two hours were brilliant. We had an amazingly "tolerant of 'non proper singing actors' " MD running the evening, and he got us to sing notes that we didn't even know existed..... He said that he very much likes actors singing, because they put across songs well, and people can understand what is being sung. He said that on the other hand, when opera singers sing, you need sub titles, even when they sing in English...

Then it was solo time.

My heart was in my mouth.

We had almost got through the group. It was 9.20, and the workshop was due to finish at 9.30. Maybe there wouldn't be time for my song after all... In fact, I could walk out with my head held very high, and everyone would have known that I COULD sing. I had just sadly, run out of time....

"Sally?" said the the MD.

I stood up. I was shaking. I dropped my music. I dropped my backing track. Not that I needed it of course, as we had pianist. I picked up the music again. I walked over to the keyboard.

"I need to have the melody line" I said. "Otherwise I have no hope."

"Shhh, said the MD. Don't tell them that" (Them being 'the others'. "Tell me. I'm your friend."

I whispered, in a stage whisper. "I need the melody line..."

I announced to the audience before I started that like many others in the room that night I too was a recovering non singer....

And then I sang.

Then he made some suggestions, and he dropped it down three keys for me.

And I sang again.

He told me to "belt" the last bit.

So I did.

I sang the whole song for a third time.

In tune.

Dramatically.

And VERY loudly. Incredibly loudly. I shocked myself.

I got a big clap.........

They said it was brilliant.

It was of course a room full of actors, so we are habitually overly nice to each other......

But I did do it...........

And then then I shook for the next three hours.

Dressing up............

2007-11-02T09:19:00.000Z

A few year's back, one of the local Churches decided that to counteract Halloween they would provide a firework display and evening of fun for the village.

A great idea indeed. All the villagers are invited each year. Entry to the event is free and then there are pay as you go fairground type activities for the kids. It is a good night, the fireworks are excellent and everyone has a good time.

Well......... nearly everyone.............

One of the conditions of the event though is that you are not allowed to dress up in anything remotely Halloween oriented, because that is against the ethos....

Nine year old Gymnast fully understands of course. Her best friend's Dad is one of the organisers, and she wouldn't want to offend best friend who freely gives us all Divinity lessons on every visit to our house. It's handy for me, because despite having attended very heavily Church oriented schools, I clearly missed out on large parts of my divine education, especially the bits that said that no works of literature involving any witch or wizard should enter the house. And in particular any works of literature that involve a boy with the initials H and P.......

Seven year old Tinkerbell Mushroom is less convinced. Why shouldn't she wear her witch's hat and highly garish orange wig? It was actually quite a long time ago that we used to burn witches at the stake after all............ and she's not exactly planning on following Satan's gang, raising the dead or slaying vampires. She is just simply dressing up........

Hubby meanwhile was organising a drinks night and meeting for the parents of the Air Cadets.*
He rang one of the parents. The Air Cadets had been invited to a Halloween party at another Squadron, leaving the venue free for the parents' meeting. Parent on the phone was seriously not impressed. Their son would NOT be attending the party, and because the meeting was on that particular night - being the most convenient for all concerned, they would NOT be attending the meeting either, because clearly a large amount of devil worshipping was about to go on, given the date of the meeting and the location of the cadets.

Oh........................

Halloween over, Christmas came up in the conversation.

"Best Friend doesn't believe in Father Christmas" said Gymnast. "Oh?" I mused idly. So who does she thinks gives her Christmas presents then?" I said.

"God." said Gymnast.

I looked at her incredulously......................

Now don't get me wrong. I am certainly not an aetheist, and I do believe that God gives.......... in more mysterious ways....... But where in the Bible does it say that he dons a red cloak and wraps his presents in fancy paper?

A friend of one of my brothers as a little boy wasn't even allowed that much. His parents stopped whoever it was that left the presents at Christmas from even entering the house.........

The little boy had no presents at all. Now excuse me, but where again was the Sunday School lesson that said that you had to be mean to your children? I think I missed that one too........

And where does it say that we cannot dress up, have some make believe and do some acting? Is "make believe" not the way to explore life in an innocent and harmless way?

Besides, depriving kids of certain things "for their own good" has never shown to have great results as far as I am aware. My mother didn't allow us biscuits in the house when we were growing up. I now love biscuits.... And have a serious problem in leaving a packet half full. In fact, I think I need to go to biscuits anonymous.

Then there was a boy from a strictly vegan family who was in ED's in primary school a few years back..... And he has, it has to be said been known to be spotted in town more recently with a milk chocolate bar in one hand and a burger in the other...........

For any Christians reading this. Please don't get me wrong............... I am not anti Christian in any way. But I am equally not sure that we shouldn't allow our children to have fun - as children.....

In the meantime I'm off to negotiate with Father Christmas, as he might need to do more of the present giving than us this year. Things being a bit tight. I'll let you know what he says......

*Being that we only have the five children, we are very good at being available for every vacant secretary ship and chairmanship that is ever needed. A few year's back I seemed to be in charge of everything imaginable. It was the MUG sticker on my forehead that did it..... But gradually I have learnt to pull back and no longer put my name forward first. It took great skill and learning and bravery on my part and a bit of therapy, but finally I got there. "Mugs Anonymous" won their battle with me............. Not because I'm mean, or lazy..... But......... I do get tired. And I am quite busy in normal life! Hubby however, who was a bit slower than me in coming forward in the first place has recently managed to land himself both Secretary and Chairman of the Air Cadets as well as Treasurer of his chess club....

p.s. Have just discovered that Chris B, one of my very first blogging friends, has awarded me a "You make me smile award!"

Thank you Chris!! I'm honoured......

And I pass the honour onto Enidd and Alice Band......

Silent World.

2007-10-25T15:18:00.000+01:00

It was half term. They were all off.

Tinkerbell Mushroom was speaking. I could see she was moving her mouth, and there was a vague noise that sounded like speech, but what she was saying, or why she was saying it was beyond my comprehension. I looked at Hubby in desperation. He translated in a very loud and clear voice - I presume. I heard. Just.

Sensible came in. Realising the current state of her mother's ears, she just smiled. Sympathetically. She gave me a cup of tea.

"I can't hear anything".

"I know." She mouthed.

Living in a silent world when you are used to full hearing is quite scary.

It's VERY scary.

Of course, I knew that it was only a temporary hearing loss, due to the ear infection, but there is always that element of doubt.......

I lay there in bed thinking that I really ought to get up. While I did, various thoughts were going through my head, and within minutes I had re planned my whole life strategy according to how it would be if this hearing loss was permanent. Not that I'm dramatic or anything. Even though I was accused of such, by an offspring or two...

I returned to the doctor.

He said something.

"Sorry? I can't hear you."

It's only three days since you went on the medication. It will take five to ten days." he explained, in a lightly terse, slightly impatient way. Well, as much as I could tell through my swimming pool hearing.

"But I didn't expect to go deaf." I said.

He said something else.

"Sorry?"

"YOUR EARS ARE JUST FULL OF STUFF. IT WILL GO. "

"Sorry? I can't hear you. Can you repeat that please?"

"YOUR EARS ARE JUST FULL OF STUFF. IT WILL GO. "

I was clearly not a priority case. I was a one of many invisible forty somethings on his list that day. His lack of sympathy and understanding didn't go down well. My ears hurt. I felt miserable. I couldn't hear and I hadn't slept for four nights.

I thought about television dramas involving doctors.

Images of caring doctors, smiling and empathetic came to mind. I wondered if bedside manner had been invented by actors and that in the real medical profession there is no such thing.....

Hubby had come down with me for some moral support. I muttered to him as I left the surgery. Words of TLC, bit of bedside manner and any other label that I felt should go with a doctor's position were mentioned.

Of course.......Being on the harder side of hearing at that time, my words in whispers probably came out.....

VERY LOUD.

When I got home again, I got a call from the surgery.

The Doctor wanted me to call him the following morning. To give him a progress report.......

Well either guilt had set in.

Or maybe someone in the surgery had heard me muttering.

That's MUTTERING by the way.........

............................p.s. I can hear again now, and the pain's gone........ He was right. As it turns out.....

They must be a nuisance for doctors really. Invisible forty something women.......

17th October and Teenagers....

2007-10-17T15:01:00.000+01:00

Well doesn't time fly when you are enjoying yourself?

A year ago today I sat down and wrote my first blog.

78000 words later and I'm still here........

Still in the Forest of Dean too, unlike the predictions of last year.........

The only thing is that I'm running out of stories on banks and stuff.

Well, I must be.

Mustn't I?

At least I can write about the teenagers!

An apology.....

2007-10-15T13:08:00.000+01:00

I have unwittingly offended and upset people with the post that I put up today.

It was not intended to offend. It was intended to laugh at me.

I'm sorry that I clearly got it so wrong and for any hurt that I may have caused.

Please accept my apologies.

It's over to Enidd's...

2007-10-09T10:46:00.000+01:00

To read me today, you will have to go to Enidd's blog!

Click here!

And for all those who didn't make it as far as Enidd's, it is now put on here as well, unchanged and with the introduction, as put on Enidd's site.

Win Win!

Sally is delighted to be a glogger* on Enidd's site, and honoured that Enidd chose the person with whom (Enidd and she have discovered over a number of posts on both blogger's sites) she shares a mutual hatred of banks, to be one of her representatives during her long earned holiday. Sally's problems with banks are possibly different to Enidd's, as Enidd's hassles stem from them not allowing to use her own money, whereas Sally's hassles are due to them not allowing her to use their money. Sally sees that this purely as a matter of pedanticism on the banks' part and that either way, banks stink. Enidd of course tells the tales of Stalin, Fluffy and The Man. Sally's cast list includes a cast of thousands of children, a man by the name of Hubby and a dog who is mad. Sally's lifelong ambition is to be on Enidd's list of "humourous blums" on her Eggroll. She hopes that one day she will aspire to such heights. Enidd does of course write in the third person, and Sally normally writes in the first. But in honour of Enidd, as she is a guest on Enidd's blog, and when in Rome one should after all do as the Roman's do, Sally is today writing in the third person. Sally has tried in her spare time to give up the habit of capital letters, but after several attempts has failed miserably, and has now decided that in essence, you can take a blogger away from their capital, but you can't always take the capitals out of some of those slightly more stubborn and a little more awkward *gloggers.
*glogger: Guest Blogger.

It is just another ordinary morning: A call at a ridiculously early hour from a call centre; a letter from the bank, demanding money, that they had in fact already had; a wet shirt in the washing machine needed by ED (Eldest Daughter), now, today, not tumble dryable (of course), and so with the only option available to iron dry; and another letter from a different bank with yet another charge, unfairly administered in Sally's humble opinion. The boiler, still broken, isn't warm. In fact the whole house is very cold. This, coupled with ironing dry a very wet blouse, dealing with a call centre first thing, dealing with post, that is post from the letter box, not the writing sort, puts Sally in a seriously bad mood. Had it been the "writing" sort of post it would probably have put Sally in a good mood, as writing often has that effect on her. But sadly it is the mail variety. And not that male variety either.

Once the children are all at school, she starts with the banks. "I paid you on the right date, many many mars bars worth of cash." Sally explains to bank number one (that is the bank who very kindly, a few years back, bought Sally and Hubby's house for them and said that they could live in it, as long as Sally and Hubby paid this thing called interest. Sally shows a lot of interest in the interest, but it seems that the bank definitely has the upper hand on such interesting matters). Bank number one has a look at their computer screen. Something that Sally thinks banks seems to like. They come back to Sally after a few moments. "Yes Mrs. Lomax. In fact, you are right. You did pay us. We have now put a note on your account and reversed the £40 charge. Sally had not even been aware of this particular charge, so although grateful and relieved, is also slightly annoyed that it had been there in the first place. Still, onwards and upwards, £40 in the right direction, the day is getting slightly better.

Next call. Next bank. Big grumble. Big moan. Had been working. Had been busy. Had forgotten to check accounts. Had forgotten to transfer some money at the relevant time. All sorted now........ blah blah blah....... "ALL RIGHT Mrs. Lomax........ On this occasion, as a gesture of goodwill, as we banks are fundamentally good natured Quaker types, who are seriously, really, honestly into making people's lives so much easier, we will refund the £39 to your account." "Thank you so much.......grovel......grovel some more.....grovel some more." "However, Mrs. Lomax......." There then follows long lecture about how Sally should run her account from her on in..... Grovel some more. Put phone down. Day getting slightly better. Now £79 up. Sally's next call is to the people who are hopefully to be supplying her new boiler. Ironically Sally discovered that due to the enormous quote from British Gas earlier this year, that it it is almost as cheap to get a range style cooker which will do the heating as well, instead of an ordinary boiler, which due to the many radiators that need heating, needs in fact to be two boilers and, due to the regulations having changed, need to be moved to the cellar. The range has the added advantage of being allowed to go where the existing boiler is in the kitchen, in the fireplace, will look very nice indeed, and will not leave a very big hole in the kitchen to be subsequently dealt with, and also paid for. As such, although Sally is not a golfer, to coin a golfer's phrase, it is a "win win" situation.

Always fighting the pennies however, and these are actually the pennies of a very kind MIL (Mother in Law) this time, as she has kindly offered to pay for said device, Sally asks the inevitable question: "Can you better that quote please? We are trying very hard to get it within x number of mars bars.." "I'll ask the boss", says person on the phone, "but I wouldn't hold your breath." Sally holds it for a second, and then agrees with the man on the phone. She does however have another idea. "Some dealers were offering £220 worth of cooking equipment to go with the range. I saw it on the internet. Are you?" "That offer ran out on 1st October." Says helpful man on end of phone. "But that was only a week ago", says Sally, and it has taken you eight weeks to complete the quote. "Yes well, the offer comes from the supplier. There isn't much we can do about that. Sally ends call, and then calls the supplier........ Bit of checking at their end. Get another phonecall from the range dealer. They will honour the promotional pack.

As she adds up her day's gains, it seems to Sally that sometimes, hassle, whilst irritating, is after all an essential part of life. The total gain for today's hassles is £299. Better than working thinks Sally.

The Memory

2007-10-03T09:19:00.000+01:00

"Did you call ED's school about the AS levels?" said Hubby on Monday evening. ED is away at the moment, on a French A'level trip to France. She had left a list of stuff for us to do in her absence, as time had run out before she had departed. The call to the school was one of those things....

"I didn't realise that 'that' was on my 'list' of jobs to do," I retorted back, thinking of the million and one things that I did need to do, for everyone, not just ED.

Besides, it had been a busy few days. Loser Cruiser, back from the menders, cleaned with the help (or not) of Tinkerbell Mushroom, Gymnast and friends, and looking for the first time in its short Lomax life like a semi respectable car, starting first time and driving beautifully, had gone to find its next owner. An owner who hopefully would be more appreciative of its strengths, and less damning of its weaknesses.

The only problem was, that with Loser Cruiser being sold on Sunday, it left us with just one car, as we are getting a replacement car............but I am not picking it up until this Friday. One car to use as a family: ED's mini, which much to my horror, I discovered, after throwing every document in the office around in search for car registration documents of Loser Cruiser, that its MOT had run out in July..........

Finally found registration documents of Loser Cruiser. We had actually bought the car after all. Kept cool. Sold car. Gratefully accepted cash, even though it had cost us dearly in the four months that we had owned said car to get it back into proper state. We had certainly made a loss over all.

And then, when the buyers had left, went into a panic and a bit of a rant about how we didn't now have a legal car to drive and that it had to be booked in at the EARLIEST opportunity so that we had at least one car to drive..... legally.

Hubby pragmatically pointed out that although it was a bit of a crisis, in fact it was no different to how it had been for the last two months.

"No", I protested. "Ignorance is bliss. Even if it doesn't stand up in law."

And so, finally, with the car booked in for an MOT, with some loser cruiser cash in the bank, and with much juggling around of family commitments, to get them to places without normal modes of transport until Friday, things calmed down again in the Lomax household.

Sitting on the table was ED's folder with AS level results within.

On top of said folder was handwritten note...........

Unmistakeably my handwriting.

"Call Ed's school first thing Monday morning to sort this out."

It had been on my "list".

Clearly...

The Middle Years.

2007-09-25T09:28:00.000+01:00

"I need to have a chat with you." I say to hubby as he gathers up his laptop and heads off out through the door on his way to work.

It's a chat that has been waiting for at least three months. There are a million and one things that we need to sort out. Little things. Some big things. Things that need input from both of us. But between the chauffeuring of the kids, the washing, the work, the committees and various other commitments, talking to each other is, on a scale of one to ten........................minus five thousand.

"Yes", says hubby, "but not now, I'm on my way to work."

"You did say that you would take a day off, just to talk."

"I can't take any days off in September" he says.

"Can I book a day in October then?"

"Yes, that should be fine."

Meanwhile, will someone please tell me why I probably had forty classes teaching me how to give birth, and was even offered classes fifth time round, (as clearly nature had changed in the previous 20 months), why we were given midwives, health visitors and regular support in child rearing for the first five years of the children's lives, five times round, but, just when it starts to get really challenging, interesting, impossible to deal with.................

Everyone has disappeared off the face of the earth?

Health visitors? Where are you now?

Don't you know that I could bring up fifty 'four year olds' standing on my head reading a story backwards with funny voices and strange accents, whilst mopping up the spills and baking a cake all at the same time?

But it's now that it's got 'tricky'. With three teenagers and a nine and seven year old...

So where are you?????

I guess you'll be back when our teenagers are all grown up and dealing with their own teenagers, and we are old.

Fortunately though for all the health professionals, anyone aged from forty to sixty five disappears from the G.P.'s computer screens.

Saves a lot of wasted time for doctors.

Lucky really, for them.

p.s. Meanwhile I have discovered on signing up to an American website that I can lose seven months without even blinking.

In fact, this particular website insisted that I was still 44, despite putting in my DOB.

It doesn't work for all of you.... But my DOB is 12th May. Now in the USA, when I write 12/5 that reads as 5th December....... So I'm still 44 in the USA...

Not quite the perfect mother............. and Happy Birthday ESOS!

2007-09-18T08:54:00.000+01:00

I had been suffering from a serious case of broken down car syndrome.

'Loser cruiser' as the children so politely call it, breaks down with regular monotony, usually at the most inconvenient times. Late as I am, I actually hate to be late, and so when on Friday last I made Gymnast late for gym yet again, due to permanently disabled automobile, which needs to be fixed just long enough again so that we can sell it, I threw a wobbly, and told lots of people about it.

My lovely friend Headless Chicken came to my rescue, and yesterday she gave me a present. A very funny Sue Townsend book."What's this for I said?" "Because you're my friend, and I wanted to cheer you up."

Well thank you HC, it did.

Meanwhile, it was ESOS's birthday party last weekend, it being his 15th birthday today. Two friends came over and stayed for the weekend, and, being a mother, and therefore of completely the wrong generation, clearly elderly and with absolutely no idea about "who's a nice boy to go out with" nowadays, I made the mistake of possibly thinking that Sensible quite liked the look of one of said boys.

I made the bigger mistake of mentioning it to ESOS when, unbeknown to me, Sensible was nearly in earshot.

So as I said the famous last words "so don't say anything to her anyway will you" as I finished off my little gossip, she came into the room. "Don't say 'what' to me?" She said. "No, not you" I fibbed, badly. It was ED." "Don't say what to ED" she persisted.

HELP.........

"Well...." Think quickly Sally. Never very good at telling fibs I knew that I was by this time blushing and stammering............

"I think ED fancies someone.." I lied

"Who?" She said, expectantly.

"Oh, no-one in particular I said.

"So why do you think that?" She said.

"Oh..... just the way she's been lately."

Change subject quickly Sally...

Later in the car, collecting ED from dancing, I started to tell her the whole tale. Unfortunately, she missed the bit that I had used 'her' as an excuse, and so, when Sensible told ED that "Mum thinks you fancy someone", ED told Sensible that it was Mum, who thought that 'she', Sensible fancied one of the boys at ESOS's party.

By this time it was a bit like one of those children's stories where everything gets a bit out of hand and escalates to the point of.............

AAAAARRRRGGGHHHHHHHH...................

Nearly 24 hours later Sensible went off to school, STILL not having forgiven me for my misdemeanours.

Meanwhile, both Gymnast and ED are home from school today with a tummy lurgy......

Lovely.

Much of course to Tinkerbell Mushroom's disgust.

"You never listen to me" she said.

I had been washing up and hadn't heard her latest rant about, "Not fair, off school, why can't I stay at home and have a nice day off...."

Huge house with huge mortgage for huge family, is of course made for servants. And so when, as often, I am in servant mode, washing up in the scullery, you do miss bits of the vital conversation, as, said house was very sensibly designed so that the skivvies like me don't hear all parts of the speech.

Came out of scullery. "You see, you never listen to me." She protested. "Sorry TM, I was in the scullery." "All the other mothers listen when they are in their sculleries." She said.

We went upstairs to get dressed. She wasn't talking to me.

Just then I noticed that there were 500 beads on the floor. I gave her her socks to put on, and started to pick them up.

"I love beads" I said.

The irony is completely lost on her and finally she is distracted.

"Did you have beads when you were little Mummy?"

At last I can see a reason for all those craft sets that are given to us year on year. There is light on the horizon.

Happy Birthday ESOS!

And today's challenge is....

2007-09-11T22:48:00.001+01:00

Being a late person, I do like to get there early sometimes.

When I arrived a whole day early for a meeting to do with my stage school though, it was possibly a bit over the top.

I called Hubby and groaned. "You'll never guess what I've done.....It's tomorrow"

Five minutes later, he called me back. "It's ED's and ESOS's orthodontic appointments tomorrow."

My turn to groan. This meeting was really important for me.

"I'll take a day off."

I was very effusive with gratitude of course, and the big advantage to Hubby needing to take a day's leave the next day would mean that I would be able to stay for the whole meeting, instead of having to leave early, in time to collect Tinkerbell Mushroom and the Gymnast. Although I did wonder to myself a little. "I'm sure that the orthodontic appointments were the day after my theatre school meeting." I said. "No", said Hubby. "I have just rung up and checked the times.... As you asked me to...." "O.K." I said.

Of course I was forty miles from home, a whole day early for a meeting, and with several hours in hand before I needed to pick up any children, so I decided to go to Cribb's Causeway*. It being just down the road from where I was.

The thing is, which road it was down was possibly a little debatable.

Being slightly directionally challenged, so to speak, I decided it was on the M5. After a couple of miles I thought that maybe it was in the other direction on the M5. Pulled into the services. Checked a book of local maps in the shop. Found out which exit it was on and then came off the motorway (was fortunately very near an exit), and returned to junction 17 where I needed to be.

I didn't tell the family about my directional challenges. The getting the meeting time wrong by a day was enough of a family hoot for one dinner time.

So, this morning, I set off again for my meeting, and Hubby set off to the orthodontist's with the older two.

When Hubby rang me though, a little later, to tell me that they had got to the orthodontist's a day too early, I did, I confess, smile a little.

*Shopping Centre outside Bristol

Husky voice sees husky dogs

2007-09-09T18:13:00.000+01:00

I had sat very quiet for a while on the broadcasting front.

In a Pavlovian sort of way I had found that the very thought of doing anything for the radio brought back that wave of tiredness that I had felt towards the end of my run on my show. At the time I gave up, my life was incredibly busy and Sally stressful, stress always being a subjective thing, and as such, the thought of picking up a microphone was, well exhausting.

So when Forest of Dean Radio asked me if they would cover the "Dogs at the Lodge" dog show at Beechenhurst I felt positively comatose at the thought.

But I remembered that I actually I would very much like to do more broadcasting, preferably paid, and that as such it would possibly be a good idea to get on the headphones and record some stuff.

Then I did have a bit of a major panic attack though as I thought that I had probably in the six months away completely forgotten how to broadcast. Or at least use the kit. Technology and I not always being the best of friends. But worse... I had visions of myself frozen and tongue tied and unable to interview anyone. Actually, could I still talk?

I thought it would be a nice family day out though. Nice day. Beechenhurst in the Forest. Beautiful countryside. Perfect family location.

ESOS aged 15 next week looked at me strangely.

Sensible aged 13 declined a little more politely.

Tinkerbell Mushroom and Gymnast said that if the others weren't going nor were they.

So we started to set off. "Wait a minute Mum. I'm coming" said Tinkerbell Mushroom." Found shoes, Did hair. Went towards the car. "Oh actually Mum, I will come." Said Gymnast. Found shoes, did hair went towards car.

"Oh actually Mum"

.....no.... not really....

ED was out, so she didn't come, and despite it being a dog show, the dog wasn't invited, partly because she hates the car and partly because it would have been too much to handle in conjunction with trying to make a radio feature, and, well, mostly because she isn't trained too much. Well umm not at all really. She's a very beautiful Border Collie though, and I was struck by a memory of childhood where my mother put in our Old English Sheepdog into a local village dog show, and, much to the disgust of the locals, despite the mud on his fur (he'd just been for a walk) despite the fact that he hadn't been trained to do any of the show doggy stuff, and despite the fact that his coat was on the matted side of matted, he won. Pure natural talent clearly.

So...not wanting to embarrass anyone, we left her at home....

I had checked the kit at least fifteen times to make sure that I remembered how to record on it. Then I listened after each interview I did, to check that I was still able to speak reasonably intelligently. Well, ok. Reasonably.

And then I went up to the important person present. Mr Ken Hames. Of real television fame. Being on important business he was off shortly to catch a flight, but he did talk to me. Thank you Mr. Hames... And now, having given out awards to nice Forest of Dean doggy people, he's gone to do some more of his great work with disabled people in Scotland.

And I found out that I like Husky dogs too. They are big of course. Very big. But so very pretty. And very useful if your car breaks down and you need a lift to the shops. ED, having only just got used to the Border Collie after a year, having grown up with a pathological fear of dogs, took a dim view when I expressed my new found love.

Although, they must eat a lot. So the point of the lift to the supermarket would be slightly eroded, given that all the food on the three wheeled bicycle truck would be theirs. Oh well........ the thought was fun while it lasted.

Nice stuff....All for me...

2007-09-05T11:16:00.000+01:00

I was just trying to pack to go on holiday, when I got a call from L'Occitane.

I stopped and thought. Why on earth would they want to call me?

Well, it seems that one clever person in the organisation had spotted that they are one of my marketing sponsors. Astutely though they had also spotted that I had never actually written about their products. Or anyone else's for that matter. But, kind astute gentleman offered to send me some samples to try and then write about.

Well, let's face it bloggophiles. There isn't much money in this blogging business, so when someone actually thought that my writing was good enough to expose his products, by way of sampling first, how could I resist?

I got back from holiday.

No parcel.

And I really was in the mood for some nice cosmeticy things to try too......

They contacted me again. I explained that I hadn't received it. They told me the tracking number and suggested that I checked with the local post office.

Then a miracle happened. I cleared up my paperwork in the room we call "the office". It's supposed to be a dining room as well, but as it hasn't had a clear table for a very long time the eating has only happened on the kitchen table instead.

As such, it took me a good 8 hours to clear. I probably had a year's worth of backlog to decipher, and mostly throw away. It's now spotless. Really spotless. No-one is allowed to even leave as much as a coffee cup by the computer desk. In fact, if they try to leave the room without their belongings, the entire room will become subject to a Harry Potter type spell, and everything that they touch will multiply by a hundred times, blocking their exit until offending item is taken out with them.

So this is how I found the card from the postman.

It had been put onto "the pile" on our return home, not due to be unearthed until October 2008. But by special dispensation it was released from circulation and taken down to the post office, whereupon I discovered the L'Occitane parcel. Or to be correct perhaps that should read: "Whereupon I discovered L'Occitane".

It smells divine. All of it.

They have obviously been spying on me though, because they clearly know that one of my favourite pastimes is to have a luxurious bath.

I can now put rosemary, orange, rose, grape and almond into my bath. Some of the bottles are pretending to be shower gel, but as I am a bath person I will uncover their true identity and use them in the bath. Unless of course a jet style shower company would like to sponsor me too, and is willing to fit one into our house so that I can write about those too? Of course they would have to fit the boiler first too, as the heat may be a little lacking. And in order to be completely genuine in my praise of said boiler, it would probably need to be a range in the kitchen. That would just about do it.

And maybe a French holiday to try out the L'Occitane range in situ, given that it is called L'Occitane en Provence? That would be nice.

Meanwhile, I now have very nice lavender smelling feet and coconut smelling hands. There's some Shea Butter in the foot and hand creams which will probably help me to retain my Portsmouth tan at least. In fact that is probably why they call the range L'Occitane.

I now keep smelling my hands as I sit here. It makes me look slightly demented really. Anyone spotting me would probably look slightly strangely at the woman sitting in her office constantly smelling her skin.

Which is why of course they gave me another pot called Precious Cream. It is named especially after me, because I am very precious and .... special. And young looking forever now.

But, just in case the other members of my family get ideas about using these creams and gels, don't think that I am going to be generous with them.

No. These were sent to me. For me to try out.

All for me..........

p.s.But you can get some too if you really want. They are all here.

Recycling!

2007-08-31T09:56:00.000+01:00

It was time for a declutter.

Now, in our house, this is a relative word.

So when three very large bin bags of, too small, too unfashionable and too disgustingly worn out clothes, finally got to the recycling bank, it wasn't without enormous complaint from Tinkerbell Mushroom and Gymnast.

All summer I have winced as they have got themselves dressed into their favourite togs, not noticing, being 7 and 9, that they made themselves look like children something similar to a pre Victorian orphanage.

It's not helped of course by the fact that people, very kindly, knowing that we have five children, give us all their recycling. It is very kind of them, but, even with five children, there are limits as to how many bin bags full of second hand clothes, not quite the right size or shape, that we can deal with.

"If you don't want them, given them back, or give them to a charity shop" the kind people always say, as they give me another four tons of cast offs.

Never being one for waste, I always accept gratefully, smile and stuff it into already crammed full drawers.

Occasionally, someone gives you something accidentally, and asks for it back, as happened just over a year a go. Fortunately, being the thrifty type, I still had said garment, and although it took some digging to find it, amidst clean and dirty washing, bedding, crisp packets and toys and sweet wrappers, I eventually unearthed the missing item and gave it back to kind benefactor.

Now, don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't want "hand me downs". I am actually always genuinely grateful.

It's just that due to the indelible ink labelled "guilt" mark on my forehead, I am seriously unable to sift through the bags, take what I want from them, and give the rest away. I always feel that if it is given to us, as a kind gesture, we should use it, however ridiculous, large or unfashionable it might be.

And of course, aged 7, the more ridiculous, large and unsuitable it is, the better. which is fine, most of the time. But sometimes, just sometimes, you want your children to look reasonably nice.....

And, you want to be able to see them just so without a huge battle of the wardrobe first.

And then of course there is the problem of the nostalgics.

"Oh, that was her first dress.

That was his first sleep suit."

Or, "That was his first nappy...."

Oh, OK, slight exaggeration.....but you get the gist.

In short we have accumulated clothes for seventeen years, waiting for the next child to fit them. Now, given that fashions probably rotate every twenty or thirty years, if I keep them all long enough, I could probably clothe all of our grandchildren too. And the entire street on which all of them will live.

But really, it was time for a thin down, for, despite my new year promise to reduce items by ten a day, I failed miserably once the first month was over.

And so, I steeled myself. I stuffed it into bags. I was ruthless. Hard. Unmoved and untouched as I rid myself of clothes from mine and the younger children's drawers.

The relief was enormous.

Tinkerbell Mushroom complained to ESOS.

"She's thrown away ALL my clothes.

Everything.

I have nothing to wear."

The mutterings were faintly reminiscent of someone who should be a good few years older than her, but, I have to say, it did strike a chord.

For, once all the unsuitables were gone. What was left, was tasteful, pretty, suitably sized............. but a little on the ....errr.......minimalist front perhaps.

And so, being the last of the big spenders, and always insufferably broke, we went to the tailors, at Tesco and Tesco and Sons. And for just £30, bought what could only be described as an almost completely new wardrobe.

I am forgiven...

I'm now off to watch yesterday's "What not to wear." And then there might be a few more items that hit the recycling bank before Christmas.......

This time, just mine.

Happy holiday!

2007-08-21T10:47:00.000+01:00

p.s. See below to August 6th for John G's award!

Communication is a wonderful thing.

2007-08-17T09:34:00.000+01:00

I was just getting to the bottom of my favourite post holiday job.

The mail.

You know how it is. All your favourite people writing to you. Loan sharks, insurance companies, banks. Not to mention the 655 emails offering me things to enhance parts of my body that I didn't even know I had.

Then, the phone rang.

"Can I speak to Mr. Lom-m-max please?"

"I'm sorry, he's not available. Can I help, I'm his wife."

"Is that Mrs. Lom-m-m-ax?"

"Yes, I believe so."

Having established that he was from Talk Talk, he then proceeded to take every piece of available personal information from me needed to rob my bank accounts of their overdrafts, before telling me why he was calling.

He informed me that we had an amount outstanding on our account.

I explained that I had paid the bill in full on 25th July, prior to going away, by internet banking. (I'm beginning to like internet banking. If you get it right, you can nearly get away without talking to call centres. It's not quite as good as my tin pot method, but it's a compromise...)

"But the last direct debit we received on this account Mrs. Lom-m-max was in May."

"Yes, that's because I pay you directly by internet banking."

Communication in these communication companies is a wonderful thing.

"So do you not want to set up a direct debit?"

"No. I prefer to pay you the way I do."

"But there is an outstanding balance."

"I think that you will find, that you are probably sitting on my payment for for the statutory three weeks before processing it. That is how it is shown on the bill every month. I'll go and check my accounts, and if you haven't been paid, I will pay you. If you have, then I'm sure that you will find it just in time for the next bill, as always." (Or perhaps I should have said, "Once you have gained as much as you can from the high interest account that it is currently sitting in...")

"But would you prefer to set up a direct debit anyway?"

"No..........

.............Thank you."

They had been paid. I checked.

Their days are numbered though I fear, for as I walked over the road to buy some milk, I met a man who was working out where cable networking could be put in our village.

Eat you heart out Talk Talk. We might be able to get cheap telephones and internet connections soon!

Holiday Basics

2007-08-08T19:58:00.000+01:00

It was one of those " is this really worth it moments". You know, the sort of moment. One that lasts about three hours.

The moment when, whilst packing the grips, having had to empty out whatever was being stored in there first, as the ones that you used to use for going on holiday have seemed to have done a Houdini act to other foreign places this year on children's school trips, and those that have come back look as if they have done three rounds in the garden with the dog, and the moment that you realise that whilst it makes for minimalist packing, not liking any of your clothes on your body does mean that what you are about to wear for the next week is not what you would ever choose, in a sane moment, to wear. And then you realise that that is what you always wear, and that 90% of the other stuff sits in your wardrobe, or maybe in the clean washing pile in the spare room. Untouched for most of the year. Which of course is why it's untouched in the spare room. Because you don't ever wear it.

Then there is the moment when you pack up all the food from the cupboards, so as to not have to spend money on all the basics on arrival. The only trouble is that it means that you have to sit amongst said "basics" in the car. And you sort of wish that maybe, just maybe, you were just a little bit better off. Not lottery win better off necessarily. Although, at that moment that would be nice. But, just enough, so that maybe, just maybe, you could eat out on holiday, and not have to sit amongst half used cabbages and lettuces for two and a half hours in the car. You see, basics for us doesn't just mean salt and peper, tea and coffee and a pot of herbs. It means everything and anything that we can transport. Which is quite a lot really.

Amidst all this was the car problem.

It had finally been recovered from the great car graveyard in the sky at 3 p.m. on Saturday. By hubby and me. Earlier that day he had rescued ED's mini from the garage, but needless to say, that was a just a "tad" too small to take six of us on holiday. That is six, not seven, as the seventh member was not present. She is on holiday in Portugal, with friend's family. Eating out and ignoring the supermarket bogofs for two weeks.

I happened to mention to hubby as we got back to the house with second mended car that day, that I really wondered if it was worth the effort. Given that it was quite a lot of effort. Really.

Hubby, being in stiff upper lip military mode, told me not to be so miserable, and that if "you go with that attitude, then you won't have a nice time."

Ok, I felt like saying. We've tried the, "not got enough money for anything remotely luxurious". The "I know, let's eat cous cous again tonight, because we have it in the cupboard from when they were selling it as a "buy one get six free offer." The "let's have our anniversary at home for the first 21 years of wedding anniversaries", and the "let's save a bit of money by using the tea bags off the clothes line." (Oh, ok, slight exaggeration... We do drink loose leaf tea, I know. And they have some very good offers on the cheapest brands most of the time).

And yes Hubby. Sadly, you are right. With this approach to living, I do frequently lose all notion of "sense of humour mode".

Quite a lot of the time.

So in terms of marks out of ten for observation on "how drudge wears you down", it's a straight 10 out of 10.

But..... on the other hand, you haven't tried the:

"Drape her in jewels, take her out for nice meals at the finest restaurants, take her on expensive holidays, and let her go to the supermarket without having to buy the bogof's and the "nearly at the sell by dates", and lingerie that isn't the "buy two pairs , get one free set of granny knickers from Tesco" approach, and seen how that might affect the sense of humour part of the brain now have you?

No.

See?

I didn't say that of course. I just looked moody for a little while and carried on packing and stuff. And besides, to be fair, had it not been for a benevolent brother who has lent us a house by the seaside this summer, for the second summer running, we wouldn't have had a holiday at all this year, even with bogofs.

So thank you BB.....

So, we stufffed all foodstuffs, seven grips, an extra grip for towels and bedding, duvets, sleeping bags, dog bowls, food bags and children into the car.

Then we went to find the dog. Said dog has pathalogical fear of cars and so was hiding, very well indeed, in an upstairs bedroom.

As we finally pulled away from the drive at 6.40, I did feel like going on holiday after all.

And as we turned back to the house at 6.50 to pick up all bits that we had forgotten, buy a lottery ticket (so as to give fate a chance of changing) and some sweets for the journey, it felt even more like a holiday.

Well.... the sort of holidays that the Lomaxes always have.

They always start with a bit of a "trip back to the house" followed by fifteen incidents of sibling friction an hour, and thirty "are we nearly there yets."

Yes.....

By 8 p.m. I could definitely see a good Lomax family holiday coming up.

Award from John G!

2007-08-06T13:33:00.000+01:00

In retaliation/ thanks for being called an honorary girl, John G has awarded me an award:

I'm now officially a Rockin' Man Blogger?!!

It has taken a while to get it on my blog, because 'twas awarded whilst on hol, where I had no ability to upload pix.

But here it is....................

Thanks John!

I'm proud to be the holder of such an award!

They really are people!

2007-08-04T16:01:00.000+01:00

I've often wondered.

When you meet people, virtually, so to speak....

Are they really real?

Are they who they say they are?

Or are they really three legged transvestite monsters.

Well they are see. I know. I knew that Headless chicken was real anyway, because she lives near me. But as for Meredic..........

Well, I can now confirm that he exists too. And he can confirm that I exist. And we can both confirm that Headless exists.

And none of us are three legged, transvestite monsters.

We can even confirm all our first names:

Sally, Meredic and......... Headless.......

Thanks for visitng us Meredic.....

Hope to see more of you soon!

(Am now in Portsmouth for a few days.... more on that soon....)

Hey! I Rock!

2007-07-29T21:29:00.000+01:00

Dearest Akalemalu has told me that I rock!

Well thank you Ak! You rock too!

And in return I am to tell some other people that they too rock. But, if I nominate you, please don't feel that you to have to pass it on, unless you want to of course. You can of course though display one of the very colourful awards on your blog...I think that many of my blog chums have already been told that they rock, but I will nominate some bloggyites anyway. If I mention you, but you have already had a Rockin' Girl Blogger award ........then, have another! After all, there is no limit on the amount of Oscars you can pick up, so why not Rockin' Girl Blogger awards too?

And so, this evening's awards go to:

Enidd, who despite a move to California recently has still managed to keep up her blogging to its wonderfully high and very witty standard.

Beccy (who I think has probably had this already??) who never ceases to amaze me at the speed at which she produces blogs.

Wendz, who is poignant, clever and witty and who, like me I think, wears her heart on her sleeve.Lisa, who cooks clever stuff, does clever spinning around and stuff at amazing times in the morning, as well as having children and work to do.

Headless Chicken, who entered the blogging world with a bang and is a bit of a star.

Alice Band, who seems to be telling my my life story in a better and funnier way than me!
And last, but not least, the most recent blogger of all.......

Little Gymnast, of Gymnast fame on my blog, who at the tender age of nine has started her own blog, and writes and posts unaided. I know that she's mine, but what a star!
Enjoy.....

P.S I understand that this is a girl's own award. But, if no-one tells, I think that I will also include Meredic and Iggy and John G. Just for today, you understand, you three can be honorary girls. For the sake of the award only now, so don't go getting any ideas. We can't all be girls all the time.

On the island of the Forest of Dean

2007-07-26T09:37:00.000+01:00

Shhhhh..... in a rare moment in rain soaked summer holidays of not being needed by anyone to do anything, I've sneaked in to the computer room early enough for it not to be inhabited by teenagers or younger.

It's been an interesting few days......

ED and Sensible went to school on Friday morning. Both were finishing school for the summer at lunchtime.

Hubby left for work at around 8.30 a.m.

ED had planned to go out for the afternoon and bring some friends back later on as part of a birthday celebration. Sensible had planned to spend a caffeine filled afternoon in Starbucks with friends. ESOS, Gymnast and Tinkerbell Mushroom were at home, having already broken up from school.

All were expected home early Friday evening.

Then the rain started.

By the time the roads were seriously flooded and Sensible was on the bus home and ED changed her plans to stay overnight in Gloucester, Hubby, who had left work early so as to hopefully get home, was bravely facing the Malvern waters in seriously old car, only to be stopped by said waters with Noah's Ark style force. The only problem was that unlike Noah's Ark, or Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, "Old Car" did not look after him until safely home. Instead it stopped, dramatically, a few miles out of Malvern.

He had been on the road for three hours by this time and had gone no further than a couple of miles. His persisitence had only been so apparent due to Sensible being stuck on the bus out of Gloucester and looking as if she might be in for an overnight stay on a public bus.

Meanwhile I was stuck in the Forest of Dean, which often very nearly an island in its own right, actually became one, as all waters from all sides engulfed us with good measure.

Suddenly Gloucestershire, as far away from sea as you often get in England, was, to all intents and purposes, an island.

The only problem was, that Hubby was on one island in Malvern, Sensible and ED were on another island in Gloucester and we were on a third one in the Forest of Dean.

Looking bedraggled and seriously in need of kind charity, some lovely people took pity on Hubby and took him in for the night. The RAC who were off rescuing fifty thousand other cars
too weren't able to get to Hubby for a few hours.

Sensible walked in to the house 11.15 p.m. Amazingly, despite having sat on a bus for seven hours, having got off the bus a couple of times to use loos in people's houses and run back to the bus to get back on it again, despite having had no food in this time, she walked in as if she had just come home from school on the bus as normal....

Where did she get those genes?

Meanwhile, on the other end of the sensible or not teenage spectrum, ESOS still wanted to go and get Harry Potter from Waterstones’ at Midnight, in Gloucester…

"Mum, the roads are obviously clear enough to get through to Gloucester now", he said. Sensible got through."

It had been a planned event..... And he looked so sad...... And it had been a horrible few hours worrying about everyone.....

"I'll try" I said, as we piled into the car, knowing that the chances of getting more than four miles down the road were seriously unlikely.

Ten minutes later we turned back into our drive. The only problem was that as went to turn off the road, half on, half off, the car "cut out". With a dodgy fuel gauge and a tendency to run out of battery every so often, the combination does leave a little to be desired sometimes in automobile technology.........

Sensible, ESOS and I managed to push big heavy bus onto the drive, just inside the gates.

ESOS, being fourteen, was still disappointed about the excursion to fetch Harry P...

Now don't get me wrong, I had some sympathy, but it was wearing................ thinnish shall we say?

Next morning Hubby phoned the RAC again. "Call back at 2 p.m." they said.

2 p.m. "Sorry, it's going to be Tuesday before we can rescue you. Can you leave your car there, and we'll collect it and deliver it to your local garage?"

Having just got my car going again, by means of a petrol can, a jump start off ED's mini (Sitting on drive awaiting her driving lessons) and ESOS, who having got over the Harry crisis, seemed to be more knowledgeable about car engines than me, I went out. Braving the waters of Gloucestershire and Malvern, to nobly rescue Hubby, I took Gymnast and Tinkerbell Mushroom with me.

Half way along the route, the car stopped. Thinking that it was the same age old problem of needing jump leads again, I flagged down a passing motorist.

It didn't go.

I called Hubby whose saintlike strangers who had taken him in for the night gave him a lift to where I was. We tried to jump start it again. We called the RAC. Small children in the car. Half an hour they promised.

Said Goodbye to the Saint and waited.

A few people came by. Each one helped to try to jump start it. No chance. Car was clearly hot. Hubby tried clever things involving puddle water and stuff to replenish the parts that needed refreshment. No joy.

Four hours went by. I Spy, Number plate games and all the imaginable word games in the universe had run out....

As had the water. It had gone in the car along with some puddle water.

We were considering drinking the puddles.....

As it costs a second mortgage to call the RAC on a mobile phone (will someone PLEASE tell these people that we need a landline to call? It is ONLY the phone companies who are benefitting from the 0800 numbers) we called ESOS, who rang again. Eventually, after much persistence on his part, they rang me. "Sorry", they said. It will be another 8 hours or so at least. Can you make your own way home?"

Called friend (Headless Chicken's Husband), who performed a Knight in Shining armour rescue and got us home.

10.30 p.m. Saturday evening we arrived home, 38 hours after hubby had left for work the previous morning.

ED finally got home on Sunday, with our Harry Potter books. Meanwhile, seizing a very rare clear road moment and a willing friend's mother who came to collect her, Sensible had gone again... party at a friends house. Re-emerged four days later, having got through more floods with friend's mother this time.......

We did get a letter from the RAC today though.

Apologising for any inconvenience.

Will make sure that I tell them about the 0800 number nonsense though. Grumble, grumble.........

p.s. Other than losing two cars, and a few hours of worry, we haven't done too badly in all this really. The house is up high and our children are all safe....

There have been some real horror stories with all this weather. We do count our blessings.

Rained in and reading Harry!

2007-07-23T14:21:00.001+01:00

Back soon!

There are no rules to being utterly irrational when it comes to pets.

2007-07-18T15:47:00.000+01:00

MIL is visiting.

Selectively incontinent senile pacifist cat disgraces himself.

Again.....

In the children's playroom.

"You are going to have to take a managerial decision over this one", says MIL, whilst explaining to Tinkerbell Mushroom the dangers of toxocariasis.

MIL leaves to return home, and I go into deep depression. Well, yes of course I know the dangers of having an animal in the house who feels free to adopt certain rooms as his bathroom. And yes, I can see that it is purely selective, because he never "goes" where he sleeps or eats. And yes, I know that he was a stray that we adopted three years ago, that he didn't belong to us in the first place and that he isn't an ideal pet, or even proper cat material.

But he's a pet. And although I have always thought it absolutely bizarre that people become quite so attached to their pets, I suddenly begin to see their point.

There are no rules to being utterly irrational when it comes to pets.

Admittedly it was possibly a bit over the top of my mother for instance to go into full dress mourning for five years after the departure of our old English sheepdog. My Dad must have felt a bit left out really.

I ring my friend. She has two cats who live outside. They have a farm. She has said before that she would be willing to rehouse the pacifist cat, but when push came to shove I didn't have the heart, and so he stayed again for a few more months.

I pluck up the courage and I arrange to drop him off the next day. I tell the children , quickly squashing any ideas that it might be the type of farm that Phoebe in "Friends" parents use, and that they will be able to visit him.

The next day comes. It is ED's birthday.

"I need to see PC" she says, “before I go to school. To say goodbye."
Seizing the opportunity I say, "Would you prefer that he didn't go today?" I say. "I can rearrange it."

"Yes please she says."

Relieved, I phone my friend, and we rearrange the handover for Friday.

He's been good since Monday.

Yes. I know.

It's only Wednesday now. And it's not been raining. He's definitely worse in the rain. He doesn't like going outside in the rain. Trouble is that he won't use a litter tray either, unless its in a central area of the house that isn't cold or anywhere near any food or sleeping quarters.

But it's a bit of progress.

Maybe by Friday he will be completely cured of selective incontinence and will be able to stay? Maybe it will stop raining forever?

No.... I know.

Cat pee does smell. The dressing up clothes and hubby's trunk in which they were housed have been ruined. A dozen books have been ruined, not to mention Sensible's shoes and countless toys.

Hubby is not a cat lover. Actually he and his whole family hates cats. PC was a concession to that lifelong hatred. But he let us down. The contrary animal!

I fear that I will have to make that journey on Friday.

Happy Birthday ED!!

2007-07-17T09:16:00.001+01:00

ED is 17 today!

That is 17 on 17th of the 7th month of the 7th year!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ED!!!!!

Invasion!

2007-07-13T09:56:00.000+01:00

"I'll go up on the roof this evening and sort them out." Says Hubby.

I nip into the local town and and do my bit by buying some stuff that should work.

Call ED to tell her the news that although since she left this morning the house has become invaded by black and yellow mini monsters, mostly hanging around outside her window, that she doesn't need to worry, because Hubby is on the case and will have them gone in no time.

The location of the nest of said uninvited guests appears to be on the roof.

"He can't go up on the roof", she protests. "Mum. Tell him he can't go up on the roof."

Undeterred, Hubby climbs up onto the first level. Then onto the next bit of the roof. Then onto the top. I'm inside the house at this point.

My mobile rings.

Hubby.

He's fallen down I think. He's lying in the drainpipe with one leg still on the roof.

"Sal, can you come outside?"

"Why?" I say.

Yes, he has definitely fallen off, I think again. I know he has. From top to bottom, and now having managed to survive, he is paralysed, unable to move and needs me to get an ambulance.

I rush outside to see the extent of the damage.

No sign of Hubby.

"Where are you?" I call.

"I'm up here. On the roof."

I look up into the skies and there is hubby, a dot on the horizon.

Huge house with huge mortgage for huge family is three stories high of course, with 9 ' high Georgian ceilings.

It's a long way to the top.

"Can you just direct me to where that hole is? You know? The one in the lead flashing just above ED's window?"

I direct him.

He sprays generously telling all unwanted guests on roof to disappear forever and never come back to darken our rooftops again.

We agree that the job is done. I then go inside to wash the blood spots off my hands, while he climbs off the roof again.

Five minutes later, no sign of Hubby.

I'll call the ambulance first I think. That way it can be making its way here, and I'll waste no time.

Something stops me and instead I go outside again. Still no sign of Hubby anywhere.

Go to the front of the house. He's climbing down there.

Eventually he gets back down.

We go into the garden to inspect the progress of the departing wasps.

"I didn't mean that hole in the flashing", says Hubby. "I meant that one."

Pobol Y Cwm Wallpaper

2007-07-11T11:17:00.000+01:00

It was just another "drive everyone over the age of 12 to the next bus stop in dressing gown" day for hubby. Fortunately, my call wasn't until 11.30 a.m. in Cardiff, so I had time.

"So where are you going?" Asks Tinkerbell Mushroom.

"I'm going to be in Pobol y Cwm for the day." I say. "It's a Welsh t.v. programme."

"So will I be able to see you?"

"Hopefully" I say.

"So, I can watch you on telly, today?"

"No, not today" I say. "In a few weeks."

A look of disappointment crosses her face as, being not far removed from the age when you still think that the actors are inside the box in your living room, she had clearly thought that she was going to be watching me live on TV when she came in from school.

It makes me nervous having to be somewhere 50 miles away at a certain time. My driving, never very good, becomes erratic and, despite being a persistently late person, I allow so much time, leaving just as I dispatch the youngest two to school, that I arrive an hour early.
As I walk into the BBC Cardiff studios, I get the distinct impression of dèja vu. Remembering though that Torchwood and Dr. Who are made here, I feel slightly relieved.

That's why I think.

I sign in and explain why I am here.

"Do you know where to go?" Says the security guard?

"No", I say.

So they get a runner who runs me through a rabbit warren of corridors. I stare like a tourist at the in built street set, and then realise that I am supposed to look professional, and try not to look to obvious. Too late for that really.

Being an hour early I ask if there is anywhere I can get a coffee or tea while waiting. The runner directs me back to the restaurant. By reception. It is seriously touch and go finding my way back there, and on my way back to the green room I am even more at a loss, so I look pathetically at a couple of seemingly helpful types and get redirected back to the right place.

Not being a Welsh speaker of course, I couldn't actually say any lines even if the opportunity were there and so I am background, which in acting terms is sort of equivalent to being wallpaper. Of course, on actual paper you are referred to as an artist... A serious exagggeration!

In truth you are a tool that the artists use. Essential, but no more significant that a piece of moving wallpaper.

A few more wallpapers arrive and we all chat.

Then we get bussed out to a location.

Then we chat some more.

Then it's lunch time.

They haven't got to our bit yet. So, we are bussed back to BBC Cardiff, taken to the restaurant to eat lunch.

Then we get bussed back to the location again.

In the bus are some of the main characters. They all speak Welsh to one another, but if you ask them a question in English, they switch so easily that you feel highly inferior. In this little Principality are a whole nation of bilingual speakers, who over the years have occasionally got a little cross with the way we manage things here over the border, and we in turn have sometimes previously treated their Welsh speaking habits as a little bit of a joke. But in truth I am in awe. My O'level French is pretty poor and my German worse, so to hear people converse completely naturally in two languages is sickeningly admirable. Here, these people get directed by the director in one language, act in another, and speak quite happily in either.

I ask another Welsh speaking wallpaper, who has just asked a question in Welsh to someone else who was previously speaking English, how they know that that person speaks Welsh. I think it must have been by some form of telepathic communication, because there was nothing else to suggest otherwise.

"Of course, you understand that we switch to Welsh, so that we can talk about you, don't you?" he says. We all laugh, and it is funny, but the biggest laugh is on we English of course.

At about 3 in the afternoon, they say that they need someone to walk across the room in a dressing gown, this being a hospital location.

Practically gagging by now to do something, I volunteer to make myself look especially unsexy and do said job.

"Ooh very sexy" says one of the other wallpapers.

Very not of course. But I do my bit and am quite happy.

The strange thing about doing a job like this, is that for a whole day you are put in incredibly close proximity to people that you have never met before, and in a short space of time you get to know their entire life stories, warts and all.

I also discover that Pobol y Cwm means "People of the Valley". So at least I have learnt some Welsh for my day's efforts.

At the end of the day, like true luvvies, everyone kisses everyone else goodbye. Of course, we will probably never meet again, but it's sort of the way its done, so we do it before wending our way back up the motorway, avoiding the Heddlu with any erratic driving and back home again.

As we leave, one of the actors thanks us.

I have done a few bits of wallpaper work over the years, but I have never ever been thanked before by one of the main artists. It may seem a little thing, but bear in mind that these people are making this half hour show day in day out from 9 til 7 , 8 , 9 every week day of the year.

They see hundreds of wallpapers.

It was a small and unexpected gesture.

So nice and so charming...

It made my day.

Tart with the Strawberries

2007-07-04T09:22:00.000+01:00

"How did you lose your way going to Monmouth?"

Hubby looked at me with utter amazement at my latest prematurely senior moment. Monmouth is just 12 miles from where we live and a much travelled road. We sometimes use Waitrose in Monmouth as a disasterously expensive way to save cashflow when needs must, by using the small bit of flexibility on their very flexible storecard.

My mind had been on other things. I started driving through the tunnel at the other end of the dual carriageway, held my breath and put one hand up to hold up the tunnel, as you you do*, when I realised that there is no tunnel on the way to Monmouth.

Eight miles later was finally able to come off the dual carriageway, somewhere in the middle of Wales. Returned to Monmouth. Another eight miles. Then did as much of my shopping as I had time for - which was much less time than when I had started out of course - before returning to school, another twelve miles to pick up Tinkerbell Mushroom and Gymnast.

I had driven forty miles to do a weekly shop.

"So, anyway I 'm working tomorrow, and I've run out of time to make a cake, so please can you get two cakes for the Gymnast's birthday?" Ever mindful of the pennies (which is fortunate that one of us is, given that there are never any available at the beginning of the month, once huge mortgage for huge house for huge family has swallowed all finances in one gulp) Hubby questions the need for two. "One for her birthday, and one for her party."

The party has to take place on the Monday, as on the Sunday, her birthday, Gymnast, true to her name. has to perform in a gym competition. This means that I will be out for most of Saturday at work, and most of Sunday, at said competition, leaving no time available for making cakes. The gym that Gymnast attends is not renowned for good timings. If a competition is due to end at 3, that usually means 3 the following morning. The lady who runs it has only been doing it for 30 years so she needs a little more practice before she can get it right. Meanwhile, on competition days it's wise to keep the day clear of all other activities if by any chance you happen to have any other life.

So .............Hubby bought two cakes. One chocolate and one vanilla.

Very nice.

And then...........

We got home at 4 in the afternoon, after the gym competition.

So, we had the first cake and sang happy birthday.

Saddled with shock at not being stuffed into a hot gym for another twelve hours and having time for the guilt monster to trip in, I suddenly realised that really what I really really wanted to do was to make a cake for Gymnast after all. And, because it was a big guilt trip, it had to be a truly elaborate cake. Something really special.

And....we had some strawberries. So, what better on 1st July than to have a Tarte aux Fraises?

No recipes anywhere, even Delia couldn't oblige.

So onto the internet.

Found one.

In French.

Not quite trusting my knowledge of the language sufficiently to read it completely correctly, I used Google translate, which came up with the following method:

Tart with the strawberries
For the paste: put the flour, salt and butter in small pieces in a bowl. Exhaust end of the fingers. In another container, beat sugar and egg until the mixture bleaches. Mix the two preparations. Knead and make a ball. Let put back it 30 min with the refrigerator in a plastic film before using it. To preheat the furnace with 220°C (thermostat 7, 430°F). For the cream pâtissière: make boil milk. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with sugar. Incorporate the flour, then ebullient milk without ceasing whipping to avoid the formation of grumeaux. Give the preparation in the pan and bring to boiling, then let quiver 3 minutes with soft fire without ceasing stirring up. Add the vanilla extract. Pour in a bowl or a bowl and cover. Reserve for the refrigerator. Lower the paste to sink a tart mould 25 cm in diameter. Give 20 minutes to the expenses before making cook 10 minutes. Lower the furnace with 190°C (thermostat 5) and leave 15 more minutes. Let warm and unmould. Pour the cream cold pâtissière on the paste. Lay out the strawberries cut in 2 overcoats. Powder with sugar freezes and are useful immediately.

And.........despite the lack of furnace available, and having to use icing sugar instead of blocks of frozen sugar, and using my food processor instead of exhausting my fingers, it worked quite well really.

I put it on the table after dinner, feeling slightly smug at my brilliance of having made a magnificent Tarte aux Fraises.

At that moment, Hubby looked over to the Gordon Ramsay calendar which has sat on the wall since arriving free in the Sunday Times at Christmas.

Did you know that the July recipe is for a french tart?" He said.

And there it is indeed. Not a fishnet in sight, but a tart recipe nonetheless, written in perfect English.

*Family tradition when driving through any tunnel. Stops it falling down on you.

Happy Birthday Gymnast!

2007-07-01T23:45:00.000+01:00

Filling the gap!

2007-06-29T10:32:00.000+01:00

"So are you bringing a foster child home tonight then?" says Tinkerbell Mushroom.

No, I say. Not tonight.

"So where are you going?"

"We're going on a course to learn how to be foster carers." I say.

"And then we'll have a foster child living with us?"

"Well, yes, but it may take a while. A few months."

A look of disappointment crosses her face.

"I think that we should have an eleven year old child." Says Gymnast. "That would fill the gap."

"I'm not sure that it works quite like that" I say.

From the conversation you will gather that we are considering being foster carers. Yes, I know we have plenty of our own, but we also have huge house for huge family, and huge family is growing up, so there is room for someone who needs and wishes to live in our mad family for a while. Besides, my friend Jenny sent me a card when Tinkerbell Mushroom was born, with a comment along the lines of offering to make some dresses from curtains for me. So perhaps it's time to fulfil the prophecy a little more. We're still three short of the Von Trapp family.

Of course, to children, it all seems so simple, and to them it wouldn't be unreasonable to have one that happens to fit into gap that I carelessly managed to leave out when having five children. And they don't understand that a placement is not necessarily a long term one.

Some people may not consider that we have much of a gap. With five children ranging currently from 7 to 16 there wasn't much space for many more pregnancies in the 9 and 3/4 years. But, it is true, there are four years between Sensible and Gymnast, which being more than the "around two years or less gaps" of the others is in their perception "a gap".

We may of course do supported lodgings though for 16+ year olds. Something favoured by the fostering team as they have so few who are willing to go down this route.

"No" protested ED. "We want a little one." By little one of course, she means "baby" that she can dress up and take to the park.

"In a few years" says Hubby, "you can have your own babies to mother, but right now whoever we foster needs to be part of this family and will be placed with us because they need a home for a while."

"I don't think that ESOS would like the thought of another older teenager though." She continues. ESOS, being on a school trip away in France is not here to comment. So the jury can remain out on that one.

The one good though, is that although they all have some very interesting ideas and visions of said foster placements, not one of them has objected to the thought of sharing their lives with another.

Yet.

And in the meantime we are only a few weeks into the course. We need to be approved as a suitable foster family, and um ... if they do deem us suitable candidates, have the house approved too. Electrics, plumbing, heating...

Now that will be an interesting few weeks...

Parenting is very hard sometimes.

2007-06-27T16:22:00.000+01:00

Sometimes your children hold a different view to your own. As parents it is so often that we wonder if we made the right decision, and if we were right to stick to our guns. Tony Blair who as we all know is exiting the Government today, once said that being a parent is harder than being a Prime Minister.

In the case of the flood the other day, all three of my older children were more than a little upset that I had suggested that it would be safer to stay on the bus than to try to make their own way home.

Today, Hubby saw this on the Times website and sent it to me by email:

The others to die included Ryan Parry, 14, who was swept to his death in a swollen river in Sheffield while returning home on Monday. His father Chris said that the teenager phoned him after school to say the buses were not running and he would make his own way back.

Mr Parry told the Daily Mirror: "I've been over that short and sweet conversation 10,000 times. I can't think about it now. I'm in bits.

Sometimes as parents you know that you have made the right decision.

And when teenagers make their own decisions, it can go horribly wrong.

My heart goes out to the Parry family.

Noah! I did not plan it!

2007-06-25T11:08:00.000+01:00

Rain?

You've never seen anything like it. Well with the exception of my readers who live in the Tropics. You probably have. But for here. For June. It's bad.

It all started in the early hours of the morning. If I hadn't have known that I weren't, I may have thought, before I opened my eyes each time that the rain woke me up, that I might be camping. Our bedroom window was open, and it was that heavy persistent rain that just never stops.......

At 7.15 a.m. the three eldest leave on the bus for school. Sensible's school shoes are broken, so sensibly she finds another pair to put on. These have heels. Quite high ones really. Bus leaving. No choice.

At 8.30 a.m. ESOS phones.

There's a flood at Over. "We are getting off the bus and walking home." "Where are you?" says Hubby. They are around 9 miles from home.

"No don't" says Hubby. "Stay on the bus."

Big discussions follow concerning safety and flooding and drowning and heat loss and everything else on the matter. We believe they are all still on the bus, in a very big traffic jam, but dry.

8.40 a.m. ESOS phones. He has not got back on the bus and is in a friend's car coming home. Friend was in parents' car on way to school and spotted ESOS on other side of the road walking home.

8.41 a.m. More phone calls from the girls. Now very cross because ESOS ignored our advice, and they had run back to the bus. "I thought you hadn't got off the bus" says Hubby.

But they had. They had phoned us when they were on their way home.

They had then run back to the bus to re catch it. A mile apparently. Although the traffic was moving at around 2 miles per hour. So perhaps not quite...

Sensible is in high heels though, so it possibly seems a bit longer. Quite a lot longer.

Next hour. Hubby has gone to work first having asked me to keep him informed. I point out that he won't be here to receive cross teenagers on return home this afternoon. He looks sympathetic in that sort of helpless way and then goes.

Many more phone calls. Much hanging up from girls. All very cross. All our fault. Well mine probably.

Make note to self to put in word with "He on high" to not provide Noah's Ark style floods on school days please, due to inconvenience to children. And me.

Am trying to establish whether or not I can pick them up, but as the traffic jam is now several miles back and there are no alternative routes, the answer is "no". Try to point out the safety aspects to ED and Sensible. They remain cross.

9.30 a.m. ESOS arrives home. Settles in for a day of leisure. "Please could you do the dishwasher" I ask? (As I have important things to do like .........blogging

.......and, actually I do have some work to do which the rain won't wait for.)

"Oh Mum! Do I have to do all of it." "Yes" say I. "All of it! All five minutes of unloading and reloading!"

"All right, all right. There's no need to go on. I was only asking," says he who goes off on a school trip to Correze on Wednesday. It's not even a language trip. It seems to be a holiday. What a hard life these teenagers have.

Point out to ESOS that people die in floods and that it wasn't the best idea to get off the bus and try to walk 9 miles in the rain. "I'm a responsible person comes the reply."

Really?

More phone calls from ED and Sensible. Am seriously in the doghouse due to having allowed ESOS home. Try to point out that this was beyond my control. Closed ears. Firmly closed.

11 a.m. ED calls. Is in school. Not happy - but at least I know where she is. She is still very cross because I have allowed ESOS to come home.

??

11.10 a.m. Call Sensible's school.

She has arrived at 11 a.m. too. Ask if they will be allowed to return home early if flooding continues. School doesn't know, but promises to assess situation.

Meanwhile I await the inevitable argument between siblings this evening and the rant against me.

It's tricky sometimes being a mother.

Especially on those days when the rules change...........

p.s. If you see ESOS ED and Sensible, please tell them that I am trying my best.

Always!

The Secret Of The White City

2007-06-20T11:34:00.001+01:00

As we walked through cyber city to where we needed to go, it was an interesting awakening as to how it all worked. White City is the address and white it is indeed. The buildings and decor look vaguely reminiscent of the Big Brother set. Completely modern and scarily angular.

A far cry from the original White City that the site is named after.

It was 5 p.m. as we arrived, and so the building was being vacated by hundreds of staff, or so we thought. Everyone looked the same. All thin and wiry with girls who all had long hair and jeans with trousers that fitted them, but which would be too tight on your average person's Barbie doll.

As we sat down, I looked ahead. Through the window I saw a bar, where people were buying drinks and settling in for the evening. Needing to post a card for my father for Father's Day, I asked someone if there was a post box nearby. I was directed to a post office, which conveniently was placed on site, along with a Starbucks, a Tesco, a beauty parlour, hairdressers and a restaurant. I went back to ED and commented that no-one need ever go home. We decided that all they would need would be a sleeping bag and they could live and work there forever.

In fact, it was suddenly clear as to why the BBC is such a closed shop when it comes to getting a job. You clearly have to be born into the BBC Cyber Community. I think they must have a maternity wing on floor 10 and a retirement wing on floor 12. From here, they breed all their future BBC employees to provide the rest of us with the next generation of newscasters and BBC producers.

This is where they quite clearly get the ideas for the Dr. Who scripts. How ironic. So close to home and so far from the rest of the world.

ED and I decide to have a Starbucks at the on site facility, prior to returning home on the train. I notice that they have managed to get the same pricing structure through to to Cyber City and spend most of the next ten minutes in a daze at having spent £5 on a coffee, and orange juice and two biscuits. And they didn't even give me a china mug for my coffee.

We then went next door into Tesco to buy some sustenance for the train, where of course I could have bought 10 litres of orange juice for that same £5.

As we left Cyber City, we walked past many BBC employees having drinks on the lawns, settling in for the weekend. And then I had a sudden dawning.

I knew the reason why, despite 20 years of applying for jobs in the BEEB, writing to them, blagging interviews, doing voluntary stuff for them with the Action Desk, working on a Community station for three years, writing a newspaper column for three years, and doing professional voice overs for people, I had still not been successful in getting a job with old Auntie.

It isn't that I wasn't born into the community on Floor 10, or that my experience isn't relevant.

It's because my legs aren't thin enough. Not necessarily fat you understand, just not Barbie thin. Never have been. Of course, they won't let people know that that plays a part in their recruitment process. They couldn't. But I know. They can't pretend to me any longer.

And now, with that knowledge I feel so much better about life.

And if you happen to see Mark Thompson on your travels, do let him know that I've worked out "The Secret" won't you?

p.s. A card arrived this morning from Enidd, of, seemingly, another "White City", in Molvania. It took a while to reach me from Molvania, but it got here at last. It's the second one she sent, as the first one has got lost somewhere in postland. But it arrived just in time for Enidd to settle into the USA! Thank you Enidd! It was much appreciated.

Thank you Enidd!:

A picture of White City in 1908. This is the site that was used later for the BBC White City.

Guys and Gals

2007-06-18T16:17:00.000+01:00

I had a little bit of business at the White City BBC in West London. (Nothing exciting, and nothing to do with my voice overs I hasten to add.)

Ed (still on study leave) and I, went up together. The train journey up was somewhat overtaken by some "gals" from a certain famous girls school in Cheltenham that shall remain nameless, who took great pleasure in providing loud entertainment for all, in that cavalier sort of way that such "gals" do. ED had danced at their school a year ago, with Gloucestershire Youth Dance Company, as entertainment for part of a school event. I mentioned this to one of them, and so they took a very "little" interest in us in that very insincere way that some "gals" do.

Now, having been privately educated myself, hubby having been privately educated and having sent my own children to the same type of schools until the money ran out, I have come across quite a few "gals" in my time.

They often grow up to be "madams" of course.

Now don't get me wrong, my very best and oldest friends were at school with me, and they are two of the most "unlike that sort of girls" that you could ever meet, and I don't think that I am like that, nor are many of the children that I know from such schools, but............. there is a certain type of product that is sometimes produced from such establishments, and when exposed, it isn't always a very attractive one...

I remember once being asked to a school swimming gala when Sensible was at her private school. Parents were asked to take their daughters out to lunch if they wished. Sensible and I arrived in a cafe and sat down, next to another mother and daughter. It was just before Sensible's birthday party, and the young lady next to us was on the guest list. I asked the "madam" if the "gal" concerned would be joining us for the party, and, after accepting the invitation, she then went into conversation with another mother who had joined us at the table. "Come and join us over here" said the other "Madam". "So sorry" said the "Madam" on my table, but my friends have asked me to join them."

And they went to sit on a big table together with a big group of mothers and daughters, all the daughters being friends of Sensible's, and all due to come to our house to be entertained by us the following week.

Strangely, and I can't think why, this was one of those times when I wondered why we had nearly crippled ourselves providing such education for our children.

Still, back to the train and the "gals" from that famous school......

The said "gals" then asked ED where she went to school. They feigned ingnorance of said school's existence.

At this point I wanted to say.... Actually, you should know the school, because their results are consistently better than yours, and there are only five state grammar schools in Gloucester and Cheltenham all of which compete with your school and others for good places in the league tables...

I didn't. But I wanted to.

ED who frequently goes to parties with people from schools all over Gloucester and Cheltenham, including the "Ladies' College" as they refer to it, wrote me a note using her phone. Something about it being a status thing.

They then dropped in that they were going on "exeat". "So you'll be back Sunday evening then?" I asked. They did at least have the good grace to blush at their boarding school code having failed to confuse the onlookers.

On the way back we settled down on the train again, hoping for a peaceful return.

We were however to be entertained again.

Lads this time.

Although "lads" is possibly a polite word for these guys.

They were very noisy and "entertaining" in a "laddish" (read: polite form) sort of way and as we approached Gloucester, my head throbbed.

I mused that said guys were probably unlikely to ever meet with those "gals" and chuckled to myself that they were unlikely to have heard of the said "gals" college as well.

Which group were the most entertaining I am still not sure.

It did occur to me though that we of course are so amazingly normal.

Of course.

As for BBC White City, watch this space...

Hermione meets Dennis

2007-06-13T10:40:00.000+01:00

The phone rings.

It's ESOS.

"Mum, I've missed the bus from town. Can you collect me from Littledean at 3.35 p.m.?"

The phone rings again.

"Where's ESOS? He's not on the bus." Says Sensible.

"He missed it. He's catching the one to Littledean."

I am in the garden, trying to do theatre school admin. Beautiful summer's day but enough breeze to catch a few cheques from time to time. Run round the garden to pick up the cheques. Exercise, admin and fresh air in one. There's a bonus. Haven't quite finished by the time Sensible gets home and it's now time to collect Gymnast and Tinkerbell Mushroom.

Sensible arrives home and sensibly sees that I am busy, so offers to go across the road for the girls, leaving me just enough time to scoop up the last of the cheques from the garden and get in the car to collect ESOS.

ED is home already as she is still on study leave.

Back home again. I get everyone into the car. Gymnast hasn't cleaned her teeth. Out of car. Upstairs again. Downstairs to find to my horror one or two older children cleaning their teeth in the car and disposing of the toothpaste onto the path.

Just have time to get cross. Then leave.

Get stuck behind slow thing going up the hill.

Manage to take a couple of back doubles and slip into the dentist just a whisker earlier than hubby who drives from work.

We are called in en masse.

"They become more like a gang as they get older don't they?" says the dentist. "I notice that with mine, and I've only three".

Gang is a good description. Bigger, together and very much of a pack, they don't look like that angelic set of five tinies I had not so long ago. In the last few weeks ESOS, Sensible and ED all seem to have overtaken me in height and even Gymnast and Tinkerbell Mushroom seem to have grown.

We have the usual shuffling around of who is going to sit where on the increasingly small window seat. The dentist looks on with a mixture of amusement and resignation.

"Who's first he says?" Hubby opts for the chair first and as he lies down there is more kerfuffle from the gang, causing a very nice pot plant to topple over and crash on the floor. The pot is in one piece thankfully, but the surgery isn't enhanced by the ornamental pebbles all over the floor.

"Oh I'm so sorry" I say. "Have you got a dustpan? I'll clean it up." "Don't worry." says the amazingly cheery dentist. "We'll do it after you have gone." Along with whatever other mess we might leave, I think to myself.

ESOS hasn't been wearing his brace for the last few nights. No, correction, ESOS wears his brace only on very special occasions. The excuses vary as to why he is wearing it that day. Currently one of the clips on his teeth that holds the brace in place is a bit wobbly. Dentist look at the problem. "No, that's fine he says. You can carry on wearing that until you next see the orthodontist. Have you not been wearing it long?" "Well," I say. "He's worn it once or twice since he received it at Christmas." ESOS then gets much deserved lecture about how he will have to wear it forever if he doesn't wear it regularly. It's the same speech he has heard from the orthodontist and our friend who is a dentist. Is he listening I wonder, or is he thinking about anything else that teenage boys might think about. I suspect the latter.

As ESOS gets off the chair the noise increases and I need to talk about Sensible's appointment with an orthodontist for her teeth, which it has to be said, thirty years ago would have been considered absolutely perfect. Modern teenagers are less happy with that decision though.

I can't hear myself think.

I dispatch ESOS and Tinkerbell Mushroom to the waiting room.

Next minute ESOS is lifting up Tinkerbell Mushroom to the surgery window from outside. ED tells him in no uncertain terms that that is not acceptable behaviour, in a way that Hermione Granger would tell Dennis the Menace.

All the ones inside are now helping themselves to the water from the water machine.

"Right. That's it then says hubby. I think we are done." I see relief spreading over his face.

"Not quite" I say. It's my turn."

As we leave I thank the dentist. As we apparently have a clean bill of health there are no follow up appointments needed.

"So, hopefully you haven't got to see us for another six months then. I bet that's a relief."

He just smiles.

But we both know what that smile means.

Too many Mars Bars.

2007-06-08T12:16:00.000+01:00

I am still in my dressing gown when the doorbell rings.

The children have all gone to school and hubby has just left for work.

My blog calls. I need to see my comments.

I have a cup of tea in my hand. I am just engrossed in reading what people think about my Piers Brosnan lookalike doctor...

I answer the door.

"Oh, I am so sorry. I forgot.

Can you give me ten minutes?"

"No problem, they say." Realising that this is a large job, worth a lot of money, they are prepared to give me time to compose myself and at least clear the kitchen.

I throw myself into the dishwasher and throw the cereal bowls into the bath - or something - do a whistle stop tour of my make up bag and throw a cloth around the work surfaces in a wand like fashion.

The rest of the house still looks like a bomb site, but at least I can invite them into the kitchen.

Enter Mr. Gas Man one and Mr. Gas Man two.

I make coffee and try to look hospitable.

Of course, as we are talking about a new boiler, which means assessing all the radiators, they want to see the whole house. So we walk past very untidy piles on the stairs, very full washing baskets, many untidy piles of clean washing, into bedrooms with unmade beds. Well, some beds are made. Thankfully I seem to have a Pavlovian instinct to always make my own bed first thing as I get out of it, and by chance I made Tinkerbell Mushroom and Gymnast's when I woke them this morning.

Up to the top floor, to the teenage area. I am met with my worst nightmare. Towels and dirty washing on the floor, and rooms that look as if they have been ransacked by burglars. ED, who is still on study leave having just finished her AS levels is still asleep. ESOS's room is just too smelly to mention and even Sensible's room looks bad. Very bad.

"No you can't go into that room" I say, "my daughter is in there", steering them away from ED's room.

Is the loo flushed I wonder? Slip into the bathroom, quickly pick up four or five towels from the floor, flush the loo and close the lid.

Why do I prefer blogging to cleaning I moan to myself? When people come to the house I want it clean and perfect.

Although of course perfect is a relative term. When you need to spend vast sums of money on said house to make it come up to the standard of early 20th century modernisation, let alone early 21st century, it does leave much to be desired, even when at its cleanest.

We go downstairs. More coffee. I note to myself that despite being an addicted tea drinker, I drink too much coffee when other people are present.

They play computers for the next hour and a half and look at the cellar.

We need to relocate the boiler, because where it currently sits is now not legal. The cellar appears to be the obvious place.

Only thing is, that in order to place a flue on the exterior of the building, we need planning permission. And listed buildings consent.

"What happens if they deny it", I ask?

"There's nothing we can do. You will have to have electric heating."

So, let me get this right. The Government have decreed that all houses must be more efficient. But, to have efficiency we must move boilers to more efficient locations. If the Government department locally however says that the placing of your new boiler makes your building look ugly, then so be it, you can't have a new boiler there. You can't have it in its old place, because that is illegally inefficient, and so you are left with even more inefficient electric heating and hot water...

Gas Man one looks at me. "Are you over sixty by any chance?"

"Do I look over sixty" I ask.

"No, I just have to ask, because if you were, you would be eligible for a grant, and sometimes we are quite surprised by people's ages."

"I'm not over sixty." I reply.

"Would you like me to prepare the quote in Hubby's name?" He asks

"Why?" I say

"Because you will have to give me your date of birth if it's in your name."

"I don't mind giving you my date of birth." I say.

He's clearly convinced that I am hiding the fact that I surely must be over sixty. I mean, I do realise that I am no longer in my fist second or even third flush of youth, but I still have quite a few years to go before I become a silver surfer.

The quote to do our massive system is huge. Too huge for now.

What's more, placed on a finance system it would cost more than double that huge cost over ten years. In fact over one hundred and twenty months, you could probably buy forty thousand mars bars, and even more creme eggs Enidd will be pleased to know, with the amount that it will cost. Am thinking quickly as to how I can do 20,000 mars bars worth of voice overs or writing between now and September.

"That's a lot of money." I say. "We will have to have a bit of a think about it." Say I, making the understatement of the year.

So you don't want to sign up today then?

I look at him. There is a hint of amusement in his eyes I am relieved to see.

No thanks. I say.

Just then I see a small mouse appear in a hole by the old boiler in the kitchen, just near the cat bowl. First evidence of rodents for months. The pacifist cat, who obviously thinks that he should be retired, has clearly allowed said animal to share his food, instead of pouncing on him. I quickly bang a chair into place so that my two guests don't catch site of it, and make a mental note to deal with unwanted animal guest later on.

It scurries back into its hole.

I thank my other guests for the very large quote and wish them a good day.

Thank goodness it's still summer.

p.s. I now have my birthday photo back. As you can see, I don't look a day over sixty five.

p.p.s. Subsequently spent the afternoon having a serious clean and tidy up. House looks great. British Gas would be delighted. But we've now lost the dog's lead....

Flying in to see Piers

2007-06-07T10:20:00.000+01:00

Amazingly he doesn't keep me waiting.

Actually it was me who is a bit late. I set off from home at 8.10 for a 9.10 appointment, but with traffic looming on approach to Hereford I think I will do a clever back street thing, but (shh, don't tell hubby...), having a useless sense of direction I manage to end up back in the traffic again, not saving any time. Well.......I probably add a couple of critical minutes

Fly (the term is relative with wonky knee syndrome you understand) in at 9.11 and register. Has he arrived yet? I ask. "Oh no" says the receptionist, clearly taking it as par for the course that Piers works to his own schedule.

Grab a magazine and sat down, just as I see Piers saunter in.

The next second I am summoned!

Go to sit down in the "room" and prepare myself for a wait. Read three words and, shock horror, in he comes.

He has forgotten who I am of course, and has to look at his notes to remind himself of any details - but give the man a break, he sees lots of people with wonky knee syndrome. Fortunately for him though they probably don't all write about it in a blog.

He prods and pokes a bit until I say "ow". We agree that it is still tender in places and he then puts me on the list for an arthroscopy.

I've just got to wait four or five months for the appointment now, and then it will be sorted.

I look in dismay at the nurse who gives me the good news.

"That's quick" she says. "It used to be MUCH longer".

Go back to the car.

No change for the carpark.

No money. Had used last of the cash yesterday evening to pay for a competition leotard for Gymnast for a looming gym competition.

Go to the hospital shop. "Is there a cash machine in the hospital I ask." "No, but you can have cashback if you spend £5."

I look at the shop. Not needing pyjamas, emergency toiletries or a bunch of flowers I am at a loss to see where I can usefully spend £5.

I pick up a copy of "Hello", a treat I usually reserve for my occasional trips to the hairdressers.

£1.90.

I look around some more.

I find some felt tips for 99p which I can give to Tinkerbell Mushroom and the Gymnast and a birthday card for my nephew - his birthday is at the end of June.

Still not spent £5.

Find some notepads for Tinkerbell Mushroom and the Gymnast to save them availing themselves of my printer paper on a regular basis.

Go to pay, get £20 cashback.

Place note in to the machine.

£1.50 parking charge.

Eighteen one pound coins return to me in change, and one fifty pence coin.

Good job I have a large handbag to carry all that metal.

Happy Birthday to the 80 year old tap dancer!

2007-06-04T12:17:00.000+01:00

We set the alarm for 6 a.m. It was more than a two hour drive to Bedford and we needed to get there early to help.

At 8 a.m. I woke with a start. We flew round the house, threw three puddings, a joint of pork, a pasta salad, five children and various jackets (NOT TOO CLOSE TO THE FOOD PLEASE) into the car.

ED was not too pleased because she had to leave with half wet hair.

No-one could decide whether it was hot or cold on the journey, so the windows flew up and down like there was no tomorrow, causing enormous angst amongst young girls who wanted their hair just so, and angst amongst boys who wanted the temperature just so.

Well actually the angst was only between one boy and one girl, ED and ESOS, who, to deliberately understate, could be said to not always be the best of friends.

It was a fraught morning. Hubby took a wrong turning, which as it turned out was a right turning, because we had to do a pit stop for fuel, and had we taken the proper route there were no pit stops available.

We had planned to arrive at 10. We arrived at 11.45, just three quarters of an hour before the big moment.

As she walked round the corner, I suddenly felt very emotional.

The party was full of old friends. People I hadn't seen for twenty, thirty and in some cases almost forty years.

Age is a very strange phenomenon, because the ageing process affects people so differently. Once the initial moment was over for instance, my own mother was drinking plenty of wine, socialising, and enjoying herself just as she always does. As the only 80 year old tap dancer that I know, she still knows how to party like an average thirty year old. Being an afternoon garden party, not many were dancing, by my parents did of course when my niece sang, because they have always danced and always will. In fact the atmosphere probably wasn't much different to a party held for a thirty year old.

Many of my parents' friends are similar socialites, and are young for their age. One or two are less young now however, and I think that one lady had completely forgotten that my parents had ever had a daughter. She certainly didn't remember ever having met me, despite my being able to recount a visit to their house as a child.

As the afternoon wore on I remembered a phrase that my father said many years ago. My father often comes up with little sayings that are worth quoting. Many of them funny and often very sage. In this particular case it was: "People don't change with the years. They just get older." Which, for the all the while that we still have our wits about us, is so very true.

And later, as I lay in bed, waiting for the events of the day to mix with my dreams I started recalling snippets of conversations from the day. As I remembered the conversations, I remembered the people who were talking to me.

In my memories though, these people were not in their seventies and eighties. They were all as I remembered them as a child. I could hear them saying the words that they said at the party, but, no matter how hard I tried, I could only see them as I would have seen them twenty or thirty years ago.

Hubby has often said that he would like to do away with cameras, and my father has always said that the memories of the mind are the best. Our own camera made it out of the house in the morning, but seemed to like the new car, so decided to sit in it all afternoon. So, we will have to wait until someone emails us a picture before I can share the day pictorially with you all.

But in the meantime......

Happy birthday to my beautiful and brilliant tap dancing mother.

(Photos added with thanks to my eldest brother, who read my blog and sent them through! My Mum is the one in the black and white dress!)

Buying the Bus

2007-06-01T11:07:00.000+01:00

We had to change our car.

Well actually, to be more precise, we had to sell the family car to pay a bill, back in March. The people who wanted the money refused to accept Hubby's body and were threatening to sell our teddy bears, being the only thing of any value, in huge house with huge mortgage for huge family. At the time I couldn't drive anyway, due to wonky knee syndrome. So by the time that I was able to drive again, I was left driving a mini that I was borrowing from ED, who had bought it for herself, to learn to drive, from her "Orange" earnings. It's a lovely car. For four people. But, as I have five children, we were a little short of spaces. As such, even to drive a few miles with the whole family, we had to take two cars. And given that hubby's car has, as you all know, very high mileage, even that was a bit dodgy...

So, last week we finally took the plunge and bought a seven seater bus style car off EBAY.

We got a good deal.

A very good deal. It had been written off by an insurance company, because of a dent in its tailgate. It only had 72000 miles on the clock, and due to its "written off" status was for sale at approximately half the market value.

So, a week ago hubby and I went down to Devon to collect said car.

"You'll have to get it re registered by VOSA" said the dealer. It does have to be said at this point that "dealer" is possibly a bit of a euphemism, when buying a "write off", with grubby five pound notes, from someone in a yard behind a locked gate...

Especially when as a sideline they do "storage". I did wonder momentarily what was inside the storage boxes on the land.

And so the challenge began. We had no idea who VOSA were, let alone, how to go about sorting through the system. We had a deadline though. We had to get the car into a legal state by this Sunday as (shhh, don't tell her if you are reading this and you know her...) we have a surprise BIG birthday party for my Mum, in Bedford, at my brother's house. So, in order not to drive two cars to Bedford, with five children, three puddings, a joint of pork and a pasta salad, one car being a fifteen year old mini and one car having over 200k on the clock, it was essential that we got the big car re registered.

Hubby drove down to VOSA, who turned out to be the vehicle registering people, in Bristol, on Tuesday. They had promised us the previous Friday that they would let us do the necessary paperwork on Tuesday, and come back on this Friday to get it registered.

Unfortunately, when hubby got there it was a different man. He'd just been on holiday. Clearly not a good holiday as he was in a bad mood.

"NO."

He said.

"No, No No. I can't help you."

The earliest date he was prepared to offer was next Monday, 4th June.

Hubby rang me.

"Can I ring him?" I said. Hubby seemed to think that it would be futile, but gave me the number nevertheless.

I pleaded charmed, cried, acted well, and sure enough got a date for the car being tested against the possibility of fraud, theft and actually being a car at all, on Thursday at 9.40 a.m.

I rang hubby back, feeling a little smug. Hubby was actually standing in the vast office (three people) with the man, whilst I made the phonecall, so he knew the outcome already...

The man then went away to check out the current status of the car, before officially booking it in for Thursday.

Two minutes later he came back. "Who told you that you needed to do this?" he said to hubby.

"The dealer."

"Well, you don't. The car hasn't been written off yet. You just need a form X1 gobbledygook to fill in, to get a new log book, as opposed to X2 gobbledygook and you'll need to go to the the DVLA office to get it taxed."

So, with this knowledge on board, on Wednesday, Hubby had a work meeting in Bristol, just next door to the DVLA office. After the meeting, he ventured in there armed with form X1 gobbledygook, insurance information (policy document hadn't arrived in post as yet, but policy number was available and car was insured) and the MOT certificate.

"No, sorry." We can't tax it, because you haven't got your insurance document.

"But you know that it's insured said Hubby, because here is the policy number, and you are the DVLA. The number is on your database. We just haven't got the piece of paper in the post yet, because we only bought the car last Friday."

"Sorry, I can't access that information. That's in the Swansea Office" said the DVLA in Bristol.

"Can you not call them and ask them?" said Hubby.

"No, we are not allowed."

"Can I drive to the Swansea Office to get it taxed there?"

"No, we don't offer a counter service in Swansea!"

This time, perhaps a little embarrassed by my performance for the VOSA office, Hubby didn't call me until he was clear of the building.

So............

On to the insurance company, who for a fee of £4 more promised a cover note in the post by recorded delivery on Thursday, the normal delivery time being five to seven working days. (Why did they not offer me that in the first place? I asked. Because it was an extra £4. DID THEY NOT THINK THAT I MIGHT NEED THE DOCUMENT FOR A REASON?!)

On to the DVLA in Swansea to find out where the nearest agent is to here and to establish that IF we got the cover note to them along with form X1 gobbledygook and MOT certificate they would definitely allow us to tax the car there and then....

Was told that there was an office in Kempsey, just a stone's throw away from Hubby's office and that yes they would.

Hubby waited for the post to arrive yesterday morning before setting off for work......................

And yes.

We now have a fully legal and taxed car.

I hope that it's a good party.

p.s. Talking of parties and stuff: Root for Enidd in the Big Blogger House!

Found it! (Sally interviews Katie Fforde)

2007-05-28T13:56:00.000+01:00

Following a comment from Miss Lionheart, I remembered that a few months back I interviewed Katie Fforde on my radio show.

I promised that I would link try to find it and link to it.

Well......I found it. You can listen here.

And if anyone is interested, I have an interview with Neighbours actor Alan Fletcher (aka Karl Kennedy), which I know I can find, and one with Ron Moody of Fagin fame from the 1968 film of Oliver..but I'm not too sure where I've put that one......

The Guilt Minister

2007-05-25T09:27:00.000+01:00

I sometimes wonder if there is a guilt minister hidden somewhere in the Government?

The latest report for women to avoid all alcohol during pregnancy will undoubtedly ruffle a few feathers.

When pregnant with ED, being new to the whole thing and feeling very puritanical about how it should all be done, I didn't drink at all. In fact my GP had advised me that it was perfectly safe to have the odd glass, and would much rather that than a "binge". Did I look like the sort that might I wondered?

She also advised me to take a multi vitamin and mineral supplement each day, and to eat liver once a week - for the iron!

ED was I am glad to say, born unscathed, and then by the time I was pregnant with ESOS I was a bit more relaxed about things. The Government were less relaxed by then though, and although it was still acceptable to have the odd glass of wine, on the banned list, as well as not being allowed uncooked eggs, I also wasn't allowed any pate, soft cheese ............ vitamin supplements or liver.

In those days life was a bit easier, financially, and as we lived near London, we were quite often invited to nice things to do whilst wearing tent like maternity contraptions. (Fashion for pregnant women hadn't been invented then).

One day, at a nice summery outdoor event, I, many months pregnant, was offered a glass of champagne. Taking the advice of my GP, that moderation was fine, I drank it. Unfortunately though (well actually, when the day of reckoning comes it may turn out to be fortunate) I have low blood pressure, so, coupled with pregnancy, a glass of champagne and a hot summer day...I fainted..... and ended up in the St. John's Ambulance tent.

"Have you drunk anything?" they asked.

Oh no. Instant guilt. "Yes", I admitted. "I had a glass of champagne."

"It's all right", she said. "That's fine. It's just that the champagne will have lowered your blood pressure a little, that's all..."

Phew. I was off the hook. I remember having one more glass of wine during that pregnancy at a friend's house, feeling the effects of lowered blood pressure almost immediately, and then not drinking again until after ESOS was born.

For the other pregnancies, the list of "don'ts and do's" was by then so long, that I ignored all advice and went back to remembering what my first GP had said to me: Everything in moderation. I never wanted much alcohol whilst pregnant, and if there were a function or party to attend, I tended to take a glass of wine and just sip it very slowly throughout the evening.

However, as for staying off alcohol whilst planning to have a baby, I can't say that I was quite so good, and from personal and other people's experiences, as far as I understand many a fine baby is conceived whilst under the influence.

For.... dear Government, health minsters, guilt ministers and all others at Westminster, please do understand that not everything is planned to the nth degree all of the time.

Some of us, just sometimes, act on impulse.

But.......moderated impulse you understand.

Sally thinks!

2007-05-24T13:04:00.000+01:00

I'm currently procrastinating.

Being a woman, I'm supposed to multi task, but sometimes, due to having far too many different things to focus on and multi task about my brain goes into overdrive and freezes. I think it effectively crashes, and then intead of doing the twenty things on my list, I do none.................

So, when all else fails, I write my blog. It's the one thing in my life that I can do with certainty. It may be nonsense that I produce, but I can guarantee that there is always a constant stream of words waiting to be written, however banal.

Now, what I'm hoping is that by writing my blog, I can start the day rolling properly and uncrash the system........

Well, it's worth a try, and it keeps the blog posts rolling!

In the meantime, Alice Band tells me that there are some more awards lurking around and waiting to be given out?

Awards are an interesting phenomenon aren't they? The first time that I saw a set of these awards I got really excited. REALLY EXCITED. Convinced that I would be spotted, swept up and flown out to some exotic location to pick up an Oscar eqivalent of a writing award, I eagerly awaited for my name to appear on the list............

Well.... we can all dream.

In truth though, it seems that most of these awards are dreamt up by people in their back rooms, and come with a prize of a packet of biscuits. And what's more, there appears to be an "in club" of bloggie people who feature on those lists and are then voted for by other people in the elite club.

I remember "in gangs" from School, then University and even work places.

I'm probably quite proud to say that actually I've never been one of the "in gang". Well at least not part of someone else's "in gang".

And you know, to be absolutely honest, until someone comes up with a set of blog awards that are akin to the the Whitbread Award, with proper prize money, that are judged and awarded by complete outsiders, then frankly it isn't really worth an awful lot....

Now, I am going to potentially risk making myself very unpopular here - possibly..........

But.......Petite Anglaise received a publishing deal before a blog award. Now, would you rather have a packet of Bourbons and the approval of 50 people who all know each other, but who have the ability to vote several times from their computers, or would you rather have "Penguin" publishing your book? Personally, I do often find her entertaining..........but I don't need the approval of a blog award to tell me that, any more than I need Oscar nominations to tell me that a film is worth viewing.

Johnny B, who categorically appears to dislike, and constantly writes about how boring he finds babies, and yet is a stay at home Dad - to his baby (!) - seems to win countless nominations for awards. Now call me odd, but my old English teacher used to say that a joke is only funny once. And so, I'm sorry Johnny B, but I think that your joke has been overplayed and for me enough is enough. You are no longer on my blogroll, and in my humble opinion your writing is less worthy than others on the net................

And as for One Track............. Well, we all know why THAT is popular, don't we? And ironically, now she knows that her Mum and possibly her old English teacher is reading, she has felt the need to tone down the content. Anonymity only goes so far in the blogging world. In fact, I recently saw her real name and photo published in the national press, and I think that I was acquainted with her brother at university. Not wishing to blow her cover further I emailed her, privately.

But not being part of the in club, she didn't reply..........

Maybe she isn't my friend's sister. Who knows? But, as my good old Dad has always said.......... "Make friends on the way up Sal, you may need them on the way down." So if you happen to come across this "One Track".......... why not drop me a reply? You never know, I may just be one of those people that you meet on your way back down....

With me, what you see is what you get.

I'm not going to write about my sex life, because my children, my mother and my mother's friends read this and anyway it's not my style. I don't do that.

I will though write about my children, my life and my hassles with financial institutions. And fortunately I have plenty of that stuff to write about!

And on that note..... will the call centres who keep calling me at 8 a.m. on my Stage School line please bear in mind that actually I do have a life other than dealing with calls from, and writing blogs about, call centres, and that if they want to call me during office hours I will tell them then that I do NOT WANT whatever it is they trying to sell me.

p.s. Have just had a sales call from Ben, from The Money Group:

"Is Mrs. Lomax available please?"
"Who's calling please?" (Say I)
"It's Ben from the Money Group."
"Yes, she is Ben, but she's not available to talk to you."
"BYE." I sing, as I put the phone down, uttering a very impolite word under my breath...