The Brocante Home Chronicles.

To Work Or Not To Work?

"Daily to a profession- paid thinking

and clean hands. She rises

Unquestioning. It's second nature now.

The hours, though all of daylight, suit her.

The desk, typewriter, carpet, pleasantries

are a kind of civilisation, built on money,

of course, but money, now she sees, is human.

She has learned giving from her first chequebook,

intimacy from absence. Coming home

long after dark to the jugular torrent

of family life, her smile

cool as the skin of supermarket apples,

she's half the story. There's another woman

who bears her name, a silent, background face

that's always flushed with effort.

The true wife, she picks up scattered laundry

and sets the table with warmed plates to feed

the clean-handed woman. They've not met

If they were made to touch, they'd scald each other."

(From Two Women by Carol Rumens.)

 

I have a dilemma.

The other day, browsing through the oh so very local paper, I saw a job advertised in a tiny little interiors company I adore. A job I could do. A job demanding experience in everything I've got too much experience in. A job I would be good at. A job that pay's regular money. And bonus's and commission... in a shop with chandeliers and oodles of gingham.

And there is a little piece of me that wants it badly. A little of piece of me that says How often do jobs that are made for you crop up locally? (Actually twas the man I adored as a teenager who said that, but lets pretend it was my sensible side. The side of me that says: Your little boy hasn't got a proper tv. There is a HOLE in the kitchen lino! What are you going do about it Big Lick?? Write your heart out and hope your fairy godmother is feeling generous? ) 

Oh no, oh no, oh no.How very awfully terribly dull. I was hoping I didn't have a sensible side.

The thing is this: at the risk of offending the entire female working population,there is a bit of me that thinks that  choosing to be a full time working SINGLE (and there's the rub) mommy is MEAN. That is more noble to be the self sacrificing full time Mommy than it is, even as a single mother, to be able to provide for the child concerned, or at least to be able to provide decent shoes as well as constant attention, without relying on the man who chose not to live with us to keep a roof over our heads, (while I remain creatively satisfied and secretly kinda smug about dancing to my own tune)...  

My reasoning behind all of this is deep rooted and the whole matter throws up all kinds of yukky things I don't want to think about.

Firstly it asks me to redefine my entire image of who I am: essentially somebody who has the opportunity to make a really rather amazing life for herself and chooses not to. The woman with the agent desperate for her to write the book he knows she has in her. The woman (I wanna be a girl!) who when all is said and done is scared of who she is and more than that- scared of who she could be, so sabotages herself on a daily basis. She who is (whisper it) a bit lazy...

Secondly it challenges my frankly absurd moral stance on parenting: a stance I formed as part of a couple. Not as a single mother who owes it to herself and her son to be independent. To not be reliant. Or worse beholden. Because I don't want to be beholden. Not any more.

And thirdly it asks me to recognise that things change. Situations change. (Isn't that a scandal?). The future changes shape and occasionally life asks you to bend yourself out of a shape a little bit to make a world less challenging than the one you currently endure. If only temporarily. If only so that you give yourself the time and space to re-invent the future. To challenge the status quo that is your own stubborn mind-set. To give yourself the freedom, even if that only means the financial freedom, to unpick the ties that bind us to situations we should no longer have to endure. Situations that are essentially curtailing a promising future... 

Damn it. Such terribly reasonable reasoning.

But what about the fact that new kitchen lino ultimately equals one child in breakfast club and after school club? What about the fact that taking this job would mean harassing all sorts of people for babysitting duty and school runs, at least in the short term till Finley starts school in September? What about the fact that the idea of being only "half the story" whether I'm at home or at work might possibly break my heart? What if Finley develops abandonment issues and still lives with me when he's 43 and carries a Roy Cropper shopping bag whenever he ventures out the door? What about the fact that I might like who I am in working garb and end up not recognising myself on a daily basis? What if I abandon all my carefully chartered ambition and start living for my lunch time tuna sandwich?? What if I sell my soul to a devil disguised as a shop full of Gustavian furniture to die for???

Maybe I like my life. This relative poverty thing is strictly bohemian after all... a choice. A way of life I enjoy, with coffee.

Lordy see how good I am at talking myself out of things? I do this at the supermarket. I fill the basket with things and by the time I've got to the till it's empty again and I walk out with a single banana and a magazine, and then get myself home and beat myself about the head with a big stick because I've put the tea-bags I really needed back on the shelf.

Oh heavens I'm going round in circles aren't I?  Throwing question marks around like confetti..

Help wanted. Apply with sensible advice within.

Finnicisms

The problem with raising a child like Finn is that it is, all at once, enlightening, heartbreaking, hilarious and more often than not, downright bloody exhausting. While I can just about cope with the fact that he spends his days bouncing off the walls while other children colour in sedately and wonder where their next bag of sweets is coming from, dealing with his almost relentless questions and correcting his oh so innocent but slightly bonkers theories on everything from what kind of sofas people from China prefer to why "stupid" doesn't count as a swear word, quite frankly takes up more brain space than I've got spare, occasionally makes me splutter and once in a while makes me splash tears all over his gorgeous little face...

Take these three fine examples of four year old logic...

 

Number One.

Oh my God! This queue is huggge...

Finley!! Don't say Oh my God! It's very, very naughty.

Oh my God Mummy, calm down, it isn't naughty at all.

Yes it is Finley, it is outrageously naughty.

Oh my God Mummy, don't be so silly, it just means I'm a friend of Jesus...

 

Number Two.

Mummy where do babies come from?

We've talked about this Finn, Mummies and Daddies give each other a special hug and that's how the babies are made.

I knnnnnooooow that! But I don't know what you mean. How is it different to a normal snug?

Well Sweetie, these special hugs are only something grown ups do, so you don't need to worry about it yet...

Ok, but Mummy?

Yes babba...

Do the Daddies ever come behind the Mummies and surprise them with a special hug...??

 

Number Three.

Mum don't you think it will be sad when we don't know each other anymore?

Baby we will always know each other. I'm your Mummy and your are my little boy.

Yes but when I've grown up and I'm a man you won't recognise me will you?

Oh Finn, that isn't how it works, I will see you grow up, so I will always recognise you...

Yes but Mummy?

What Son?

Will you understand me?

Be Grateful For Small Mercies

At this stage we don't think it is meningitis. At least not yet.

You shudder. It is cold in the hospital. Your little boy is curled up on the bed blotchy and exhausted from vomiting and a temperature so high you could scramble an egg on his tummy. It is a virus they say. That catch all phrase for we have no idea what is wrong but we think he will survive it without our intervention. You can take him home but come straight back if he deteriorates please.

So you wrap him up in a blanket and tuck him into bed, then spend the next seven days watching a violent magenta rash explode over different areas of his body limb by limb. Though it is a truly awful thing to say and perhaps one of those things Mothers are not allowed to feel,  you quite like it when he is sick. It seems to call upon your deepest instincts to make his world alright. It reduces the universe to your living room, just you and him and lots of restorative chocolate buttons. But his ordeal isn't over. There are two hours of an occupational therapists observations to endure yet and a blood test at the Coeliac Clinic before the week is out. Your heart aches for him. For his determination when asked to demonstrate his his fine motor skills and the shock on his face when a women in oh so much fake tan jabs a needle into the crook of his arm and sprays his precious blood across the room.

I'm sorry baby, you say. I'm so so sorry. And hope with all your heart that he forgives you. Though you who are obliged to teach him how, struggle to forgive yourself. One day he says "Me and Daddy took flowers to the lady in the red car" and your tummy sinks. You know who the lady in the red car is. That when he took your son to buy flowers for you on Mothers Day, Daddy also bought her some and in an effort to win her back, pulled out his trump card, a little boy so gorgeous he could melt the hardest, snarliest of hearts.

You can't forgive him that. No-one would expect you to. Though had he asked if he could take Finn to meet her, perhaps now you might have said yes. You've seen the hurt on his face and the stupid, relentlessly forgiving part of who you used to be, still wants to make his world alright. To win her back for him. Her with the nasty green eyeshadow. You worry about yourself.

And so the week ticks by. A melody of  anger and frustration. You make yourself beautiful. Night after night you apply rose scented cream to your face and rub chamomile balm into the cracked soles of your feet. And for what? For yourself? For the man you will sit next to at the weekend? Another shooting star landing in your lap...

You buy cerise underwear sprayed with frilly lime green lace. Parade around your bedroom in it and feel lovely for a while. You eat sushi till it comes out of your ears and stare at the bruises on your legs. You are always bruised. Your legs speckled like corn beef. You drink tea with this new man and hope that he is what he says he is. Because for sure as hell, you aren't.

The souls of your feet are cracked.

Blotch.

The joy just never ends.

If you will pardon my french it's the bloody boilers fault. I blame the boiler. I do. If I didn't have one I wouldn't need the constant attentions of the local plumbers dilly dallying with my pipes and costing me a fortune in the process. When I was just on the verge of signing back up for broadband and finally rejoining the land of the living the boiler dies and £150.00 later I no longer have goose pimples nor any real hope of an internet connection at home in the very near future...

Now I'm not one to moan (much) but indulge me regardless. Aside from the boiler nightmare yesterday Finley woke up with the blotchy horror that is Scarletina, because being a vintage kinda Mommy I insist my son only suffers from old fashioned horrors like mumps and such like and say pah to chicken pox and the common cold...

So my day went to pot. The boiler went pop.  And then we went to the doctors.

I'm off to put my head in the oven. Have a lovely weekend.x

Animal School

Thank You Darling Polly.

By Ten 0'Clock In The Morning

Monday morning. Another round in the whirligig of life. Lie in bed listening to lorries thunder by. Decide to be the kind of woman who gets up early and snuggle down futher under a rose strewn quilt. Worry for a while. Banishing each individual worry to the back of your mind while stroking a foot up your left calf and finding it decidedly hairy. Hairy legs feel nice. Debate starting a fashion. Yawn.

Get up. Walk to the bathroom and stare in astonishment at half an eyebrow where a whole one used to be. Decide to be the kind of woman who attends regular professional beauty treatments while drawing in the rest of your left brow with a kohl pencil. Smudge it and quickly lose interest, taking a moment to re-fold a pile of immaculately folded creamy towels. Wonder why your babba hasn't got out of bed yet. Creep downstairs in princess nightie and shabby pink cardigan and make a milky vanilla coffee and drink it standing up in the quiet dark kitchen. Dwell.

Stand in front of list for today and add three more must be dones. Spend five minutes rubbing at a purple stain on the cream kitchen counter then find yourself consumed by panic. Why isn't he up yet? Run up the stairs two at a time and stand breathless by his bed watching his little chest rise and fall and running a hand across his warm little cheeks. Smile at him. Pick him up and carry him sleepy down the stairs to a cosy armchair and a cup of hot milk. Refuse to allow Noddy to disturb the peace and allow it to be disturbed instead by childs wails of rebellious anguish. Escape.

Hide in the kitchen. Make tiny slithers of french toast for him and swallow down pineapple probiotic yourself and feel virtuous for all of a minute.  Pack library bag. Pack school bag. Dress in crisp white shirt and nectarine coloured wool vest. Apply copious amounts of gloss in an effort not to scare your public.  Shove child into car. Run back into house to blow out candles. Resolve to be the kind of woman who doesn't have to call the fire engines more than once a year. Drive.

Park. Wave at traffic warden through gritted teeth. Say hello to Mommies in big black cars. Wonder at the repitition that is all of our lives. Choose a new nursery library book: No, Said Joe. Agree to have lunch with a passing Mommy. Look down and find sobbing child attached to your leg. Offer him the heart shaped locket with your picture in you carry for such emergencies. Wipe extremely snotty nose. Lead him to sandpit. Kiss him and run out leaving his screams behind you. Grab passing man and ask him to go see if child is still on the verge of a breakdown. Reassure teacher that there is nothing wrong at home and that this is a new game. Bite back tears. Nod when man tells you child is laughing uproariously at small girl dressed as a dragon. Thank man. Cry.

Drive to local council office. Demand to see someone. Shout about incompetance. Stamp your feet a little bit. Apologise. Go and sit in car and ring Mum. Moan a lot. Laugh a lot. Agree life is a bucket of old nonsense and go and buy box of cakes oozing with cream for lunch with nursery Mommy. Listen to Pina Colada on an old radio channel in the car. Sing loudly all by yourself. Feel strangely content. Feel mildly exhausted and head to library to your new friends: old men who google aeroplanes and the second world war. Feel mildly intoxicated by old man in delicious aftershave. Get a grip of yourself. Fire up the machine and write about your morning, fingers whizzing across the keyboard. Wonder why. Feel mildly appalled at your self indulgence. Tell yourself it is writing practice, spoken out loud. Because you are living out loud. Decide to be the kind of woman who has something to say. Giggle.

The One With The Nail Stuck To My Nose

"You may not be beautiful, clever or rich but you can change your life using the lost art of charm". So says a delicious re-edition of the 1938 classic "The Magic Key To Charm" and so being neither clever, nor beautiful and very definitely not rich I devoured this lovely book in  one sitting and resolved to re-invent myself as the last word in elegance...

Cue raucous laughter.

See the truth is it is so very very difficult to charms one's way through life when quite frankly you have got bigger fish to fry than making yourself desirable to those daft enough to imagine you are a really rather spellbinding combination of Jam and Jerusalem and Sex In The City, when you are more Hilda Ogden than you will ever be Carrie Bradshaw.

But still these men persist in trusting everything I say.  In truly believing I am  capable of sexual acrobatics over home cooked Cordon Bleu. Seeing the pinny and stiletto combination and reading the promise of apple pies and suspenders.   God love them and their simple hopes and dreams. God love me for entertaining them.

So Friday night I invited another likely specimen over for dinner.  I've known him a while and he's terribly nice. The kind of  decent nice I usually run a mile from.  The kind of decent nice  that makes me feel so nervous I run to the toilet five hundred times before he rings the bell.  Mum would approve nice. You are definitely growing on me nice.

I invited him. Texted him the menu before he arrived. Got my son bathed, pyjamed and  bedded in good time.  Polished the cracked lino, lit a billion candles and prepared the food so  thoroughly  nothing, not-a -thing  could go wrong.  And then  ten minutes before he was due to ring the bell I sat down to glue on my nails, catch my breath and you know, wallow in my nerves. Now some days I manage the whole nail glueing thing with aplomb. Some days I could  be  manicurist to the stars  so professional am I with a pink file and a false fingertip. And then there are the days when I'm all fingers and thumbs. When said date is irrationally early and is knocking on my door when my left hand is all french pearly lovely and my right hand is gnarled and chewed and dog-eared ugly.

I saw him pass my window out of the corner of my eye, felt the kind of horror I usually reserve for festive bees and started shooting nail glue towards my fingertips in a kami-kaze  fashion  and jabbing fake nails  onto tiny mountains of glue and hoping for the best.

Rat-a-tat. Ignore it and hopefully he won't go away. Adhere nail to glue to nail. Rat-a-tat. Rat-a-TAT. Dear lord can't the impatient sod see I'm having a crisis? Debate valium. Scratch nose and move towards the front door. Scratch nose? Now theres a bad move.

He is at the front door. I am standing behind the two doors worth of glass  watching him shuffle impatiently.  I have a nail glued to my nose and there is  nail glue  cracking on my lips.  I have a man standing on my doorstep and I am the proud possesser of gluey  lips and a  plastic growth sprouting from my left nostril.  Start to feel light headed from the fumes. Yank nail off my nose.   Open door and smile bewitchingly.

Ding dong he says, like  a slightly pervy, bald version of  Austin Powers. 

I dodge  his kiss. Scared of getting glued to him for life and having to explain myself  in the casualty department, and walk to the kitchen in an efficient manner, scrubbing at my lips and peeling stiff layers of skin from my nose, knocking back a quick glass of wine and shouting small talk into the living room and finally wandering in, oh so blase, high on glue and happy as  larri-etta.

And so began the evening from hell. Not his fault, he's lovely and took my sheer lunacy  in his stride-  grinning a lot and patting my shoulder in a patronising fashion when after serving him limp asparagus, burnt basil bread and something so black I can't even describe it but made him eat it regardless, I, in a final act of Yes I'm clearly off my head but cute enough to get away with it,  refused to risk baking the pudding and tried instead to dazzle him with my merry wit.

After all who needs elegance when theres a fingernail glued to your nose? I am the epitome of vintage charm.

Finley

Finley doesn't have dyspraxia. He doesn't have anything anyone cares to give a name to because what he is suffering from is sheer joie de vivre....

He is, as I quietly suspected, (but didn't want to shout about for fear of sounding like I was boasting), an unusually creative, linguistically gifted and emotional child whose feet simply don't work as fast as his brain. Where we have one solution to a problem Finley is coming up with three and finding the whole matter a muddly old business.

For a child of four he is unusually percerptive, intuitive and visually orientated. He finds the world mildly frightening only because his brain goes into overdrive and pre-empts disaster where other children see none. He is noisy, spirited, chatty and lord help me, curious to the point of distraction. Above all else he is happy.

That the British  education system is not  apparently "set up to deal with kids like Finn" and thus I may find myself with a fight on my hands in order to prevent him  subduing who he is in order to better fit in is a cross I will bear with pride. And so I will fight. I will fight with every instinctive nurturing bone in my body to help my scrumptious little boy (thats his cheeky face he's showing off up there) be everything he is destined to be....

Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien.

If  I ever grow up enough be considered a font of wisdom, this is what I shall say:  Wait.  Just wait.  But live a life worth talking about in the meantime. Live it wholeheartedly. Live it so wonderfully, scrumptiously, deliciously well, that when that you have been waiting for finally whispers its way into your life it is but a gentle tremor in a world divinely established without it.

One day, digging around in the dirt of someone else's yesterdays you will discover the saucer that finally completes your tea-set. Your little babba will walk, be potty trained and learn to mind  his manners.   Peace will settle upon your shoulders like a cashmere cobweb and the horror that is a financial crisis will pass. Because wait and this too, whatever it is that bothers your sleep will pass. This too will pass. This I know for sure.

In April 2006 the man I had lived with, made a home with and created a whole little life with, left me. You all know this. You were there. He went. He took up with a woman called Nicky. He wore his guilt like a straight-jacket and seemed utterly incapable of building anything remotely resembling a life worth living. My heart broke a hundred times over for him. For us. For Finn. For tomorrow and yesterday and for right now, for every moment when the sheer effort of muddling through my days, teeth gritted, seemed too much to bare.

But out of my gloom came tiny little joys. Joys that began to pile one on top of the other in little  heaps of happiness I, for a while, considered best ignored. Ah, but it's bliss having a huge cosy, comfy bed to yourself (True.. but hell's bells it's cold without a human radiator to keep you warm). Heavens making decisions all by yourself is soooooo liberating (And goodness knows you are kinder to yourself than he ever would have been in the face of a crazy mistake or two). And yes, tis a thrill and seven eighths to be having first kisses and first precious moments littering your days all over again (Though be prepared to get your heart a bit smashed if you are brave enough to go dilly-dallying down that route Missus...). And on and on it goes: eighteen months filled with new beginnings I never quite allowed myself to come to terms with because I was waiting. I was waiting. You knew it. I knew it, and all those poor men I half-heartedly dated but barely entertained, knew it.

I waited. And of course he came back. He sat at my table at the end of November 2007 and said perhaps? And I said yes, not now no, yes, maybe, perhaps, oh but I can't and oh but how I want to. I  want to live our little dream all over again. I don't want to be the single mummy at school. I want my boy's Daddy to wake him up in the mornings and I'd like somebody to take out the bins please. I want to make plans for tomorrow. To have someone to laugh with. To cry with all over again. Somebody who know's me, who gets me without me having to deliver the well rehearsed lines I've delivered religiously on too many unbearable first dates. I'm sick of myself and would like to have you back in my life to dilute the very essence of me if you don't mind so very awfully.

And so we danced around each other for a month or so. Without commitment. Without a hug, a cheek proffered or a promise made and it felt all  so right and terribly, terribly wrong. Who was this man taking up room on my sofa? Was I thinking about him on the dates with others I continued to enjoy? Could I imagine him sleep walking his way through my life again? Was that the ache of Mark induced exhaustion I could already feel creeping through bones? Yes, yes I think it was...

It was pure nostalgia and even I can't build a life built on a vintage love affair. And so we declared it over before it had begun. And relief snuggled up with me.  Ate breakfast with me and poured me a glass of  wine at the end of a long day. Because I can't fix him. I shouldn't have to and  I don't want too. So I'm choosing a life without compromise instead. I'm choosing a box full of memories stashed on top of my wardrobe. I'm choosing a relationship based on the kind of adoration I won't have to share my bed with. Respect for all those years we were happy. I'm choosing life without him and though I can barely believe it, theres a bit of me doing a downright demented happy dance, because it's over. I waited, He came back and my life had already filled the gap where he used to be.

My life. Hmmmmmm. What to say about it now?  I'm on a silly diet and my hand is in a splint. That man I adored as a teenager sat on my sofa the other night, wine glass in hand and kissed my neck and I giggled like a school girl and pouted too much and worried about whether I'd  put the recycling boxes out and everything is ok.  More than ok.

All of a sudden the wait is over. Because not knowing what will happen tomorrow is just part of the game isn't it? You don't have to be good at it, it's the taking part that counts.

 And I'm taking part with every fibre of my very daft being. To 2008!

December

We all wore wellies and I wore false nails. In fact my lovelies, the reason why I haven't bored you with my dalliances in the past seven days is not because I was up to my eyes in mud but because I am the kind of woman whose vanity knows no bounds and I simply cannot type when I've got plastic nails glued to my fingertips.  So smack me on the bottom with the Womans  Weekly.

Thank heavens I'm awash with news. Last weekend was spent in the splendour of a  converted  barn in Staffordshire (With the motley crewe walking through Dovedale above) and yesterday we traipsed up the dunes of Mablethorpe to see a thousand seals giving birth to fuzzy white pups on the beach on which they cavort on an annual basis...

So it has been a week of wellies and stepping stones.  Grief cuddled up in giggles and walks in the ountryside. Baths taken in beamed rooms with slipper baths to die for. Hours curled up reading  Winifred Pecks' Home For The Holidays and Jane Brockets' Gentle Art of Domesticity. Dreams made of jam tarts and cosy socks. Dinners of creamy black pepper mashed potato and the quiet realisation that I can be truly terrible company and most wicked of all, couldn't quite give a damn...

And then there was home. A flourescent light installed in the kitchen after seven years of asking.  Deep rooted dirt  finally revealed and just as soon banished. Marks romance declared kaput and goodness knows what written large across his face. Slip covers washed in a fit of aggravated domesticity and too many run ins with my crazy postman as a result of Christmas shopping on the world wide web...

Saturday night I donned my copper coloured gladrags and took to the streets with my darling Mummies in tow. Carrot and turnip and spicy sausage consumed in early celebration of Christmas, followed by port and stilton  and gin and lemonade provided by someone I adored as a teenager and who took  advantage of my general bonhomie to ask me to adore him all over again. (I swear men only find me desirable when I am to be found with a mouthful of chocolate torte and a spoonful of double cream dribbling down my chin...).

And now it is December and there isn't a child in the house washed. I want to be sitting next to my Mum, reading quietly under the vast beams of someone elses house. I want Christmas to be three months away and Christmas Eve to be tomorrow and for there to be  a big bowl of  cheesy bacon Winter night soup bubbling on the stove.  I wish the Christmas tree was already blinking in the corner of the room and life wasn't one long round of  tidying up lego and feelings, rooting through drawers full of junk and  minds full of memories.  I want to live in wellies and wear stilettos  to bed.  I want to treasure forever  the memory of watching Finn  write  F-I-N-L-E-Y  at the bottom of   a letter to Santa Claus and feel as absolutely safe always as I did holding my Dad's hand as we crossed the stepping stones of Dovedale.

I want it to be  December always . For there to be  family forever.  And for the man who asked me to abandon blog posts as long as this and sum up my world in sentences of just six words, I say only this...

Tempus fugit, but December  is bliss.

Week Two In The Sick Babba House

I can't quite believe I'm about to type this, but Finley has been diagnosed with mumps (yes indeed: the disease that died out with effective innoculation and the plague)  again this morning... How in the name of all that is scrumptious is it even possible??

Do forgive me if things get a bit erratic around here while I administer tender loving care and Calpol. I've said it before and I'll say it again: there is no rest for the wicked and sadly I am as wicked as they come.

Housewife On The Brink

If I can't be a good example I am going to have to be a terrible warning.

At the moment my town is host to a rollerblading Grandad and a kamikaze magpie.  While my run ins with the speed demon that is the rollerskating GangGan have been few and far between, (apart from regularly dodging him as he races towards us and once agreeing that yes Finn's hair is really rather wonderful and yes I expect he is going to have all the ladies after him soon), my collisions with the magpie have, sadly, become far to frequent for my liking.

There are, I believe, two trains of thoughts when it comes to dealing with lone magpies (As opposed to the happy dance one should perform in the presence of more...) . One can either greet said bird with the kind of greeting one would usually reserve for a long lost friend (Why Good Morning Mr Magpie, how the hell are ya?) or, and this, I confess is my preferred method, one can bestow upon its blessed little black and white head, all manner of curses  like the one a passing  gypsy was kind enough to rant at me when  I refused to buy the  tin foil wrapped  bit of heather she was trying to force upon me.  Complete with spittle and demented stare.

But clearly should you take the Damn you to hell and back route with this particular magpie, he will wreak revenge in the form of a sudden swoop upon your head, nesting in the fuzz of your hair like a happy sparrow, or, lucky me, he will peck your bare toes with vicious glee. And trust me a peck from a mean magpie on frozen Flip-flopped November toes is pain equivalent to childbirth and the curse it brings should not be underestimated: because sadly it has turned my son into a dog called Scrappy.  A beagle with floppy ears prone to crawling around on his hands and knees in Marks and Spencers and asking to be tied up outside shops. A puppy who wants his milk to be taken from a saucer on the fake Aubusson. A child no longer willing to take instructions because dogs "don't understand Mummy Language, please try Woof!".

Now this is difficult enough to deal with when you are dragging said dog around Tesco, but on the kind of Saturday Morning when there is a mild hangover raging between your earlobes, a stupidly large phone bill and a kitchen full of last nights feast, negotiating the whims of a puppy child do not a happy Alison make.   So into the kitchen I stomped, shoving a gravy stained tin into the dishwasher,  and knocking back a  cocktail of paracetamol  and coffee to the  strains of  dog yelping as Scrappy falls off the sofa and sits licking his wounds. I go back in to discuss the need for a visit to the vets, become extremely miffed with the answer (Woof woof, I'm Ok, woof woof, can I have dog biscuits for breakfast?) and pad back into the kitchen where to my utter joy I find myself standing in grapefruit scented froth because the gravy stained tin was, the night before, soaked in washing up liquid...

So I do what I can, I throw a towel over seeping bubbles and turn around to deal with the mess that is the kitchen bin. The dog crawls in utterly naked and is surprised to find himself with wet knees and laughs in crazy doggy fashion when I pull the bin liner out of the bin and watch in horror as the bag splits and a chicken carcass goes floating down the kitchen on a sea of grey bubbles, at which point the electricity runs out, the house is plunged into semi darkness and Mark, who is already assured of  my total incompetence, lets himself in and gapes open-mouthed at a scene of such rank ugliness he is struck dumb.

To which I reply, I've been cursed by a magpie. Whats your excuse?

Amongst Us.

Tell me now, tell me this on a day that tastes too bittersweet to endure, does the universe contrive to make space for our little ones? Last night my friend gave birth to a gorgeous dark haired little boy and this morning my Mum's brother, my Uncle, my childhood, sleeps through his last few days, the steady drip of morphine whispering it's goodbyes into his veins. 

And so today we will come together. All of us. For a weekend of waiting, remembering, (Did he really eat dog biscuits when he was a lad Barbie??) and laughing at little boys oblivious to the dread written large on our faces, his girls. One of us  always there to  to stem the relentless twist of my Mum's wedding ring around her finger. Dread written large on the walls.

Yesterday was hollow. A vigil of domesticity observed to find my way through the inevitable. Recipes written with a fine slither of lead into a Cath Kidston notebook. Baroque flowers doodled around menus of potato soup, rosemary lamb and almond torte. An hour sat in front of a council official yet again trying to convince them that but for my son, I live alone: that regardless of whether or not he is willing to confirm it, Mark left eighteen months ago and please may I have the reduction in tax I am entitled to?  White food consumed mindlessly: plastic bread drenched in salty butter. Colcannon streaked with bacon. Too many digestive biscuits with my tea. Then porch windows washed in vinegar, a yard brushed into oblivion and a Simone De Beauvoir novella dropped into a bowl full of sudsy water...

And so it goes on. Life. Until of course it doesn't. Until the day that something we are unwilling to name walks amongst us and the only thing that matters in a day full of wet books, bland food and pointless biscuits is the bitter lingering certainty that the world won't be the same when he's gone. That somehow this little man exists at the very heart of our family and that forever after the shape of our lives will altered by his abscence.

Here We Go Again.

I swear I don't deserve the constant chaos that is my life. I don't deserve a boil the size of Egypt on the side of my nose. I didn't deserve the chest infection I'm currently nurturing, nor the date with the man with body odour  on Friday night. And I definitely didn't deserve the calamity that was yesterday afternoon. I'm a nice woman. I didn't deserve it.

The day started out kinda hunky-dorey. An unexpected cheque for £100.00 landed on my doorstep and thoughts of a nice pair of winter boots interfered with my breakfast.  Then a woman with blonde hair and perky glasses approached me in nursery and said something along the lines of "Well now did I want to meet her in a (relatively) local kids play centre when nursery was done and dusted?"  to which I replied,  "Actually  I'd rather  stick knitting needles up my nose, but yes of course I would love to- see you there at one, whoever you are!" . And  so the matter was settled and because I am intrinsically shy and felt faint at the the thought of making conversation with a complete stranger I roped Kath into the deal and off we set, kids strapped into the  back of my shed on wheels and the violence that is  My Chemical Romance  on the stereo. Happy as Christmas Robins!

Now it should be noted that I am familiar with this activity centre having painted a rather charming little mural there the December before last. I know where it is but still managed to get utterly lost in a town full of roundabouts. And when I say lost I mean really, really, how did we get here, lost? The kids whined. Kath looked nervous. I wanted my Mum. And then I accidentally discovered a really rather fabulous method of making the kids laugh! Approach unseen speed bumps in the manner of a boy racer and bump back down to earth in a jolly fashion. Cue screams and giggles all round. Then cross another roundabout. And find that getting off the roundbout is a teeny bit difficult because all of a sudden my brakes don't work and it looks like we are destined to drive around this horrible sprawling town for the rest of our lives because I can't work out how to stop the car!

But stop we do, drifting into a bus stop and putting in a call to my Dad who arrives on his chariot yet again to rescue the calamity that is his daughter and her offspring, informing me that the brake pipe has smashed, yes, probably as a result of attacking the odd speed bump or two, then stuffing the kids into the front of his trannie van and leaving me and Kath sitting on toolboxes in the back clinging on to each other in a desperate fashion, while the car was towed back to the garage manned by Huey from The Fun Loving Criminals, who grinned as he told me that this particular vehicular crisis would cost £100.00.

Winter boots. Now you see them, now you don't....      

Does God Wear A White T-Shirt?

Mum, does God wear a white T-shirt?

Well baby, I don't know- said I, the least religious Mummy on the planet- You see  no-one has ever seen God...

'Cept  me Mum.

You've seen God, Finley?

Yeah.. know yesterday when I was  doing boogey-ing  in the dining room?

Yes, said I picturing him shimmying in and out of a shaft of sunlight....

I was  dancing in God's torch then Mum. He was shining it on me.

Well goodness me Finley, that means you are a very special little boy...

I am special Mum, when I close my eyes, there are rainbows in my head.

There are rainbows in my little boys head. Oh that we should all be so very blessed.

Goodbye My Lover.

Oh House Keepers I am in mourning. Disaster in the shape of  a pint sized foot has struck and this time there is no going back.  Finley has (accidentally) kicked my laptop into PC heaven and with internal bleeding, broken bones, split veins and all manner of other computer related injuries to contend with,  the PC doctor has told me that my darling, darling friend has got to be put down.

Where will I be without him?  Up the creek  without a paddle methinks.

There is no answer to it this time. One mustn't waste miracles on wishing the sky will start raining laptops or that I will find gold coins buried in a jeweled box at the bottom of my non-existent garden...

And so I will be gone for a while. I will be playing in the sun with my babba. Digging up the disaster that is my tiny yard after a Summer of rain. Re-inventing my comfort basket. Creating a naughty knicker drawer. Stripping away the clutter. Painting the bathroom a startling shade of white. Reading. Remembering. Dreaming up a fabulous fourth birthday party for Finn. Spending hours in the library. Scrubbing at non-existent stains on my carpet and baking carrot and orange cakes until they come out my ears.

T'will be fun and t'will be sad.

See you soon.x

The Perfect HouseWife?

Do Come In For Coffee.

Actually on second thoughts, don't bother. Run dear man, run for your life. I'm a housekeeping slut!

Dating in your thirties is an entirely different kettle of fish to dating in your teens. Then the only frame of reference the male species had to your soul was your fickle taste in music, how short your ra-ra skirt was and just how high you could spray your fringe up. And all things considered- if their best mate liked you , then you were almost guaranteed a night at the flicks and a shared bucket of popcorn. But alas, no more.

Now men expect you to attend the dating venue of their choice clutching your credit score, proof of your fertility and a picture of your Mum.  Never mind the fact that they have already googled you, had your house valued and in my case at least, know everything there is to know about you and beam in dubious delight as they present you with a gift wrapped organic cucumber because they read somewhere you had a culinary obsession with them...

And thats before you get down to the nitty gritty and invite them into your living room for coffee. (Lord help you Darling Girl, should you be so stupid.) For it is in your living room that the fun really begins. You see it is a truth universally acknowledged that the man in search of a wife fancies himself as the twenty first centuries answer to Sherlock Holmes and even the shortest soiree on your sofa will provide him with all the evidence he needs to make or break your future...

Never mind your gorgeous new highlights, french manicured fingernails and pale pink bra peeking seductively out from under your cashmere cardi.  When you see the object of your affections running a white gloved finger across your door frame and  staring at your bookcase as if you written all your secrets in  your collection of paperbacks, you will wonder why you bothered.

Examples? How about the rugby sized cad who bounded into my house, stopped dead in front of my  portrait of Robert Taylor and said  "I suppose that's Mark?".

"Well no" I replied. "Thats Robert Taylor. He was a  a Hollywood movie star... erm he died in 1969."

"Same thing really" he muttered mysteriously, then walked into my kitchen, opened my cake tin and shoved a piece of carrot cake into his mouth like he hadn't just devoured a four course meal and a kebab.

Then there was a man who dismantled my toilet in an effort to get to the root of my noisy plumbing before we had barely said hello. The same one who visibly shuddered as he trailed a finger across my scary green wallpaper and finally worked up the nerve to ask me what in heavens name possessed me to lay patterned carpet in my bathroom, over pomegranate sorbet in a chi-chi bar. And sadly the very same one who following a cringe-worthy date resplendent in shared financial history, took the opportunity to send me a new mortgage illustration the following day. By text.

Let's not forget the oh so sweet man who wandered around touching things in a gleeful manner before turning to me with a huge big smile on his face, and saying "Oh yes. I feel right at home here.  I could live here I could. It reminds me of my Granny's!".    Or the man who told me he couldn't come to terms with the fact that my TV was ten years old and  left as fast as his excessively short little legs could carry him...

But first prize goes to the man who loved roast chicken. The one who came equipped with his divorce papers in his pocket (no really!). I had invited him over to dinner and the house was a glow with candles and the spark of unspoken chemistry. We were grinning at each other a lot and I was walking across the living room carrying the chicken on a vintage transfer ware platter, when all of a sudden he was possessed by the urge to rugby tackle me to the floor and nibble around the straps of my flowery apron (Yes Sweeties I'm the kind of girl who wears a pinny even in the midst of blatant seduction with  garlic rubbed poultry). So there we were, kind of sprawled across the rug with the chicken winking next to us, when he lifted his lips from my neck and in a tone I can only describe as borderline outrage, said "Alison May, you are a housekeeping fraud! There is fluff around the legs of your sofa!" before jumping up and breaking a leg off my darling roasted friend, as I went to fetch a feather duster  and watched one more promising relationship bite the dust.

If you will excuse the pun.

Opinions Please?

At what point does a worried Momma turn into a paranoid, over-protective suffocating one?

Next week Finn's nursery is going on a school trip to  an aquarium in  Blackpool.  Blackpool is forty five miles away and forty five miles seems a terribly long way to send my little babba all by himself. So I am having a mild Mommy heart attack.

School asked for volunteer  Mums.  So though the thought of getting on a bus with thirty six kids gave me horrors I was the fourth Mum to volunteer and I was told that owing to the fact that Mum places were to be allocated on a first come first served basis and the fact that Finley's Coeliacs/Celiacs disease makes him a special case in any event where food is involved, I was almost guarenteed a place- and thus I stopped worrying and planned on making friends with  a shark and the odd pirhana instead.

Until yesterday. When the headmistress informed me that my services would not be required, as  they had  conducted  a  "risk  assessment"  (with no parental consultation involved) and decided that having put plans in place to deal with mealtimes for Finley, there would be no need for me to attend, and I would not be one of the chosen few.

So I need your opinions...  Is three years of age too young to be bussed off to Blackpool?  Should I trust a school conducted "risk assessment" as far as Finn's Coeliacs goes, when at the last school party I had to intercept another child giving Finn a sweet that the nursery teachers would clearly have let him eat? Would it be terribly mean to keep him home instead? Would you feel comfortable sending your babba off to the hell-hole of the NorthWest? Am I being ludicrous...? Over-protective? In danger of wrapping my baby up in cotton wool and turning him into a namby-pamby with a teddy bear and  trousers under his nipples when he is twenty one??

Tell me please. It's so hard being a Mommy...

Officer Finn.

Oh the ordeals we put our children through. Witness my Darlings, the worst day of my little boys life. An encounter with local Bobby Ewan, (He is coming to put me in jail Mommy, cos I'm complicated and can't stop being naughty). The humiliation of being drowned in a policemans outfit and worst of all having said pictures paraded to the world (and its poodle) on the nursery website.

Bless his rosy cheeks.

My Fifth Cousin Twice Removed.

I fell over a pigeon the other day. Flat on my face in the middle of town. Trust me to come across the only pigeon in England who doesn't move out of the way when he sees a lolloping great Vintage Housekeeper scurrying towards him. I fell. He flapped his wings in a crazy fashion in my face and a passing teenage boy nearly choked  laughing on his sausage roll.

I was all of a fluster. And in a fluster is a jolly good description of  my state of mind ever since...

Mine is a funny old life. This week there has been an interview with The Daily Mail. A photo  shoot in the house complete with afternoon tea, make up artists et al.  A child so sick I was scared to go to sleep. Two dates with two men. The plan of my book which has kept me awake at night with worry. A new culinary obsession with smoky bacon. And no time at all to read which leaves me feeling like I'm floundering in a big black hole desperate to see the light...

Day after day I sit in the coffee shop with the yummy mummies regaling them with stories of one more adventure in the madness that is my life and I constantly feel as though  I'm talking about someone else.  Was it really me leaning over a table full of lemon cupcakes smiling for a lovely photographer and feeling for half a minute or two like a filmstar? Was it me who opened that email asking me if I wanted to be on Tv? Am I the Mommy caked in professionally applied make-up, up to her eyes in vomit covered sheets?

And if I am, why don't I recognise her? Why does she feel like my fifth cousin twice removed?

I used to feel authentic. And now I'm not sure that I do.

I was destined to fall over pigeons you see.

 

Casanova and The Chocolate Cake.

Peace flits in and out of my life like a nesting bird. Lining my days with books and gardening and contentment and then just as quickly, abandoning my house for pastures new and leaving me once again bereft, restless, aching for something I can't explain but unable to read and unwilling to write...

It has been a busy few days. Lavish with family and friends and little boys talking ten to the dozen all day long. Bank holiday weekend was lost in a swirl of socialising. On Saturday night a meal for Dianes birthday, in a new restaurant with a waiter who should have come with a danger sign swinging around his neck. As soon as he linked my arm and marched me to the table I knew he was going to be trouble. By the time he'd had me whisper my order into his ear in Italian, lifted up my hair and nibbled on my neck, told every diner in the room "She making me hot!", poured wine down my throat and force fed me chocolate cake,  I had been kissed more times than I've had hot dinners, Kath had nearly choked laughing on a baby octopus,  and the entire restaurant was enthralled by the amateur dramatics of  an apparently besotted  Italian waiter, charming in a way only a man who  says "Tonight I fall in love!" every third sentence, can be...

But plainly I can never eat in that particular scrumptiously  authentic Italian again, which is a downright shame because the mustard covered parma ham pizza was to die for and all the other yummy mummies enjoyed the spectacle that was my blush covered cheeks so much they can't wait to go back.

Trouble you see follows me around like cheap perfume...

Which may or may not explain why the very next  night I could be seen tra-laaing around town with my very own Elvis impersonator, complete with sideburns and eyes so vividly blue you could probably paddle in them. Mad, bad and dangerous to know he clearly is, but before I knew it I was giggling like a schoolgirl, shimmying my shoulders and sending my mum garbled text messages it will probably take an army crack team a year or two to decipher (Grep! Still dancing! Baloney. RS. 19. So go to sleeg!)...   

It has been fun and exhausting and I miss who I am when I am not forced to be the kind of woman who attracts too much attention in restaurants and finds herself being asked for a date by the fireman who came to fix her alarms.  And so now  I am back to where I was last week. With a wierd sense of nothing in my tummy. Laying old ghosts to rest and staying up late waiting for something to happen while rooting for something resembling my life in the fridge.

This too will pass.  This too will pass.

ScallyWag.

Pride comes before a fall. My so called angel was sent to sit on the naughty step at school yesterday.

When I asked him why Miss Gillard had been forced to undertake such drastic action he said, "She doesn't understand me."

Lordy. Whats a mommy to say to that? Lets face it, there probably isn't a man on the planet who hasn't uttered these words at one point or another...

Perhaps it's programmed into them at birth.

My Finn.

You know how you quietly suspect your babba is special and you tell him a million times a day? But taking compliments on his behalf feels akin to nodding enthusiastically when someone tells you, you are beautiful? You can't quite believe they are talking about you, so you brush it aside, just as when it comes to kids there is the teeniest little suspicion inside you that it is entirely possible that your child has been blessed with the kind of face or temperament that only a Mother could love, and you my Sweetheart could be that very Mother...

Today when I went to pick Finn up from nursery, his teacher took me aside and said "We wanted you to know what a very special little boy, Finley is." And I smiled and said "Why thank you, but haven't you noticed his face is always dirtier than the other kids?", and she smiled and said  "Not only is he unusually bright and inquisitive for his age, but  he is kind  and thoughtful too and these are qualities we don't see often in children today."  And I laughed and said "Bet you don't see many snotty noses like his either?", and she laid her plump, Motherly hand on mine and said, "Miss May, he is a rare child, a very rare child indeed."

And I pulled my sunglasses over my eyes and squeezed her hand and wondered why nursery teachers always smell of biscuits, and hugged my rare baby bye bye and ran out of school quite the proudest mommy on the planet. 

A rare child. My rare child.

Oh do accept my apologies for showing off in this fashion. I feel like telling the whole wide world...

(P.S: He is having his  "precious  curls" trimmed for the first time in the morning and I suspect the hairdresser may discover for himself what a rare child Finley is too. Expect blue murder.)

Our Homes Are Our Castles.

And mine needs a new moat.

Home is the place we retreat to. Walls are lined with love ready to cocoon us and always there is a door to close on the ugliness of the world outside.  It is a place where we  are safe, loved and protected by the very act of creating a sanctuary for our soul.
For most of  us,  that security is something we take for granted. Something we hold dear, deep inside and forget to acknowledge until our little brick worlds are threatened by forces stronger than any amount of love or DIY can conquer.

This morning I was lying snuggled up in more quilts than are really necessary for a warm May morning. Busy watching the bright sun paint lacy petticoats on my ceiling, worrying about blackbirds and thanking the Lord that Finley had  obviously  decided to have a lie in. I was calm. Quietly grateful. And Ok. I was Ok.
And then the house shook with the force of a mans fist.

I lay still. Scared. This was no ordinary knock.  No gentle morning delivery from Postman Steven or neighbourly call from a friend. No. There was aggression in every bang. Demanding, threatening and liable to force the glass panelled door off its precarious hinges at any moment.
Creeping out of bed I pulled back a fraction of the curtain and saw a big man  standing in the garden.  Another hammering on the door.  Two gigantic men in mean uniforms.  Ready to have my guts for garters by the looks of it.
My heart was beating so fast I could feel it jumping in my mouth.  You know how it feels to hear a noise in the middle of the night? A noise that sends goosebumps dancing all over your body and has you lying so still that even your own heartbeat compromises your hearing?  Petrification in a Eygptian cotton duvet? That is how it was.

So I got back in bed. It seemed the wisest thing to do. I wasn't wearing any clothes. I was naked. Exposed. And there was a three year old little boy asleep in the next room who must be protected at any cost. All this at seven thirty in the morning.

It must have been obvious to the rest of the street that these men were debt collecters. Whisper it, Bailliffs!  Come in their big van to collect God Knows what and take me, Finley, my nine hundred year old Tv and microwave with them to the poorhouse where they would force feed us porridge and make us sleep on horsehair mattresses.

I rang Mark and shouted in  the kind of whisper that leaves  your throat wretched. I ranted about him leaving which made no sense at all, but drowned out the banging and made me feel better, because for sure I couldn't imagine what these men wanted and for the umpteenth time in twelve months I felt exhausted with the sheer stress of stitching life together and watching the strain show  in every seam.

And then before I knew it he was there. Standing at the end of my bed. A demand for a parking ticket of old in his hand. A sheepish look on his face. One more nail in a coffin he was banging shut from the inside. I got up and drank the tea he proffered and wondered how much longer I would be forced to wade through the detritus of our relationship.

I don't know why I am telling you this. It goes against the laws of propriety to discuss financial issues in such a manner. We abhor the stigmatisation of debt and yet turn away from it, secretly appalled when we come across it in others, sipping tea and changing the subject. It is I suspect the last taboo. But I wanted you to know because after Mark had gone, I got Finley dressed and left the house for the day. Though the likelihood of a repeat visit was gone, home, our safehouse was draped in silly shame and I had to escape it.

You see it doesn't take much for our home to become the enemy. Bailiffs knocking on the door when the rest of the world is asleep. A mouse playing croquet on the rug. History written on the tiles. A leaky roof. Burglars in stripy t-shirts. The stench of discord. An invasion of ants or even the relentless buzz of a single wasp...

So we have to find a way to respect the darker side of homemaking. We have to pay bills, fit locks and insulate rooves. Keep termites and debt collectors at bay and re-decorate when  the scrawl of one  memory  after another  begins to take it's toll. We have to build our moats with care, foresight and thought for all that goes beyond the next puttery treat or ounce of frilly fripperie.

Life may be hard but we owe it to ourselves to honour the walls that for the most part protect us.     

Scaring the Neighbours

Must stop gardening in my nightie.

Must stop gardening in my nightie.

I have this ludicrously hideous nightie. It is a fake lilac satin, voluminous ugly affair I bought in the first addled days of new Motherhood, and you know that is therefore, all the excuse I need. What cannot be excused is the fact that I am still wearing it, when it is probably the scariest garment Bon  Marche (Bon bloody Marche!!!) ever  produced.

But wearing it I am. Accessorised recently with turqouise plastic shoes and a rather fetching line in pineapple scrunchified updo's of which you have never, ever seen the like. I'm gorgeous first thing in the morning.  And do I care? Do I heck. If a person can't be scary in her own backyard, where the heckity pie can she be scary?

So out I go.  Because I'd rather be sitting drinking  hot lemon water  in my garden  than anywhere else  on the planet at the moment. Or at least I would have done until three days ago. You see no-one tells you, when you decide that growing things would be good for your soul, that what you are really inflicting upon yourself is WAR.

Oh yes, WAR.

I have had on my hands in the past three days the kind of flummoxing mystery Mrs Marple would have been thrilled with. I close the door on an immaculate little yard in the early evening and open it the next morning to find muddy bedlam. And for a while I blamed myself. Not knowing about these things I wondered if perhaps too much over-vigorous watering had caused the compost to bubble and jump out of the pots overnight. And then, while marmiting a bagel, I saw it. A naughty blackbird. Pecking away at my chive seed and sending mud flying all around the yard. I was not a happy sausage.

So out I waddled, (in my lilac nightie) and asked the blackbird to go away. And go away it did. Till I turned my back. When it swooped down and dragged an entire sunflower plant out of its pot  before giving me a cheeky wink from a safe perch on top of  next doors gate. Deciding then, in my infinite wisdom that what I needed was a scarecrow and finding them to be few and far between, I went inside and procured an empty pink bin liner, shoving half a marmite and cucumber onion bagel in my mouth as I went. And then I went back outside and kind of (Oh I'm so ashamed!) did the dance of the seven pink bin bags. In my nightie. And gardening clogs. With braless breasts shiny and defined in lilac satin and reaching somewhere near my bellybutton. And a bagel caught between my teeth. Wafting my bin bag like a flag and finding myself quite as silly as I ever have been, but safe in the knowledge that I was in the privacy of my own garden and all was well in the world of banished blackbirds.

Oh sure. This being a little row of four Victorian terraced cottages with quartered gardens behind, it is a fact of life that there is no privacy, and that we are in and out of each others gardens as fast as we are (secretly) filling up each others wheelie bins. I should have known better. Should not have been surprised when I looked up and saw my neighbour peering at me through a gap in the fence, a look of astonishment on his face so pure, I wouldn't have blamed him if he'd  dashed inside the house to summon his wife to come and video the spectacle of the human scarecrow in the scary purple dress.

I said "Good Morning".

He said "Hang a row of black socks on your line, that will sort the buggers out."

And then we went about our business. As English as they come.

God help the slugs.

Attention Seeker.