Mad Dogs and Englishmen

Sometimes it’s great being British. I don’t know how many conversations I’ve had with people this week about the weather – that mainstay of British pleasantries.

It’s almost a given that you have to bemoan the current weather conditions, whatever they may be so, over the last couple of days, we’ve all been sweating, panting and collapsing our way through that brief glimpse of sunshine that constitutes British summertime.

I’ve had my fair quota of complaints and have managed to hold my own during these dialogues: maggots infesting the food bin; milk going sour before I can get it home from the Co-op; really bad buggy-pushing tan lines etc etc. Oh, the traumas we must endure in the daily grind of life.

No doubt the rain and grey skies will return swiftly and provide a change in direction not only of the weather but the conversations.

Excuse Me While I Staighten my Halo

My daughter was at nursery today and my son had a settling-in session this morning, in preparation for his starting day next month when I go back to work. He seemed to be enjoying himself so I left him to it and made my way home with a spring in my step.

I had two hours until I had to pick him up. Two blissful, child-free, glorious, bonus hours to do with exactly as I pleased. And what did I do….?

I cleaned the oven.

Now any sensible person, given the opportunity to slack off their regular duties for a couple of hours, would have probably placed oven cleaning somewhere between callous removal and pulling the hairs from the plughole, in terms of priorities. But no, according to my warped sense of task completion, this was apparently of huge importance and couldn’t wait another day. Despite the fact that the oven was purchased well over six months ago and the inside hasn’t caught so much as a glimpse of a cleaning product, I seemed to get it into my head that it would spontaneously combust if the layers of food weren’t scraped from within immediately.

So, when hubby returns tonight, I shall no doubt don dying swan mode, look at him with weary eyes and bemoan my exhausting day as a charlady. At which point, he’ll probably look back at me as if I’m mad and daydream about all those Sky+ programmes he would have caught up on if he’d had a couple of hours free time.

Table Manners Optional

Breakfast time; a military operation of epic proportions.

My son's too young to understand that the time between sitting in his highchair and getting fed is directly proportional to the time it takes to prepare the cereal. My daughter is old enough to understand but too impatient to actually sit quietly. So he howls while she repeats the same request over and over in ever increasing decibels. As the volume increases so do my stress levels and I’ve only been out of bed for an hour.

Then, just as the whole scene is about to explode and I’m ready to join in the screaming, quiet descends but for the sound of toddler raspberry blowing. Suddenly the decision to have a relatively close age gap seems to justify itself as baby and toddler wavelengths coincide and my son giggles uncontrollably and looks at his big sister with awe. Emboldened by this display of appreciation, she continues blowing raspberries until he gets the hang of it and starts joining in. Thus, they keep themselves amused until breakfast is ready.

It’s still more ‘feeding time at the zoo’ than ‘tea at the Ritz’ but hey, the volume is such that I can actually hear Wogan on the radio and have a few sips of tea – bliss!

Once More into the Fray

Toddler World: to those not acquainted with this assault on the senses (primarily hearing and smell), it’s essentially a large room packed full of screaming children playing on padded mats and bouncy shapes.

However, this isn’t just a play centre. Nannies use it as a social networking arena whilst the less hands-on carers see it more as a home office, as they perch on a bench with a coffee and the paper or mobile phone. There they sit for the duration, heads bowed, oblivious or simply unconcerned by their feral children who nudge, shove and swipe equipment from the other kids, safe in the knowledge that they will go unchallenged.

At the other end of the spectrum, there are the neurotic parents and Toddler World provides them with the ideal opportunity to raise their stress levels. They follow their kids around like stubborn shadows, diving headlong between them and any other children. This is in case skin contact is made and life-threatening germs are passed on.

My personal space was firmly encroached upon this morning, as a woman tried to remain within umbilical cord distance to her son, shoving interlopers aside like annoying flies. Had I been less sleep-deprived and my normal confrontational self, I would have shoved her back. However, it probably would have been as effective as trying to topple a bus. She was built like a Ukrainian shot putter and had feet that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a butcher’s window. Instead I simply smiled as someone’s feral child whipped the legs out from under cotton wool son on the bouncy castle and she made valiant but comically unsuccessful attempts to climb on and save him.

Hello Dolly! (Dolly Parton, o2 Arena, Sunday 6 July)

Wow. I went to see Dolly Parton at the o2 on Sunday night and yet again, I was blown away. Apart from being a prolific songwriter, the lady sure knows how to belt out a tune and keep an audience entertained.

A two-hour set with no support act is no mean feat for a lady comfortably into her sixth decade. And, far from taking things easy, she managed to throw a few shapes when her contemporaries would probably be rattling round the stage strapped to life support equipment, or spend their entire show with buttocks firmly planted to a padded stool.

She pretty much covered every emotional tract, as she swam seamlessly between classic crowd pleasers such as ‘Jolene’ and ‘9 to 5’, to full-on tear jerkers like the absolutely astonishing ‘Do I Ever Cross Your Mind’ There wasn’t a whisper from the 20,000 strong audience as the diminutive diva belted out a hauntingly beautiful acapella version of ‘Little Sparrow’.

The best thing about it was that she wasn’t there simply to plug her new album; fans will always buy your latest releases but Dolly seems to know what people want to hear and she’s not afraid to comply. Songs were interlaced with plenty of (admittedly predictable) yarns and boob jokes but again, the fans expect it and that’s part of her charm. From the top of her platinum blond piled-up hairdo to the tips of her heels, she’s the ultimate entertainer.

Babies and Weddings: A Match Made in Purgatory

Unless you have absolutely no relatives, friends or fee-charging babysitters within a couple of hundred miles of your home, there is absolutely no excuse for bringing a baby to a wedding as far as I’m concerned.

Having attended a number of weddings as both a guest and parent (though without the little darlings in tow, I hasten to add), I feel the same way about babies at weddings as those reformed smokers who wheeze and cough when anyone in eyesight so much as takes a packet of cigarettes out of their pocket.

So, having safely deposited our offspring with their aunt on Saturday, we psyched ourselves up for a whole blissful day and night of freedom. Two glasses of bubbly were slickly removed from a passing tray of drinks and we clinked our glasses with a self-satisfied sigh of relief. It was therefore a bit of a crash back down to earth when we took our seats a few glasses later, only to discover that we’d been placed on the ‘parents with young children table’.

I know the horror that is table planning so I have no bone to pick with the happy couple. It actually makes perfect sense to place people of the same age group or life stage together, as it’s a great way to break the ice and spark conversation. However, as most of them had opted to bring their little bundles of joy with them, conversation was way down the list of priorities.

We just about managed to get through the introductions before bottles, cloths, jugs of hot water, baby wipes, milk powder and cuddly toys materialised. Buggies were pulled between chairs so bona fide guests were squashed up like commuters in rush hour and the beautifully laid table was swiftly turned into something akin to a new mums’ coffee morning, as baby paraphernalia took over.

Luckily, the couple to our right didn’t have children with them either so we did manage some semblance of traditional wedding banter. The upside was that no one else on the table was drinking, so the four of us had free reign of the wine, alcohol providing some distraction from the frenzied baby feeding and burping that was taking place all around us.

Our brief conversation with the couple to the other side of us consisted of a précis of baby’s sleeping routine. This wasn’t exactly riveting but we smiled politely and were somewhat relieved to hear that junior would suck every last dribble of milk then settle down to sleep until the following morning.

This all seemed to be going according to plan and the couple finally poured themselves a thimble of wine and tucked into their starters – now looking decidedly cold and unappetising. However, before forks could reach mouths the buggy started rocking and the dulcet tones of baby cries rang out around the room. Dad made a swift exit and went off to do a tour of the grounds in an attempt to get him back off to sleep. He wasn’t the only one: a constant procession of haggard-looking parents could be seen passing by the entrance of the marquee, pushing buggies and looking longingly at the wine-swilling guests within.

They made the occasional diversions back inside but these tended to be brief and largely consisted of passing the buggy baton to the other partner. By the time coffee was served, most of them were packing the dozen or so barely started bottles back into oversized change bags. The husbands tried to down surreptitious glasses of wine while the wives were strapping the babies in the buggies and then, like so much dust, they were gone.

Errant baby wipes blew around the table legs like tumbleweeds in the desert and we sat at the near-empty table wondering just why anyone would bring a baby to a wedding.