Careful What You Wish For....

'They' always say that you should blog as if the person you'd most hate to read your your stuff is devouring every word. Well, that's true for those who give a damn about what people think, - which as my Mum reads this, is pretty much me. Hi Mum!

There should also be a caveat which states, be careful, and terribly, terribly aware that if you bleat about not being able to do a race because the entry fee seems a little steep that someone might just call you on it, and use their connections to make that fee go away.

Thanks Chilly, it appears that in *ouch* only three weeks time I'll be doing the Santa Barbara Triathlon.

Thankyou, you're a real friend......

.....(sarcasm may be real or implied).

Anna Counting

Un
TWO!
Fee Four Fife
SIX
Seben
NINE
Ten
A lemon
Telf
FOURTEEN!!!!!
Eight Nine Ten

Not Quite 100%

LK knows how to cut to the chase. My Mum has an abdominal scar 'from my tummy button all the way down'. Everyone's been asking how she's doing these days, but LK, he asks the real questions:

LK - 'So, could you take a punch to the gut yet?'
Mum - 'Er, well no, not quite'.

Do Or Not Do There Is No Tri

I'm trying to decide whether to do the Santa Barbara triathlon, which is hmm, let me see, only a month away....and so far I've only managed to decide that I definitely need to decide something....soon.

I've already done the race four times, and trained for it five times (the fifth ended in point twelve of this list).

I signed LK up for it over the weekend, and I'm being persuaded by two erstwhile good friends to do it again.

We have an entire group of friends who train together and have Mai Tai's afterwards, we are the Mai Tris:






























My nickname is 'Wonder' - sadly not because I'm any good, but because I'm whiter than Wonder Bread.

I am proud to say that I've introduced the English concept of half-hearted sporting achievement coupled with heavy drinking to the health-conscious Calif-yawn-ians.

We are the Mai Tris and we kick arse!

Although, truth be told, it is proving a little difficult to get this band of merry men (emphasis on the merry) to actually sign up this year. One is claiming a GIANT gallstone, another bi-coastal training issues, and others, well, what exactly is my excuse?

To be honest, I've never really enjoyed the race. I've always enjoyed the training and post-training bar sessions, but the race itself, lukewarm at best. For a start, it begins at about 7am, which means you have to get your kit down there at 5:30am, which is total bollocks. Then you have to deal with the massive queue for the toilets while the entire racing contingent suffers pre-race diarrhea. Lovely. Plus, it's knackering, don't be deceived by the race stats. If you tell anyone about the sprint course, they will always ask about the individual disciplines, and when you say a 1/3 mile ocean swim, 6 mile bike, and a 2 mile run, people will always go 'huh, well, that's not too bad', except it is, honestly, unfathomably bad. Anyone can do this race, but unless you're in damn good shape, it's not easy to do it without it hurting. A lot.

Here are some photos of previous races. Do I look like I'm having fun?























Also, point number 2, it costs $100. That's a bloody expensive T-shirt

Mainly though, the reason I'm prevaricating is that I can't trust my body not to throw in the towel. I'm good at tests and exams, but anything physical and there is no amount of training that will guarantee I will not spack out and under-perform on the day. I am just not a natural athlete. I went to yoga last night with a good friend, and on more than one occasion I was waving the wrong limb at the instructor. OK, obviously that's just stupidity, but in all honesty I find it very hard to get my body to do what my mind thinks should be a breeze. Also, it was rather hard to keep a straight face when our yoga teacher (and imagine your quintessential nasal Californian here) saying 'now let's go in to dolphin prelude, dolphin pray-lood'. That and 'restorative pigeon' had me biting down on my bolster.

Come race day I always get a massive stitch on the final run, and on one truly tragic occasion a remarkably sprightly but still, 68-yr old man, asked me if I needed 'medical assistance'. Good times. That's what sucks, training for months, and then having a bad race because you were nervous beforehand and swallowed too much air and then had to run with a stomach like a barrage balloon.

Now my brother on the other hand is a complete natural athlete. He's just done the Great Knaresborough Bed Race - you've probably heard of it. No? Hmm, surprising. Well, it involves something akin to a bed, but in the same say that an American SAT test will say 'contraption is to bed as absinthe is to blank'. Exactly. He also did the Great North Run and managed to keep a nifty pace for the entire race 'only because I was worried some chav was gonna nick me trainers in some of the dodgy bits'. Every athlete needs an incentive.

Anyway, I'm looking for advice - should I do this or not? I had decided that tonight's ocean swim with the girls would be an acid test. If I felt good, and could swim the half mile no problem, then yes, I should consider the race. As it turns out I got halfway out to the buoy and I was already struggling. I wasn't feeling streamlined, there was a tonne of kelp in the water which kept freaking me out, and I felt like my wetsuit was twice the size as normal. Well, note to self, remember to zip up your chuffing wetsuit before embarking on a half mile swim. By the time I got out I looked like a whale with edema.

So, yes or no?

Did We Provide You With Exceptional Service?

You've got to love the Nordstrom Half-Yearly Sale. I dragged my arm-load of 'bargains' to the checkout and the following happened:


Nordstrom Sales Associate: 'Hi, was anyone helping you today?'

Me: 'Er, yes she was, oh and I think you should know that the lock in changing room 10 doesn't seem to be working, I got stuck in there'

N.S. Ass: 'Oh my God you poor thing. Did you get out?'

Me: 'No, no I didn't. You should probably call someone.'

Waving Not Drowning

Thankyou for all your hastily typed e-mails and comments, I didn't mean to alarm anyone. I'm fine really, stiff upper lip and all that. It's actually very easy to live in this town, I just manage to make it look hard.

That piece of asparagus though, whew, now that was challenging. Just be thankful I didn't take a photo, that's all I'm saying.

Lucky Number 13

I have just literally pulled a six inch long piece of asparagus out of my daughter's arse. How's your day going?

There are details to this story, but this isn't that kind of website. Yet. I will just say that yes, I am certain that it was vegetable not animal, although halfway through pulling it out I was justifiably thinking parasite.

We had some bad news yesterday, nothing major, just another hope thwarted, and it's left me feeling worn out and heavy, as if I'm walking around inside a lead overcoat. I'm getting tired of non-stop setbacks and disappointments; none of it major, certainly none of it worth anyone's attention or pity, it just feels like a thousand tiny paper-cuts to the soul. If I was a giant magic 8-ball right now I'd be reading 'outlook not so good'.

And, as if the asparagus incident wasn't enough I just washed and dried my three strands of baby-fine blonde hair, then picked up LK's brush instead of mine and managed to gloop on 3lbs of residual Longs Drugs Maximum Hold Gel. I look like Snape's evil twin sister.

AND our next door neighbour is playing some kind of all-base drum medley which has left me resorting to sticking play-doh in my ears, which I'll admit is probably not a good idea either for my ears or the play-doh.

On the other hand, my self-pity isn't so all-encompassing that I can't be genuinely happy for other people's good fortune. Take julia for example. Pregnant with twins, normal twins, and this is her 13th pregnancy. I have been reading her truly brilliant blog for a long time now, and if anyone deserved a good roll of the magic 8-ball it was her.

So there you have it. Can anyone say PMS?

Easy Does It

On our way to the beach this evening to go running:

Me: I just had a Coke so I might get a stitch

LK: I just had a Dr. Pepper so my legs'll probably fall off.

Happy Dependence Day

No, in answer to your oft-repeated question. We don't have the 4th of July in England.

We lost.

.....or, another fave at this time of year, 'yes of course we do, it comes right after the 3rd'.

Help Wanted

These are trying times chez blahblah. I'm hiring a new assistant, which is always wearying to the point of wanting to curl up in a ball and die. I'm beginning to think it'd be easier to clone myself rather than find someone halfway decent in this town for $20/hr.

Maybe I should re-read that Craigslist ad, perhaps I inadvertently wrote; '

'Wanted: Complete Muppet.
Go ahead and surprise me with
what you consider relevant
experience for this job'

Below are just a selection of suggestions I would have for my current applicants. I'm not making any of these up.

• Do not say you are 'currently working to make ends meet'

• Do not list under skills 'general tasks'

• Dear God please do not write that you enjoy watching movies and reading books.

• Do not say you possess the skills to make a great medical office assailant

• Do not write that your main responsibility at your current job is to 'rotate the candy to ensure maximum candy freshness'.

• Do not list your contact e-mail as anything along the lines of 'earthmuffingoddess@verizon.com' or 'luv2spank@aol.com'

• If you're going to list a contact phone number, you're probably going to want to either answer that phone with more than a perfunctory 'yeah', or make sure your answering message doesn't say 'hi, you've reached Madison, I'm probably too stoned to reach the phone so you're s.o.l dude'.

• If you're currently working as an equine masseuse/candy rotator/shelf-stacker at Vons, help me out with a cover letter that at least addresses what inspired you to think you could be my assailant.

I need a drink.

Music To My Ears

We took Anna to her first concert this weekend, we had thought that the open-air setting of the Santa Barbara Bowl would be a little more child-friendly, after all they allow you to bring in children under three for free.....

We couldn't have been more wrong.

The entire first half was John Williams conducting the Music Academy of the West. They played Shostakovich. Really, really quiet Shostakovich. You could hear a pin drop, and I'm not kidding when I say during a particularly delicate piece by the solo-violinist I actually saw a deer grazing in the scrub behind the stage. All you could hear was the plaintive song of the bow on the strings, and the toddler in my lap who kept saying 'OR-CHES-TRA!' very loudly and proudly in intervals of maybe ten seconds.

We were squashed in to the very middle of the audience and couldn't have left without causing major disruption so we were doing everything possible to quieten her down. She wasn't screaming, or behaving badly at all, she was just announcing things in a very clear toddler voice. Things that usually garner her much attention and praise, like ‘VIOLIN MUMMY’, or for example when I in desperation told her that we had to be very quiet, like a mouse she said 'A MOUSE, SQUEAK, SQUEAK!'. If we tried to put our hands over her mouth she would say ‘NO, NO MUMMY, NO HANDS’, or if we put our fingers to our lips she would do a very eager ‘SHHH’ sound.

She started asking for a dummy (a pacifier) repeatedly;

A DUMMY! A DUMMY! A DUMMY!

LK had been in charge of the Anna bag, and there was no dummy. I may have suggested more than once that in future it would be great if there was always a dummy in Anna's bag. To which LK replied 'say it one more time Wrigs and I'll pull one out my ass'. Things were getting tense.

It was a chuffing nightmare. How were we to know? What were the chances you could hear a the sound of a cricket’s heartbeat at an open-air venue? I bolted as soon as humanly possible (with Anna clapping enthusiastically) and spent the rest of the show hanging out with the other ostracized parents in the refreshment area below.

I asked Anna the next morning if she’d enjoyed her first orchestral experience and she nodded sagely and said ‘SHHHHH!’.

Skool Rools

Anna recently started at a preschool, and I've been putting off writing this post in order not to tempt fate but, damn, I'm so gobsmacked at how well she's doing. By all accounts she is positively thriving and we have trouble dragging her away at the end of the day.

I can't tell you how relieved I am that she cheerily carries her little lunchbox in to school, gives me a kiss, waves and says 'bye-bye' then happily trots off. I had been dreading this, and for good reason too. When Anna was a paltry three months old I went back to work, because this country has THE most draconian maternity rules in the developed world *seethe*. I'd been a bit worried about the number of friends who'd cheered on my swelling belly and then said 'so, have you thought about childcare, what are your plans? You have plans right? Thoughts?'. Then in response to my blank stare they would give me that same reassuring smile you would give to the newly pregnant woman who’s put on thirty pounds in the first two months of pregnancy, that ‘oh God, you clearly have no idea how fucked you are’ smile. Now I get it, the true horror that is finding affordable, manageable, reliable childcare, oh, and safe too, but that really is an afterthought compared to the rest......

As it happens, a nanny-sharing situation literally fell in to our laps and worked pretty much brilliantly until the girls were two. However, (let me apologize while I reign in my train of thought and get back on track here) Anna was not always spectacular about being away from LK and I. Our first nanny labeled Anna a ‘fearful baby’ and promised us with the conviction of someone going through City College Child Development Classes that there was nothing to be done about this, that she would always fear change, new situations and well, life, basically. I’m known to be a bit of a worrier myself, so this seemed plausible, although it did rather go against our experience of a smiley, sunny baby who was more than happy to be handed to any random stranger in a restaurant/bar/crack-house. Nanny #1 would call and ask ‘what do you do if she’s crying uncontrollably’ and I would swallow back that wave of guilt and panic, look at the huge pile of work on my desk, the huge mortgage bills yet to be paid and answer as best I could ‘well, it hasn’t really come up with us, but maybe you could cuddle her?’. I knew Anna was miserable with her, but I just had too much on my plate to re-organize an otherwise perfect childcare situation. I know, just writing that makes me cringe; perfect other than your child being desperately unhappy? Mother of the Year Award this way please. Things did get better, particularly with the advent of nanny #2, but Anna still had a tendency to freak out if she felt she was in a situation where people weren’t going to look after her properly. It didn’t fill me with confidence a couple of months ago when I pulled into the gym carpark and she started screaming ‘no, no Anna, Mummy ‘ome ‘ome’. I got about five minutes into that particular spin class before one of the gym childcare ladies knocked on the glass to say ‘your child, she is screaming’.

We knew early this year that our nanny-sharing situation would be ending and that we’d have to find a preschool for Anna. That’s where the horror began. What I didn’t realize was that there are two distinct group childcare options out there for toddlers;

Preschool – structured environments where the children learn and have fun. Usually ridiculously expensive and well-nigh impossible to get in to.

Daycare – a room filled with garage-sale toys, tired, screaming snot-filled tearaways and bored wardens/teachers only intervening when the biting draws blood. These still have waiting lists and only cost a little less.

On my first tour round a daycare I was thrilled to find it was run by nanny #1. Double trouble! I had to do the requisite tour, and smile through clenched teeth as she described Anna’s interaction with the other kids as ‘still a little reluctant’. I cried all the way home and vowed for the millionth time to leave this toxic town.

The second place I went to was the preschool she now goes to. So radically different an environment that after the tour I turned to LK and said ‘this is where she’s going’. We spent a year on the waiting list and finally only got in because LK ‘re-toured’ and the Argentine director clearly took a fancy to him. Maybe that ‘I heart the Falkland Islands’ t-shirt I wore first time round was a little ill-advised.

Anna now comes home from ‘school’ and when I ask her if she enjoyed her day she will nod sagely then say cryptic things like ‘paint’ or ‘shells’ or ‘singing in the boat’ (there is a boat in the garden where all her classmates sit for singing class). I know this could well be the honeymoon period of preschool, where the novelty outweighs the separation, but really, why should I find it surprising at all that she prefers a house and garden full of toys, toddlers and inspiration to time at home with me saying 'do you want to watch Blues Clues while Mummy plays on the computer?' Maybe not such a shocking transition after all.

All Creatures Great and Small

Most of the time we live a very sanitized domesticated life here in California. A life very different to the one I had imagined when coming out here. I'd heard about bears, sharks, mountain lions, coyotes, rattle snakes and black widows. I more or less expected them to greet me as I left the luggage carousel at LAX. Obviously I know now that those are the least of your worries in South Central LA.

Two days after LK and I met we went hiking up Jesusita Trail in the hills behind Santa Barbara. The sun was about to set and we were more or less the only people up there. We got to the top and took in the gorgeous views of the city below; the white-washed buildings with their red roofs, the ocean and islands stretching to the blue and gold horizon. LK cracked a couple of cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon (the signs were all there ladies, why didn't I run?), which promptly exploded from all the bumping up the trail. I immediately slurped what I could from the top of the can and LK said 'damn, you're my kind of woman'. *Sigh*. We paused, to take in the beauty of the moment and then he turned to me and said 'man, look at those lions'.

I must have literally gone 'wh-what?'. I do remember thinking, 'why aren't we running, should we run now? what about now?' I was just about to hurl myself off the ridge when he added 'we should have been surfing, not hiking'.

He was talking about lines of incoming waves, not lions. Lines not lions. The first of many, many verbal misunderstandings that have left him oblivious and me gathering fistfuls of sizeable rocks .

In the UK there is practically nothing in nature that can harm you. There is one poisonous snake, an adder, that I have personally never seen and my Mum and Dad have only seen once. Snakes are only active when it's sunny, thus making it even less likely to see a rare snake in the wilds of cloudy North Yorkshire. Other than that, nothing. The real James Herriot was knocked over by sheep, and I've heard tales of angry badgers, but that's about it. California has wilderness, and creatures with teeth and barbs and venom. We went to a party last week at an avocado ranch just outside Santa Barbara which is regularly frequented by bears. LK has seen mountain lions when fishing with his Dad. We used to have a black widow spider in the corner of our shower (think of that next time you reach for the Timotei). I also once trod on a potato bug when walking out of the bathroom of our 'studio' (converted garage) in Carpinteria. If I hadn't just been to the loo it could quite literally have scared the crap out of me, because have you seen one of these things?










Wow, that picture is about true to scale too. They are like ants on steroids. Urgh.

We've also come across snakes too, but they are fortunately few and far between.

Not so yesterday as it happens.

We got home from work, said goodbye to our nanny, shut the door and then five seconds later heard her scream, and then start banging on the door pleading 'fuck, shit,' bang bang bang 'God let me in, Jesus Fucking Christ'. We opened the door and she was laughing saying 'oh my God, there's the biggest fucking snake out there'. True, a two-foot long snake, was lying right across our path. Right here, where less than a week ago we took this picture of Anna on her first day at pre-school:















I know, cute picture, but there could have been a snake lurking in the shrubbery that very second!! And dear God those snakes can move fast. Not as fast as a nanny and a Mum holding a two-year old though. It sped straight towards us and we literally flew back in to the house. Anna thought it was hilarious, and now has a much-expanded vocabulary which I'm hoping she won't be using at her new pre-school.

God I hate snakes.

Dear C.

My best friend is leaving SB. The first friend I ever made here. The one who threw my baby shower and when I told her I was pregnant said 'you're lying, shut the fuck up, you would never tell me like this, over the phone, you're lying'. Her husband yelled 'I bet it's a girl'.

When she was pregnant we had to stop going out for cocktails, so instead we went to see every movie out in the cinemas, and in a town as pretentious and arty as this one we saw some pretty weird shit. Remember those 70-year-olds having sex? I can't seem to get that one out of my head. C. is awesome to go to the movies with. I think I will miss that the most. Mrs Skeletor is pretty damn good because she sneaks in a bottle of wine and always pours it during the quietest part of the film, but C. is the dogs bollocks because of her loud and wholly inappropriate laughter. Do you remember when the grandfather shot the son in Monsters Ball? I do, because C. was eight months pregnant and we screamed and laughed so hard I thought she'd deliver right there and then.

We have been through two children and three last names together. We were the undefeated champions of the Santa Barbara tennis league in 2000 (I'm not telling you what division). We used to play singles for hours in shorts and T-shirts dripping with sweat. I always knew not to mess with her when we'd turn up for an early match and she didn't have her eyebrows on yet. We regularly fought over the 'chalice' the mac daddy of all trophys. For the record, I still have the chalice, she never did win it back from me.

She will kill me for publishing any photo of her. She is already sweating bullets and scanning down this post having read that last sentence thinking, 'oh no you didn't'.

LK and I went to their wedding in Maui; we were two of only five people on that beach and it was gorgeous. I saw her son on the day he was born, he was the first newborn I'd ever held. Her husband called me from the OR to say it was a boy and that he was called 'Colin'; her insides were still on the operating table and she was still managing to mess with me. He's not called Colin, thank the Lord. She told me that if she had a girl she'd call her Brandy Star and I said I'd buy her a pole for her crib. I told her what my girls names were and she called me a stuck-up cow.

I have testified in court for her.

She was the only non-relative who stayed in the waiting room in the hospital for Anna to appear. She had to sit on a couch between LK's Mom and LK's Dad's girlfriend for hours. No friend should suffer that.

When I was 8-months pregnant with Anna I was walking through the make-up section in Macy's when it suddenly hit me that I might be having a girl and that I knew nothing, nothing about make-up, or the 'right' jeans or any of that stuff. The only thing that kept me from curling up in a little ball was the thought that if my daughter wanted to know about anything girly I'd always be able to refer her to C. God help Anna now.

It is hard living in a town where my husband grew up, where he knows everyone. It took me a long time to make some good solid friendships of my own, friends that will last the test of time. I know that C. is one of those friends and that's why I'm truly gutted, but also happy for her because I know she's got a better life ahead of her, and I know she'd better keep in touch because I have no idea what I'm doing out here without her.

I give it one hour before she phones me to tell me to take the photo down.

Just Be Nice

As I was saying, before being so rudely interrupted by my mother, the advice given to me for how to survive as American/British tourists in Paris had been 'just be nice'.

WTF thought I. Moi? Always nice. As it happens, so were the French. True, I did get my fair share of being shoved out the way if it came down to an available seat in a cafe during a rainstorm. Having a baby does not apparently mean you get any priority with seating; restaurants, the metro, anywhere. Maybe I'm just being provincial. The English are known for being almost absurdly gallant when it comes to giving up seats etc, walk on to a crowded bus in Harrogate holding a baby and the entire bus-load of passengers will spring to attention to offer you a seat. You could accuse me of stating the obvious though when I say that Paris is a tad different to North Yorkshire. It's a major metropolis (Geography degree coming in useful there), and I wonder how many people give up their seats on the tube in London these days; about as many as return eye-contact probably. On the whole though, people were really lovely, and this is despite me wandering the streets singing 'I don't understand the Parisians' a la Leslie Caron.

I suppose the trite moral is 'be nice and people will be nice to you'. You may be expecting them to rob you blind and spit in your coffee and they may be expecting you to demand ranch dressing on your salade and ketchup on your omelette aux fines herbes but if you have a stab at speaking French, they'll at least try to keep the sarcasm in check when saying 'ahh, you speak French, but you are English?!'

Plus as is usually the case when out and about in Europe, people were incredibly knowledgeable about all things political, asking beaucoup questions about the Presidential race, listing all the candidates and weighing their pros and cons while I just about knew that a new French President had been elected and that he was right-wing with a name with a z in it. Nice. Maybe I should read more than the 'magazine' section of the BBC website when I log on in the morning.

The Parisians we met were head-over-heels with Anna, and if we ever actually managed to squeeze her jogger in to one of those ridiculously tiny French cafes they were showering her with bread and cheese in minutes. Toddler - international credit-card you'll find, (to paraphrase Eddie Izzard).

Talking of credit cards. Another thing that made me feel like a club-wielding cave-dweller whilst in Europe was our American credit card. In the last few years the UK, and apparently France too have gone Euro-techno with their plastic and treat my BofA card like it should belong in a museum. Example:

Checker - "Hello dear. Oh and isn't she bonny? What's your name love?"

Anna - "Choclit?"

Me - "I'm sorry, it's an American card and it doesn't have a chip so you have to swipe it"

Checker - "Oh really, you'd think they'd be more advanced over there wouldn't you? I don't think the machine'll let me do that. I think I have to stick it in first, then it has to realize there's not a chip."

Checker - "Hmm, it says 'swipe card'"

Checker - "CHRISTINE! My lady here as an American card with no chip"

Christine - "Just swipe it Maureen"

Checker - "Oh yes, it'll let me do that now. Funny, you'd think the Americans would have done this first wouldn't you?"

Lance - stony-faced seething

Anna - "Choclit?"

Repeat said scene fifteen billion times every day.

I know we have debit cards and pin numbers in the States, but I'm not kidding, every card over there has a chip and a pin regardless of whether it's credit or debit. In France too. And in all restaurants the waiter brings this little hand-held credit-card jobby to your table and voila bill-paying is over. Even the shabbiest French bistro we went to had these things. I suppose it's less convenient in the US where you have to tip and it would be a tad awkward to punch in tip = $2.50 in front of Jaden/Braden/Hayden/Cayden your waiter who tried to do a good job whilst waiting for decent waves but really wasn't the dogs bollocks.

Thus in conclusion (I had to add that bit for Ms. T) I loved Paris. I loved the fact that every morning we'd walk out of our apartment, buy some pain chocolat and croissants and just walk in a random direction. Neither of us had ever been before, so we had to do the obvious touristy stuff, but instead of queuing for hours to go up the Eiffel Tower or the Arc de Triomphe, LK has come up with a much better solution. Kick the thing. Have you seen the Eiffel Tower, yep, I've kicked it. Notre Dame? Gave it a good one-two. It's very satisfying and generally you don't have to pay. Lovely.

By the way the best diss of our holiday francais came from my brother, who else? We almost bought ourselves some Lacoste shirts because honestly, why not, we were on the Champs Elysees, it was sunny (briefly), and then we saw the price. The exchange rate is not kind to those of us with dollars these days. I could see Anna's preschool tuition in each carefully appliqued crocodile. Needless to say we gave it a miss, but mentioned to, lets just call him, 'Pierre' that we almost bought him a polo shirt. To which he replied 'oh, is that considered trendy in the States? It's a bit chavvy here to be honest'.

Just as well we didn't really. Anyway, for the record, here's a picture of LK kicking the Eiffel Tower:

Hard As Nails

Surgery was a success. Huge sigh of relief all round, and some serious drinking to be done...

She Hasn't Got The 'Guts' To Stay At Home

Dad called me at work yesterday to say that Mum's back in hospital.

I know he was finding it as hard to cope with as me because he said;
'Hi Ali, it's John'
'Hi John, you sound exactly like my Dad, only sadder and more strained'.

Apparently whatever it is that was wrong in the first place is back. 'Whatever it is' being a medical term I suppose, because it seems to be said a lot these days.

I imagine this answers the question of 'what would you do if you were over six thousand miles away and someone you loved was rushed to hospital.'

I am glad it first happened while we were back home, because now I know that I'd be pretty useless if I were to be there. Those horrid first days of my Mum being in so much pain and saying 'I'd like you all to leave now please'. The only thing I could constructively do was cook for my Dad, and after two meals I exhausted my culinary capabilities anyway. I made 'the salmon thing' and 'the chicken thing'.

She's back in the same ward, so it helps that I can visualize her there. I am toying with the idea of being useless and physically present though. She will get the results of more tests back today, and that'll help me decide.

Keep thinking good thoughts and sticking crystals in all available orifices, (orifi?) - Mrs. K.

Now this is how you garden....

One of the things I would have loved to have inherited from my Mum is her green thumb. I'm still hoping it's latent, but it's starting to look rather unlikely. Here are just a few photos of her garden, which she didn't even have chance to tend as she was putting her feet up in the hospital and not even babysitting...





















































OK, maybe not this photo.....








Every female on my Mum's side of the family is a magician in the garden, speaks fluent latin with respect to plant names, and has an obsession with garden shows, cuttings and compost verging on the obscene.

An example. During our stay my Aunty Jane and Uncle Phil drove over to visit. There was a phone call from the hospital to say Mum would be discharged at some point that afternoon, and there was a chance I might be at the hospital and unable to let my Aunty and Uncle in to the house after their long drive. Obviously you can't leave a huge great sign on the door saying 'dear Aunty Jane the key is under the mat', or as a friend of mine wrote 'if you're the gas man the key's by the milk bottles', but I was confident enough to know that if I wrote 'the key's by the Clematis Jackmanii' they'd be inside on their third pot of tea by the time I pulled up with the invalid.

And yes, I do know what a Clematis Jackmanii is (see purple flower below) the trait as I say, could be latent.























I'm starting to wonder if maybe this gene hasn't skipped a generation....

Back. Home?

We're back. Back to DSL. Hoorah to an internet connection that doesn't give up every time the phone rings. LK types with two fingers and you should trust me when I say he wasn't too happy to spend forty-five minutes morse-coding out a message to J. and Skeletor only to have it zapped by a phone call from someone concerned with my Mum's bowels. The poor boy had to have fifteen pints of Landlord at the Black Swan (aka The Mucky Duck) to recuperate.

Am I glad to be back? Hard to say. As usual I really ache with missing family and England. My heart and insides feel like they've been beaten with a mallet. Although it's true that that pain could be down to the two packets of pork scratchings, pickled onion monster munch and the huge bag of treacle toffee I had before going to bed. Who can say?

Most of the reason I'm not so keen on being back, and the reason why I'm blogging jet-lagged and mopey at 3am, is the huge amount of *stuff* we have to deal with now we're back. This trip was of such monumental length that it allowed me to put off thinking about a lot of crap until we got back.

On a positive note though, I am really glad to be back in a country that has toilet-seat protectors in public bathrooms. Uncannily happy.

As promised, here are some photos:-













Me trying to order three wheels of goat-bollock cheese in the fromagerie.
















Caught in the reflection in the shop window. This apparently is what I look like when I speak French.

Magnifique.


















Vite. Takez-vouz le picture. It's going to pleut any minute.
















The view from our not-too-shabby apartment.

Parlez-Vous Franglais?

Ah Paree, how you render me speechless. Literally.

I took French for years, years. From my first french class aged 11 when my Mum asked me what I'd learnt, 'something about apples' I replied loftily, to which she added 'that'll be je m'appelle then won't it', to AS-level french, taking business notes and being all poncey and reading Le Petit Prince. Who me - poncey? As soon as we got off the plane I realised that I was about as useful as a french poodle to LK and Anna. I could say 'j'ai quinze ans et j'habite en Harrogate', and 'regardes les jolies fleures', but that wasn't going to get me via some sort of public transport into the centre of Paris now was it? And how exactly do you say to the lady at the information desk that you'd forgotten to bring a car seat and was it legal to just hold a child in the back of the taxi? (it is, fortunately). LK was rolling his eyes at me going 'this would have been soo much easier if we'd gone to Barcelona because I not only profess to speak the language, I actually do....'. We made it though, and gradually my ear if not my voice came back. Bloody good job too, because the reason we were going to Paris was not just the £9 flights from Leeds Bradford.

£9, that's right, $18.

So ludicrous a fare it deserves it's own paragraph. Thankyou Jet2. No, LK has a friend who just happens to have a pad in Paris. In the Mayfair of Paris, looking out over Parc Monceau and the Arc de Triomphe. A pad that just happened to be empty. Sacre bleu!

We turned up and the concierge very kindly let us in, and handed us the sheaf of keys, and then proceeded in tres rapide French to explain the intricate use of the keys, and the buzzer system, and the elevateur anciente (a blog in itself) meanwhile I'm smiling like a nodding dog and my brain is grabbing every third word in ten and latching on to them like they're going to save me from drowning.

Concierge 'blah blah blah blah la porte blah blah blah ferme blah blah'

Me 'oo, I think he said door there. Yes I'm pretty sure of that one, door.'

Concierge 'blah blah, gesticulate wildly, blah blah absolument ferme'

Me 'crikey, this sounds like I should at least be taking some of this in. Why don't I just say 'lentement', come on, you know the word, just say it, 'lentement', it's easy, you know the word.'

Concierge 'blah blah il y'a beurre et du lait dans le frigo parce que.....blah blah'

Me - oh great, I know there's butter and milk in the fridge because today's a public holiday, but crap, what was that stuff about the keys. Ummm, 'repetez-vous' is that right, just say it you repressed English idiot. Say it!

Concierge 'alors, d'accord, a tout alors'

Me 'merci beaucoup monsieur' suddenly fluent when it no longer matters.


LK looks at me with a 'well sunshine?' you'd better not just have been merci-ing the poor man to death, and I give him a stern don't mess with me look and just to prove I know exactly what I've just appeared to be listening to, I tell him to look in the fridge for some milk and butter, a-ha, just you look Monsieur Americain! And here, while you're at it, you take the keys, I'm having a bath.

I don't think LK fell for the 'hmm this key does not appear to be working quite how the concierge explained it would' line later that day, but we did manage to get back in the apartment later. Thank the Lord. Photos this weekend I promise.

We had a wonderful time, lots of things to write about, and as usual no time.

I will leave you with a superb quote from my friend F. He's a frenchman married to my best friend S. I told him we'd be going to Paris, and did he have any advice? He said, tell them that you're fifteen years old and come from Harrogate, and be sure to comment on how jolies their fleurs are (no, not really). He actually said 'just be nice'. Just be nice, I thought. Huh, how strange. What he didn't say, and maybe I should have read between the lines, was 'be nice because they might not be.'