Silver Lining

The Wrong Trousers

It is the first day of the holiday when I haven't needed my emergency trousers.

Not, I hasten to add, that I have developed winter vomiting disease; nor because I have picked up a debilitating food poisoning from too many clotted cream teas.  Neither have I suddenly reached such an advanced stage of decreptitude that I must carry a bag carefully strapped beneath my trouser leg.

No, the emergency trousers are entirely the dog's fault.

On the first day - no, even before the first day.  On the way down here, we stopped just outside Okehampton for a classy Little Chef lunch.  I clipped the dogs' leads on, and took them to stretch their legs after their long incarceration in the car.  Jip was over-excited.  Jip was eager to climb the muddy bank.  And having emptied her bladder, she was keen to climb back down again - and that was my undoing.

I felt my feet slip, slide, glide from under me in the mud.  And suddenly, I was airborne.  And then airborne no longer, but landing hard on my backside, rather in the manner of that skydiver off of the news who fell 20,000 feet with no parachute, and broke his leg.

I didn't break my leg, but I landed hard on my arse.  I felt my vertebrae slither and slide and jolt into each other, like carriages in a cartoon train which doesn't want to slide off the broken rails and into the ravine.  Pssshtickoff, Pssshtickoff, Psshtickoff.  Ouch.  My vertebrae stopped just short of actually piercing my brain, and I picked myself up, and looked down and behind me, at my mud caked posterior.  Mud caked, and wet. 

The next day, the children and I took the dogs walking on the moor.  It is wet on Bodmin, this half term.  Wet, windy and flooded.  We walked and ran and climbed and conquered, and came home wet.  In the evening, I took the dogs out again, on a crap-march.  We crossed a small wooden bridge over the trout stream, and headed for the flooded ford.  Just before we got there, we hopped back over the stream to get back to the road.

I say we.  I mean, all of us except Jip.  Jip who cannot jump.  Jumpless Jip.  She stood and shivered and shook and quaked and whined and cried and was generally helpless and pitiful on the by-now-far side of the stream.

So I heroically jumped back again, picked her up and prepared to re-launch.  Midflight, Jip lost her nerve and wriggled.  And I jiggled, to compensate for her wriggling.  And like the old woman who swallowed a fly, I wriggled and jiggled and squiggled until my landing foot arrived on the far bank, but my following foot, dear reader, landed in the stream.  Which was deep, up to my thigh.  And cold.  And not at all welcoming.

I am a little concerned that, at this rate, I won't have enough jeans to last the duration of our holiday.  Which, lest we forget, is supposed to be quiet and relaxing.  And not involving emergency trousers...

I was excited when I went in to wake Dan this morning.  He's been praying for snow all winter, and I couldn't wait to see his little face when he looked out of the window. 

I didn't turn the bedroom light on, and twizzled the twizzler to rotate the blinds.

"Wake up, Dan!", I whispered.  "I've got something to show you!"

"whaat?" murmured the duvet

"Look out of the window!"

A fuzzy blonde head emerged, followed by slender shoulders.  He knelt on his bed and gazed through the open blind

"Whaaatttt?"

"What can you see?"

A puzzled glance stole my way.

"The garden?" 

"Yes," I prompted, "what about the garden?"

"It's finished???"  he plainly thinks I've lost it.  I decide to try a different tack.

"What's on the drive?"

"um......   bin bags?"

Did I imagine the snow this morning??

PPS

Topsoil is expensive, you know!  I am becoming concerned that, as a small child, I grossly undervalued the mud pies I simply *gave* to my mother!  I wonder if it is too late to present her with a bill.

How much extra should I charge for slugs?

Half worms?

I have been working all fucking day, you lie there sleeping your life away

You know how Saturdays are like buses?  You do nothing with them for months on end, and then all of a sudden you have to cram all those wasted Saturdays' worth of activity into a single day, to make up for it?  This was a Saturday of extremes...

Some time ago, I promised myself a day of just me, the muttley and the sky.  That day was Saturday.  We got up early. Not quite an alpine start, but it was Saturday you know!  We were on the road by 8.30am, and crawling through the narrow streets of North Malvern by 9.30am.  I found a carpark. Not so much of a carpark, really, more of a layby; parked the car and consulted my OS map (landranger 190, if you're interested!) to pinpoint our rough location.  Needless to say, my layby wasn't exactly marked, but knowing I'd just passed a phone box and looking at the tumbling crags looming above my bonnet, I guessed that I was roughly in the vicinity of the school.  We got out of the car quickly, shouldered the backpack and set off.  I say set off; really I mean I cast around for the scent of a path for a good couple of minutes - should I take the one to the right of the layby, rising steeply and stonily up the side of the rockfall, or the one to the left of the layby which was broader, paved and passed through the last vestiges of civilisation.  I chose the path most travelled, and ogled through the windows of the pretty cottages.  Once on the hills, we strode out, roughly in the direction of St Ann's Well, taking the slightly lower, leeward paths and skirting round the pointy pinnacle of the first hill.  The sky was broad and clear, the sun was up and twinkling on the frost, and we could see the full length of the ridge stretching out ahead of us.  It was a spectacular, cold, fresh day and I gulped in air and watched the muttley dashing eagerly from scent to bracken patch.

Past Worcestershire Beacon, we joined the ridge path.  The views were spectacular and if I had any grasp of geography I'd tell you precisely how we gazed over the plains of Worcestershire and Warwickshire to our left, and towards the distant blue smudge of the hills of Wales to our right.  Since my geography is dreadful, I'm guessing that's what we saw...

Highlights of the day included chatting to various other dog owners along the way; watching a pair of buzzards wheeling on the thermals over British Camp; making it to British Camp; realising my uphill legs had fallen off about a third of the way back; the kestrel hovering spectacularly just over my head while Muttley and I sat on the path to watch her; isolation, solitude, fresh air and open sky.  The cold snapping at my fingers; frost crystallised on the grass at my feet.

By the time we regained Worcestershire Beacon (via the summit this time), my downhill legs had fallen off too, and I had merely the faintest grasp of our precise location.  Which worried the muttley who was, frankly, exhausted.  Electing to skirt round the hill rather than force my hamstrings up another sharp ascent, I realised we weren't on precisely the same path that brought us onto the hills and I didn't know precisely what path we *were* on.  I kept the news to myself, fearing for a savaging of the ankles if I broke the news to Muttley.  I adopted the policy of looking down the steep slope of the hill, and identifying roads I had driven along to get us here.  Eventually, we rounded the final bend in the path and there were houses stretching up the hill in front of us.  Not, unfortunately, the houses we had passed on our ascent from the carpark layby, but I hoped they would be very close neighbours of those houses.  I pulled the map from my backpack to check where we might be, and crossreferenced my position against the girls' boarding school I found myself standing outside.

"Are you lost?"  A man sitting on a bench behind me, enquired.

"Um, not *exactly*" I fudged.  "I'm parked on this road, not far from here."

"My car's just here; would you like a lift?" he solicited.

Ummm.  Let me think about this.  You're sitting on a bench outside a girls' boarding school.  Would I like a lift?  Clue: No.  Thank you. 

I turned left onto the road, and was almost immediately greeted by the slightly alarming sight of a Morris dancer in full regalia flying down the hill on a bicycle.  I raised an eyebrow, in an attempt at a quizzical, worldly wise manner.  200 yards further up the hill, Muttley and I had to stand back and let a horde of them pass, all be-belled and jangly and indulging in their lewd practices.  Thankfully, the car was just past them and I collapsed gratefully into its embrace and drained the last of my thermos of tea.  We had been walking for six hours, and the Muttley was exhausted.

After a hot bath and a swift Chinese, DBO and I ventured up to the Arts Centre, to see The Buzzcocks.  I have to confess, I've never been to a bona fide punk gig before, but the Buzzcocks seemed like a good place to start.  It was a very entertaining evening - but for none of the reasons I might have anticipated...   The gig was entirely seated, which was the first oddity.  The audience was made up largely of people my age and above, some of whom had brought their children (of Dan's age and below) which made for a slightly confusing (and confused) audience.  Some of us had attempted to revive our lost youth, and dressed for the occasion.  I was particularly impressed by the portly man with grey hair which was desperately thin on top.  Nonetheless he had bravely spiked what remained of it, and sprayed a large blue patch.  The effect was somewhat ruined by the sight of the blue paint sparkling on his scalp...  Despite the spikes, the colours, and the odd safety pin, this middle aged audience was altogether too clean living.  No-one was bolloxed, slurring or swaying, and there wasn't a glue sniffer in sight.  The band itself were slightly uncomfortable - they were old and fat and saggy of jawline. 

Tony Barber wore black tracksuit bottoms and a T-Shirt which looked suspiciously chainstore and not at all punk.  He was embarrassingly like watching your grandad dance at a wedding.  They raced through the first half of their set, following the John Peel 'wrong speed' method and shouting far too fast, obviously keen to grab their cheque and get the hell out of there.  The sound mix was appalling, which was probably the most appropriate part of the whole experience.  There was an interval - an interval!!  At a punk gig!!!!  All kinds of wrong!!!! - after which, some of the audience had the temerity to dance.  But it was so muted to begin with, that I watched a man balance a tray of beers through the gently swaying masses.  Eventually, a woman with pink and black striped hair and a jumper to match, began dancing at the front of the stage.  This mostly involved jumping and waving her arms around, and looked quite the most authentic display of the evening.  A young member of staff tried to usher her away from the stage front, which led to a gaggle of middle aged pogo-ers fronting up to staff young enough to be their children in a hideously surreal inversion of the generation struggle. 

Shortly after this, Steve Diggle announced that it was someone called Simon's 40th birthday, and that the band would like to wish him "Happy Fucking Birthday; have a piece of this, yer cunt!!" with which, they launched into Ever Fallen In Love (or whatever it's called) and we could all go home.  It was surreal, and tragic, and surreal again.  I'm awful glad I've done it now, and I shan't have to do it again...

The first time it rained in my new bedroom, I thought I would never get used to it.  The curtains were tightly drawn against the elements, but the rain, drumming viciously on the velux window, sounded like somebody was blasting me with a shotgun loaded with ball bearings.  It was so loud!  It woke me with a start, and I couldn't sleep for fear the window would break, and the ball bearings would roll overwhelmingly into the room.

Now, though, rain on the velux is comforting, rather than alarming.  I no longer draw my curtains - there's nobody to see me anyway, we are completely not overlooked, and I enjoy lying in my bed and looking up at the clouds scudding across a starlit sky.  Rain has that cosy, hot chocolate and grandma sensation these days, and while I'm usually conscious of it, it rarely actually wakes me any more.

Last night, however, was an exception.  A combination of circumstances conspired against me.  First, we had our first big, winter storm in this house.  The wind howled around the corners of the dormer window, and the rain rattled and pounded against the velux.  Although I was snug and warm in bed, the wall separating me from the wrath of the elements seemed very insubstantial.  Secondly, because it's Daisy's birthday, Sissy and lovely Brother in Law were staying, so I had the cat in my bedroom to allow them some peace.  The rain woke the cat.  The cat bounced and pounded off the walls, like some demented parkouriste, pausing occasionally to gnaw on exposed extremities with small, sharp teeth.  I could do little but hope it would pass quickly.

I drifted to sleep again, dimly aware that my neck was at a funny angle.  Eventually, I realised the cat had settled (and was fast asleep) on my head.  I wrestled in a half sleeping state with a fresh dilemma; should I move the cat and risk waking her again for a reprise of Jump London round the bedroom?  Or should I leave her be and risk spending my baby's birthday with a painfully cricked neck?  By the time I opted to  leave her be, the dawn was pinkening the clouds outside my window, and the bin lid was rattling down the drive. 

Sheesh, I'm tired!

We go to Warwick Gallery.  Partly because it's on my list of places to browse for Christmas presents and partly because I can't resist Warwick Gallery.  The man who runs it is a genuinely nice guy; witty, charming and slightly bonkers.  In a good way.

This afternoon, I had Dan and Daisy with me, and he had a mug of Drumsticks lollipops. 

"Hello, young man.  Take a lollipop." said Mr Lovely-but-Bonkers

Dan looked at him as though he was deranged.

"It's ok; go on - take one"

Dan looked at me with eyes that clearly said, "Mum, this man is deranged."  I smiled, and nodded  - in assent or permission, I'm not quite sure.  Dan looked back at the man.

"Yes, take one" urged Mr L-B-B.  "But you have to take it, I can't give it to you because I'm a stranger."

Dan plunged his hand into the mug in the manner of a boy who can't quite believe his luck.

"Would you like one, little girl?"

Daisy shook her head, forlornly.

"She doesn't like 'em" Dan, admitting Mr L-B-B into his exclusive World Of Blokes explained, nonchalantly.

"Oh.  Do you like Quality Street?"

Daisy's eyes grew as wide as saucers, until I was worried they might actually fall off the edges of her face.  She gave a quick, mute nod.

Mr L-B-B reached behind the counter, and produced a huge tin of Quality Street.  We don't have Quality Street at home, because they are made by Nestle Baby Killers.

Daisy's eyes grew even larger and I mentally paced the distance between us and Specsavers.  She reached into the tin, and considered for a long time.  I watched  pins and needles creeping down  Mr L-B-B's arm.

"You're not allowed my favourites" he wittered, "but you can take any of the others..."

Eventually, she chose a green one, and they both professed themselves satisfied. 

Meanwhile, I browsed successfully.  As I approached the till with my purchases, the Quality Street tin was produced again.  This time, it was left first on the counter and then, when that was too high for Daisy, on the floor at their feet.

"Help yourselves!  But don't take my favourites!" he exhorted, merrily. 

I grimaced.  "The chocolate effect will kick in any minute now." I grumped, eyeing the delicate breakable wares in his shop.

"Yes," he chortled, "but you'll have left by then!"

I became involved in a complex conversation with the women behind the counter, and out of the corner of my ear, I heard him exclaim "Oh no.  Not that one.  That one makes you poo."  It was hastily stuffed back and when I glanced over with a raised eyebrow and a smile, he explained that it was a strawberry cream - his favourite.

Three Quality Streets apiece later, he bounded past me, verrily wringing his hands with glee.  "I must go!" he declared.  "My work here is done!"

I wonder how dignity is parcelled out.  Great big, cosmic ponderings.  See, I reckon we're all born with *some* dignity.  Dignity intact, as it were.  And then various things happen.  Until some people become totally devoid of dignity - I'm thinking Joan Rivers.

Giving birth in hospital.  That strips you of a fair bit of dignity, I'd say.  By the time it came round to Daisy, I was pretty much prepared to show my cervix to any casual enquirer, without question.  So many people had called round for a peek, with barely so much as a by your leave.  Pity the poor woman who only wanted to know whether I wanted horlix or ovaltine...

Yesterday, we went to Sainsburys after school.  I like going to Sainsburys then.  While it's busy, it's mostly busy with other families, so people are more tolerant of children.  And the kids helped pick out veg for me.  Dan, in particular, is good at measuring mushrooms and rummaging for the best ones.  So that's his job.  He also picked me out apples and pears before he and Daisy ran off to fiddle with the headphones in the CD section and listen to whatever was playing.

Later, just as we were rounding the corner into the fridge aisle, It Happened.

"Mum" says Dan, in his high, clear, curious voice

"You know when I go to the toilet?"

"Um, not now, eh, Dan?"

"Yes, but, when I do a poo?"

"Dan.  Really.  Not now.  Let's talk about it when we get home?"

"Yes, but I saw bacteria!"

.....???????????????.....

"Not! Now! Dan!"

"But Mum!  There were lots of them!  Kind of swimming in my poo!"

Out of the corner of my eye, I swear I saw the last shred of my dignity, stalking round the corner.  I imagine it looked disgusted.

I tried not to think about mushrooms as I went to the pharmacy to buy worming tablets, this morning.

Mum came for lunch yesterday.  Discussions around the menu earlier in the week settled upon Spaghetti Bolognaise, with chocolate trifle for pudding - not much concession to the adult palate there.  So Spaghetti Bolognaise it was.  Which led to Dan exclaiming, in a panic:  "But we must make sure DBO is here!  I can't cook it without him!"

So Mum was treated to Spaghetti Bolognaise cooked by Dan.  DBO chopped the onions.

Meanwhile, a minor contraceptive disaster occasioned a trip to Boots.  I announced that I had to nip to Boots for half an hour.  "Good!"  exclaims Mum.  "I'll come with you!  I need some rehydration salts for my holiday!"

Ah.

Good.

Off we go, then.

Once in Boots, Mum proved unshakable.  Nothing for it, I thought.  I shall have to bite the bullet.

I was saved by a shop assistant little older than Moo.  "Can I help you?"  she asked, innocently, presumably thinking that a middle aged woman and an aged dodderer couldn't get her into much trouble.

"Yes!"  I responded.

"My mother would like some rehydration salts, please, and I'd like some emergency contraception".

So that settled that.

18.....6......9......14

18......6........niiiinnnne......14

My remote desktop connection has frozen, and I'm in the middle of inputting enrolment numbers.

18, 6, 9, 14

Today, we had 4 cohorts of 2+2 students; students who study two years in a college in their community, and join us for the second year of their degree programme.  If I had a penny for every woman who sat at a PC today and said "I can't use a computer.  I've spent the last 10 years being a Mum...".  Now, I know what they meant, don't get me wrong. But I've spent the last 17 years being a Mum, and I don't see that it's a particular obstacle to using computers.

18, 6, 9, 14.

Except, of course, when the kids are playing rambunctious games with the kitten while I'm trying to work out continuation rates for the forward projection of student populations in the 5 year plan.

Eighteen.

Six.

Nine.

Fourteen.

Bugger.  Connection timed out.  And I had to change my password the other day, because a colleague read it over my shoulder while I was typing it (supposedly an IT liaison colleague, too, so should have bloody known better!).  The new one is fiendishly difficult to remember.

EIGHTeen.   6.  9.  FOURteen.

It won't let me back in.... I wonder if the whole interweb is broken.  If only I hadn't had to spend so long today being a Mum, then I'd have done this earlier.

18 sixnine 14

Bought some fab clothes while Mumming, though.  So I'll look good tomorrow, while demonstrating my computer illiteracy, at least.

8teen  six 9  fourteen

I wonder what would happen if I clicked 'open saved connection'.  Does the connection autosave?

186914

The remote connection has timed out.  Please try again later.

Bugger.

Dan has been kidnapped by aliens and replaced by an impostor.  I know this, because today he came home from school announcing that he's earned a house point for sitting quietly.  The real Dan could never manage that.

I spoke to Mum, who has been talking to her bereavement counsellor.  She says, in a nutshell, that she's sick of telling people she's fine when she isn't just because that's the answer they expect.  The counsellor tells her she *is* fine.  She loses her temper, and insists that she isn't.  The counsellor tells her fine means Fucked-up, Insecure, Non-functioning and Emotional.  Guess I'm fine too, then.  If anyone sees that on a postcard, send it to me please...

I suspected my garage roof would need replacing sooner rather than later.  I've got some people out to quote me for it.  The first chap arrived today, raced up a ladder and stuck his foot through the roof, which turns out to have been rotten.  Now it needs replacing URGENTLY.  Do you suppose I can claim on the Buildings Insurance (which I only took out yesterday?!)...

We have installed extra memory into our mid-tier servers today. Well, one of them.  It seems to have settled ok, so the other one gets it tomorrow, in between enrolment events.  The main event is this weekend.  I'm expecting 4,000 undergraduates spread over the two days, and the bloody servers better hold up for that... It turns out the continuation analysis I've been sweating blood over probably isn't necessary for the first phase of the Data Warehouse project - though I shall set someone to looking at it again, at course level, as a longer term development... which means I now need to get my head around applying the old, finger in the wind continuation rates to ongoing student populations.  I think I have an idea how to do it.  But only a loose one. 

And now I'm off to watch another episode of Invasion, while I wait for 1600 reminder emails to reach their destination, as I chase the re-enrolling students for the final time this week.  Or maybe only the penultimate time.  Depends how recalcitrant they are.  Recalcitrant being the mot du jour...