Euro Excursions

Half term travel, with Urinal Air, where inflight snacks cost more than the fares. After a short delay, they announced...a short delay. No turbulance so no extra charges for sick bags. Instead spent more euros than decent on less Cava than needed. The injured teenager, two overtired dustbin lids and myself landed in Madrid, at midnight, on Wednesday. Pity He-who-must-be-adored wasn't there to greet us. He had trouble finding the terminal. The same terminal where He has previously met me. And all because of a 'team building exercise'. In a bar. Whilst watching Bacca thrash MU.

So a very different half term holiday from Tallmumchum. She text: sitting out force ten in tent, on cliff top, too dangerous to dismantle. Ever the swot, she later text: tell the book club it was a good read and kept me company at a low point. I text back: it was nice knowing you. can I have your car? But guilt set in when I didn't hear back. Eventually she text from the safety of the car: don't feel guilty, I didn't as I swigged wine early on.

Back in Madrid. Yesterday He-who-must-be-adored worked whilst we played. With no guilt at all. We took the cable car across the city. I thought I gave a brave performance, despite my fear of heights. I neither cried nor puked. Even though I wanted to. The dustbin lids loved it and I tried, but failed, to find their enthusiasm infectious. I clung on for dear life and had a complete sense of humour failure as they tried to rock the boat/car thang that looked a little flimsy in my humble opinion. Afterwards I recovered in the shade of a tree as they enjoyed being the only lids in an 1800 acre park. With her hand cast in the thumbs up position the Teenager couldn't enjoy the full delights of an empty play park. (As if she'd stoop so low.) Later I asked the lids what was the best bit of the holiday so far. The Little-un: watching Art Attack on tv in Spanish; Gorgeous Boy: being able to lay down on the enormous sofa bed, whilst watching TV; The teenager: hopefully her tan, but did I know we were missing Britain's Got Talent, AND the launch of Big Brother?

So worth dragging the couch potatoes abroad then!

Unbelievable

And still a non-smoker I am. My lungs are getting clearer. My belly is getting bigger. But then as my bro’ says ‘you can lose weight anytime, you can’t grow another lung’. But my lungs appear to be growing alongwith the rest of me. But still, are clothes supposed to hurt? Luckily the Teenager’s growing social life is helping me curb the Cava thang. Tonight I’m typing as I wait to drive her ‘friend who happens to be a boy’ home from here. Yeah right that’s what I thought too.
To town today. Supersis drove so luckily no French issues tonight. We took the lids for a day out. Obviously not the Teenager. Not because we left her at home Cinderella style. Whatever she may say. No, she spotted the opportunity of a house empty of siblings and parents and had her own social thang instead. But boy did she miss out on a weird and whacky day. And boy was I not in no way uptight about what may, or may not, have been happening in my house of unsupervised teenagers.

The Gorgeous one was in boy heaven as we paid tourist prices to enter the weird and whacky (and downright disgusting) world of www.ripleys.com.

Frankly I find it weird that a man (of course only a man) could devote his entire life to discovering the weird and the whacky. Then that he shared the weird and the whacky with the rest of the world. Then again, that there is just so much weird and whacky, odd and unusual and strange in this world. Some of it you really have to see to believe. I guess that’s why he called it ‘believe it or not’. Other bits, I wish I hadn’t. In fact we all agreed to run from the theatre-reel after less than 10 seconds of film, and we all agreed to run through the torture-themed exhibition.

The highlights and lowlights depend on your age and persuasion. Personally, I can’t decide, in the side-show-freak-show spirit what I enjoyed more. Seeing Gorgeous boy’s full freak out in the mirror maze or Supersis’s nervous breakdown on the rotating tunnel. She thought the Whizz kid’s wheelchair would fall off. The kid, of course, was steady as a rock. It’s not called the chicken run for nowt. The little-un loved that optical illusion the most. I could take or leave double-headed-lamb, the three-legged-chicken, the guy with the gold nose, the guy with four eyes, the junk duck, and the painting by a horse. Of course, as for the giant’s rocking chair: it rocks. It really rocks.

Am only slightly worried about nightmares tonight!

Green and pleasant land

Somehow the dull details of my existence have conspired agin me finding time to blog. Yesterday we were still in the green belt and my time was taken with cleaning up after all the muddy creatures (dustbin lids included) and mass catering duties. If I lived permanently near green and pleasant land I’d change my parenting style (if my current state of over-fussy and interfering could be called a style) to one of healthy neglect. After breakfast I’d kick the lids out with the dogs and other animals. I’d tell them not to come in ‘til they were filthy and hungry or even filthy hungry with tales of adventures to tell. Er, actually that’s what I did. But being a London softie I relented when the rains came. If I did make a permanent move I'd obviously have to give up with the cleaning malarkey – no-one expects that in the country do they? And more obviously there was no being kicked outside for the Teenager – one whiff of that and she demanded a ride to see a mate with more modern parents. Back home this morning I missed the Whizz Kid, the animals and the big green fix.

Hurrah! It’s half term. So pleased to have the dustbin lids home today I went to work.

Hurrah! He-who-must-be-adored is back saving London for almost all waking hours so no laundry disasters. For today anyways.

Hurrah! When the Teenager has been caught in trouble her behaviour improves hugely. I returned from the dog walk tonight to find floors swept, laundry folded, drainer cleared, dishwasher on, and most importantly chilled bottle of Cava opened. Me thinks she knows me too well. Me thinks I should have introduced this yellow card business years ago.

Lesson learnt: be careful what you wish for. After bemoaning the blog’s lack of followers am now plagued, on Facebook, by comments by the oldest sister-in-law (her tag not mine). But what do I make of ‘can’t decide if you’re more Edwina (ab fab) or Bree (desperate housewives)’? Or her notes to her step-daughter to ‘read aunty’s blog to learn how to become a mary poppins type mother …ignore the getting drunk in the middle of london bit it spoils the image’.