Sorry, sorry, sorry I have been so pants at writing recently. There was the weekend of family tension, which was ok in the end as it didn't actually happen, even though we traipsed across half the UK in the blizzards to get there (you really don't want to know the boring details) and then Hubby has been on holiday all this week, and Twin 1 has been learning to use the potty and Son has had swimming lessons every day and Twin 2 has had a hospital appointment and we have been going to bed very early as they have all been waking up at about quarter to six (I say bed, but I do of course mean mattress, it's just that 'going to mattress' somehow doesn't sound quite right) and the car has been back to the garage twice and the dog has been to the vet twice. Oh and I've been doing my running as well, which is rather depressingly slow and I don't seem to be getting any faster. So the days and evenings have been mostly filled with pfaffing and palaver. However, at the moment Hubby has his nice friend over from Germany and they are in the living room drinking beer and watching the Canonball Run and pretending they are both young, free and single and have nothing better to do than drink beer and watch the Canonball Run. I am hoping to do something similar next week when the plan is to meet up with a couple of old friends from uni. I would like very much for our meeting to involve quaffing quantities of Thunderbird and listening to Jesus Jones but as it's a lunch date and not twenty years ago I suspect it's more likely to be sipping lattes and listening to Nora Jones...

Toodle pip!

Yes, he really has gone! Grumpy Hector has disappeared from our lives and I can't quite believe it. Of course we are now sleeping on a mattress on the floor (something which really upset Son - he's not good with change) like slum dwellers - which come to think of it is sort of in keeping with the rest of the house anyway - but at least we are cheery slum dwellers with plenty of energy and verve and zest for life. This is a good thing as we will need all these attributes to survive Easter weekend at my parents, complete with a full set of siblings and nephews/nieces. In all there will be seventeen of us to celebrate Easter, with ages ranging between seventy four and two. Oh and a nice simmering family thingy as well (trying to think of a good word for it and all I can come up with is 'area of disharmony', which doesn't really do justice to the endless palaver that has been going on the last couple of weeks), so there should be plenty of tense conversations and forced smiles during the egg hunt. But at least Grumpy Hector won't be there to add to the mix!

bye bye Grumpy Hector?

I know, it's been nearly a whole week since I last wrote, which is pretty pants, but in my defence it has been a week of D&V - I will spare you the details.
Anyway, my half marathon training is still happening. It has been a week now since I started my training plan, and I have almost kept to it. Okay, I've missed out the difficult sessions. But then again, as I said it has been a week of D&V in our house.
And now I'm really really looking forward to being in Nepal, where we will have a cleaner/housekeeper, hurrah, so endlessly churning things through the washing machine will become a thing of the past, hurrah again.
(I have just asked Hubby to pour me a G&T and he is chuntering about it because I've requested ice and lemon, and he's in agony, apparently, having done an eight mile march thing (CFT?)yesterday - not sure how a blister on his toe affects his ability to open the fridge freezer, but hey ho, I have my drinkie now anyway. Quite fancy a splash of angostura bitters in it actually, but don't dare ask. The face he has on is worse than the angry seagull...can't think how to describe it...bullgog with trapped wind, maybe).
Can't remember if I've written about the half marathon already? Don't think so...
A friend of mine has been nagging me to run another half marathon since I reluctantly did one with her in September. I said I could only do one if it was:

a) before we were posted
b) local
and
c) downhill

I thought these were pretty tough criteria and there was no way she would find anything.
She didn't (her suggestion was a barmy cross country thing in Wales - no way!). However, another friend did, and managed to persuade me into entering, before telling me he'd just done his back in so wouldn't actually be running himself. (He said he hurt his back by rolling over in bed to let a fart out, but I suspect it was from exessive rumpy pumpy. Or was that the other way round?)
So I'm doing it anyway. Apparently the course is downhill after about the eight mile mark, so my plan is to get some of those trainers with the wheels in the heel and just coast for the last five miles.
In the meatime I'm up and at 'em at seven thirty on a saturday morning, trudging round camp in the rain.
I'd like to say I feel a whole lot better for it, but in fact I just feel a bit knackered and grumpy.
Talking of which, Hubby (aka Grumpy Hector) has just got rid of our marital bed.
He says he never sleeps properly at home and this is why he's always so grumpy. He says he is never grumpy in Iraq or Afghanistan. This may be because dealing with mortars, rockets and insurgents is considerably less of a challenge than spending any amount of time in the bosom of his family. Or alternatively it may be the bed. We'll see, now the bed has gone.
If Grumpy Hector is still in residence tomorrow, then we'll know it's not the bed...

Fun Daddy

Hubby has been Fun Daddy ever since he got back: reading stories, rough housing etc. etc.
I think the novelty is starting to wear off a bit though.
We went to a soft play centre today, to meet some lovely friends (who also have three kids so don't think it's strange that we always turn up half an hour late with nappy cream smeared down our jeans. And also they have nothing to do with the army, which is always a bit more than a breath of fresh air - maybe a blast of sea breeze or a waft of freshly mown grass. Ah!).
Anyway, we'd barely started our cups of tea and general chat when Hubby/Fun Daddy was dragged off to romp in the ball pool and generally be a fair weather father. One of the lovely friends remarked on what a good dad Hubby was and I replied that whilst that was of course true, I suspected there would be a certain amount of martyrdom and chuntering to come.
And I was proved right as soon as we got in the car to come home, when Hubby said he was feeling tense and had barely had time to draw breath, what with entertaining six kids all morning. I replied that I felt he had missed the fundamental point of taking your children to these places, which is to ignore them for two hours and have a chat with your mates/read the paper. You can worry about head injuries/biting incidents or you can sit back, enjoy your latte and pretend you are in a cafe, without children, simply by averting your gaze.
I'm not sure why this is so hard for him to do in a soft play centre, when he manages it perfectly well at home when he is watching Top Gear...

woo hoo

We've got the bread van back, at last. I had visions of the garage owner leafing through a brochure on caribbean cruises and planning his dream holiday when Hubby went in to pick it up. Because as we all know, mechanics aren't rip off merchants eager to make a fast buck out of harrassed mothers who haven't the time or logistics to shop around and get three quotes for the job - not.
Hubby was livid because car came back with back light smashed and suspicious lights showing up on the dashboard, so it has to go back in next week. Turns out it needs new tyres as well. Whoever buys this car from us when we move to Nepal in June will get a right bargain as just about everything in it will be brand new by then.
And I am so paranoid about stuff going wrong with it at the moment that I even phoned Hubby at work today because there was a red exclamation mark showing on the dashboard. He managed to patiently explain that that symbol lights up when the handbrake is on (well, hey, I've only been driving for twenty years)...

Oh, yes, I did say moving to Nepal, woo hoo!

Homecoming

He's back! And already it's like he's never been away...
It has only taken 24 hours for him to revert from tanned war zone hero to fusty old Dad, commandeering the best place on the sofa, and referring to me as a 'grumpy old witch'.
Hubby flew back on the same flight as Prince Harry. He made sure he pulled rank to get on the plane ahead of the ginger royal and bag a better seat. Actually I made that last bit up, although it wouldn't surprise me if he empoyed his angry seagull face into intimidating the young prince into shifting across to the aisle seat.
And now he's back. He arrived to a sea of eager small children, which may have been less intimidating than the Taliban, but I'm not sure. Anyway, they attacked with similar enthusasm, so I didn't get to say hello for about an hour. Finally we managed to get some brief moments of snatched, erm, intimacy, whilst Cbeebies was on. But, as I remarked at the time (breathless and with skirt askew), you can't expect the Tweenies to last forever.
So not exactly a romantic homecoming.
And by the time I came downstairs from putting the children to bed, later on, he was already lying on the sofa in a fleece and walking trousers, watching Top Gear and eating treacle tart.
Things never are quite the way you imagine, are they?