Online again, woo-hoo! Sorry it has been a very long time, yet again. Unfortunately for you though, I'm feeling pants, so this may just end in one long whinge about aching muscles and cellulite. I apologise in advance.

So what's been happening. Hubby no longer looks like Odd Bod (although the combination of cricked neck and a weekend bout of Himalayan tummy handily got him out of childcare duties for much of the weekend; whilst quietly groaning in a darkened room and watching re-runs of the preposterous - both in plot and acting - second series of Heroes, he wondered out loud whether this was a sign and that God didn't really want him to be an atheist), but more like Daniel Craig. All those gym sessions have worked a treat for him. Sadly, they have been less effective for me. I still look like me, only fatter.

Last week passed in a whirl of frenetic activity, planning for the valley rim trek over the long weekend (kids' half term). There is quite an art in estimating how many sweets and mini-mars bars you need to trek for three days with ten children (five under the age of five). Think of the bribes required to get your kids to walk home from school sometimes, and then multiply it by about a million. Still, they all enjoyed it. Especially Twins, who had the option to give up on the hills and get carried in baskets by porters. 

Grown ups (six of us) enjoyed it too: dads got the chance to use penknives to fashion walking-sticks (or rather, swoosh-about-and-narrowly-miss-poking-people-in-the-eye-whilst-making-a-noise-like-a-helicopter-sticks) from bamboo, and mums had the chance to chow an almost unlimited supply of chocolate and sweets without feeling remotely guilty because of course we needed the energy for walking (at about one mile an hour). 

God, delusional or otherwise, was not mentioned, and Hubby remained remarkably ailment-free. He even carried Twins on his shoulders for a lot of the way, despite us having paid two porters to do that job for us. He said this would give him a better workout. I began to suspect that the whole cricked neck thing was just an elaborate ruse to cunningly get out of fancy dress party/valentine's picnic at school/childcare for the previous weekend.

We were all exhausted afterwards, despite the sweets and chocolate, and had to go out for a big pizza. Today Hubby had a terribly important army visitor out - chief of the general staff, I think - and I was invited to go along to coffee and meet his wife. Unfortunately I had a prior engagement at the spa, and spent a productive morning being massaged and reading a two-week-old copy of Heat. Hope Sir and Lady Richards weren't too gutted at missing meeting me.

Goodbye Indie, hello Odd Bod

So it's Friday night, and we're not Indie and totty (Mary, I think) living it up at the thrilling BGN Valentine's function, we are in bed, writing blog and reading 'The God Delusion' respectively. What happened to the whip, the hat and the grand fancy dress plans?

Hubby cricked his neck. Rather badly, actually. I heard a muffled grunt of agony from the bathroom this morning, and he came out walking like Odd Bod (does anyone remember Carry on Screaming, or is it just me?) and saying, something about not bloody well going to the fancy dress thing now. The doctor has prescribed pain killers and physiotherapy. He suggested I went without him, but I have elected to sit at home and eat chocolate crunch tray bake instead. 

Anyway, instead of drinking cheap white wine and chowing into chicken kiev, Hubby is now discovering his inner atheist. I am so looking forward to the conversations we'll have when we go off trekking round the Kathmandu valley rim with two missionary families next weekend. Oh, what spirited discussions we'll have round the camp fire as Chris tells the other couples that their entire reason for being in Nepal is utter bunkum and tosh. 

Some would say that six adults and ten children under the age of eight wandering willy-nilly in the Himalayas is enough of a recipe for disaster, without adding religious differences into the mix.

Looking forward to it already!

you see, I never finished writing that yesterday as the internet went off

the-day-after-the-day-after-tomorrow

I'm halfway through drying my hair but realise I have to get this in whilst the internet is on. Also it's been a whole week since I last wrote, which I feel pretty guilty about. Time has been taken up with the extreme tedium of the running machine (oh, I put that pound back on, incidentally, all the underwear I ordered is too small and the jeans make my bum look big), amongst other very boring things. Book going well - had a major eathquake, a rescue and a reconciliation since last week. I'm now ready to start actually typing the whole thing up. Which will take forever. Other wild excitements include Twin 1 winning the maths prize in nursery (I know, a maths prize for nursery is a bit odd - I think she got it because she can count to ten or something) - I wonder if this means I can now refer to her in hushed tones as 'gifted'? Twin 2 managed to do a poo on the potty, which also generated much fanfare and whooping. It is quite a big deal, as she's averaging one 'success' per month at the moment, which is fairly dispiriting if you are the one who does the wiping (even worse for our housekeeper who does the handwashing). 

Hubby is in Pokhara yet again, he says for work, but maybe just to escape listening to Twin 1 count to ten again whilst wiping Twin 2's bottom.

We have re-started our Nepali lessons, with a new teacher who is also a local poet. We pay him a fortune for him to tell us obscure things like how to say the-day-after-the-day-after tomorrow (which apparently Kathmandu urbanites never use but will be very useful if we ever visit the villagers in the hills) or the correct form to use when addressing a family pet. He tells us to shower the language with love. He is extremely charming, but I'm not sure I'll ever even get close to fluency. However, I can now say, 'It's a shame, isn't it? But life is like that' in Nepali. Which I'm sure will come in handy when there is an earthquake/military coup and I need to rescue my children or even when buying cheese in the German bakery.

Hubby has re-considered his objection to fancy dress and agreed to attend the Valentine's function on Friday. The theme is screen couples and he has elected to go as Indiana Jones (from Raiders of the Lost Ark) I shall go as the random totty in the white dress (if I can still fit into it, that is). He's gone all keen, to the extent that I spent a whole morning yesterday waiting for a hat shop in Kathmandu to open so that I could buy him his 'Indie' hat. Of course it never did. He's been muttering about taking an afternoon off to buy a brown leather jacket as well. Not sure what to do about the whip, though.  

no sausages on sticks

Well, he was a German count, and I think she was a waitress in Mongolia, before she became a countess. They have houses in Berlin, Paris, London and Kathmandu, and a breed horses in Mongolia. I wanted to find out more, but was concerned that I was coming across as a nosey old bag, rather than just making conversation (which was of course true). I was right about the absence of sausages on sticks, but wrong about the lobster thermidor. Instead we had pasta, served on trestle tables, under a blue and white marquee. There was not one single party game, and the mum spent the whole party smoking and drinking wine. She was wearing a fuscia satin blouse and a fur jacket ('practical-but-elegant' she described it - although not that practical for a four-year-old's birthday party in my opinion) which might explain the absence of messy/rowdy party games. But the Twins seemed to have a good time, and so did I, apart from being sat next to the counts nephew at lunch, who was without question the rudest person I have ever met. German, too. Which is a shame, because during our total of four years of Germany postings I developed quite a fondness for Germans, but he was just sterotypically arrogant. Anyway, the Japanese bath experience with the missionaries was pretty good. The hot tub was really just a super-heated garden pond in the backyard of a downmarket sushi bar, but somehow it was very pleasant indeed, although I felt a bit sorry for the two Nepali men who happened to be already there when the six-woman 'crusade' arrived (one of them kept fiddling with his mobile - do you think he was taking sneaky shots of us to upload onto a dodgy website? There might be some depraved fetishists out there who have a thing about middle-aged missionaries with flabby thighs. Maybe.).

The writing has been going pretty well this week, although no love scenes to write, so Hubby has been mercifully spared 'afternoon delight' and able to get on with focussing on interesting things like bathroom renovations and swimming pool roof logistics.

Amazingly, the internet seems to be a bit more reliable now, to the extent that I've been able to order two pairs of shoes, three bras, six thongs and a new bikini, which is jolly good news, except that I've ordered them all in my 'old' size, and will now have to redouble my diet and exercise regime in order to be able to fit into them. 

But I'm not going to the gym tonight and you can't make me. It's too cold and I want a hot chocolate in bed. 

Goodnight.