Sorry, it's been a while. Must be the wild excitement of having Hubby back home that has distracted me. Yes, he did finally make it back, but with not one single eensy weensy present in his big, fat sailing bag. So I don't feel even remotely guilty about the three mornings at the spa or the cashmere, especially not as he let slip that he gets paid more when he's sailing as it counts as a duty. Indeed.

What else? Doctor told me today that she has managed to get hold of a swine flu vaccine for Twin 2, but not for anyone else. So, come the lethal pandemic, she'll be fine, it'll just be the rest of us writhing around near death. You would think that it would be a good thing to have at least one member of the family vaccinated, to look after the others. Sadly, Twin 2's ideas of nursing are lacking, to say the least (Twin 1 however is getting a doctor's kit from father christmas, so she and her plastic stethoscope might be of some use).

I'm going out tonight, to a gig. Yes, how rock chick is that? Actually, not very. It's some of the Dads from school who have formed a mid-life-crisis band and are doing a fundraiser for Help for Heroes. Still, I am wearing ripped jeans (I had to lie on the bed and hold my breath to get the zip done up on them this morning) and will shortly be popping upstairs for black eyeliner and large earrings. Do you think my leopard effect jacket would be de trop?

Hubby is coming too, along with most of the expat community, including, I think, both the commander and the ambassador. Hubby is bringing his boss, who's out from the UK, and his entourage.

Should be a laff, I reackon, although Son is already trying to make me feel guilty by muttering darkly about how I don't have to go out. He says, Mummy it's not like it's your job to go to a party. He will not make me feel bad about it though, as his social life is way busier than mine, and anyway, it's for a good cause, right?

Thursday

Blooming internet is off yet again, but I’ll write this anyway and post it when I can get back online, as all kids are busy watching Star Wars and I am feeling too viral to do anything more productive (although I do have a productive cough, if that counts for anything?).

Just had Tihar holiday (long weekend). Handily enough, the swimming pool was closed, so we went to the zoo instead (zoos in developing countries – always a treat). Actually, the tigers have quite a nice enclosure, but the poor hippos barely have space to yawn. It’s all a bit sad, and, well, tedious really, but the kids seem to love it. I managed to keep them away from the truly hazardous playground, but we couldn’t pass by the gift shop without buying some absolutely essential plastic crowns and bubble mixture.

The following day we went on a picnic on the valley rim with a group of mainly missionaries. In fact I think kids and I were the only heathens. We didn’t have to say grace before the picnic or anything, and it was pretty relaxed, although some people freaked out when the driver came back from doing his puja (getting a blessing and a tikka at the temple) with a few bottles of fizzy pop. Not sure if this was a Christian thing, or just a middle-class parent thing. Honestly, you would have thought I’d produced cocaine, not coca cola (maybe there’s something about not getting into heaven if you have tooth decay?). Still, they got over it and we all had a jolly pleasant time.

I have been happily thinking that the Tihar break was the last weekend without Hubby, as I was sure he told me that his sailing trip finishes on Friday. It does. But it turns out he doesn’t make it back to Kathmandu until Sunday evening. He has to fly from Portugal to the UK and then there’s the whole time difference thing as well. Bummer! He is here for a week, and then back to the UK for a terribly important conference thing the following week, so it looks like I’ve got to be a single parent a bit longer. In response to this news, I have planned another morning at the spa and a new pashmina, as essential stress reduction strategies.

I suppose I should really go now and do something useful… or maybe I will just take a brufen and make some hot lemon and honey and let the kids watch Star Wars until bedtime…

Ps. I am just writing up my last scene (I did the ‘trapped under rubble’ one at the weekend, so it’s just the ‘big row’ one to finish off). Very exciting. I’ll do this scene tomorrow morning (I have to do it on Thursday, because on Friday I have essential single parent stress reduction morning of massage and cashmere shopping followed by lunch at nice hotel), and then all I will have to do is edit it (which will realistically take until Christmas, but I’m on schedule for my end of year deadline). Hurrah!

I decided last night that if it does ever make it to publication (slim chance, but fingers crossed), then I’m going to give a portion of my royalties to Help for Heroes, so remind me of that when I’m a famous author, because obviously there will be the temptation to blow the lot on liposuction and botox!

Tihar-tastic

This weekend is Tihar (like Diwali). In fact today is Dog Tihar (the day the dogs receive blessings). This morning Gary appeared with a garland of marigolds round his neck and a red tikka on his forehead. He looked so fetching that I just had to give him a Dog Tihar present of a bowl of chicken noodle soup with some chicken liver pate in it. I think he felt suitably blessed. There are some other Tihar days coming up: Cow Tihar and Crow Tihar (although not sure how they catch the crows to put marigolds and tikkas on them) and a few others.

This evening is a bit like a cross between bonfire night and new years eve: there are butter lamps, tea-lights and fairy lights everywhere, and mandalas outside houses and shops (to welcome in Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth), and fire crackers going off. I took the kids into town for pizza and by the time we'd finished it was dark - gets dark around six at the moment - so we crossed the road into the Garden of Dreams, which is a beautiful oasis of a garden, which was festooned with butter lamps, tea lights and mandalas. It was gorgeous, but the kids were full of pizza and coke and it was pretty much bedtime, so they were all a bit manic, and ran around pretending to be escaping royalty or something (I'm not sure, I know that I was supposed to be the grandmother and that I was supposed to run, hide and then gather food...). I felt a little sorry for the other people in the Garden of Dreams, many of whom it seemed had come to have a little romantic interlude near the water feature or chill out after sampling a bit of Himalayan herb. I don't think they had rampaging kids on a sugar rush in mind as ideal companions.

We bumped into some of the kids' little school friends, which would have been great in daylight hours, but I couldn't really relax and chat to the parents when Twin 2 kept wobbling about over stone steps covered in candles, and with kids waving sparklers around. Bless her. Her balance is not to be trusted at the best of times, but after dark in a park full of steps and flames, it just wasn't worth the risk of letting go of her hand and heading off for a swift G&T. I suppose if she had wobbled into a ring of butter lamps and become a human inferno, I could have just tossed her in one of the many fish ponds or water features, but it didn't seem a good idea at the time.

I'm a bit worried that the parents now think I'm rude because I didn't chat very much. I will have to apolgise for being so distracted the next time I see them. Anyway, I do think I need to work on my manners because I just got a message from facebook about where I rank among my friends and apparently I score pretty poorly for 'niceness' or being 'well mannered'. Although wierdly, I top the list for 'athletic', which anyone who did PE with me at school will know is just a load of old cobblers as I am possibly the least athletic person around. Which just shows what a heap of rubbish those ranking things are, I suppose.

The kids are on holiday again (for Tihar) and the swimming pool on camp is closed, again. I was so annoyed this morning when we schlepped all the way in, only to see a note on the door saying that the pool would open again on Tuesday. I know that Tihar is an important festival etc. but the pool closes at the end of October anyway, and the Lifeguard will then get four months leave until the pool opens again in March. Does he really need to take this weekend off? Does he?

Oooh, I was hopping mad.

I have to stop getting angry though, because I'm getting angry-old-woman lines on my face (mouth like a cat's bum from being pursed in a crosspatch way), and I certainly can't afford Botox or fillers to sort them out, not unless I kick the ebay and cashmere habit, anyway.

Right, should probably go. Kids were up at five thirty this morning, so I shouldn't risk a late night.

Might just fit in a swift G&T before I head up, though...

Nightie night x

hmmm...

Think of all the money we have saved by not employing a driver for the last month or two (especially as we have handily avoided the whole Deshain 13th month bonus thing)? Would it be wrong to divert those funds into a gorgeous cashmere long cardigan-jacket thing in a beautiful blue-green? Especially with the exchange rate so favourable right now...

topic talk

Went to Son's 'topic talk' at school today (each term the teachers outline what the children will be learning). I was suddenly struck by how much more interesting school is these days. In art, for example, Son will be learning about Kandinsky, and the relationship between mark-making and emotions (!). When I was his age (7), I think art involved making Santa Claus waste paper bins out of old baby milk tins. So I sat there being flabbergasted with the standard of education he's having. Other parents, however, seemed more concerned about the fact that the children are not being forced to do pages and pages of neat handwriting or learn times tables by rote (I thought, 'who gives a monkeys about neat handwriting or times tables?' but I didn't say anything). One very nice, but evidently quite concerned mother said: "Well, surely at some point they will have to learn what eight nines are?" I said I still didn't know what eight nines are (perhaps that's what's been holding me back all these years?) and the teacher showed me a trick to work out your nine times table on your fingers - won't bore you with it here. Ooh, you learn something new every day, don't you?

Almost all the children at the school have high-achieving parents (UN or DFID or similar if they are expat, and really really rich if they are Nepali), so there are quite a lot of pushy middle class parents, as well as the occasional child of enlisted filth like us. Sometimes I feel a bit sorry for the teachers here (not often because they have great holidays - another long weekend this weekend and we've only been back at school a week!), because whilst they have motivated kids and parents and small class sizes, they do also have to contend with, well, pushy middle-class parents (of which I am one, of course, albeit one who still doesn't know her times tables).

Maybe later in life, when Son is approaching forty and looking at what he has yet to achieve on the 'things to do before forty' checklist, he'll think: 'Oh, but I could have done so much more with my life, if only I had had neat handwriting and known my nine times table properly.'

It's the Twins' topic talk next week. I wonder if anyone will lament that they are not getting enough Play Dough time or alphabet chanting?

I say bring back the dunce's hat and the birch and make them all write with quills!

the final chapter

So excited! Have almost finished writing the book. I now have eighty five thousand words saved and just those few extra scenes to write that I told you about. And then it's just a matter of tweaking it up a bit. Should easily be able to get it done by Christmas, which is my self-imposed deadline (but will also mean it qualifies for the Romantic Novelists Association new writers scheme, which accepts manuscripts from January 1st). I mean, I know it's a long shot. How likely is it to actually get picked up by an agent or a publisher? But it means that I have a chance, however slim, of achieving my ambition and becoming a published author by the time I'm forty (my other 'things to do before forty' list - which I compiled in my mid-twenties - included having kids and running a marathon, both of which I have done. Oh and I'm also supposed to have made a patchwork quilt, but we'll just gloss over that one, because it's never going to happen. Oddly, my 'to do before middle age' list didn't include any mention of career development. Good job too, being as my career had amounted to diddly squat, much to my parents' disappointment, I'm sure. I think they had be down as the future Sue Lawley, not some random soldier's trailing spouse - and although I confidently expect Son, Twin 1 and Twin 2 to become an astro-physicist, mountaineer and oscar-winning actress respectively, I will have to remember not to be upset when they don't...)

Anyway, must go and pick up parcels from post office now - it's ebay-tastic!

Tuesday afternoon

Hi, Twin 2 is asleep upstairs and Meena is just about to bring me a masala tea and I've just snaffled a party sized Snickers from the fridge (which actually belongs to Twin 1, but I'm sure she's forgotten all about it and anyway, I think of it not as depriving her of a treat, more of aiding her dental health), so all in all life is good.

Out here it is starting to feel a tad autumnal - marble floors area trifle chilly in the mornings- however, a season change is always a good excuse for shopping, I feel. I know about the whole ebay ban thing, but I've decided that only applies to bidding for frivolities for me, not winter clothes for the kids, so I've had a pleasant spot of retail therapy over the last couple of days, and Son will now have a nice Boden rugby shirt (brand new with tags), and girls have princess vests and furry gilets to look forward to. I have also started to compile a big fat list of all the things I have to (I simply have to) buy before Hubby is posted, but I'm banning myself from actually shopping until I have finished writing the book. It is almost done, amazingly. I've got more than eighty thousand words already saved, and I've just got a few more scenes to type in and a couple more to create (nice, meaty ones, too: someone trapped under rubble, and another scene with a big row in the middle of a pub), which I'm really looking forward to writing. So the second draft should be ready by the time Hubby comes back from sailing, and I might make him read it all - will make a change from his usual fare of military history or business strategy stuff, at least.

Not too much Nepali insanity to report: there is now cash in the banks, hurrah.

My yoga teacher is still infuriating (today he told me that I must NEVER drink water during yoga, which was somewhat irritating as I had gone to yoga straight from the gym so I was sweaty and thirsty. I smiled and said sorry I was de-hydrated as I had just been on the rowing machine, then I couldn't help but mutter under my breath 'Anyway, it's not going to kill me, is it?'. Presumably even if drinking water during yoga was a life-threatening situation, then the cure would be yoga in any case, after all, it cures cancer, according to the yoga teacher...), so rather than leaving the yoga class relaxed and full of goodwill to humanity, I leave feeling cross and rebellious, which seems to defeat the purpose. Never mind, I can nearly touch my toes now, woo-hoo.

Anyway, should go now and pick up Twin 1 and Son from school. Need to leave plenty of time as you never know what might be on the road. The other week I was late for school because I got stuck behind an elephant. You know what it's like when you get stuck in a country lane behind a horse, and you're really scared of overtaking in case the horse gets spooked and rears up and crashes through your windscreen (well, that's what I worry about, anyway)? Well, imagine that, but magnified a lot. I mean, I think elephants are generally calmer and nicer than horses, but you wouldn't want to risk getting the wind up an elephant, would you?

Hubby is still away. I have a nice surprise for him when he gets back: my cousin is coming to visit, closely followed by my parents (I confidently expect him to pull an urgent work-related trip back to the UK when he hears the good news).

TTFN x

ps - how do you get an elephant to come down from a tree? tell it to sit on a leaf and wait until autumn.

rainy days and Mondays

It has rained all blooming week. Kids on holiday, no Hubby and rain, rain and yet more rain. Have barely made it out of the house.

Yesterday, however, I was a good mother in the morning and took the little blighters out to Patan Durbar Square, which is a Unesco world heritage site, and choc-full of temples, artefacts, etc. They ran amok in the museum, pausing briefly to climb up display cases and fall out of windows. Kids really don't give a stuff about history, do they? And I knew this, which was why I had never bothered to take them into the museum before, but hey, what else is there to do on a rainy day in Kathmandu (the only soft-play centre here is half made out of wood and about as safe as a deep fat fryer on a wobbly cooker)? Still, they all enjoyed feeding the pigeons outside, and I felt virtuous for having giving my offspring a bit of a cultural experience. I felt so good about it, in fact, that I elected to take the afternoon off, and let Son choose two DVDs to watch, both of which were very long Star Wars ones, which gave me time to go to the gym and have a shower afterwards, and by the time the DVDs were finished it was time for bed, hurrah.

Tomorrow we are going out to the Sterling Club (the British Embassy). Yes, we are, and I don't care if it's hailing snakes, we are getting out of the house. I have booked transport, invited little friends and everything.

And then it's only the weekend to get through until they're back at school.

And I'm quite certain that when I wave them all off on the school bus on Monday I'll be a bit sad. Maybe I'll wander dolefully home and do a Disney princess puzzle or mash a bit of play doh on my own for a bit, just for nostalgia's sake.

Or on second thoughts, maybe I'll get straight in the car and head down to the spa to take advantage of that special offer, which only lasts until the end of the month, you know!

cold turkey

So I have got through the whole weekend without bidding for anything on ebay. Uh-huh, quite an achievement for a sad old housewife with Hubby away and no telly, don't you think? Ah, all those Brand New Without Tags bargains just a mouse click away and I have resisted. I have, however, eaten quite a bit of chocolate. Oh, and been to the spa for their Deshain deal, which I have to say was super-dooper. Today, I had a full body massage, facial and reflexology for less than twenty quid. Lush or what? I felt so good that I only had a teensy G&T this evening and even read all the children a bed time story (although poor Son got to listen to a Michael Morpurgo book that he wasn't really interested in but I told him that if he didn't want it then I would put it in the present box and give it to one of his friends at the next birthday party - of course that wasn't an option, so now he has to listen something by the children's laureate rather than Enid Blyton, which would be his preference - still, he needs to have something in his childhood that he can be resentful about in adolescence. I can just imagine the conversation now:

Me: What time do you call this? You're treating this house like a hotel!

Him: Whatever

Me: What kind of attitude is that, young man?

Him: Take a chill pill, Mum

Me: I'll give you chill pill, young feller-me-lad! And will you turn that racket down - it's not music, it's noise.

Him: I didn't ask to be born...

Me: I beg your pardon?

Him (loudly): I said, I didn't ask to be born. You've never understood me, never. You're always having a go. Remember that time when I was seven and you read Michael Morgpurgo to me at bed time when all I wanted was Enid Blyton? That's the kind of mother you are! (storms off and turns music up)

Me (crying bitter tears of frustration): But you were always such a happy little boy!

etc. etc.

Oh, how I look forward to those days. I guess that's when the MoD's quite generous boarding school allowance will really come into its own.

stop the insanity!

Right, that's it. I've gone a bit ebay insane. I blame it on the misery of Hubby going away. Anway, I have spent or bid far too much today. So, you can be my witness: I hereby promise not to log on to ebay at all for the rest of the month (except to pay for stuff that I win, natch). Deary me, I really and truly meant to write some more of my book this evening and instead I have cosied up to ebay. I mean, in many ways I have saved lots of money, because everything I bought is way cheaper than it would be in the shops. Plus, I do actually need some new ankle boots this winter, and the Twins need new gilets for the cold weather (yes, I know it won't get cold for another month, but the post is rubbish at the moment), and I need a bikini for our holiday in December and the girls need new swimsuits, and Son needs a new rugby shirt and some socks and, well, I suppose I didn't actually need the lipstick, or the other bikini top...

Anyway, I'm going to ban myself from evil forbidden ebay pleasures and stick to writing the book during my lonely evenings in future.

Yes, I promise!

Cheeky cow

Really sorry that there has yet again been a lengthy gap between postings. No excuses, really, soz.

We did manage to get away to Pokhara, hurrah. We stayed in a place called Tranquility Lodge, which was recommended by our Nepali teacher as being a really lovely place to stay (it's owned by a friend of his who is also a poet). All I can say about it is it was pretty much what you'd expect for somewhere where you're paying less than a fiver a night. The poet-owner was clearly too busy thinking about stanzas or rhyming couplets or something to remember things like emptying the bins or providing replacement toilet rolls, but it was fine, really.

As we couldn't all fit into one room we had a boy's room and a girls room. The boy's room had all the electronic gadgetry: music, DVD player, etc (courtesy of Hubby's techno-nerdiness). The girl's room had a couple of fairy stories and a large selection of pink pants - you can never have too many pink pants, as we found out later on in the holiday when Twin 2 got food poisoning...

I have to say I was quite jealous of the boy's room, particularly after the first night of sharing a bed with the Twins (after which I asked the poet for an extra mattress and slept on the floor instead).

We didn't actually do very much in Pokhara except go swimming and eat in cafes, but then that's about as much as we do anywhere, we are really not an active family. However on the final day Hubby did take Twin 1 and Son out on the lake in a rowing boat, whilst I was holed up in Tranquility Lodge with Twin 2, the final pair of pink pants and a sachet of dioralyte.

We came back on Monday, and Hubby left to go sailing today for three weeks (no, it's work, honestly!), but luckily we had some nice little friends round this morning to relieve the holiday tedium.

I'm planning a quiet weekend at home. Not because I especially want to, you understand (I have pretty much had my fill of activity books and play doh already), but because all the nice friends are away somewhere and I am trying to eke out the last bit of cash, as apparently there is still none in the coffers on camp (Hubby did manage to get some for us to go away with, in the end). The nice admin lady said I might be able to cash a cheque on Monday. I do hope so, because after a weekend at home with no adult company, I will be desperate for a teensy bit of time off at the spa (and they have an excellent Deshain offer on at the moment: reflexology, facial and aromatherapy massage for just eighteen hundred rupees - £15 ish - it's a steal!).

Anyway, I will try to write a bit more often now, sorry about the gap.

By the way, I got head-butted by a cow in Pokhara main street. I know they're supposed to be sacred, but it didn't stop me being really quite cross with the bolshy bovine.

Must go - time to wake Twin 2 up from her afternoon sleep or she won't go to bed tonight.

Ta ra!