Boxing Day 2010

I've just had three chocolate biscuits in a row, and I'm on my second mug of mulled wine. Oh yes, it is still Christmas.

Today Twin 1 said wistfully, "Have we already had Christmas, Mummy?" and I had to tell her that yes, we had, and she'd have to wait a whole 365 sleeps for another one (I don't think they make advent calendars that big). She was a bit sad. And I thought that sums up Boxing Day really, that anti-climatic deflated feeling you get when you wake up with a gasp and realise that all the fun happened yesterday.

Luckily, however, there are a few biscuits left in the Victoria selection tin and mulled wine in the jug. This is a good thing because by 8.30 Hubby was already in bed and asleep. So any thoughts of cuddling up in front of a DVD have been dashed (and anything else too, which is a shame, what with me being the foxiest wife this side of the Gurkha camp - oh, alright then, everyone else is away on holiday, so there is no competiton).

Not sure if this is a sad indictment on the state of our marriage, or just evidence that we are in semi-hibernation at the moment. For twenty one hours in the day we are holed up in the house, scurrying between gas fires, closing doors, curtains and adding layers of cashmere. Then, between 11.30 and 2.30 we go out, the sun is high and it's like a good British summer's day. However, once the sun gets down beyond a certain point, all of a sudden it's blooming freezing again and we have to race indoors to find pashminas and sources of heat. It's a bit wierd. Nepal is on the same latitude as Florida, so it should be pretty balmy all year round, but I think because we're up in the clouds, it's really not.

It takes such a huge amount of effort to get out of bed into the freezing cold in the morning - reminds me of being back at boarding school (the difference is that I no longer spend my evenings planning to shimmy down the fire escape with my dorm mates for a midnight walk - minus H, who was risk averse when it came to possible conflicts with authority - or eating drinking chocolate granules from my tuck box. Perhaps these are things I should think about, to spice up my otherwise not-very-interesting mid-life existence? Wonder what Hubby would say if I suggested raiding the tuck box and legging it out of the window? It probably wouldn't meet with much enthusiasm as we have a) no fire escape, and b) no chocolate granules.)

Next Great Novel is totally stalled, due to endless Christmas hols. However, at least it has stopped at a good point, as my heroine is just about to go to Pokhara in search of her estranged father (will she find him? Of course she will! But will that be a good thing or will he turn out to be a big fat life altering disappointment? Hmmm....). She has ended up going with this man she's only just met, and guess what, he's just split up from his cheating wife (do they secretly fancy each other? Course they do! Will I make them wait until halfway through the book before realising this? You betcha! But can both of them overcome their emotional baggage to make it work? Oh, give me a chance, I'm only on chapter five!).

Right, well, I'm going on Amazon now to buy a cheese slicer. Yes, really. Because that's what I do when Hubby is asleep and I'm not, I shop for tedious things online.

Merry Christmas! xxx

the night before xmas

Just watched the Christmas Grinch (Hubby says he's no relation, but I'm not so sure) whilst drinking mulled wine. Then we watched Santa deliver presents in Kyoto on Santa Tracker. Can't get much more christmassy than that, can it? Kids are upstairs doing something very secret with Daddy and wrapping paper now. Twin 2 managed a very festive head trauma when we went out for lunch today, and now has a nice (no longer gaping) wound at the back of her head, and one of those net things over the top, so she looks like a bit of oven ready ham. It meant we didn't want to risk the Christmas Eve drinks party (drunk grown ups + over excited kids + my disabled daughter with a head injury=...hmm, think not, this year), but we had a festive pizza at the pizza house instead. Looking forward to the pre-dawn start in the morning... Merry Christmas xxx

a touch of Grinch

I'm waiting for photos from the partners' club xmas function to upload onto Picasa. Watching paint dry would be more interesting. I hope all the partners are grateful and I get profuse thanks for several hours of my life that I will never get back. It's 8pm and Hubby is in bed already. Might join him and continue nightmarish uploading task from warmth and comfort of my bed, instead of alone down here in the cavernous (and always mildly stained and biscuit-crumbed) living room.

It's quite hard to feel Christmassy there at the moment. Chilly evenings help, but I do miss xmas telly, and all the festive nonsense. There is one shop selling tinsel and stars at the Jawalakhel roundabout, but everywhere else is the same old dusty honking morass it is the rest of the year. If we hadn't spent far too much money already this year on holidays, then I'd consider skedaddling off somewhere hot, like we did last year, but the truth is, that the prohibitive-bought-at-the-height-of-the-housing-boom little matchbox of a house we own, won't pay its own mortgage, which is a jolly shame.

The other thing that's a bit un-festive is that we spent most of this morning in the medical centre with various minor and un-christmassy ailments. I think Santa will be bringing Ventolin, Hydrocortisone and Amoxycillin in his sack this year. I felt a bit left out, being the only member of the family without some gripe to whinge to the doctor about. Think I'll have to make one up and get myself med-evaced somewhere either hot or with snow (don't really mind which, just somewhere without unlicensed motorbikes driven by pre-pubescant boys, and with pavements, would be nice).

Right, I'm off to make a hot toddy, with extra whisky, because that is Christmassy. xxx

feeling festive

Finally managed to wrest laptop from kids by booting them out into the garden, hurrah.

Well, the school hols are here and we're all christmassy, sort of. Yesterday went to kids' carol concert at school - I think if I am forced to listen to 'Little Donkey' one more time I shall top myself. Also interesting spectacle of the whole school waving their arms in the air to 'Do they know it's Christmas?' (better known by my kids as 'Feed the world'). I couldn't work out whether it was bizarre or really quite lovely. I think I have a constant inner battle between cynicsm and sentimentalism. After that we had the exciting Gurkha camp kids' xmas party, which I organised this year. Now, I'm probably the laziest woman in BGN, so I organised something whereby I had to put in as little effort as possible by booking a bouncy castle, face painter, and getting a lovely dad to be Santa. My plan was pretty much to turn up and just let it all happen around me. However, the bouncy castle kept deflating, and at one point the bouncy castle man disappeared. I finally located him in a taxi outside camp, bringing in a new air pump thingy. We ended up with bouncy castle for about half an hour, boo, but I don't think any of the kids cared because Santa threw loads of sweets at them from the balcony (only a couple ended up with minor head traumas as a result). Then in the evening it was the BGN xmas function (with a very festive dahl baht buffet - luckily the chef managed to do a proper roast as well, if he hadn't there would have been mutiny from the Brits, who are forced to have a dahl baht buffet at every single other Gurkha function throughout the year). Hubby had said in his usual Grinch-ish way that he wanted to go home straight after the meal, but by his third double whisky somehow changed his mind, and we ended the evening dancing to the techno version of Munni Badman (the track I failed to master at Bollywood - although for some reason, after a whisky toddy, two glasses of wine and a glass of port, I managed rather well. Perhaps that was where I went wrong with the Bollywood lessons?).

I felt quite cheery this morning as Hubby had to rush off to work at 7.45, but I could lounge around having extra cups of tea and painkillers. The extent of my holiday childcare this morning has been to put on some Christmas tunes and let the Twins wear dressing up clothes to prance about in.

We're not doing anything this xmas, or going away anywhere, so I now have until 10th January to spend mornings listening to Wizard, Slade and telling small children how beautiful they look in their torn polyester frilly things. I felt a bit guilty at one point and tried to engage Son in conversation, but he said he was busy thinking and didn't want to talk. Okay then!

Right, I could blather on indefinitely, but I think it's time for another cuppa.

Take care xxxx

extreme baking

So, I'm sat up late (well, twenty past ten on a Saturday night counts as late for me), huddled next to the gas heater with my forbidden toffees (forbidden because I was supposed to be saving them for Santa to throw at the kids next week), waiting for my cinnamon rolls to cook. It's a new thing called extreme baking, I've discovered. Some people call it baking to the max, or others call it late bake with the yeast master and it's a really cool new way of cooking...oh, alright then, I just put my dough on a bit late and now it's past my bed time.

I've been re-watching 'Spaced' (do you remember it? sitcom from late 90s with Simon Pegg?) and trying to remember what it was like in the days before married quarters and kids, when we used to spend Saturday nights going to the pub and getting drunk, and Sundays watching Hollyoaks omnibus and having fry-ups. Remember those days? Barely. These days, ten thirty is a late one, and only justified on the basis of fresh rolls for breakfast.

Today I took the kids to a Christmas get-together at one of their classmate's house. Santa arrived on a tinsel covered tractor-type thing (hard to describe unless you've been here, but if you have, it's one of those open tractor engines attached to a seat, a bit like a go-cart. Hmm, a go-tractor, if you will.) and threw sweets at the kids (luckily not heavy ones). He then took selected children off for a spin in his go-tractor trailer. Twin 1, wisely suspicious of bearded old men bearing sweets, ran off to hide on the trampoline. Son endured it whilst protesting that he thought the Santa was fake. Twin 2, on the other hand, was last seen sitting on Santa's lap, whilst he stroked her cheeks, telling him that she wanted make up in her stocking.

Think I have just eaten the last toffee, dagnabbitt! Perhaps I should move onto the 'dense milk coffee candy' or the 'yake sweet with jam centre'? Not sure about the others as the writing is in chinese, so I'll leave those for the kids next week.

Off to check on the rolls now...

Done to perfection. Can't wait for breakfast.

Night x

cold shoulder

I'm so incredibly tired that I feel a bit drunk, which is kind of good. However, I'm also so tired that I lack the energy to get off the sofa and go to bed, or even go to the loo (not so good). I wonder if it's also the horse pills I'm on for my frozen shoulder? Calling it a frozen shoulder makes it feel like I'm some bit of lamb that's been hacked off and flash frozen and shipped from New Zealand. I feel a bit like that, too (hacked off and cold*). Last night I woke up at three with my frozen shoulder, and even though I quickly quaffed some paracetamol (at least I think that's what they were - it was quite dark at 3am), I still couldn't get back to sleep. Anyway, today I went to see the nice doctor and now I'm taking a super-dooper pain killer and a muscle relaxant too. (Worryingly, the pain killer has some sort of warning that it's not suitable for pre-menopausal women, but I don't know why? I wonder if I fit into that category yet?). Not sure if anything I'm writing will make sense, so I think I'll stop and try again when I'm not tired and drugged. Night then x

* yes, it may have something to do with Hubby, but no, I can't tell you as that would be disloyal, and I'm still trying to be nice to him.

no time!

Sorry, it has been ages, and my only excuse is that my fingers are so cold that it makes it hard to type. Also I have been using the laptop (when I can wrest it from the kids) in lengthy emails to the online shop that sold me my 'water resistant' watch, which wasn't. The MD of the company says the watch was clearly marked as not being water resistant, but in fact the site said "...you can rest assured your watch will keep ticking underwater." So I think we might end up going to court about it. Which will be tedious and time-consuming (not that I will notice the time passing, as I have nothing to tell the time with, at the moment. Actually, I've been wearing Hubby's old sports watch. It's huge, about the size of a small apple, and does all kinds of exciting things like telling you the altitude and the time in Sydney, etc., which is all very exciting, but not really what I want).

End of term stuff cranking up now. I have been helping kids make boxes with which to fill with homemade fudge for their teachers. They have painted boxes red (you can hardly see the Tetley Tea logo underneath), and covered with bits of old xmas cards and sparkling jewels. This weekend we shall make the fudge. However, when I spoke to the kids about it, Twin 2 says she doesn't want to give any to Miss P (her teaching assistant), Twin 1 says she doesn't want to give any to Miss M (her teaching assistant) either, because she's 'horrible'. Son says he doesn't really like his teaching assistant, either. So I think we may end up eating a lot of the fudge ourselves (shame!).

Good news on the masters application, they have said they'll accept my application without seeing a copy of my very old 2:2 certificate. This is good because I think it's lost in storage somewhere, and really doesn't certify much, except that I managed to last three years at Uni without being chucked out for non-attendance. Who would have thought, when I question-spotted my way through my finals, that the only time I'd end up using my Law degree would be twenty years later, in an online battle about a watch?

I have to go now, because I'm going to school to do face painting for the nativity play. I'm doing the stars and camels, which is dead easy, and my friend M will be doing the far more challenging Landlord's cat (she is a much better painter than me).

Take care xxx

only 24 sleeps...

Wild excitement of advent calendars! Twins wore Santa and Rudolph hats to school today, and cajoled Son into being a reluctant elf. After school we started making xmas cards. There are lots and lots to make. In the end I had to bribe kids with chocolate Santas in order to get their creative juices flowing. We made four, I think, before Son rebelled and insisted it was time for Dr Who. So, depending on when the chocolate Santas run out, not everyone will get an xmas card this year.

Hubby back from Pokhara, with a hangover, for which I have only the teeniest bit of sympathy, but I am on a mission to be nice to him, so I'll stop there.

Brrr, chillers!

Brrr, chillers! Although the only snow is on the mountains. And it's nearly Christmas, hurrah. Can't wait for exciting nativity play, if only so that Twins will hopefully have got "Little Donkey" and "Mary's Boy Child" well and truly off their chests by the time it's over, and not feel the need to sing xmas 'pop' songs to me over breakfast. Twin 2 is a dancing silver star (why, oh why do they always give her dancing parts? It's only a matter of time before she plummets off the stage and into the pit. Luckily, when she does, her fall will be broken by Twin 2, who is a musician - not a magician, as her friends would have us believe. Many mothers were quite surprised by how many offspring were claiming to be magicians in the school play, until we realised that 'magic' amounted to banging a triangle or shaking a tambourine.)

Hubby in Pokhara again tonight, and I had planned to do something useful like re-writing my first chapter or editing the xmas DVD for the grandparents. However, instead, I opted for a glass of port (good in the cold) and a spot of comedy on BFBS welfare disc, and then I had a dilemma about whether to buy a lipstick on Amazon (Do I need it? Can I afford it? Can I get it cheaper anywhere else? etc. and in the end bored even myself with my petty fiscal dilemmas and gave up).

Sanu's last day today. I cried. I don't want her to go! Even though Hubby tells me she is just a cleaner, she has been my cleaner, and I liked her. And anyone prepared to do the housework for me and my very lazy family is a saint, in my eyes. Hubby thinks I'm being hormonal and irrational, but she has looked after my home and, on occasion, my kids, for the best part of two and a half years. Feels like the end of an era. It feels like the winds in the East and Mary Poppins is on the way, and our posting order will arrive soon, in fact.

On the cheery side, my leather jacket should be ready by now, so will need to get posted back to UK soon so I can wear it (which I know sounds mad, but it's always colder inside than out in Nepal in the winter, so coats don't really get much use).

Should I have another glass of port and watch some more comedy?

You're right, I really should.

Night, then x

being nice to Hubby

Sorry, it has been a sociable old week and that's my excuse for laxity (or should that be laxness? dunno) in writing. We went out to a Thanksgiving dinner at someone's house on Thursday, kids too. Have you ever tried pumpkin cheescake? Apparently it is the dessert of the moment, and jolly nice in fact. Also went out on Friday, with another couple, and paid a fortune for a very mediocre meal (I think that they just upped the price because we were the only customers and therefore the only chance for making any money whatsoever that night).

Hubby is just wondering if people will read my blog when we get divorced and it takes a darker twist. He seems to think this is inevitable. He is in a gloomy state of mind (which I put down to trapped wind). He says I need to be nice about him, for a change. So here are three nice things about my husband:

1. He has nice eyes,

2. He is extremely good in a crisis, and

3. He makes a mean spaghetti bolognese.

I could list more, but he may read this, and it wouldn't do to put him in an overly strong emotional position, which he could exploit by demanding more Caribbean sailing trips (I think one is enough, don't you?).

The other night we popped into the Irish Bar for a quick one after the leather shop. What was so wierd about this was that it was like any Irish Bar anywhere in the world (except, perhaps, in Ireland), but with Nepali bar staff. Which I suppose shouldn't be odd, but you really could not tell you were in Kathmandu, what with the Man U match on the flat screen TVs, and the illuminated adverts for Murphy's. What was even wierder was how out-of-place I felt there, considering I used to live in pubs (literally: I lived above The Earl of Lonsdale on Portabello Road in 1994). I scuttled up to the nearest bar stool and glowered at all the drunk gap-year nineteen-year-olds who were all smoking and talking loudly and earnestly about nothing at all.

I sat, uncomfortable in my Gap jeans and pashmina, enjoying the free slice of chocolate cake that came with my hot toddy. The problem is, I'm a right old matron these days, and young people just strike me as cocky whippersnappers with ill-fitting clothes. Even though it barely seems a moment since I was myself a cocky whippersnapper with ill-fitting clothes (and questionable taste in men). Which I suppose brings me back to being nice about Hubby, as he was able to see through the whippersnapperishness, and realise that one day I'd leave the booze and fags and dodgy fashion choices behind, and blooming well grow up and get married and have kids.

Good on him (still miss the roll ups though).

Night xxx

not much except princesses

Hello. Sorry the whole weekend passed and I didn't write a thing. I did, however, help make princess fans, princess tiaras and decorate biscuits in a princessy way (should perhaps have asked Kate thingy to come along. After all, she'll need to learn to be a good princess now, won't she? I can tell her that it involves glue, silver foil and hearts. And curtseying, definitely. Maybe I should email her and she could come to our next empty Sunday afternoon, where we will be making princess sashes and princess bookmarks, if the Queen will let her?)

Yes, Hubby was busy working on his management thing, and Son was out at a party so I was trying to be a good mother in entertaining the twins. Despite my best efforts, Twin 1 still says she loves her dad more than me, the traitorous ingrate. She says he's more fun, and no amount of glitter glue and spangly creativity can change her mind. It seems so unfair - all he ever does with the kids is watch episodes of 1960s Star Trek. Maybe I should resort to 1960s Star Trek, and my children will begin to love me as well?

Only wrote one scene for the NGN today, as the day was largely taken up with trying to find a new housekeeper. Even as I write this, I realise how poncey this sounds, and I won't bore you with many details, except to say that four days notice does seem a little on the short side. However, I think I may have found a replacement. I do hope so, because otherwise we shall soon be wearing four-day old underpants and living in an ant-infested hovel. Hubby brightly suggested that we save the money we spend on domestic staff and do the chores ourselves. Which is easy for him to say, as he won't be the one swabbing down acres of marble flooring until two in the morning.

It's got really cold here over the last few days (well, you know, relatively speaking - in a house with no central heating or insulation), and I am getting plenty of good use out of the cashmere stocks. Twin 2 seems to think that the solution for feeling a bit chilly is to take off all your clothes and wrap yourself in two of Mummy's nice pashminas. Which would be sweet, if she didn't have a hideous cold. Mmm, pashminas, so much softer than tissues, so much nicer to wipe a five-year-old nose on... so I think I may have to start keeping my cashmere under lock and key.

No Coronation Street tonight, as one of the regulars has to get up early to do a school trip tomorrow. I do miss sitting with a couple of teachers, drinking wine, and speculating on whether Dierdre's neck is in fact a better actor than she is. And why Ken, Dev and Gail are still in it? Perhaps it's because their acting repertoire runs the full gamut, from peeved to mildly irritated.

Feel a bit of a wuss going to sleep before ten, but I have watched two episodes of Black Books, so not an utterly wasted evening (decided that Hubby is Bernard, I am Fran and Gary is Manny).

Night then x

goddess gone

Oh, I meant to say, remember the Living Goddess who was very grumpy and didn't reply to my emails? Well, she's only gone and been replaced by a seven year old! No wonder she was in such a foul mood, she was probably massively premenstrual, poor thing. At least she can go off now and follow her dream of becoming an accountant, bless.

research is essential

Hubby is in Pokhara, it's eight pm and I'm lying in bed scoffing the last chocolate orange and you can't stop me (neither, more importantly, can he).

The next great novel is progressing slowly, but it is progressing, which is good (which is less than can be said of my creative writing masters application, which has stalled, because all my academic certificates - all two of them - are in storage, bummer). Tomorrow Hubby and I are going out to the Ambassador Hotel and the Irish bar, for some essential research (yes, really), as my protagonist and her love interest get it together in these two places. Oh, and we're also popping into the leather shop for some xmas shopping, which I'm mightily excited about. Hubby suggested getting me a leather jacket made for xmas, to which I squealed with delight and said it was a fabulous idea, darling (I think I may have been a homosexual Californian man in a previous incarnation). And as essential research for the leatherware purchase, I'm meeting two friends with leather jackets for lunch tomorrow, so I can stroke their leather and decide which style to get copied (biker or trench?). It's tough this research business.

Only half a chocolate orange left.

I could quit whilst I'm ahead and have a sensible cup of camomile tea, or I could scarf the rest. Hmmm....

chocolate oranges

Well, that's two of the chocolate oranges done. Only one to go! My excuse is that I've got a cold. You know what they say, 'starve a fever, feed a cold'. I'm not sure who says that actually. Probably the same person who says 'brussel sprouts make your hair curl'. Do you think there is some mad old woman out there somewhere, whispering unsolicited and medically incorrect advice into our subconsciousness? Does she sneak into our rooms when we're asleep, or pop up from behind the sofa when we are being forced to watch Chitty Chitty Bang Bang again (is she in league with the child catcher?)?

I think I should make up a few myself and add them to the mix: 'eat chocolate oranges, become irresistably attractive to younger men' perhaps; or 'a chocolate orange segment a day stops the Hubby from stray (ing)'; or even 'chocolate oranges make your boobs grow and banish wrinkles'.

The problem is, once the last chocolate orange has gone, where do I move on to? Will the advent calendars be safe for another two weeks, or will the children have to make do with opening the flap to an empty plastic space every day until xmas?

Its gone ten, so I have to go to bed now (it's the law). Goodnight x

Sunday,

I am feeling well young (not will young, he was the one who won x-factor about eight years ago, surprisingly pipping Gareth Gates at the post) because I'm writing my blog and Hubby is getting a facebook account. I know, how modern are we? I might get really excited and start tweeting soon.

Or maybe not.

Facebook is possibly the worst thing for Hubby to have, as it's utterly alien to his sociopathic nature. I think I'm his only 'friend' so far, so I might have to irritate him by 'poking', sending invitations to play online black jack and all those other utterly pointless things you can do when you're facebooking (is it a verb yet? probably).

Today was remembrance sunday at the British Embassy. We decided to be nice parents and let our children play on the playground and eat sweets rather than making them sit through the service (not as negligent as it sounds as the playground was right next door to the car park where the service was held). We sat at the back and told them only to come and get us in an emergency. About half way through the service it dawned on me that Twin 2's concept of an emergency differed slightly from ours. First her ponytail band fell out (call the police!), then she finished eating her Smarties and didn't know where to put the empty tube (call an ambulance!), and then she hurt her foot a bit at the bottom of the slide (phone the Queen!). Hubby was not impressed. He was, in fact, the very worst thing a parent can ever be... he was disappointed. He was so disappointed that Twin 2 was not allowed any Sprite at lunchtime, yes, that's how heinous the crime was judged to be. Her little mouth wobbled like a miserable trout in a chilly stream.

Bearded cousin and Girlfriend arrived today. They brought a whole bag full of xmas goodies, woo hoo! I have decided that children definitely won't like dark chocolate oranges, so I shall be forced to eat all three of those myself. I have to go and put away all the lovely chocolate stuff now, and it will be really, really hard not to eat anything. Maybe it would be okay to eat just one small segment of chocolate orange tonight?

Hurrah!

Don't forget to buy the Sunday Times this weekend because an extremely close friend of mine has written a profile of a Living Goddess for the 'Life in the day' section on the back page of the magazine...

it was a tuesday...

It's eight thirty on a Tuesday evening, and I'm lying on top of the bed in furry slipper-boot things and trying not to slurp my camomile tea too loudly as Hubby is concentrating on his book. I know I turned forty this year but I thought my slide into old age would be slightly more gradual than this. It's only a matter of time before I start eating Battenburg cake and smelling like damp cushions (luckily you can't buy Battenburg out here, or French Fancies, so the total descent into old lady-ness may take a bit longer).

Today I spent quite a long time watching pictures of things blowing up in Afghanistan on Youtube. Why? Because I'm trying to re-write my first chapter and it's from the point of view of someone in Afghanistan. This morning I learnt that there is a huge amount of Youtube footage from Afghanistan, but most of it is unhelpful for my purposes. Unless I change my book to include US Marines shouting 'Holy Shit!' a lot, that is.

After my morning of war footage, I went out to lunch with the chief-of-staff and deputy-chief-of-staff's wives to sort out planning the kids' xmas party. The elephant is ill, so we have nothing for Santa to arrive on, and, worse, there's a rumour that the Santa costume is broken. Furthermore, our potential Santa has defected and will be working the British Embassy that day. Oh no! I'm thinking we might go for a Mrs Santa this year, or is that a bit too 'modern' for the British Army, d'you think?

Twin 2 is looking Christmassy already, as I decided to be a good middle-class mum and do some crafts with the kids yesterday (they were off school for Tihar). I thought we could make Christmas wrapping paper, as you can't buy it out here. We had twelve metres of brown paper, which I thought we could stamp with holly leaves, snowy footprints, etc. There is no such thing as washable paint here, so I had to make do with acrylic...which was where the trouble began. Luckily I had the foresight to make the whole thing happen outside, and make everyone wear very old clothes. However, I hadn't considered their enthusiasm for the task. They really threw themselves into it. No, really, they threw themselves into it. As a result, Twin 2 now has acrylic red and green splodges all over her blonde hair. I guess it will grow out eventually, unlike the green handprints down the side of our white-painted house. I think I shall stick to being a bad and chavvy mother in future and leave creative crafts to the teachers. What's wrong with having an extra Disney DVD on a bank holiday, and keeping walls, hair, clothes and sanity intact?

Gary has been a house dog most of the weekend because they let off bangers all night over Tihar (despite fireworks being illegal in Nepal - not sure where people get them from), and even though he is a wolf, he doesn't like sudden noises. He's been mostly hiding in the wardrobe. However, he's been booted out tonight because the bangers have stopped and Hubby doesn't want him getting any unnecessary ideas about his status. I can't blame him, because if we hadn't taken a stand then I'm sure Gary would be lying next to me right now reading 'Egonomics' and Hubby would be curled up in the wardrobe. Although, come to think of it, that wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, as Gary is a) furrier, b)cuddlier and c)much less grumpy than Hubby. Perhaps I'll sneak down in a minute and secretly unlock the door, and see how the land lies in the morning...

Saturday night in Kathmandu

Mindful of the fact that we won't be here for ever, we spent a right old touristy day today and visited a big Buddhist stupa and the Garden of Dreams. Oh, and Kentucky Fried Chicken as well, but we'll gloss over that one (although my Twister and virgin mojito were very tasty, thanks).

Today was Cow Tihar, but I didn't see many happy cows today, just the usual skinny ones sifting through the roadside trash.

Hubby has just downloaded an application for his phone that not only shows a picture of an AK47, it also makes AK47 noises, too. Oooh. He has been having vague thoughts about leaving the army, but on the basis of this evidence, I think he'd be better off staying in, as he's clearly still obsessed with noisy killing machines. Oh, now he's aiming the phone and 'shooting' me as I write, how very amusing. Ha, ha it's out of rounds now, so I live to write another day...maybe not, he's just got me with the light saber... arghhh (sound of me dying dramatically like Darth Vader).

is it really wrong to steal chocolate?

Last night Son caught me mid-mouthful with a mini Mars Bar I had poached from Twins' Halloween stash.

Him (from upstairs, looking over the bannisters): what are you eating?

Me (muffled): Nothing.

Him (coming downstairs): You are eating something.

Me (stuffing the rest in and making a dash for the larder to put sweetie bag back in its place): Nothing!

Him (appearing at the larder door): I can see you chewing.

Me (embarrassed and ashamed, swallowing rapidly): Oh, all right then. I stole a mini Mars Bar from the girls' bag. But I tell you what, if I give you a mini Twix from their bag as well, will you promise not to tell them.

Him: Oh, okay then.

So, with that short exchange of words, I have now undone eight precious years of moral education. My eight year old has learnt both to lie and steal, and who has he learnt it from? Not some ne'er do well young scallywag at school, but from me, his own mother.

I hung my head in shame (and kept quiet about the Reese's peanut butter cups I nicked from his bag the night before).

Tomorrow is Dog Tihar. Meena and Sanu have the day off, but Meena told me she has instructed the gate guard to use some marigolds from the garden to make Gary a garland. I'm not sure he'll want to do that, so have found a couple of fake flower necklaces belonging to the Twins for him, and I'm thinking a piece of chicken liver pate on toast would probably be his preferred Tihar treat. Maybe we can use some red lipstick of mine to do a tikka for him. It was Crow Tihar today, although I didn't see many crows wearing garlands. I'm not entirely sure how one is supposed to celebrate with crows. There's possibly some Hindu crow etiquette that I'm unaware of. Saturday is Cow Tihar, and someone will no doubt turn up at our gate with a sacred bovine, expecting something, and taking us unawares whilst we're still in our Saturday morning pyjamas. Perhaps we should set aside some extra specially tasty blades of grass, who knows? Certainly not me. This is my third Tihar in Nepal, and you'd think I should have got a grip and discovered why we're blessing select animals and not others. I mean, if you're not a dog, a cow or a crow at the moment, you're going to feel pretty left out. There's probably a whole bunch of discontented cats in the neighbourhood, trying to make out they don't care about not having a holy blessing day (meow, who wants a flower garland anyway? Even if they offered me a tikka I wouldn't have one, etc.).

Sorry, I should go to bed now, as 6am will come as a hideous surprise if I don't.

Take care x

Christmas is coming

I have ordered kids' xmas presents already. At least I waited until Halloween was over until I did. As usual I'm ridiculously excited about it. I think Son still believes in Santa, but who knows for how much longer? He's eight, so I'm guessing this might be the last year (sob). I have also volunteered (been spammed by the other wives, actually) with organising the kids' xmas party on camp. The cheif of staff's wife has requested a meeting and I have emailed her my party plan. I have stunned myself with my organisational skills. I think it may be just that I'm procrastinating because I can't get back into writing the NGN at the moment, and organising parties is a good way of avoiding sorting out the dire mess that is chapter one. x

spooky palooki, it's Halloweeeeeen

Hello, thought I'd better get a quick one in tonight, as I haven't blogged much in October. It has been a busy old weekend here in Kathmandu. Well, busy for a small group of expats with children under the age of ten, anyway. Why? It's only spooky old Halloweeeeeeen, that's why. And what's more, there are lots of Americans and Canadians who are mad for it. I have just got back from my fourth spooky event in the space of forty-eight hours. It would have been five, but for the functions clash on Saturday night (just had to drop that one in as it makes me sound popular - I'm not, actually, but I think my children might be, so I'll just bask in their popularity a bit). So, Friday night was a Halloween birthday party, for Twins' friend, then Saturday afternoon was Halloween at the Gurkha camp, then Saturday evening was Halloween at the American club, then tonight was trick or treating for a select group of children around Patan. It was, however, a strangely Kathmandu-expat style trick or treat, whereby the children were ferried around to a handful of houses in Landrovers. Effectively I did various versions of the school run for two hours, whilst four small girls stuffed themselves with sweets on the back seat. Still, they seemed to enjoy it. They enjoyed it a lot more than Hubby enjoyed the Oktoberfest function in the mess on Friday, anyway. Can't think why he wasn't keen in dressing up in fake lederhosen and drinking fake German lager whilst talking to the same people he works with all week? I had one large bottle of beer on an empty stomach, and it didn't bother me at all...

Yikes it's ten to ten and I still haven't sorted out the lunch boxes. TTFN x

back to school

I've stopped being in a bad mood. This is a good thing. However, I'm still not going back to scary Bollywood classes, and you can't make me. I have largely left the whole PE-phobia thing behind me these days, mainly by avoiding all team sports. Someone asked me to join in the BGN swimming competition, and also some volleyball match, the other day. I think I must look sporty somehow, possibly because people see me in my gym kit in the mornings - but spending half an hour on the rowing machine after I drop the kids off at the school bus does not magically give me co-ordination, competitiveness or something else beginning with 'c' that I can't think of right now. Next time people are casting about for an extra team member I'll tell them to call the Bollywood teacher, who is clearly a task-orientated and competitive person, and what's more, enjoys a bit of shouting.

Started writing novel again today. Actually I spent most of the morning re-reading what I'd written before the hols, to remind myself of what the book is about. However, I did manage to do a couple of scenes, dialogue only. Interesting - Aunty Shirley and Kathleen definitely have some sort of secret that they are hiding from Zoe. Unfortunately they are also hiding it from me. I haven't decided whether to turn them into the kind of women who'd hire contract killers for errant husbands or not. They will probably decide for themselves by the time I get to that point in the book.

Kids are back at school now, but only for a week-and-a-half, and then they get a long weekend for Tihar (otherwise known as Diwali), and then it's only about a month until the xmas hols, the little blighters.

I'm hoping that over the Tihar weekend we can get away to Pauline's Guest House. I've just emailed Pauline, so waiting to hear. It's a little tiny place just outside Kathmandu, and the woman who runs it is the sister of the cheese-and-sausage man (he's French, and pretty tasty, by Kathmandu standards - although I have only met him once, but he was good-looking enough to make me spend a small fortune on fromage and charcuterie - or do I mean saucisse? hmm, probably) so there's lots of tasty food on offer. Not a huge amount for the kids to do, but I suspect they will just roll around playing 'Dr Who' or 'Star Wars' wherever they are (Dr Who is preferred option because there are better female characters. I know Star Wars has Princess Lea, and Padme, but who wants to be Padme? She's about the most tedious fictitious character ever created).

I was going to tell you some wierd camp gossip (gossip from the army camp, not gossip involving Larry Grayson - is that how you spell his surname?), but I'm not sure if I should. Probably not. It's not a good thing, but when you hear something downright odd, it's a bit hard to keep it to yourself. For example, if you were leaving somewhere, and somebody was organising a leaving lunch for you, and they happened to put a picture of a sad-looking dog on the poster advertising the lunch, would you think:

a) the person organising the lunch has a kind heart and a soft spot for animals; or

b) the person organising the lunch has questionable taste and no graphic design skills; or

c) the person organising the lunch is implying that I'm a dog and I therefore shall not go to my own leaving lunch.

If it were me, I guess I'd think 'a' and secretly a bit of 'b' too. However, there are some - who shall of course remain nameless - who would think 'c' and therefore boycott their own leaving do. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't 'c' just a teensy weensy bit paranoid?

Blimey, it's five minutes to bedtime already, and I will be awake at six, whether I like it or not, so I'm off now.

Toodle pip x

fat, shouty and welsh

Still in bad mood, largely because Bollywood teacher got grumpy with the class tonight for not learning the moves quickly enough, and I felt like I was back in a PE class at school. I shall not be going back to Bollywood, because I do not wish to start having flashbacks about fat shouty welsh PE teachers and muddy hockey pitches in the rain, thanks very much. I will start ranting if I carry on, so I'm off to bed. But I will write properly tomorrow (hopefully I shall be in a better mood then and see the funny side, rather than the fat shouty welsh side, of Bollywood).

Hi, I'm in a bad mood, so this will be a short post. Anyway, I'll cheer up when we're up at lovely Kakani this weekend, and seeing the lovely mountains (hopefully all the leeches have gone, but it did rain the other night so we might be unlucky. Have to go and find very important Hello Kitty socks now....

misery

Quite a strange bed time. We had just heard that the grandparents' dog died a few days ago, so all the kids were a bit upset. I decided to read them all a bedtime story, a happy one, to cheer everyone up, and let the Twins have a sleepover in Son's room. There was a book of stories in Son's room, and one of them was called 'The Happy Prince'. You would have thought that would be a happy story, wouldn't you? But no, you'd be wrong. 'The Happy Prince' would be better named 'The dead swallow who should have flown off to Egypt with his mates when he had the chance'. I'm sorry, but tweeting about in Heaven at the end, doesn't make for a happy ending, not when the poor old dead bird was lying on a rubbish heap in the middle of winter in some unspecified northern european town. So everyone went to sleep almost as gloomy as before, and I have vowed never to read another kids' story with 'happy' in the title.

Talking of gloom, I can hear wailing and shouting coming from the compound. Quite glad Hubby isn't here, as he always gets upset at the sound of other people's domestic issues, and wanders around muttering darkly about how he'd like to sack the lot of them. Luckily I usually persuade him not to, by reminding him that if Sanu and Meena get the sack, we will have to do our own washing up. And ironing. And washing. And hoovering. And cooking. And blooming everything.

The dogs have all started to howl as well, as if in sympathy for Sanu's misery.

Anyway, at least sandwiched in between the dead dog, dead bird and domestic's domestic, I have had a pretty productive evening. I've pitched another idea to the Sunday Times (they'll probably say no, but what the hey), talked to the army press office about getting clearance for researching my new novel (they are sending me a form to fill in), got the okay from Nottingham Uni to apply for creative writing MA and eaten several tasty chocolate biscuits.

Oh no, Sanu is still crying, loudly. And her husband seems to be talking very reasonably. It's definitely not domestic abuse (in which case I'd have to do something).

Ok, it turns out that her husband has been unfaithful, and she's drunk and angry with him. I intervened in the end. I feel desperately sorry for her, but I'm not going to have drunken shouting in my back yard at ten thirty at night. Her husband has gone. I'll offer her the day off tomorrow.

off radar

Sorry I have been off radar. It's because we've been on our hols in Dubai (woo hoo). Dubai is the strangest place I have ever been (with the possible exception of a certain toilet in Pokhara). It's like something out of Star Wars - all glass and steel skyscrapers and blinding sunlight. I half expected the taxis to take off and whizz us through the air to our destination. Everything there is new, and works, and there's no rubbish and no street dogs and, apparently, no crime (according to our taxi driver this is because anyone who does anything remotely bad gets kicked out of the country - and they can do this because it's a kingdom where about eighty five per cent of the population are expatriates, so baddies just get sent home. A bit like Botany Bay in reverse?) Anyway, if you fancy going somewhere that's magnificently soulless, and you don't care about anything being traditional, historic, or even local, then Dubai is the place for you. Great for kids, who in my experience would rather go to a water park than a museum any day.

I have to go and get bedtime-strict with the kids now, so I'll write more later...

fantastic friday

I have had a right old expat wife day today, and I just want to record it for future reference because I know that one day, in the not too distant future, this lovely life will be taken away from me, and I'll be back in the land of cold rain, washing up and, well, just having to do everything myself.

So, today I dropped the kids off on the school bus and then went for a nice swim in the solar-heated outdoor pool on camp. I was the only person in the swimming pool and I swam fifty lengths (not as impressive as it sounds because the pool is quite short, and I swim pretty slowly). Then my friend texted me to say she'd managed to book me in with her for a Japanese massage, so I said a brief good morning to the housekeeper and trotted off to the massage place. Two diminutive-but-surprisingly-strong Japanese chaps walked up and down me (I was wearing pajamas) for an hour and a half, and then my friend and I went for a drink at a nearby cafe-cum-bookshop. By this time it was almost midday, and we had to rush to school to pick up our children, because it's now the Deshain holidays, and they always break up early on the last day of term. We have six children between us, my friend and I, so the state of deep relaxation induced by the massage was undone slightly by walking back to her house along the pot-holed roads with all the horrible beeping cars and speeding bikes (pavements are a rarity out here), and lunch with all six was a bit of a bun fight (literally). However, then they all went off and played really nicely with Lego and dressing up clothes etc. and my nice friend shared her last six squares of ever-so-precious Green&Black's chocolate with me, bless her (you can't really buy decent chocolate in Nepal) and we had long chat, interspersed only occasionally by Twin 2 wanting to do Cinderella/Snow White/Katy Perry shows or needing her bottom wiped. By half past four we decided to quit whilst we were ahead, and for me to take my kids home before they all stopped playing nicely, so my family wandered off to find a taxi. What a coincidence that our taxi hunting trip took us right past the pashmina shop, which happened to have a pashmina in the exact shade I fancied for this winter (it's called 'pigeon'). Well, hey, I needed the change for the taxi ride home anyhow. And I have almost sold my thing to the Sunday Times. And...well, I'm just a bit of a sucker for cashmere, actually.

By the time we got home, the house was clean, the washing was all ironed and put away, and Meena had prepared some of her super-tasty meatballs for supper.

Hubby came home in a bad mood because I'd forgotten to tell him that the car needed fuel, so I had to apologise a lot, but other than that - pretty good day, hey?

How will I cope when this life is snatched from me and I'm thrust back into the clutches of recessional UK?

Doesn't bear thinking about! xxx

partners' club, woo hoo!

Life is just one big thrill after another...this morning I went to the partners' club meeting (two months running now - a personal record). It wasn't that I especially wanted to go (generally speaking I would rather stick pins in my eyes), but I had promised the nice Brazilian lady who lives down the road that she could come in and sell her necklaces, and I had to host her.

It was the usual exciting stuff. The thing is, I know that there's some major bit of gossip going on, and although I try not to get involved in all the internal politics of camp and the partners' club, I would secretly like to know. I guess I'll find out six months after everyone else, as usual. I was trying to look at people's body language to find out who has fallen out with whom, but I'm a bit thick at that sort of thing. Has the Gurkha Major's wife fallen out with the Chief-of-staff's wife? Does the RSM's wife have an issue with the community nurse's husband? Have I comitted some heinous faux pas myself, and is everybody upset with me? I will probably never know...Hubby will say that this is a good thing, and that we shouldn't concern ourselves with petty rivalry and bitchiness. He may be right, but I do wish I had a reliable source to tell me what's really going on!

At the meeting we had a briefing from the ASU people.( I don't actually know what ASU stands for, but army types do love their acronyms - assorted stripey underpants perhaps?) Anyhow, the ASU are the people in charge of army furniture, etc. There was almost a riot when one wife put up her hand and asked when her dishwasher could be plumbed in. Dishwasher? Since when did the army start issuing dishwashers? None of the rest of us have dishwashers! And was it just because she was the OC's wife and got preferential treatment?! The rumblings were reaching volcanic proportions when it transpired that it was in fact her own dishwasher that she had had shipped over from the UK. Moreover, the ASU were refusing to plumb it in because dishwashers consume far too much water, and as there's a perennial water shortage here it's just not allowed. Phew! Everyone seemed happy at last (apart from the poor woman who's brought her dishwasher thousands of miles only to be told she can't use it and will have to use the kitchen sink like everyone else).

The topic then moved on to gas pressure in cookers, and whether we should be replacing all the light bulbs with energy efficient ones or waiting until the old non-efficient ones burn out. It all got a bit heated (unlike the cookers, apparently).

I'm still pretty happy with the marble-floored mansion in which we live, and I don't really care too much about ovens and dishwashers as we have a cook. Oh well, sometimes people like nothing better than a cup of coffee and a good old moan, I suppose.

At least my nice Brazilian neighbour was happy because she sold lots of necklaces (I bought one myself in fact - anything to detract from the kerfuffle about dishwashers, light bulbs and cookers).

I may not attend the next meeting. However, I've heard that the silversmith might have a stall, so I could be persuaded...

xxx

fraud

Just had scary message from bank's fraud section. They have blocked my visa card, and I haven't been able to buy the next series of Entourage from Amazon, boo. What I was really worried about was that someone might have drained our account and we wouldn't be able to go on holiday to Dubai (we really need to go now - Hubby is starting to look and sound like an over-filled pressure cooker, so we have to leave the country before he explodes)...however, it turns out that when I bought Son's 'Dr Who's Journal of impossible things' on Paypal and added and extra £1 donation to the Pakistan flood appeal, the £1 Paypal payent triggered off investigation by the bank's fraud office. It's great that they're vigilant, but blocking my visa card for the sake of one quid seems a tad over zealous. However, good to know that they're on the ball, and we can still go on our hols.

Really really tired today as Twin 1 (now much better, thanks) was in my room at about 4.30 this morning complaining about what was clearly a Dr Who-inspired nightmare. I think I might have to instigate a Disney Princesses only viewing schedule for the next few days, to ensure I get a full night's sleep (which I really need, after my Bollywood class). Think I might go and rest my eyes a bit before the school pickup xx

Next Great Novel postponed

NGN is on pause yet again. This week it's Twin 1's turn to be ill on a Monday. Diarhoea and fever (I'm sure that is how you spell diarrhoea? maybe not! Always a problem, and I resort to saying 'tummy bug' which just sounds wussy, don't you think?).

Not only have I not done any writing today, I also had a slightly depressing email from a friend-of-a-friend who was going to give me details of what it's like to be a woman bomb disposal officer. But guess what? She can't talk to me until she's cleared it with the MoD. Even though I'm writing fiction that in all probability will never get published. Anyway, I'm just too despondent to phone the MoD man tonight, so I decided to write to you instead.

Since I last wrote we've had an exciting Deshain function at Hubby's work. The best bit about it was that I didn't have to dance this year, and I got to wear my nice new dress and pretend to be someone who has a town house in Islington and a country house in Cornwall, and maybe is a successful novelist (which is what the dress makes me feel I should be, instead of which I'm wiping bottoms in Kathmandu and not writing anything at all).

Well, at least tomorrow I've got my Bollywood class to look forward to!

Take care xxx

Friday and time for some wine

Hello chaps, sorry it's been a while. This has been because I bought series 5 of Entourage, which Hubby particularly likes. So between Dr Who/Disney Princess after school and Entourage after kids' bedtime, the laptop has been in use. Oh, I know I could do something during the day when kids are at school, but I'm trying to be disciplined and spend that time writing the next great novel (or tending to ill children, or picking up my new dress, or going to book club - or this morning, selling cakes at the Big Brew cake stall, which I couldn't get out of because it was All For A Good Cause).

The Next Great Novel, or NGN as I shall now refer to it, is moving along quite slowly. At least our heroine is finally onto plot point one, and on the plane to Nepal. However, there are a few scenes missing in her first Act - about twenty pages of them - so I'll have to go back and fill the holes later. Interestingly, it turns out she has an evil godmother (I didn't plan her, she just popped up), quite the reverse of the Cinderella version, whose job seems to be to try to scupper everything for our heroine. She's in her seventies (the evil godmother, not the heroine), and she smokes cocktail cigarettes and wears too much lipstick. Worryingly, she's sort-of how I see myself at that age, like an elderly alter ego.

Anyway, today I have been far too busy to write anything because, as I mentioned, it was Big Brew (raising money for forces charity) day on the British Camp, and in addition, just to ramp up the adrenaline levels, International Day at the British School. Ooh, I thought the kids would explode with the excitement of it all. They got to wear Union Jack clothes to school, run about buying food from International food stalls after school, and then go to camp and run about some more buying hideous cuddly toys and demanding fizzy pop. And to top it off, I couldn't drive home on the normal way, as there are suddenly huge holes in the road (nothing as helpful as a road sign warning of this, though, just a sudden crater, marked with a spindly branch stuck in the hole - because a few leaves really is equivalent in safety terms to cones, fluorescent tape and a several men-at-work signs, wouldn't you say?).

Quite tired after a day of charity and cultural awareness - might even have a glass of wine in a bit...Hubby is already in bed. He went to bed at the same time as Son (before 8pm). This is because he stayed up very late last night playing geekily with his new mind-mapping software on his mobile phone (did you know, you can print it out - how exciting is that?), and then the neighbourhood dogs apparently barked all night. I say apparently, because I didn't hear them. I was asleep, having happy dreams.

My great excitement this week was having a jersey dress made up locally (sorry, yes I am that superficial - I may read Nobel Peace Prizewinner's autobiographies, but nothing really matches the thrill of a nice new outfit). It wasn't massively cheap, but it looks like its just popped off the pages of a Boden catalogue, and at less than half the price, hurrah. I shall wear it to Hubby's work's Deshain function tomorrow. Thank the Lord they haven't asked me to dance again this year, so I won't end up dressed like Danny-La-Rue-goes-to-the-Himalayas. I shall instead probably look like someone called Charlotte from Islington, or Poppy from Truro or something (I won't look like me, because as my NGN has shown, the real me is a mix of Cruela deVil and hmmm, shall we say, Anthea Turner).

Right, I'm off to find that bottle of wine now xxx

oh, and the good news is that we're off to Dubai for the hols, hurrah!

cherry cake

Apparently the goddess's modem is broken, and that's why she hasn't been replying to my emails. My fixer said I should just pop in and have a chat with her, but I think I might be better off just waiting for her modem to be fixed. Shecan't shrug in an email, or glance across with a 'whatever, minger' face. Oh, I don't know, maybe I'll drop by tomorrow morning when the kids are at school.
I have just tried to be a proper mother by doing homework with the Twins. They have to cook a dish from their own country, describe it on paper and bring in a sample to school tomorrow (quite ambitious given that neither of them can actually write). I have been planning to cook cherry cake with them ever since I found the only place in Kathmandu that sells glace cherries (not sure why I found this so thrilling - I don't even like glace cherries. And they don't really look or taste very much like real glace cherries, if I'm honest - probably made from plastic, cow dung and red food colouring). The cake recipe also called for ground almonds too, and you can't buy them anywhere. I did, however, find some whole almonds, and ground them myself. Are you impressed to my commitment to homework yet? I am!
Son joined in with the cake making, so it was somewhat chaotic. We tipped the mixture into the cake tin, only to realise that we had forgotten the sugar, so I had to scrape it all out, add the sugar, and shove it back in again.
The final product was really quite underwhelming, given the amount of effort that went in.
Twins had a little sheet to describe it on.
Twin 1 said: It looks like a shoe. It feels squidgy.
Twin 2 said: It sounds like the wind. It tastes of flowers.
Which I think says more about their respective personalities than our national cuisine.
TTFN x

living goddesses and sonic screwdrivers

The blooming goddess still hasn't got back to me. She's probably busy wrestling Demons, or meeting an incarnation of Shiva - or alternatively she can't be bothered because she's poking people on Facebook. It's a bit irritating, because she was so utterly monosyllabic, no worse than that, nonosyllabic (yes, I have just invented a new word, and that's because I'm a writer, and I'm allowed to), so I could use a tad more information or I'm going to struggle to make my thousand words.

I'm almost better now, really, nearly, but I wasn't well enough to go to my Bollywood class last night, so I've missed out on a whole fifteen seconds more of slinky moves, shame.

Hubby still has his nose in Harry Potter (not literally), and I'm feeling a little jealous because I'm reading an autobiography of the chap who started the Grameen Bank (microcredit). It is quite interesting, but I don't think its as exciting as HP (no brooms or house elves at all).

Hubby and I had lunch today, in the spirit of injecting fun and romance back into our marriage (this is the kind of thing it suggests in magazines for women-of-a-certain-age, and I am that age now...). He told me about an exciting new strainer he has sourced for the water treatment works, and I told him about writing my scene where the heroine realises that her father is still alive. And they say romance is dead... I said that perhaps some gentle flirtation was in order and Hubby winked at me. He said that if I'd expected seduction I should have married someone else, and went back to discussing resin, particulates and borehole yeilds (enough to set anyone's heart a-flutter, no?).

Son is back downstairs. He can't sleep because he keeps thinking stuff about Dr Who and is worried about having bad dreams. Now he's off to eat some cheese, not sure how that will help. He seems to think that it will make him smile in his sleep and therefore have happy dreams. Hmm, not sure I'm quite convinced by that theory.

However, nice to see that some things don't change. Thirty five years ago it was me hiding behind the sofa when the daleks came on - nice to see I can pass that cheery childhood experience on to my own kids.

Anyway, I'm now off to see if I can buy a sonic screwdriver on Amazon.

Cheerio x

Kevin-the-teenage-goddess

Right then. Still have lurgy (will it never end?) so am back in bed. Anyway, I said I'd tell you about the living goddess, so here goes: The story is that in the seventeenth century the Hindu goddess Taleju was playing a game of dice with King Malla. Here the story gets a bit confusing. I've heard that either he inappropriately lusted after her, or she gave him some important advice about running his kingdom. Anyway, for some reason or other she decided to be incarnated as a pre-pubescant girl from a local Buddhist caste, and has done so ever since. Now King Malla divided the Kathmandu Valley into three kingdoms because he had three sons - so each could inherit a kingdom upon his death and not have a big old civil war. So now there are three incarnations of Taleju, one for each of the ancient kingdoms (Kantipur, Baktapur and Lalitpur). The name given for a living goddess is a kumari. The kumari is a young girl, chosen between the ages of three and six. She's chosen from a local Newari caste through a combination of astrology, physical attributes and the priest's gut feeling. Her tenure as a living goddess lasts until her first period.

So it's all quite interesting, and I have been vaguely thinking I ought to write something about this since I've been here. Anyway, I was very excited to finally, via a Nepali photojournalist and fixer, have the opportunity to meet my neighbourhood kumari, here in Lalitpur. She lives less than a mile away, near Patan Durbar Square, in a skinny house on the main street with her mum, dad, and two younger brothers. She is fifteen, and has been a kumari for nine years - so she's knocking on, in goddess terms.

Meeting her was worth fighting through the 'flu for, not just because it was exotic, etc. But because it was so interesting to see the combination of arrogant goddess and sulky, embarrassed teenager morphed into one bejewelled person.

As interviews go, it was probably one of the most challenging I've done. Because she's a goddess, people aren't supposed to talk to her. And as she's only allowed out of her house in her palanquin on festival days, she doesn't get to see much, so doesn't really have much to say. Pretty much nothing at all, in fact. Although by the way she looked at me when I stammered out my clearly ridiculous questions, her heart was saying, "yeah, whatever."

I did manage to wrest from her that she wants to study accountancy in college (which, dull as it sounds, has got to be way more exciting than being locked up at home from the age of six).

She also gave me her email address, because she said she'd rather answer questions in writing. Which is how I came to have a living goddess's email address.

So I emailed her last night, and hope she will find time in her goddessy existence to check her hotmail account, because with just a teensy bit more information I can write up the interview for the Sunday Times magazine, if they'll take it...

Need to get out of bed now and tell Meena what to make for lunch (feel a bit like a living goddess myself, sometimes!) x

emailing a living goddess

Still ill, but I dosed myself up with as many random drugs as we had this morning and headed off to do an interview with a living goddess. Yes, really! And now I have the living goddess's email address. I'm wondering if she'll want to be my friend on facebook? I will tell you all about it soon, but I really do feel hideous, so I'm going to make a hot lemon and go to bed. xxx

ill again!

Feeling really pretty horrible today - think I have Son's lurgy thing. That's my excuse for not writing up the 'catalyst' scene (where our heroine discovers the big fat family secret that sends her off on a quest of discovery...), and instead falling asleep for an hour in the middle of the day. However, I think the worst is over so I'm going to try to write it now (not as if I need an early night, given my large siesta). Well, not right now, because I'm talking to you now, but, you know, in a minute, when I have procrastinated a bit more first.

Sunil turned up after supper to sort out my saggy-elephant-bottom linen trousers. I know that no amount of tailoring can make my bum look small, but it's a sad day when something actually makes it look bigger than it really is - which was the case with aforementioned (good word, eh) trousers. He's also making me a slinky velvet pencil skirt, no idea when I'll wear it, but hey. I've had to get my tailoring in before Sunil disappears on some mystery business trip to Munich (well, he says Munich, but I suspect he's being recalled to the Mother Ship).

Oh, I didn't tell you about the Bollywood classes, did I?

The first one went very well, thanks. If you think a room full of mildly uncoordinated middle-aged women wiggling their hips and pretending to be young, Asian and slinky counts as 'well'. It only took an hour's class to learn the first fifteen seconds of the routine... quite glad I was at the end that didn't have a huge great mirror on the wall. There's a Bollywood party in a couple of weeks at the embassy, so perhaps we could all do a little exhibition dance?

Right, need to chew some paracetamol and give my heroine something to think about.

(And by the sound of it I also need to give Twin 2 another puff on her inhaler and an extra dose of cough medicine, poor little scrap).

Night, then x

Must be a nicer person...

Right then, I only have eighteen minutes of charge left on this laptop and you can't make me go all the way downstairs to get the charger (I'm feeling ill, again, another little sip of viral soup).

I have a friend, who I met up with the other day, who says that when you get irritated by someone, it's usually some fault in your own psychological make up that's bugging you (yes, she probably did say bugging you, because she is Canadian). She says that when you point the accusing finger at someone, you have four fingers pointing at yourself.

I have been thinking about this.

I have been trying to have less prejudice, and be mindful of my own less-than-perfect nature.

I have been trying...

However, I have decided that I cannot totally respect someone who names their child after a superannuated pop-country fusion singer. Even if that person is jolly nice, and has even invited me to their birthday party, there is a part of me that just can't, well, get over it.

Perhaps I will ask my wise Canadian friend what she thinks. She will probably think I'm being vile, especially as namesake nineties pop-country fusion singer is also Canadian.

Perhaps I should try to get over my prejudice by renaming my own children in a similar vein. Perhaps I'll start calling them Sunny, Cher and Madonna.

What do you reckon?

No power left, must go x

half term

Sorry. So much for trying to write more often. I blame the hangovers.

We had half term (two days), which involved lots of ferrying kids around to meet other kids at various locations.

Then on Friday evening there was the fabulously surreal Teej (I had to mix my pre-do gin with ginger beer in the end, and I have to say it was pretty tasty). There we were, all dressed up to the nines in our rato saree (red saris - although in fact I was a bit of a rebel as I wore a red dress that used to be a sari), with clinking bangles and nervous laughter that morphed into drunken laughter as the evening progressed. We drank (plenty), danced (badly), and won quite splendiferous raffle prizes (Twin 1 was very pleased with the brown plastic statuette of a dolphin I gave her the following morning). I'm talking about the British wives, natch. The Nepali ladies all looked stunning, danced gracefully, didn't drink, and let us win all the raffle prizes, bless 'em. Ah well, we'll return the favour with the Secret Santa at the wives xmas function...

On Saturday Hubby was feeling a bit tired, so he went back to bed in the morning, leaving me to entertain the kids (oh, don't worry about my hangover, you just get some shut-eye, mate, I muttered, as he began snoring, and the kids began demanding something more interesting than quiet colouring in).

Went out to eat Saturday night with Hubby and a group of lovely people from the Embassy. There were three single laydeez in the group, all of them top birds, lamenting the paucity of single blokes in Nepal. So if anyone knows any nice unattached males, please do send them out to Kathmandu, where I can guarantee they will be very well looked after.

Only one kids' party to attend this weekend (what's happening? Are they becoming unpopular?), but it was miles away in a place called Godavri. Still, they had a blast, as did Son (he didn't seem bothered that the party was intended for five-and-six-year old girls), until his illness kicked in - yes, this time he was genuinely ill, not just kicked out of school for having sickly siblings.

I hope he'll be better by tomorrow because, you know, there are best-selling novels just waiting to be a-written!

Nightie, night x

ps - Twin 2 has started trying to give me open-mouthed kisses at bed time. Yeuch. Like being kissed by a tortoise. She's been watching way too much of those Disney Princess movies!

no secrets!

Okay, I will write more often, then...Not sure how coherent it's likely to be tonight though, as I'm on my third G&T (I was trying to save the tins of tonic for a pre-Teej stiffener, but that's gone by the wayside - will just have to down it neat on the fast-approaching night).

Anyway, I had to have a bit of Dutch courage to Skype the Sunday Times magazine and pitch an idea for A Life in the Day feature.

It has been many, many years since I've pitched to a national (about ten, actually), so I thought a gin was in order.

Oh, don't give me that, it was 8pm over here, so perfectly respectable (the sun was well over the yard arm, as my mother would say).

You see, I have agreed with Hubby that I can't carry on in the manner-to-which-I have-become-accustomed once we're posted back to scary UK. I have to earn something, and much as I'd like to think I'll be a best-selling novelist by then, lets face it, the odds are against me. As the only thing I'm even remotely competent at is writing, then I guess I'll have to start freelancing again. So I thought I ought to try to get a couple of things in the cuttings file before the move.

Anyway, I'll let you know how I get on. It would be pretty cool to say, "I'm a novelist, and I also write for the Sunday Times" when people ask what I do - instead of saying, "I'm a trailing spouse". Sometimes I think I should just lie and say I'm "In development" like everyone else does (I suspect half of them are lying, too).

Oooh, that G&T is really quite tasty.

I had given up drinking in the evening (until today) in a vague bid to lose weight. But then I read in the Economist that all you have to do to lose weight is to drink a pint of water before each meal. It's scientifically proven, and what's more, it's in the Economist, so it must be true. So I drank a pint of water before supper (momos and chips) and now I'm about to pour my fourth G&T. Do you think it will work?

Hubby is away in Pokhara, so he is probably on his umpteenth whisky in the Amsterdam bar, so I don't feel remotely guilty. Plus, the kids are on half term tomorrow, so I don't have to get up at silly o'clock in the morning, hurrah. I'd say that merits another snifter, wouldn't you?

TTFN xxx

more of the same

Hubby has told me I have to write some more on my blog. I'm not sure whether this is because it gives him more time with exciting Harry Potter, and gets him out of tedious conversations about Meena's pasta sauce, or because he's hoping that the more I write, the more secrets he'll find out next time he logs on.

So, Hubby, when I'm telling you about Meena's pasta sauce, my secret thought is that Colin Firth is licking my toes.

Actually that's not true. I have gone off Colin Firth since his Mr Darcy days (so long ago, now!). Now he always seems to play ageing homosexuals, so I think that little crush of mine is well and truly over.

I could tell you about wailing and chuntering in the medical centre when we had our rabies boosters, or breathless and confusing conversations with other mums about trekking over deshain holidays, or shouting so loudly at Twin 1 at bedtime that now my throat hurts.

But these are things that don't really need to concern you.

What you want is another secret thought, don't you?

Oh alright then.

Today's secret thought is... other people's babies scare me. There, I've said it. I pretty much have baby phobia. In fact, the younger, the scarier, in my opinion. There is a new girl in the Twins' class, and they like her, and she seems to like them, and she also seems very nice (unlike X) but I'm scared of arranging a playdate in case her Mum brings along her two baby brothers, and I will have to pretend to think they are cute and charming, when actually I'll be resisting a desperate urge to run for the hills.

Don't tell anyone because it's distinctly unmaternal and frankly downright wierd, given that I've had three babies of my own.

Three secret thoughts

1. And my secret thought today is... how never to invite Twins' friend (we'll call her X so as not to be defammatory) to our house ever again. I'm waiting for X to ask to come over to play, so I can say "No, you can't. And you know why not." But on the other hand, I don't want to fall out with her mother...what can you do?
2. My other secret thought is...pumpkin and soya bean curry. Have you never tried it? You really should!
3. And my final secret thought is... yes, it was me who ate the remaining mini mars bar and bag of chocolate buttons from this weekend's party bags. They weren't thrown away by Sanu or snuffled up by Gary. It was me, me, me, and I shall have to do an extra session in the gym to repent.

Hubby is upstairs with Harry Potter. He and Son are both now utterly obsessed. Think I may have to sue JK Rowling for ruining both my marriage and my relationship with my boy.

Wish there were more party bags to plunder...

norma no mates

I am feeling utterly overshadowed by my children's social lives. This weekend Son has another two parties (I'm getting through that stock of Usborne True Stories books that I accidentally over-ordered earlier this year - who can complain if you give their children books as presents?), and the Twins have a party and a friend for a sleepover. They even have friends over for a sleepover tonight (and it's a school night - shock!).

Still, at least I have the Gurkha wives' Teej party to look forward to next week, which is always a pretty surreal experience (including a tombola and a prize for the best-dressed lady). I have realised, after a whole two years here, that the way to approach gurkha-type events is either to not go at all, or make sure you have plenty of 'journey juice', so you're already half-drunk when you get there. I know, I know, I should be embracing the cross-cultural experience. And I will embrace it, I really will - but only once I've had a nice stiff G&T.

tootle pip!

quickie

Just a quickie - Twins in the bath, Son doing something in his room and Hubby having a 'long think' (yes, he's on the loo). Bought a folding coffee table today, hurrah. I have been coveting it for two years, ever since I saw it in the fair trade shop window (shame it is covered in two-years' worth of dust, but hey). Since Son's Lego space city thing has now been transferred to our army-issue coffee table, I had the perfect excuse to buy it.

The purchase will be a boon to road safety, as I will no longer look longingly into the shop window every time I'm barrelling down Kupondole in the Landrover, and narrowly miss motorbikes, mangy dogs etc.

Have to go, bathtime evidently over! xx

quarantine

Hubby has lurgy now. Son, who appears to have evolved out of illness (like crocodiles) still shows no signs of having been infected. I'm sending him back to school on Monday, whether they like it or not.

I managed to make it through one more day of bored-kids-who-aren't-ill-and-it's-too-rainy-to-go-outside by cracking open the paints and putting my playlist on the computer. No more of that High School Musical nonsense, no siree. So we painted dragons and listened to Jimi Hendrix and the Sugababes and Bob Dylan and the Black Eyed Peas (funny old thing, random play - one minute you're thirteen again and the next you're a forty-year-old matron). Then this afternoon they had to watch a DVD whilst I read two of Son's Mr Gum books (they are v. funny) and I survived the final day of quarantine with my sanity intact.

However, my brain is utterly empty now, so I'll go before I bore you with random discussions about characters in Mr Gum.

what a palaver

I had a call from another expat mum yesterday. She said one of her didis (a didi is the nepali word for aunty and is a generic term used for female household staff) had got a new job in Kathmandu (the expat mum lives in Pokhara) to be closer to her family. However, the didi - let's call her L - wasn't happy at all at her new place and wanted to leave. Did I know anyone who was looking for a didi, she asked? The expat mum had heard that one of my friends, Mrs V, was looking for a didi, so could I please ask if she'd be interested in taking on L, as L was having a terrible time with her new employer, a Mrs B of Sanepa.

So, after a long conversation about how lovely Didi L is and how Mrs B must be a bit of a slave driver, I agreed to ask Mrs V if she needed a didi.

This morning I saw Mrs V (whose daughter is also off school with lurgy) and asked her whether she needed a didi.

Mrs V said, no, she didn't, it was her friend who wanted a didi, because said friend was very unhappy with the one she had just taken on, who kept leaving work early, without asking, and complaining about the amount of work.

Mrs V said, yes, my friend needs a didi because she wants to get rid of her one, so she would be interested to hear from Didi L.

I asked what her friend's name is, so we could put the two in touch. She told me it's Mrs B of Sanepa.

Oh, the irony.

I wonder what the truth is: does Didi L really want to leave, or has Mrs B already threatened her with the sack? Is Mrs B a heartless slave driver or is Didi L a thankless good-for-nothing? And did the whole thing merit a twenty minute phone call with the distraught ex-employer from Pokhara last night?

Do you care?

Thought not.

Hubby says I should stop talking about staff. He thinks it sounds ridiculous. He's probably right.

But apart from that I can only talk about the rain (oh, god, the unceasing rain!) or the lurgy (oh, god, the unceasing lurgy!), so I don't think I'll bother.

What has it come to when the only conversation I have is about other people's issues with their maids?

Night, then x

the joy of wellies

It's like living in Northern Ireland here at the moment (except a bit warmer). I can't remember the last time I saw a speck of blue sky. Still, at least I can prance about like the Queen of the Monsoon in my tasteful flowery wellies, and laugh at the spectacle of overflowing sewage pipes and squidgy dog poo in the street, whilst others mince precariously in flip flops.
I have to tell you about my gleeful wellie wearing, because it has been the highlight of the past five days, ever since the lurgy struck. Twin 2 now has hand, foot and mouth disease as well, and I have finally run out of my stock of craft things. Good job Toy Story 3 is out in the pirate DVD shop down the road (a bit blurred and wobbly though, as it was clearly filmed in a cinema).
Son, however, has had a fabulous time recently, with a gladiator party and a rock star party this weekend. Wish my social life was half as good.
One of the Twins' little friends now has h, f & m disease, and I feel guiltily pleased, because at least I can arrange a play date for the lurgy kids tomorrow, and have a grown up to talk to (although I'll have to steer the conversation towards waterproof footwear, as I have nothing else to talk about).
Take care xx

failing marriage and fancy dress

Hubby has just gone out to a dance bar with a colleague of his. He says it's to pay the bar bill from the other week when a bunch of them nearly got arrested (they didn't, but did get to leave without paying). However, he is with a chap who is, shall we say, subject to occasional moral ambiguity, so who knows what they are up to? Certainly not me. Hubby says if he's not home by 10.30 then it probably means he's in jail. I was oddly reassured by this remark. What does that say about the state of our marriage? (It probably says the same as it said last night when I moved across the bed to place my cheek against his manly chest and tell him I loved him, and he took the opportunity to look at his watch and tut about how late it was).

So he's out, and as I've had yet another tedious day looking after a child who's not-quite-ill-enough for me to feel sorry for, but not-quite -well-enough to go to school.

Out of sheer boredom, I have spent far too much money on Amazon on witches and wizard costumes, as one does, to stave off the tedium. But at least I'll be on form for the next round of annoying fancy dress parties...This weekend Son has been invited to a Gladiator party on Saturday and a Rockstar party on Sunday (can't think why he is so popular when all he does at school playtime is read Harry Potter books). Why can't someone just have a shorts-and-t-shirt party for a change? Son said he didn't want to be a gladiator, he'd rather be a lion, so I ordered a lion costume, but of course it hasn't arrived. Son says he won't be allowed to go to B's party unless he is in fancy dress. And he says he doesn't want to go to K's party because he doesn't want to pretend to be a rock star. So it looks like he'll have another weekend watching Harry Potter and wondering why his spells don't work on Gary.

I'm quite keen for Twin 2 to get ill now. Twin 1 has been moping about all day saying how much she misses school. It made me mildly depressed as I'd put an unusual amount of energy doing craft and activity books with her this morning (oh, alright, she did a bit of colouring and we made a princess from a craft kit - I know this is what some mums do for their kids every single day after school. I like to tell myself that my laissez fair attitude to extra curricular activities is because I want my children to be creative and self-reliant, but it actually just means I'm a lazy slapper who really can't be bothered to get the painting stuff out). At least if her sister were here they could have pretend tea parties and dress up as a bride and spiderman, respectively.

And whilst they were doing that I could begin on another book from the increasingly high pile on my bedside table (next is a toss up between Azincourt - which Hubby says anyone English has to read - and the latest one from Tash Aw. I've just finished The Little Stranger, which was really good. People keep pressing books on me, and the more I read, frankly, the more disheartened I get at ever being a decent writer. The problem is, I'm a bit addicted to it now.).

Anyway, better scoot: those lunch boxes won't pack themselves, you know! xx

hand, foot and mouth

Still no rabies BUT...we do have hand, foot and mouth disease! Oh yes, I think with my reverse-wishful thinking I have cursed myself with letting yet another random childhood bug into the house. Poor Twin 1 has blisters all over her hands and feet and inside her mouth. The pain of eating necessitated an emergency trip to Ben & Jerry's for two tubs of very expensive ice cream - can't see the poor mite starve, can we?

Apparently hand, foot and mouth is a bit like chicken pox but even more infectious. Twin 1 was only diagnosed at lunchtime, but by school pickup there was an ominous looking letter to all year one parents warning them of the virus. Luckily Twin 1 is quite speedy, evasive and not one for physical affection, so she might not have infected anyone. If Twin 2 had it, the whole neighbourhood would be covered in infectious pustules by now, such is her propensity for smooching random strangers.

I think I had the grown-ups version of h, f & m last night: felt pants, sore throat, went to bed at seven, thus missing laydeez night out in Thamel, boo. Feel better now, though (think the ice cream helped). Glad to be feeling better but dreading the long march to the weekend, at home alone with puss-ridden, bored girl for company. I'm hoping that Twin 2 will develop some telltale pustules of her own by the morning, so I can keep her off as well, and at least they can play Harry Potter together, or something.

Anyway, so that's put an end to my hedonistic couple of weeks writing and lunching and generally behaving like Lady Muck - I knew it was too good to be true!

Must go and say goodnight to Son, who has been waiting about half an hour, poor chap.

Bye x

no rabies, no teeth

I haven't got rabies yet, so that's good.

What else?

Son lost another tooth at the weekend. Unfortunately he still believes in the tooth fairy, so we have to cough up hard cash. The problem was, this time, that he literally lost the tooth, couldn't find it anywhere. So he insisted that he eat cheese before bed time, because that way he'd have happy dreams, smile a lot, and any passing tooth fairy would notice and pay up anyway. Luckily she did. She even wrote a note, yet again, even though she wondered to herself whether and eight-year-old really could still believe in her, or simply just wanted some dosh.

We spent most of the weekend (when not searching for absent milk teeth) watching Harry Potter DVDs. Son has read all the books, so now we have to watch all the films, and jolly good they are too. Twin 2 now says she is Hermione, Twin 1 is Harry Potter, and Son is Dumbledore. I guess that leaves me to be the horrible bossy headmistress who tried to get Dumbledore booted out then. Or Hagrid's dog. Who is Hubby I wonder?

Kids still ridiculously happy at school, which isn't right. Whatever happened to all the grumpy old grey-looking teachers? These lot are all young and springy and beautiful. In my day teachers had to look deeply unfashionable and hard-done-by, but clearly this is no longer the case, at least not in Kathmandu. Twins teacher is particularly dewy-eyed and gorgeous. I'm expecting Hubby to take a keen interest in year 1 parent-teacher meetings for this academic year (although I suspect I'll be left to do year 4 all alone).

At the moment Hubby is looking through the first ten pages of the new book. I'm expecting him to be as merciless as I generally am when he runs through water treatment presentations with me.

Must go, no charge left on laptop.

Take care x

ps - it can't last, can it? I'll probably get rabies or something next week. I'm sure life as a grown up isn't supposed to be this much fun.

my ridiculously nice life at the moment

Kids back at school, and my life (such as it is) kicks off again, hurrah. So far this week have been to the gym twice, been swimming, written two thousand words of new book and been out to lunch - and it's only blooming wednesday! Everyone is so excited to be back that school pick up time is a right old emotional chattering whirlwind (and that's just the mums). Tomorrow I'm out for lunch and then again in the evening, also same thing on Friday, it's fab. The only downside is that the money tin is getting low, what with funding my lunches and school clubs etc. Bummer.

Going back to the UK next year will be such a wrench...

It's been a long week, during which...

As well as my scary moment on the way back from the meat shop, Hubby nearly got carted off by the military police the other night (you'll have to ask him about it - it involved a handful of army officers being bundled out of a local bar at gunpoint, and into the back of an open Landrover), but was home by bedtime, still in his new gear. I'm sure if I was feeling witty I could make some joke about them not being the military police, but the fashion police, having him on charges of wearing trousers inappropriate to his age group, or something. There is a joke in there somewhere, but I'm not sure I can find it...

Well, what a week of dramas it has been! Well, actually, only two dramas: the motorcyclist and the military police - unless you count Twin 2's occasional tummy ache as a drama, which she does.

A new family up the road have just arrived out from Nottingham, and emerged blinking, jet-lagged and slightly shell-shocked into their new posting. I don't think they have quite come to terms with Nepal yet. The wife of the new family says that they normally go out for a walk after supper, but when they tried that the other night, they were surrounded by packs of vaguely menacing street dogs and had to go home (not sure why the street dogs become menacing at night; all they do during the day is sleep, but as soon as the sun goes down they get all growly and feral) - welcome to Kathmandu!

Feeling better today, virus almost gone. This proves that what I had really was Wife flu (an attenuated version of the full-blown Man flu. Generally speaking, wife flu lasts half as long and is half as incapacitating as man flu, in my experience. For example, whilst Man flu will almost certainly necessitate and afternoon in bed at some point - or at the very least, much talk of how an afternoon in bed is what the patient really needs - wife flu generally only requires the children to have an extra DVD whilst the patient waits for the Brufen to kick in).

Sorry, I know I said I wouldn't mention man flu at all. It was just that today, when Hubby said that he needed to take it easy because he'd been in work all week, and dealing with jet lag too, I remembered that I had also had jet lag, been up in the night with ill children, had to deal with it still being school holidays and furthermore, been quite ill myself, thanks.

I guess it was one of those "Hang on, one cotton-picking moment, buster..." moments.

Anyway, we went out for supper and I had a big fat chocolate mousse for pudding, which, lets face it, would make me feel better even if I was suffering from bubonic plague (which I wasn't, but even if I was, I would still have had to look after ill and jet-lagged kids all week whilst hubby went out and got himself arrested without so much as a by-your-leave).

I have to forgive Hubby now, because he has just offered to bring me up a drink. So all my bitterness and recriminations about the last week will magically disappear with the first sip of a nice cool glass of ginger beer.

Should really go and try to book Dubai holiday again, but I am still a bit traumatised by my experience with the call centre last week, so may procrastinate a bit more.

Good night xx

wife flu

Hubby is out, looking all cool in his new clothes from UK. His flu has got miraculously better since our return - well, since he went shopping for new clothes, actually. I have vowed loyally not to call it 'man flu'.

Twin 1 and I now have Twin flu and wife flu respectively. Twin 2 is also just getting over her Twin flu (which was pretty horrible for her, but did ensure that she slept for almost the entire journey back from the UK - always a silver lining, I say), although keeps complaining of copycat symptoms to Twin 1 when she feels attention is shifting even millimetres away from her.

I wasn't so incapacitated by the virus that I couldn't make it to my hair appointment this afternoon (I thought that sitting in a chair reading last month's OK was probably just as good as being on my sick bed in any case), so I now look like Storm from X-men, apparently, but having never seen the film, I'm not sure if that's true. I think I look like Cruella deVil (and sometimes I feel a bit like her as well).

Anyhow, my hair might look ok, but I don't feel okay. I feel achy and grumpy and the whole thing has been compounded by an evening of fruitless and expensive calls to the flydubai call centre in Dubai to try to pay for our xmas hols (I know, get back from one holiday and immediately plan the next, it's a bit sad, really - we should just be happy in the here and now, blah, blah). After spending all blooming night on the phone, my card was finally declined. Bummer. So we may not be going to Dubai for Xmas after all. And I don't care. They can keep their wonderful sandy beaches, water parks, aquariums and shopping centres for all I care (oh, all right, I do care a little bit).

Son is wondering around aimlessly jet-lagged and awake, even though its about two hours past his bed time. I have just dispatched him to have milk and bananas, as I really ought to try natural sleep aids first. Will probably resort to Piriton shortly (for me as well - I was still wide awake at one in the morning today, and not feeling remotely tired now, just ill and irritable).

I've been meaning to tell you about the scary episode I had with a motorcyclist on the way back from the meat shop, but my weary virus-ridden fingers simply cannot muster up the energy to type it all up (also, although it was a frightening at the time, it's not all that dramatic in hindsight, so maybe I won't bore you with it at all).

Right, off to dispense Piriton now. Take care xx

back home

Really sorry it's been so long. I have spent the last two weeks in a camper van. At the start of our trip we called it the camper van. By the end of the trip it became known more commonly as the bloody camper van. What a relief that the last couple of nights were spent in a comfy bed in Bolton. Hubby said being in a camper van was just like being in a yacht, which does confirm my somewhat negative preconceptions about a life on the ocean wave (you know Hubby's plan to make us all live on a board a boat one day). Kids loved it though. Can't think why - it was cramped, smelly and annoying, and I'm really quite pleased to be back in our nice big house in Kathmandu with nice staff to cook and clean for us. I do have lots to tell you, but actually, having started this, I now realise I'm rather desperate for the loo (and it's not a chemical one - bliss!), so I will have to go. Promise to write more soon xxx

unconditional respect

So, I should really be asleep, but I thought I'd just have a quick chat about stuff.

I realise I've been quite silent recently, and I think that's because I've been holding things in. Feelings, you know, kind of adolescent ones. No, I don't mean having steamy daydreams about Limahl (yes, I know, really embarrassing that one - especially as, in adulthood, when I look back at him with that hair in that yellow cat suit thing on Top of the Pops, he is so obviously gay). I mean getting unreasonably irritated by my parents.

There are lots of things that older people do that don't really bother me, but somehow do when it's my own flesh and blood.

I'm thinking inability to use wing mirrors whilst driving, or understand that black people are also allowed to live in Devon, for example.

However, after bumping into a couple of friends of mine from Kathmandu (they live in Baisepati and I live in Lalitpur, but we met up in Croyd - there's a thing) , I tried to change my ways. E is English and is married to V, from Taiwan. E said that after years of living in Asia, and being married to an Asian woman, he has learned the trick of unconditional respect, and now nothing his mother does annoys him. I was quite impressed and decided to try this at home.

I did my best, honest I did, but then Grandparent took two of my children out the other day, whilst I took Twin 2 to the doctor's (the wee fiasco, now happily forgotten). I asked if he could take his mobile with him in case I needed to get in touch. He said firstly that he only ever switched it on to make an outgoing call and secondly that the problem was it was too big to fit into his pocket (I think he bought it in 1989), so the answer was no. That would annoy you, wouldn't it? Yes, it would.

Anyway, I rose above that one but then today there was the whole not-letting-the-kids-have-pudding -until-they-have-eaten-what's-on-their-plate thing. Which I abhor. My kids have the rest of their lives in which to discover the delights of broad beans, and I hardly think they are going to get scurvy or berri berri by not having them now. The whole food blackmail thing is bad enough anyway, but at least let the pudding be real pudding. I mean, something with chocolate or sugar in it as a minimum, if you are going to go down the whole arms-on-hips-cats-bum-mouth palaver. So today the kids were told they couldn't have any pudding until they had finished their first course. What was pudding? A small bunch of sour grapes from the garden.

Pul-ease.

I had to go upstairs for a very long time to try to regain my unconditional respect mode.

I think one day my Dad will go out into the wilderness (he does this at every opportunity anyway, owning, as he does, acres of unused farmland and woodland), just like Moses, and come back having happened upon some smouldering shrubbery (a burning bush would be a bit too dramatic and vulgar for this part of the country) and been given a couple of carved tablets with the ten commandments (customised for slightly left leaning middle class couples of a certain age).

These will be:

1. Thou shalt not switch on one's mobile phone (and the mobile itself must not have been bought within the last ten years).

2. Thou shalt not vote Tory.

3. Thou shalt not allow one's grandchildren pudding without a clear plate from first course.

4. Thou shalt not smile when grandchildren make up songs about wee or poo.

5. Though shalt not be completely comfortable when someone of an ethnic persuasion gets planning permission in the village,

6. ...but thou shalt not show it, instead make up other reasons for objecting to the planning application.

7. Thou shalt not use wing mirrors, ever, for they are the devil's tool.

8. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's new four-wheel drive, but thou shalt buy a new one anyway because the lanes can get shockingly slippy, you know.

9. Thou shalt not hear a bad word said about that nice Joanna Lumley (do you remember her as Purdey?)

10. Thou shalt not bother with the last commandment, because it's something to do with popular culture, probably one of those ghastly reality show things or to do with pop and roll and young people or somesuch, and therefore not worth a passing thought.

These are, in fact, all the rules you need, if you are a person of a certain age, living in Devon at the moment.

And I say that in an unconditionally respectful way.