Hubby thaws

Hubby, Mate and Sister arrived safely back from trek. They'd all had altitude sickness and said it was very, very cold. January at five thousand metres up in the Himalayas - well what did they expect, the bunch of loonies?! Hubby said I was a very lovely wife for letting him go off and do trekking (which is like someone saying 'Oh I want to go and sit in in a deep freeze with so little oxygen that I feel sick for a week and I feel just dreadful for not asking you to join me'). Blimey, I thought, there's no way on earth I would have wanted to come too. But I said nothing, and let him feel guilty for doing the Thorung La pass without his devoted wifey...

happy days!

Everyone very tired and emotional this evening. Tears about whose library book got read, who got to turn the pages, and the lost pink marble (turns out, it was under Gary's hairy bottom all the time - but I didn't discover that until after bed time).
Actually, I wasn't emotional. I was hap-hap-happy. Hubby is coming home tomorrow, I had another very productive day creating characters for the next book, and furthermore my silver nail varnish looks fab. My friend G says she's not convinced about the silver nail varnish, but she's probably just jealous because she hasn't got any!

pps

I am now off to read You're a bad man, Mr Gum, which is actually Son's book, but very funny and beats the scary-looking current issue of Granta, which is the alternative on my bedside table. Or the last chapter of 'the consolations of philosophy' - except that I know if I try to read that, I'll have to turn back about one hundred pages to revisit all the bits that I 'read' (ie. looked at and pretended to be intelligent, whilst the room spun cartwheels around my head) after Burn's night. So Mr Gum it is then. After all, who could resist a protagonist who sticks a picture of a shark in his beard to make himself more scary? Not me!

ps

ps - actually I missed them a bit...

strange, but productive

I had the strangest day. I put the kids on the school bus at 7.45 this morning, and didn't see any of them until 5pm. It was because they all had play dates after school and stuff, but it was really very odd having a whole nine hours without having to wipe a single bottom or fetch a single apple or turn on a single DVD or read a single story or anything. I guess this is what it will be like when they're teenagers?
Meena was a bit huffy as I was quite late back from picking them all up from their respective play dates, so she had to hang around until after six, just to make an omlette for Son and I (girls ate out). However, I apologised to her, and she knew better than to make a fuss - good job too as I was somewhat stressed by the Kathmandu rush hour traffic, and if she'd said anything even remotely disgruntled-sounding I think I would have exploded.
However, stressy journey home aside, it was a jolly productive day. I now have three main characters sketched out and some more ideas about the plot. Also I ordered 'Writing a romantic novel for dummies' off Amazon - need all the help I can get.
I know it sounds like an average day, but I honestly can't remember the last time I had a whole day to myself. I know I go to the spa, and cafes and so forth, but I have to fit it in around school runs, compulsory assemblies, etc. and the last time I had a whole day without even having to think about children was probably before I had any. And that's a very long time ago now.

Mr Bigglesworth and Mr Burns

Hi, well, what can I say?
Mr Bigglesworth has gone and Mrs Dog is devastated.
Twin 1 has decided she doesn't want to be a boy actually. Good that we save on gender realignment surgery, bad that I have bought her two blue tops, a green top, a pair of blue jeans and a pair of jeans shorts - none of which she now wants to wear (might have to turn into strict mum and make her).
Friday night we had another do on camp: Burn's night. What is it with the army and Burn's night? I barely even knew who Robbie Burns was (apart from a reference to him in the cult 1980s film 'the clown and the wolfman' - with cameo performance from Mel Smith and soundtrack by Big Country) until I married a soldier, and I have been to many, many Burn's nights since. It's all a bit odd, really. I mean, soldiers are not known for their appreciation of our nation's literary heritage. It's not like we have a Shakespeare night or a Dickens night or anything (maybe I should suggest a Virginia Woolf night?) or even a Wilfred Owen night - which would be a bit more understandable. We don't even have any scottish soldiers in British Gurkhas Nepal - there is one major who says she's Scottish, but she is one of those posh ones from Edinburgh and she talks a little like the Queen, so she doesn't really count. Anyhoo (ooh, my own Scottish accent creeping in there), I was asked to read a poem at Burns night. Actually Hubby said, as he was leaving for his frosty trek, that he'd said I'd be happy to read a poem and my name was already down on the list - so it's not like I had much choice. I spent a few days saying 'My girls are the creme de la creme' in my best scottish accent in readiness. Then, just the day before the event, I was told that I wasn't going to be reading a Robbie Burns poem - no, I had to make one up myself. Thanks for that, Hubby. I had to do the 'reply by the lassies', which is supposed to be a cheeky response to a 'toast to the lassies'.
Well, I did it. Had to have a few Black Labels first (this tactic worked well for the Nepali dancing last year, so i figured it would work again for the Scottish poem thing too). Luckily I was on towards the end of the night, when many a Nepali had had to struggle through reading a Burn's poem (hard enough to fathom Burns even when read with a Scottish accent - even harder with a Nepali one), and we had listened to Robbie Burns' life story, twice (and the details were a little different the second time round -did he have ten children or twelve? did he die of syphilis or blood poisoning? did we care, after our tenth shot of Black Label? Not really).
I left as soon as the Commander did (you're not allowed to leave before him - not sure what would happen if you did, maybe firing squad?), right after the meal finished, but even so I was not home until midnight. And then, for some whisky-induced reason, perhaps buoyed up by the success of my poetry, I decided it was too early to go straight to bed, and read 'The consolations of Philosophy' until the wee small hours (as a real Scottish person would say). I'm not sure what the consolations of philosphy actually are, because I was of course too bladdered to take any of it in.
I was a little fuzzy on Saturday morning.

Twin 1 said that Mr Bigglesworth slept all day - probably exhausted from last night. Wonder if Mrs Dog slept all day too, the minx!

Don't make me ask you again....

Luckily Mr Bigglesworth didn't do very much today, so I do have time to write to you. At bed time Twin 1 said he'd played tag all day with rocking horse, pink cat and Mrs Dog. I think he might have something going on with Mrs Dog, as they kissed for a long time at bed time. Also Mr B was naked (well, except for his smelly and unkempt fur), and I'm sure he had a dressing gown on when I left to pick the kids up from school.
So, anyway, it has actually been busier than normal here (not difficult as we are sociopaths and are not in the habit of either going out or entertaining guests). On Friday we had to go to a thingy to welcome the new Commander (who is very nice and not like an important colonel at all). It was the usual carefree mix of ... oh, no, it really wasn't. Sorry, I can't even be bothered with sarcasm. It was a Gurkha do, and just like all the others: standing about in the cold drinking whisky or coke, or even whisky and coke (because apparently nobody in the whole of British Gurkhas Nepal could possibly want to drink anything so radical as a gin and tonic). Good job I like whisky and coke, because it's all that got me through the evening.
I was stood by the makeshift bar, which had been set up in the play park (the stage for the 'cultural show' had been set up in the badminton court next to it). All of a sudden, the Regimental Sergeant Major (RSM) got on the microphone and told the assembled throng in no uncertain terms that we were not to crowd round the bar, and that he wanted ladies stood to the right of the stage and men stood to the left. Perhaps he thought we wives would have a better time if he forcibly separated us from our husbands -who knows? Anyway, nobody took much notice of the tedious little man, and then, about ten minutes later, he was back on the microphone, telling us again not to stand near the bar and to go to our allotted places. He finished his little spiel with "I have already asked you once, don't make me ask you again."
Of course I immediately went to stand right in front of the bar, and was joined by a gentleman who far outranked the RSM, so there was nothing the little twerp could do, which was quite satisfying.
(This morning I took great pleasure in saying a cheery 'good morning' to him when I met him going into camp. I had a big, big smile on my face and made sure there was prolonged eye contact. He muttered an unwilling 'Namaste' in response. I'm quite sure he hates me now, and I don't give a monkeys.)
So, on Saturday morning, Hubby and I were both a teensy bit hung over.
Then Hubby's mate arrived from Germany, to much whooping and showing off from the kids.
On Sunday we went to Haatiban and I didn't have the chef's salad. Yes, I am as wise as a big slice of wise pie.
Then, on Sunday evening Hubby's sister arrived, to even more whooping and showing off, and because it was past bedtime, head traumas and tears.
Now Hubby, Mate and Sister have all gone off on their trek, and I'm just left with Mr Bigglesworth and his lecherous ways with Mrs Dog. And Gary, who is about as much fun as a furry sofa (which come to think of it, could be quite fun - but not a sofa that smells of dog and asks to be let out when it's time for buffalo and rice).
This afternoon we had the Twins' "topic talk" at school, which seems to entail the class teacher making you feel guilty for letting your children watch DVDs, when they should be practising their sound blending or correctly forming the descender on the letter 'q'. I'm of the mind that they'll get it in the end, regardless of whether I interfere, but I did try to encourage Son to help Twin 1 with her letter sounds from her sound pot whilst I was doing Twin 2s physiotherapy this evening (meanwhile there were strange furry growly noises and the odd muffled woof to be heard from the Twins bedroom - most odd). Son and Twin 1 ended up pretending the sound pot sounds (little laminated slips of paper with letters on) were money and throwing them all over the room. I'm not sure that's what the class teacher had in mind when she talked about doing five minutes with the sound pot every night.
Still, I don't remember doing anything with Son, and he's a book hoover now, so I think it will all come good eventually.
I should probably go.
Take care xxx

Mr Bigglesworth

There is a reason why I haven't been in touch over the last few days. The reason is Mr Bigglesworth. Mr Bigglesworth is a brown, smelly teddy that Twin 1 has been sent home from school with. He came with a book in which you are supposed to write down what Mr Bigglesworth does every day. Other mothers have set the standard for the diary, and the standard is high. Most of them have lost of photos and creative doodles, and, well, here's an extract from Mr Bigglesworth's week with Isabella. This is what Isabella (age four) told her Mum to write in the diary:...I understand that meeting and saying goodbye is a way of life, but most important is keeping in touch. Remember the good times spend together. We learn that lets make new friends, more friends, be friendly to all, go green and make this world a better place to live in. Always, Isabella. Hmmm. Do you think she really said that?
Anyway, should really get on and write more faithfully reported verbatim comments from my four-year-old in Mr Bigglesworth's diary.

skiving

Twin 2 had a really terrible cough this morning...until the school bus with her brother and sister in it was safely off down the road, and then she was as perky as you fancy, the little minx. So much for beginning the next novel. And it's not going to happen tomorrow because I have an exciting partners' club meeting to go to (no, it really will be exciting, because the silver jewellery stall will be there, and Hubby has promised something in lieu of not taking me out for our anniversary the other week - not really his fault as I was hurling my guts up all that night, so I don't think dinner a deux was on either of our minds).
I'm feeling a bit bad about not going to the partners' club thingys as often as I should, so asked Meena to make a big chocolate cake to take with me as a peace offering. I'm still not staying for the bingo though. No, I'm not, and you can't make me!

back to school

Kids are back at school tomorrow, woo-hoo. As a special treat for the last day of the holidays I said they could choose what they wanted to do today. There isn't an awful lot in terms of days out here, so we settled on going to the Garden of Dreams. I had visions of enjoying the sunshine and sipping a latte to the sound of children's laughter. However, once we got there the dreaminess evaporated after about ten minutes. Son was quite happy being an alien and zooming around climbing up inappropriate things (handily the garden security guard wasn't quick enough to catch him - I pretended he was nothing to do with me, although I think his blonde hair and blue eyes were a bit of a giveaway, as I was the only non-Nepali there). Twin 2 had a fake plait in her hair and was content just for me to say 'Who is that beautiful girl with the long, long hair? Oh, it's Rapunzel!"every so often. But Twin 1 was not happy. She didn't want to play alien space invaders, but being a real tomboy, couldn't allow herself to want to play Rapunzel with her girly sister either, so she moped about telling me alternately that she was feeling hungry or sick, until I gave up my little fantasy about sitting on a sunny bench in a beautiful garden whilst my children played nicely together some distance away, and ordered them all across the road to the pizza place. Everyone was happier after pizza and ice cream and all fell asleep in the taxi on the way home. Once home I let them watch Beauty and the Beast/ play Star Wars on the play station, and I quickly enlisted Sanu to babysit so that I could escape and buy things I didn't know I needed until I saw them in the shop. I now have a lovely blue Mexx cotton cardi that only cost nine hundred rupees (about £8) and a lipliner to match my new lipstick, that hasn't arrived yet but Amazon assures me is on its way. Also, Twin 1 has some new blue jeans, I have stocked up on chocolate coins for the next treasure hunt and, best of all, Hubby has a new microwaveable plate (the army issue ones have a metallic painted rim and they zip and fizz when you try to heat up food on them: it's most irritating) for when he's late home from work (which he says almost never happens, but we all know otherwise).
So tomorrow I suppose I should get on and do something productive with my life, instead of just shopping and watching Disney.
I have bought a new notebook, and there's plenty of ink in the inkwell so it's time for Wait and See Pudding to get cooked!

ps

Hubby has finally staggered in (ten past nine). He said firstly that I was a top bird and secondly that he thought Raj had spike his drink. And now (twelve minutes past nine) he's in bed.
Don't feel even remotely guilty about the lipstick. May even log onto Amazon now and buy another one...

Freaky Friday

Twin 1 has decided to be a boy. She says she hates pink and Barbies and wants to wear blue and play with guns. I've said that of course she can be a tomboy, if she wants, and that's fine with me. And in fact it's been quite nice to go shopping for blue and green things for her. Twin 2 is delighted because she has doubled her wardrobe of pink spangly dresses overnight.

However, Twin 1 is adamant that she doesn't want to be a tomboy, she wants to be a real boy (you would have thought that sharing a house with Hubby, Son and their tedious Star Wars obsession would be enough to put any sane person off sharing their gender - must say it makes me glad to be a girl). Girls can become boys, you know, Mummy, she said importantly this morning. Luckily Son put her straight by bursting out laughing and telling her she couldn't possibly become a boy without a willy.

You see, Hubby and I try to answer all the kids' questions honestly and openly, but the problem with being liberal parents is that you find yourself explaining about gender realignment and same-sex marriages in a non-judgmental and matter-of-fact tone and then it comes back to bite you on the bum when your beautiful bundle of four-year-old sugar-and-spice tells you she wants to be a boy.

I'm off to pour myself another whisky and ginger and wonder where Hubby could be as it's already nearly nine o'clock and he texted me at seven to say he was just going to have one more quick drink in the bar and then he'd be home (luckily for him I've decided to go down the non-judgemental route this time, as I bought myself an Yves Saint Laurent lipstick on Amazon last night and I'm feeling a bit guilty about the extravagance - his inability to make it home in time to put the kids to bed is full justification for a ten pound lipstick*, don't you think?)

*Yes, half price!!

glad I'm not important

Yesterday we had a posh lunch in the mess for a very important general and his wife. I'm not sure why they were important, but they were thrust upon us like royalty, and I felt I had no choice but to don black skirt and opaque tights and vacant smile and join the happy BGN family. Feel sorry for wives of generals and the like. I mean, if you're a celebrity wife, you have to do the inane chat and cheesy photocall thing, but you also get to stay in nice hotels and get lots of freebies. What do you get as a general's wife? A draughty old mess, a cup of tepid tea with 'the wives' and lockjaw from all that smiling. Perhaps I'm being unfair, but I'm still quite glad that my husband is a military nonentity (don't tell him I said that).

Anyhow, as hubby and I are nonentities, we were sat nowhere near the very important general and his wife at lunch and so could talk about pretty much what we liked. The conversation turned to our 'celebrity one night stand' agreement (Kylie for him, George Clooney for me). Our lovely and long-suffering camp doctor (camp in that she is the doctor for the army camp, not that she walks around like Larry Grayson circa 1978, you understand) chipped in that she had a defunct anal probe, should Hubby be interested in it for his night with Kylie. Hubby had a worrying glint in his eye at that juncture. We then swiftly moved onto more suitable topics, such as why Jordan left I'm a celebrity... and whether Heat magazine has gone downmarket recently?

I bet the general was gutted to be sat with the other important people discussing Gurkha recruitment, when he could have been pontificating on Lindsay Lohan's latest outrage or whether Jennifer Anniston has got cellulite.

Anyhow, should probably go. I need a hairwash (smell like a sheep). Hubby is in Pokhara (quite possibly with Kylie now he's given Anna Kournikova the heave-ho), so I'm going to ablute and have a large G&T and a whole packet of dried strawberries. Oh yes.

I blame the egg salad

Hubby has been busy planning his next trek. It's the other half of a big circuit of the Annapurna mountains (part of the Himalayas). He went last year and did one half with his best mate. This year he's planning to do the other half with his mate and sister. However, there has just been a big snowfall up in the mountains, which has turned the region into avalanche territory, so good luck to them all. I shall stay in Kathmandu and drink pretend cups of tea from the pink-and-green tea set, admire newly-made Bionicles and periodically ask the housekeeper to babysit so I can take full advantage of the half-price offer currently on at the spa. Hubby is currently trying to work out how to avoid avalanches and altitude sickness (where if you're not careful your brain explodes like the martians in Mars Attacks - do you remember that film?), whilst doing an eleven day trek in eight days. Rather them than me.

At the moment I'm recovering from yet another exploding bottom incident. Hubby blames the egg salad at Hattiban resort on Saturday. I had to have almost the whole day in bed on Sunday as I was properly ill. The good thing was it gave me a chance to finish the book I was reading and plan my next book, which I'm pretty excited about. I even have a title: Wait-and-see pudding.

I'm hoping that the whole excruciating stomach cramps, vomiting and all that stuff might mean that the scales tip ever so slightly the other way the next time I go to the gym, and all the suffering will have been worth it.

Oh, and talking of excruciating suffering - do you remember the Nepali dance I had to do at Deshain for Hubby's work colleagues? Well, bless 'em, they all clubbed together to buy me a trophy for my efforts. It's a Nepali metal teapot type thing on a wooden plinth. It says A token of love from Defence Estates Nepal on it. Ah, that's the kind of thing that gives me a warm glow about being an army wife! I think it's the first time I've been awarded a trophy for anything. And as some friend quite rightly pointed out, I'm now officially a 'trophy wife' which of course necessitates more trips to the spa and cashmere shop in order to maintain the trophy status, don't you think?

what to do in 2010

Hubby has gone to bed early because he is feeling grumpy, and I was going to try to do geeky things with the scary new phone but got sucked into looking at shoes on Amazon. No, I didn't buy any. Instead I bought twelve pairs of socks for Hubby, as he complains every single morning that his socks have holes in. Now he will have to find something else to complain about. I also bought a nice blue pair of sports socks for me in the hope that they will entice me to the gym in the mornings. Hmmm.

So, I'm just about to print out my Romantic Novelist's Association New Writer's Scheme application (sending the book there for appraisal), and should be sending the manuscript off in a couple of weeks, I guess. Which now leaves me with a bit of a hole in my life. I've been spending all this time stressing about not having enough time in which to write, and now, blimey, it's all done, and I can see the year stretching out ahead of me with lost of spaces in the calendar, which I really should fill with something productive.

Any ideas? Freelancing? Short stories? Another book? Public Relations for NGOs? Or just doing a bit of drawing and going to the spa a lot?

Choices, choices!

I'm tempted to do nothing at all for a bit and see what it's like, but I'm worried I might get too used to it and get tempted to do nothing at all ever again and become one of those women who obsesses about dust on the dido rails or floral muffin cases, in which case Hubby would divorce me and I would be forced out to work, although I can't think of any job I'd be remotely useful for these days. Hubby said I should become a freelance cafe critic, as I seem to spend an awful lot of time in cafes when he's at work and the kids are at school. He was serious.

Anyway, if you have any idea what I should be doing in 2010, then let me know, as I will have at least a couple of months to fill until my manuscript gets sent back with red pen all over it.

Enjoy the weekend! x

HNY

We did find somewhere that did pasta and wine and there wasn't an exotic cultural dancer or noisy nepali band playing eighties pop music in sight. And we were in bed by midnight. What a couple of saddos. Still, new years just hasn't had the same thrill for me, since I hit, oh I dunno, twenty. I mean, after that you don't really want to get older and older, and see the world inch ever closer to climate calamity and so forth. Take me back to 1989, when we were all jolly happy about the whole Berlin Wall thing, and I looked good in opaque tights and cut-off denim hot pants (or at least I thought I looked good - thankfully no photographic evidence survived). Now the world seems permanently on the brink of disaster and no amount of cashmere will disguise the fact that my thighs just aren't what they used to be. Also, I had just discovered the Stone Roses, and the fact that if you down a mini bottle of Thunderbird before you go out, you hardly have to spend anything in the pub. Where have the last twenty years gone?

But, enough nostalgia. Let's look forward to the future with optimism and hope. Why, 2010 may even be the year when I get published and perhaps I will fit back into those 28/34 jeans at some point. Yeah, well maybe...

Happy New Year xxx