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.

hedgehog orphans and spooky ghosts

Yesterday the weather forecaster was full of doom. He put on a very serious face and said it was bad news for anyone on holiday because it would just rain, rain, rain all day long. Luckily, He lied. I think he might just like putting on the doom-laden face and scaring us all.

And talking of scary...Twin 1 and Son went to Dartmouth castle with Grandparent. They said they'd heard a ghost, although Son said he thought there might be hidden microphones (he must mean loudspeakers?). Anyway, they heard ghostly rustling and whistling, which is all very Scooby-doo and exciting.

Meanwhile, Twin 2, other Grandparent and I were in Dartmouth at the doctor's. Twin 2 told him cheerily about being at death's door but refused to wee into a pot. She said that she didn't want the doctor to have her wee. Fair enough.

We hung about in Dartmouth for about an hour and a half, hoping she'd change her mind. She didn't.

Grandparents discovered some orphaned hedgehogs in the garden (the hedgehog mum was run over and Grandparents' dog ate one of the siblings, so they were a bit traumatised - oh, the cruel ways of the country!). Son and Grandparent took them to the hedgehog hospital in Newton Abbot, where they were put in an incubator (hmm, kind of odd juxtaposition coming from Kathmandu, where the streets are full of festering half-dead dogs, and most of the populace don't have access to decent medical care, and then to come here, where we have incubators for baby hedgehogs. It's great that our hedgehogs - which the children imaginatively named 'Hedge' and 'Hog' - have a chance to live. However, the money spent on running the hedgehog hospital here could probably fund a real hospital in Nepal).

Tomorrow we might go to Bury Pomeroy, another haunted castle (hurrah for Grandparents' English Heritage cards, which get us free entry to Haunted castles throughout the country - someone should tell Scooby and Shaggy about English Heritage), and I don't care what the gloomy weatherman says.

Bye x

summer hols

yes, yes, I know, I haven't written anything for ages. And I didn't even buy anything in the Boden sale either, I just put loads of stuff in my shopping basket and then chickened out at the last minute.

Twin 2 is sleeping in my bed tonight, lucky me. Grandparents have insisted on her sleeping on a towel as the mattress is new and they don't trust her (with good reason). I'm hoping she doesn't vom - she's quite ill, poor thing, with a headache, tummy ache and fever (anyone medically qualified who knows what this is, feel free to comment). She woke up just now screaming that her eye was hurting, and for one fearful moment I thought she had Japanese encephalitis or something wierd that makes your eyeballs pop out, but then I realised that she had rolled over onto a plastic Noddy toy, so all is well (ish - apart from the fact I'm sharing my bed with her).

That aside, the holiday continues to be pretty much what holidays should. Yesterday we spent all day on the beach, eating fish and chips and ice cream with Aunty L and AL. Today Grandparent took us for a walk to a lighthouse (Twin 2 wasn't able to go up the steps to the top so stayed at the bottom, talking on the phone to Daddy and telling him all about her various ailments: tummy ache, head ache, fever, cut on knee, hurting toe, poorly finger... the list goes on. Too nervous to take her to the doctor in case I get accused of Munchausen-by-proxy syndrome, as she will go on rather too pathetically about all her medical issues.)

Think it might rain tomorrow, so contemplating long day at home with hypochondriac Twin 2 and bored siblings. Might have to resort to driving somewhere and buying sweets and then coming back and watching telly, or something equally bad mother-ish.

Take care x

Sorry, I know I've been a bit rubbish at posting. Too busy going to the beach, letting my children get sunburnt (bad mother) and wondering whether I should buy something in the Boden sale or resist (do I need it, can I afford it, can I get it cheaper anywhere else?)? x

Sorry if you've had more spam from me. Will have to change my email address, I guess...

...and now I really am missing Hubby, because, let's face it, families are just a bit darn wierd. x

Having a proper postcard holiday so far: wave hopping, ice cream eating etc. We would be missing Hubby, but there are strawberries a-plenty, so we're managing not to miss him too much...

Make them sleep, someone! Kids up again before five...maybe I should start lacing their Ribena with valium?

back to blighty

Hi, how are you? I'm as tired as a big bundle of tired old laundry, thanks. My lovely children were lovely for the trip back to the UK, but Kathmandu is a long old way from Blackawton, and now I'm so tired and jet-lagged I feel boozed up and woozy (but without actually having imbibed anything more exciting than hot chocolate - unless my parents slipped a rohypnol in my cocoa?).

As well as the exhaustion, I'm also suffering from mild culture shock. England is full of exciting things like celebrity Mr & Mrs with Fern and Phil, and cold rain. I don't think I've seen a single street dog or pothole since we've been back, and other car drivers wave cheerily at you when you pull into a layby to let them past (the Nepali way of dealing with single lane roads is to flash your lights and glower at the person coming the other way, and if they don't move aside, then blare your horn really loudly until they do - I know because that's how I drive in Kathmandu).

Hmmm, is blare a verb? Think I might just have made up a new verb. Still I'm so ridiculously tired that it's a miracle that any of this makes any sense whatsoever.

Hubby says he is lonely without us - hah! he does love us after all. Twins, on the other hand, say that they prefer strawberries to Daddy, and don't appear to be missing him at all.

It's no good, I have to sleep now, and you can't stop me....