Suitcase bulging, imminent panic attack at thought of 23 hours on the road with sprogs...might be too traumatised by the time I get to the UK to write anything for a bit! x

freestyle Bollywood

I spent all of Friday morning doing 'freestyle Bollywood', and I'm now addicted. Way more fun than yoga (would have been even better if they'd offered something a bit stronger than water to drink during the class).

Have done a straw poll of the other mums there, and decided it would be worth organising a freestyle Bollywood class (and maybe secretly videoing it and marketing it via the internet as 'hot 0ver-40 arse-shaking' or something - after all, I had so much success with my viagra scam the other week!)

However, not shaking my bootylicious Bollywood stuff tonight at party as Hubby is ill and I can't face another party in sobriety, and on my own. So, hey, I'm spending the evening with you, and a couple of chocs I've just nicked from Son's party bag (he won't know if you don't tell him). Woo hoo!

Think I might have a nice cup of cocoa and go to bed with Bill Bryson now...

brush your teeth!

Hang on, I'm just going to pour myself a shandy, and then I'll be with you...mmm, nice (although made with diet sprite instead of proper lemonade, which takes the edge off a bit).

Right, what's been going on this week?

I am halfway through plotting the new book. My pinboard is filling up with index cards covered in different colour writing (disposable fountain pens in different colours, what a joy! I am easily pleased these days...). I have been reading and watching many dark and gritty things as research (eg. the hurt locker, fifty dead men walking, stakeknife, eight lives down, etc.) - so much so that it's frankly a relief to have Bill Bryson's Home to read at bedtime tonight, and not something that's going to make me cry or give me nightmares.

Oh, and talking about going to bed in tears, I'm the evil mother who made Twin 1 cry at bed time by shouting at her for only pretending to brush her teeth. Not good. Must try harder to be a better parent tomorrow (but equally, she should try harder to do as she's told!! oops, sorry, evidently still feeling a bit stressy about it).

Kids all got their reports yesterday from school. Apparently they are all a pleasure to teach. Perhaps that's because at no point in the primary curriculum do the teachers have to make sure they BRUSH THEIR TEETH PROPERLY (sorry, sorry, I'll have another swig of shandy).

On Friday I'm learning how to do Bollywood dancing with a group of other mums. Given how traumatic the whole Nepali dance thing was last year, I think it's not a great idea, but I didn't want to feel left out of the whole expat-mum clique. Perhaps I can hide at the back. The idea is that we all learn a dance and then perform it at someone's leaving party on Saturday. Most of the other mums (who will all no doubt actually be able to tell their left from their right) have already said they don't want to perform. However, I know from experience that if I have enough whisky inside me I will want to be on stage, regardless of my lack of flexibility, co-ordination, natural rhythm, or ability to do hot Bollywood moves.

Hubby is in Pokhara tonight. Yes, I know, he's only just back from sailing and now he's swanning off again. He claims it's work, but I suspect it's just an excuse to escape from my oral-health ranting. He's probably sitting in some nice calm dance bar, sipping overpriced beer, without entertaining even a passing thought to cavities or gingivitis in the under-10 age group. He's probably not even thinking about how his wife is going to make a right arse of herself this weekend when she attempts to become Shilpa Shetty or Ishwari Rai, and succeeds only in being, well, a forty-year-old-mum-of-three with music in her heart and whisky on her breath. He's probably thinking....nothing. He has probably opened up his 'nothing box' and hopped right in, along with a large bottle of Everest beer and a half-eaten dahl baht.

I only hope he gets out of his 'nothing box' before bed time and remembers to blooming well brush his teeth.

Goodnight x

weekend

Oooh, only nine days until we go back to the UK for our hols, really exciting! I'm excited about being home, seeing friends and family...less excited about the scary long-distance-twenty-two-hour journey to get there. Guess I have to try not to think about it, and just hope nobody voms or poos in the wrong place or time (especially not me).

We've had a quiet weekend, watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, mostly (or at least, that's what it feels like - it's one long film). I went to someone's leaving party last night, but Hubby dobbed out on me at the last minute, so I had to schmooze and network and be a social butterfly all on my own, which I'm a bit rubbish at, to be honest, and I was driving as well, so I came home sober and grumpy - although the nibbles were nibbletastic. There's another leaving party next weekend - think I might have to make Hubby come along, if only so that I can have a large gin and not worry about making scintillating conversation with people who I will never see again.

Am I turning into an old codger? Probably...

...but at the moment they are playing cooking in the bath, so I have time to write something. Hubby is back, hurrah. Tried to make him a celebratory coming home/late birthday cake. It was to be a carrot cake (well, the packet said it had carrot-flavoured pieces in it). I forgot that I'd put it in the oven, and left it in for four hours, so it ended up more of a piece of coal than a carrot cake. In the end I had to get Meena to make one. (Blimey, if I can't even manage to make a cake from cake mix any more, how on earth am I going to cope when we are posted? Robotic hoover, paper plates and take aways, I guess.). Anyhow, he was very happy to be home, for about twenty four hours at least. The happiness is now gradually being replaced by his habitual grumpiness, but it was nice while it lasted!

Twins now have finished cooking in the bath (with better results than me in the kitchen), so I must go xxx

Twins just ill enough not to be able to go to school or go swimming, but not ill enough to lie quietly in bed being ill. I have a feeling it's going to be a long day...

mulligatawny soup

Hello. How are you? Not as ill as me, I'll wager. I blame the mess function last night (Meena is off the hook as I didn't eat at home). Was it the asparagus, the mushroom soup or the regimental chocolate cake that got me? Not sure, just know that my guts have been boiling all day, and I've been feeling really cold, which is odd, because it's a balmy twenty nine degrees in the living room, and even hotter upstairs.

Kids all had respective sleepovers last night, and Hubby is still away, so I had the (echoing and cavernous) house to myself. Quite nice to go to a function and know that I wouldn't be woken up at quarter to six by a shouty rendition of "There's a hole in my bucket" or "Make a melody in my heart". However, the whole thrill of an uninterrupted night's sleep and lie-in was somewhat marred by having to get up several times for dioralyte, ibruprofen, and, well, I won't bore you with the other details (suffice to say, I've gone right off Muligatawny soup. Because of the look of it, not the taste. And thinking of mulligatawy soup, what is it actually made of? Something brown and Scottish, could be anything - old leather shoes and rancid salmon probably).

Right, now I'm off to moan quietly, wallow in self-pity, and make a voodoo doll of the mess chef.

Goodnight x

a man's life

Had a taste this evening of what it's like to be a bloke today.

I went round to a friend's house for supper with the kids. She happens to be a single parent at the moment, so has organised her staff to do everything a 'wife' does (she has three people to do the job of one wife, in fact). So there are two women and one man on hand to cook, clean, drive, do school pick ups, play football, put on dressing up clothes, etc. etc. What a revelation! After supper one person washed up whilst the other two took the kids out to play in the garden. Friend and I had glass of wine and a chat. It was jolly nice. Now, this friend really needs to have people to help her out, because she has three children and works and it's just her and the kids. However, I couldn't help but think that for many men this is the norm. They can go to work and know that someone else is deciding what to cook for supper and packing the bag for ballet/football classes. And then they come home and someone has cooked and will shoo the kids away when they get pesky after supper, and sort out their school bags and pack healthy lunch boxes, and, well, almost everything.

Not sure that it actually makes me want to employ three people to replace me, or to become a man, for that matter (I'd not get to wear any nice silver jewelry or have a fabulous new silk dress, which would be a bit of a bummer).

Right, now I must go and finish reading 'The girl with the dragon tattoo', which I really didn't want to read, but my cupcake-baking friend said that I had to (she was emphatic), and I was scared that if I didn't then she would never ever invite me round her house for cupcakes ever again, so I gave it a go, and actually it's a darn good read, in a page-turning, reading-until-after-midnight kind of way.

Take care x

ps. It's really hot now. No, I mean really, really hot. Thirty five degrees in the shade today. Quite worried about going back to the UK and feeling rather chilly - do you think I should raid the cashmere box?

Sorry, everyone!

I'm really really really sorry if you have just had an email from me with a link to a viagra advert. It wasn't me, honest! Some lurgy has got into my system and sent this link out to everyone I have ever emailed, including Santa Claus (who sent a lovely response saying he was a bit too busy making toys to write a long letter but he notes from his 'naughty or nice' list that I have been nice so far this year - he won't think that after he clicks on the link).

Problem is, I have no idea how it happened or how to get rid of it. I should probably warn my mother...

retail high

Woo hoo, just bought something on Amazon. Oh, don't get all excited, it's only a couple of pairs of flight socks so I don't get DVT on the way home. Still, at least I got the thrill of clicking 'proceed to checkout' and in a week or so I'll get a nice parcel to open (I know, it's a bit tragic how excited I get at the prospect of post. I was lamenting to someone the other day about how we never write or send letters any more. I kind of miss it, in a way - although not enough to make me sit down and actually write to anyone).

Today was pirate day at school. It was so exciting that it of course necessitated the Twins getting up at five thirty and being dressed in their pirate outfits and stood next to my bed by quarter to six, bless 'em (of course we still had to run for the bus, despite being up at the crack of dawn). I forbade them from making me speak until after six. I just can't manage the whole thought-plus-articulation process at that time in the morning.

Now I have to go and put my mouthguard in, to turn my teeth into sparkly twinkly things and not yellowy tea-stained things.

Night x

Why is Meena so happy?

And now I know why she was so cheery. It was pure schadenfreude...she's only gone and given me food poisoning:

Her: Memsahib, me make new salads, you try?

Me: Oh, thanks, Meena, they do look tasty!

(thinking: which makes a nice change)

Her: You like?

Me: Mmm, delicious!

(thinking: surprisingly so)

At five am, with my bum on the loo and my head in a bucket:

Me: arrrgh!

(thinking: now I understand that what made the salads that extra bit mouthwateringly good, was the hearty dollop of botulism in every mouthful).

Still, as someone reminded me earlier, just think of the benefits: instant weight loss!

Maybe Meena is on my side after all?

Happy Meena

Don't tell Hubby, but I am missing him a bit. I don't think Meena is, though. She has been positively cheery since he left. I think this may be because she gets to cook easy stuff like fish cakes and baked beans, and also gets to go home by six (when Hubby is here we'll be having some complicated meaty meal, and he's normally only just got in from work at six, so she doesn't leave until seven), also there's no glowering looks when the food is too cold/gravy too lumpy when he's not around.

Just had to get in touch with school about Twin 2 getting not-quite-picked-on. Little girls can be really horrible. She's pretty robust, but when she said she wanted me to tell people to stop being nasty to her because she's wobbly, I had to do something. I think nice-but-intimidating Miss E and smiley-but-tough Mrs L have got things in hand now. I hope so. I know kids are unthinkingly cruel, and they really don't know any better, and I can't protect Twin 2 from the fact that she's a bit different forever, but it still breaks my heart.

Sorry, didn't mean to get all sad.

Off to do a bit of window shopping online (can't actually buy anything as we are saving it all for stupidly expensive trip to UK in the summer).

TTFN x

Lychee sellers are still roaming the streets waving lychee greenery menacingly into car windscreens. Looking forward to the end of lychee season as I can't cope with any more fruity intimidation on the school run.

Very hot - monsoon is pretty much upon us, and Sunil still hasn't made my nice new coat (he has been sucked through a hole in the space-time continuum, or maybe he just has flu).

must go, supper time xxx