Saturday 28 May 2011

Dull McDull from Dullsville

Someone has got it in for Hubby; there were iron filings in his brunch in the mess this morning. Twins hair is getting steadily greener, Son's cardboard alien city is taking shape, and my online shopping habit is getting out of control.
There's another bandh today, because its the anniversary of when the constitution should have been written (the government gave themselves one year's extension on the deadline, but it's still not done), so we're stuck between home and camp, and it's another weekend of brunches in the mess and swimming in the pool and Hubby getting gradually angrier with BGN stuff (and who can blame him, when the cookhouse staff are clearly trying to do him in?).
I stayed up too late last night watching Coronation Street, drinking wine and eating chocolate strawberries and pretzels (it's not the same without other people to shout at the telly with, though - I miss Corrie nights with the teachers). Then I had yet another  mangled dream about an encroaching tsunami, the second time this week. My subconscious is obviously dreading something, but what? The weight gain associated with booze and chocolate? The brainpower loss associated with watching Coronation street on a regular basis? The partners' club leaving do, which is now just two short weeks away? Or possibly my husband going to Afghanistan for six months?
I could blather on indefinitely, but you would probably fall asleep reading this, as life here at the moment is Dull McDull from Dullsville.
In fact, I'm so bored, I think I'll go and tidy up the Twins' bedroom, just for something to blooming do.
Cheerio! x

Friday 27 May 2011

half term hurrah

It's Friday already, and I've barely started chapter ten. My protagonist is attending a colleague's funeral. She's not happy, poor love. Still, I've got a surprise for her when she gets home...unfortunately that won't be for a while, as - in real life -  its now half term, so she can't expect to be reunited with ... (oh, I can't tell you, it will spoil the surprise) until, maybe Thursday, or even Friday next week.
In the meantime, I have swimming and sleepovers and Sunday lunch at the Sterling club and dental appointments and hair appointments etc. My life is far less interesting than hers (but a bit cheerier, it has to be said).
There was another bandh yesterday, and again today. I had to go into school on the bus with the kids this morning. As I was already kitted out for the gym, I had the really good idea of going in on the bus with them and then running home.
At least, it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Now I am really not as fit as I was when we were in the UK, and, even at eight thirty in the morning it was probably about thirty degrees outside. So even my little half-hour trot back to camp darn near killed me - no wonder lots of random Nepalis were staring at me as I staggered past (they were probably thinking, why doesn't someone take that lunatic gora to the hospital?).
Hubby has been off work today (I think it's a bank holiday in the UK?). So he has spent most of the day sleeping and reading Harry Potter, whilst I tried to recover from my early morning fitness ordeal, planned chapter ten, and tried to organise new employers for Meena and Mani. Then, after lunch we walked into school. Twin 2 got her housepoints rosette in assembly today. Could we have been more proud (or more scared of her toppling off the stage)?
And now it's half-term. Hurrah! xxx

Monday 23 May 2011

scary monday

The aggressive lychee men are back, waving their fruit with menaces in our faces and car windows. One got me as I was leaving school. I told myself that I was buying them for my little fruit bats - who do, it has to be said, have a bit of a lychee addiction - but the real reason was that I was slightly intimidated by the dark skinny man with the red-stained teeth shoving his wares at me. At least I managed to overcome my fear enough to knock him down by one hundred rupees.
And talking of scary, I just had a really scary book review. It was a 'free will' one on the youwriteon site. This means that my story hadn't been assigned to the person who reviewed it, they just decided to review it of their own free will. For a moment I felt good about this, until I saw who wrote the review...it was a chap whose book I had reviewed the previous evening. I had tried to do the feedback sandwich and everything, but I just found his style, well, challenging (and if you challenge a reader too much, they're not likely to read on), and I didn't give him many stars in the rating.
His review of my book was an endless rant about how I should use my own voice and admit that I'm writing the truth (I'm not - I have never been a bomb disposal officer, honest), and then he went on to say that the only reason he couldn't become an army officer was because he didn't have a mother like mine (I don't think he has ever met my mother - can only assume that he means my protagonist's mother, in the story, which is all made up). Quite frightening that someone had have such a tenuous grasp of the line between truth and fiction. Hope I never meet him (especially not on a dark night).
Have to go now, time for supper xxx

Sunday 22 May 2011

kalashnikov surprise for pudding

I just couldn't do the whole mackerel and Ryevita thing this weekend. I mean, hey, it's the weekend, right? Last night, being Saturday night, I treated myself to two glasses of wine and a whole bag of chocolate coated strawberries, whilst watching Coronation Street (alone). I was only alone because Hubby was tired and decided to go to bed early, but it's a taste of things to come, I fear. There won't be any nights out in Dwarika's when we're all back in the UK and he's out in Afghanistan...
A friend came round with her kids today. We talked about Hubby's imminent tour of duty, and his previous tours. She was berating Hubby for not sampling the local cuisine when out in the middle east. She was appalled that our troops just eat British food, cooked by British cooks, and thinks all our boys should be out there tasting a bit of goat curry. We tried to point out that if you booked yourself into a local cafe for a meal in Helmand, you'd probably get the dessert du jour  - kalashnikov surprise - but she wasn't convinced. Perhaps things are different if you work in aid or development, but I think if you're in army uniform in a foreign country, you're fairly likely to get shot at at some point, whether you've tipped the waiter or not.
It's been a quiet weekend; there was a bandh today, so we couldn't go anywhere except the swimming pool. There is another bandh tomorrow, but they are letting blue-plate vehicles through, which means the school bus will be running, hurrah, so I can get on with the book.
My protagonist is becoming a little too self-pitying (who can blame her after all the bad luck she's had?), so I need to rewrite a couple of scenes to turn her back into the feisty go-getter that she should be. I think I was in a rather black mood at the back end of last week, and poured all my misery out through her. Well, it's all going to change, now. She's going to get tough and competent and win through in the end, God bless her!
Right, I should go, or I will be in a spectacularly bad mood at six am tomorrow.
Night x

Friday 20 May 2011

poo and publishing

Poor old Twin 1 is off school again (second time this week) with a tummy bug. And it's the swimming gala today - although I think she might be secretly happy about missing the swimming gala, as she's one of those people who is so competitive that she almost goes into meltdown beforehand (Twin 2, however, just treats these kind of things as a good excuse to be in the limelight: win or lose, she'll get to wave and smile at the crowds, and that's all that really matters to her). It's a little disappointing for me because I was going to have a little shopping trip with a friend afterwards. However, being forced to sit at home in front of kids telly has given me the time to upload chapter one onto thenextbigauthor.com website - a two week peer review competition to find the 'next big author'. So who knows, as a result of Twin 1's bottom, I may end up with a publishing deal (oh, I know, probably not, but now I've got my weekend-at-a-literary-festival bag plus lots of nice silver and cashmere, I like to have secret daydreams about being a famous author. I'm also planning on a big leonine mane of hair, a la Jackie Collins, and some highly impractical stilettoes, too).
Right, I have to get Twin 1 back on the loo before we attempt a trip to the gala. Think I should take the portable potty too...

Thursday 19 May 2011

Last night I told Twin 2 that it really was bedtime, to which she replied: "What? Is it one hundred o'clock already?"
I guess they haven't got round to tackling telling the time in year one yet!

Tuesday 17 May 2011

another day

Twins are eating dried seaweed in front of a DVD. I know it's wierd, but they like it. Hubby is in Pokhara, so we had the dinner we really wanted (sausage and chips for the kids, sushi for me). I expect he's having a dahl bhat and whisky - don't know why I think so, I'm just a bit psychic when it comes to Hubby and Pokhara. My supernatural powers also tell me that he will have one too many whiskys and come back grumpy tomorrow...
My job tonight is to edit camcorder footage, a whole year of it. Not sure it's possible, but I can't deprive us of a record of their childhoods, can I? Or maybe I could. Maybe I could just tell them that all they did for the first eighteen years of their lives was eat dried seaweed in front of the telly (it wouldn't be too far from the truth).
Wild excitement this week is the key stage 1 swimming gala on Friday. Must remember to take a flask, a selection of snacks, and possibly a neck pillow in case I nod off (well, you know what it's like, you sit there all morning, ready to do the whole proud parent thing, and then your child is on the final race, just when you'd given up and gone to get a coffee).
Gary is whining outside the door, but I'm not budging. He can't nag me into letting him in, no matter how pitiful he sounds, the lazy lupine grape-eater.
Hmm, fancy a bit more sushi now. Just about enough time before bedtime.
x

Monday 16 May 2011

mackerel breath

Hi, ought to be writing book, but can't seem to settle. oh, I've done a bit,  you know - but I have also sorted out old clothes and toys for the orphanage and reviewed someone else's book online (scarily good, actually, I think she might beat me to finding a publisher), and had an early lunch of mackerel and Ryevita (yes, I'm trying a hormone balancing diet to try to combat spots and madness - if eating mackerel gets rid of my general aura of witchiness at the moment, then mackerel it is. I'm also supposed to be switching to flaxseed oil and various expensive complementary medicines with  names that sound like Harry Potter characters: Don Quai and Agnus Castus, anyone? But you can't get them out here, so the full-on healthfood binge will have to wait until we're less than three thousand miles from a Holland & Barret shop).
Had a great weekend at Dwarika's. I had infiltrated Hubby's email account and mailed them in his name to ask whether they could do 'something special' for his wife on her birthday. Worked a treat! There was a super-lush chocolate birthday cake waiting in our room, and I got a free glass of plum wine at the Japanese restaurant. Even better, all the staff kept wishing me Happy Birthday. It was fab. I shall have to do it again next year, when perhaps Captain Hubby can take me to Ragdale Hall? (yes, I'm hoping he'll read this and get the hint).
Have to zip off to the dentist in a bit to get an abrasion thingy filled. It's not fair, when you're a kid everyone tells you to brush your teeth properly, but nobody mentioned that you end up having to have fillings from brushing too much. Which reminds me - ought to brush my teeth before I go or the dentist will get the full effects of my mackerel breath.
Tomorrow I will finish chapter nine. I really will. I would have finished it today, but it's hard to write about someone strung-out with grief, when you're feeling pretty perky and a tad manic...
TTFN x

Thursday 12 May 2011

Pre-monsoon, my bottom

Hubby isn't home yet and my stomach is making earthquake noises. So hungry! Will he ever come home (and why am I so hungry? I had a cheese and ham sandwich at ten - could it be worms?)?

Gary is inside the living room, hiding from the thunder, which everyone is still insisting is not the monsoon, but is the pre-monsoon rains. Pre-monsoon, my bottom, is what I thought yesterday when I got caught in them on the way back from the cafe, but hey.

I was very excited because a new cafe has opened outside the Gurkha camp. It looks very nice and clean and posh, but its a bit of a disappointment. I had visions of going there to write every day, a la JK Rowling, but I think I'd rather be at home where there is water in the taps, so I can actually wash my hands when I go to the loo, and where my coffee-sipping experience isn't marred by the sound of building work and the aroma of raw sewerage...there are some things about Kathmandu I won't miss.

I also got excited about finding air dried strawberries in the shop opposite school (it's the strawberry and trout shop - for all your trout and strawberry requirements). I have noticed that the trout and strawberry shop has begun to diversify. It's now a shop for all your trout and strawberry needs, and also some of your stationery needs too.
Hmm, I think we'll have trout and strawberries for supper. Oh, and maybe I'll buy a notebook as well....


My on-off trip to Dwarika's hotel for my birthday is off again now. There is another bandh, and first we were told that diplomatic plates wouldn't be let though by the protesters, then we told they would, now, having changed our hotel reservation twice, it looks like I'll have to change it again. Bummer.
Another thing I won't miss about Kathmandu: the whole world coming to a standstill because of a bandh.

It's raining again. Pre-monsoon, my bottom!
Bye x

Tuesday 10 May 2011

tuesday on the sofa

Hubby is muttering about being 'manipulated' into more guilt-jewellery. It wasn't manipulation, I just asked. And he said yes. Moreover, having just had lunch with my would-have-been trek-mates and seen their photos, I think it's justified, really.

I know my cashmere and silver days are numbered. In three months time we will be back in Blighty, with or without a quarter and a school place for the kids. I'm almost looking forward to going back to shopping at Lidl, actually (wonder if they still do mini onions pickled in balsamic vinegar - yum). Not looking forward to the weather quite so much...but at least I have a nice stock of cashmere to keep me warm (not to mention a nice stock of silver, to keep me sparkly).

Typed up a few scenes today. Poor old heroine's life is really getting pants. Why has everyone lied to her? Why is everything going wrong in her life? She's about to hit rock bottom (I'll be starting those scenes in the morning, and I have to admit I'm looking forward to it a bit - but only because I know it will all eventually work out, and within the next three chapters, too).

Kids are all sitting on the sofa watching Tangled (again). And talking of hair issues, the Twins' hair has started to get that nice budgie green tint to it (or is it canary? can't remember - parakeet, probably) from all the chlorine. They are swimming every day at school. I have threatened them with a tomato sauce hair masque to sort it out, but they don't seem keen. I can't possibly let them go back to the UK with hair like this though as nice H, my hairdresser friend, will probably stab me for crimes to follicles.

Right, need to go and review someone else's book for the youwriteon.com website now (and in return someone will review mine, which is jolly nice).

Take care xxx

ps. another bandh threatened for friday - think the kids will be off school for my birthday (in which case I shall set them to work making a nice big chocolate birthday cake with plenty of fake smarties on top).

Sunday 8 May 2011

weekend

Isn't it nice sometimes to have a weekend where you do nothing?
This weekend I have taken the kids swimming and been into town to order a nice leather weekend bag* for my birthday and have our family Sunday lunch at KFC (more of a treat than it sounds - KFC is the only fast food outlet in Nepal). Oh, and I went to the book launch thing this afternoon (I got two signed copies of the book. I know the author because he was in our creative writing group and I even critiqued one of the stories in the anthology - exciting feeling so close to fame!). But that's it. And it was really quite nice to do almost nothing.
I have promised myself I will do lots and lots of writing this week. However, I have also promised myself Friday off, as it's my birthday. I know that in order to be a better writer I should really spend every spare second writing. But I also quite fancy a full body massage, and I really need a pedicure. What to do? In these situations a Christian would probably solve the dilemma by thinking 'What would Jesus do?'. As an aspiring writer of women's fiction, I like to think 'What would Joanna Trollope do?' 
Joanna Trollope would surely opt for the birthday spa treatment, no?

* in anticipation of when my book gets published and I have to do overnighters at literary festivals and the like (I can dream, can't I?).

Friday 6 May 2011

friday, friday

I went to a clothes swap thing at lunchtime today. Everyone brought along clothes they didn't wear, and swapped them, for a nominal price (three hundred rupess, about £2.70) for other clothes, with the profits going to a local charity. I ended up with a jumper with a rabbit-fur panel on the front. I can't decide if it's a bit too Cruella de Vil. But I secretly like it, and the fact that it's very non-PC. In England I shall have to wear it to a McDonald's drive thru, in a very old petrol-engine car with a big zoomy exhaust, and possibly have matching crocodile skin shoes and handbag on too. Or something. A woman at the lunch-thing said I should be careful that outraged people didn't throw paint at me in the furry top. I said I didn't mix in those kind of circles - don't think many army types would really give a stuff about a couple of dead rabbits, do you?
I say it was a lunch-thing, but actually it was more of a canape and cake thing, and although I ate about twenty mini pesto omelette thingys, I'm blooming starving now.
The hostess was a very elegant, calm and thoughtful french woman. She's a writer too, except that she writes deep and thoughtful prose, and I write pot-boilers. Afterwards we had a little chat about writing. I think my book is to hers, what a mini mars bar is to supper at a Michelin-starred restaurant. Hey ho, people will always secretly crave mini mars bars though, I guess...Anyway, I'm a little bit in awe of her.
Nothing planned for the weekend, except an invitation to a book launch on Sunday. Bizarre that out here I'm a member of the literati. Back in the UK the closest I'll get to being invited to a book promotion will be knocking into the two-for-one book basket with my trolley in Tescos.
Right, supper time, at long blooming last!

Thursday 5 May 2011

desperate coronation street

Coronation Street has morphed into Desperate Housewives, which means that the Coronation Street episodes on the welfare discs are unwatched. Or at least they were. Last week I caught Hubby secretly watching the Street. He 'fessed up to it, so now we have Coronation Street night at home. It's actually quite nice to watch Corrie with someone who also likes to make horse noises when Gail comes on screen, or make comments about Dev's hair, or Dierdre's wattle - or try to predict the plot. I think soaps are made for shouting at, don't you? The only problem with doing Corrie with Hubby is that he doesn't like drinking at home, so rather than a nice chilled sauvignon, I'm quaffing diet ginger beer, but hey ho.

I'm almost over the whole not-trekking thing now. At least being here forced me to finish chapter eight, and start chapter nine, which has got to be a good thing as I have less than two months to write five chapters (can I do it? Only if I give up Coronation Street and Desperate Housewives and work in the evenings...hmmm...).

Went to Son's termly topic talk this week (missed the Twins' though, as it was on Monday and I was still sobbing into my pillow at that point). I'm always flabbergasted by the things they learn in primary these days. I remember doing mostly neat handwriting and things with papier mache at that age, whereas Son will be learning about how to create an electric circuit, how force is measured in Newtons, and having a debate between explorers and native peoples about the pros and cons of colonisation. Whatever happened to colouring in and times tables, eh?

Twin 2 has learnt to swim! Sudeep the swimming teacher has worked his magic on her. I'm not sure what stroke she does: style-wise, she looks a bit like a spider trying to escape the plughole; however she's stopped sinking, and remembers to breathe out underwater, and in when she pops up for air (well, sometimes she gets it the other way round, but luckily there is Sudeep, and the lifeguard on hand - and the pool is less than twenty metres from the med centre). I'm not sure how unusual it is for a child with physical disabilities like hers to learn to swim, but I'm pretty blooming proud of her, and I think Sudeep is too (she has also worked her magic on him, and he goes a bit misty eyed around her - I even caught him giving her a sneaky peck on the cheek when she nearly managed a width today).

And tomorrow is Friday - where has the week gone? I must write faster, or the summer hols will be here before I know it and my poor heroine will still not have had closure on her multiple issues...at least she's found out about her boyfriend and her father and is back in the UK and now only has to resolve things with her grandmother, her ex, her father - oh and there's the whole Afghan thing, too - can she possibly sort all that lot out in forty thousand words or less?

Right, ten to ten - time for bed xxx

Tuesday 3 May 2011

I bet they are having lovely mountain views...oh, well, I decided to order a cheeky little lipstick on ebay to cheer myself up before starting the end of chapter eight. Just need to type it up - it's a bit steamy actually, which I'm a bit nervous about (not sure if I can pull off the whole sex scene thing - if you'll pardon the pun). Ah, Hubby has finally vacated the bathroom, so I'm off!
Night x

Monday 2 May 2011

bummer

Hello, out there. I'm still here. No, I'm not trekking in Langtang. And it's not because of the pesky 'pre-monsoon' rains, or the scary leeches, no. I had prepared for those: I had waterproof trousers, gaiters, waterproof coat, insect repellent with Deet in it, and an umbrella (to protect against the sleepy leeches that fall out of the trees in the jungly bits). I also had five bags of cranberry and chocolate trail mix (one for each day), and  - optimistically, perhaps - some factor 50 sweatproof suntan lotion. Oh, yes, and I had increased my insurance cover to cover me for trekking over four thousand metres (which I hadn't done for the last trek - good job I didn't have an accident on the way up to Annapurna Base Camp...).
What happened was that Twin 2 was up all last night with fever and a cough and Hubby had diarrhoea (I think I may finally have learnt to spell this - has only taken three years in Nepal to crack it) and we had a very long conversation at five thirty this morning about the pros and cons of me leaving him with a sick child, a slightly dodgy bottom and being staff duty officer for BGN this week. So in the end I didn't go on the transport at six.
I cried, Twin 2 and Hubby got rapidly better, and Hubby bought me some nice jewellery (can never work out how to spell this one though) this afternoon to try to cheer me up.
Boo (I don't mean boo about the nice pendant, I mean hurrah - but boo about missing a week with my trek-sisters).
No escape from finishing chapter eight now, I suppose.
Oh, well, maybe not right now...I'm off to bed to read Cloud Atlas.
Goodnight x