Thursday 31 March 2011

birthdays, vomit and heart failure

I'm very sad that my poor boy is feeling too ill to have his birthday cake, and he's got to go back to school in a bit to be a toga-clad narrator in the school play. I do hope he doesn't vomit on stage - it would trump Twin 2 doing a wee on stage last year, though.
I'm very happy that Hubby appears to have got through the financial year-end without having a heart attack, although the day's not over (it's still only about 10am in the UK), so there's still time for a bit of a cardiac catastrophe (perhaps it would also happen whilst we're watching the school play, which would even trump Son's vomit). This time last year he was having palpitations in Disneyland Hong Kong, as I recall...
Anyway, better get a move on or Aesop's Fables will be without their star performer.
Cheerio
ps - Gary keeps skulking around and stealing grapes out of the fruit bowl. Him and his evil lupine ways - no fruit is safe from his salivating jaws. Right, better go x

Sunday 27 March 2011

a weekend of single parenthood

I have been mostly a single parent this weekend. On Saturday a very important minister of some description (nobody seems to remember the details, or even his name - and he didn't seem to be quite sure what he was doing here either, but suits were worn and lunches were had, so I guess it was an effective use of taxpayers money to send him to Nepal?) arrived in BGN, so Hubby had to get all suited up and go to work for the morning.
Luckily it was the super dooper spring fair at school, so I had something else to do with the rest of the family. The kids had overpriced candyfloss and samosas, and I got to sit on the PTA stall and sell old books. By the time I got to the book stall, however, only the literary dregs were left, so I had to resort to the hard selling tactics (reducing everything to ten rupees - about nine pence). I'll give you a couple of examples:
How to pass your civil service exams; The benefits of urine therapy (this means drinking your own wee, by the way); Finding God in unexpected places (where? behind the sofa with the broken remote? And also, as someone pointed out, if God is supposed to be everywhere, surely nowhere should be unexpected?) and many, many more of a similar quality. At the end of the fair the unsold books were boxed up and taken back inside. I think they may get rolled out again in the summer fair - in which case I might have to buy up a few titles to spice up my bookshelves and make random visitors think I'm more interesting than I actually am.

Picture this, if you will:

Guest arrives and I scurry into the kitchen to put the kettle on. In the meantime, Guest checks out my newly souped-up bookshelves and thinks: this is the first time I've been to this house, let's have a neb and see what she's really like...oh my! She is an evangelical wee drinker with aspirations to become a civil servant. I never knew - what a dark horse indeed!
I turn up with a cup of tea and Guest looks at me in an entirely new light, as a hostess with hidden depths and interesting hobbies and a life outside of just being a cashmere-addicted army wife.

Hmmm...although this would only work were we actually to have guests over, which, let's be honest, is an extreme rarity. One couple did attempt it this weekend, but had to contend with Gary stalking the chocolate chip cookies and Twin 2 showing her pants, and having to shout over the sound of the generator, so not sure whether they will ever come back...

On Saturday night I stayed in, just in case anyone else in the family succumbed to the scary green D&V lurgy, and Hubby went out to Thamel for a goodbye get-together for a friend. None of the kids were ill and I finished off the Bombay Saphire, hurrah. Hubby then returned and hurled his guts up all night. He swears it was the mushroom carbonara, and nothing to do with the quantity of whisky imbibed.

So today he was ill in bed, and I was a single parent again, curses!

So that was my weekend - how about yours? x

Thursday 24 March 2011

flying river

Son's talk on the imaginary circus of torture didn't go down too well - it was too short, apparently. He did another one today about 'thinking' and specifically about a future earth project that will use directed gravity fields to take rivers to deserts, where they're really needed, rather than just going straight to the sea. I think all the environmental messages from school assemblies have morphed together with Dr Who in his brain and fused in an attempt to try to use science fiction to make the world a better place. If only imaginary flying rivers was all it took...

Poor old Twin 1 has D&V at the moment, and, because I've been encouraging her to drink flat Coke in order to rehydrate, her vomit is nice and black. She's been sick twice already (plus three times the other end), so I think I'm in for quite an exciting night.

Better sign off before the next projectile episode. xx

Tuesday 22 March 2011

the eagle has landed, Danny boy, over!

Someone in China reads this blog - I just checked the (fairly paltry) stats. I suspect that as I have 'army' in the blog title and its written in English, that some poor underpaid government worker is having to trawl through all my tedious navel gazing in the hope of stumbling on some nugget of military intelligence. Poor thing. Well, just for you...the eagle has landed, Danny boy, over!

field of dreams

Ah, yes, I knew I would remember eventually.
It's about my parents' dog. Mum and Dad had a lovely dog, who very sadly died whilst chasing a deer last year. In his memory, they have had one of the fields near their house planted with trees in the shape of a running dog.
This is a beautiful thing.
However.
They also have three daughters.
Do you think when one of us cops it they will have woodland in the shape of a lady planted (perhaps they could model it on one of those toilet doors and give us nice round heads and triangular skirts)?
Hubby suggested that they should have one field planted with a running dog, the next with a lying down dog, and the next with the vet's van coming, with sirens and lights etc.
But that would just be silly, wouldn't it?

Ta ra for now x

ps. Do you think they could plant one of me doing one of my super kung fu fighting in my tarty ball dress?
Just a thought....

pouf!

I weighed myself at the gym this morning, which was a bad idea. I had just been for a run, and put the running machine up one level, so I was feeling pretty good, but I guess all those glasses of wine and chocolate brownies whilst watching Corrie last night probably put paid to my measly half-hour of cardio. Still, I can't go on I diet. They don't sell Muller yoghurts or Special K in Kathmandu, therefore it is impossible to diet. Yes, it is. Don't argue with me. You can't make me diet.
There was something marginally more interesting than my weight to tell you about, but I have forgotten already. Der...I'm casting my mind about, but no, the thought has vanished, like a soap bubble on a rose bush - pouf!
I will have a think, and get back to you...

Monday 21 March 2011

emergency spa

Had to have emergency session at spa this morning, after a particularly hormonal weekend (at least the swimming pool was open, so I could actually take the kids somewhere whilst I stared, grim-faced and morose, into the middle distance. From today, the swimming pool will be closed, just as it's starting to get lovely and hot, and Twin 2 has begun to learn to swim. Why? Because BGN, in their infinite wisdom, has decided to re-employ the lifeguard as a gate guard and has not got anyone to replace him...we shall now have to wait for HQ to bid for funding and get a lifeguard trainer flown out from the UK to train up someone else. Let's just hope they manage to do it well before the next time I'm hormonal and unstable, or someone may get hurt!)
Anyway, I have at least planned the next twenty-odd scenes of the book this morning (see how much more productive I am after an hour in the spa - it's totally worth the money!), so there is hope in sight for my hapless heroine. I'm also hoping to get some constructive crit from a friend of mine who has been reading the manuscript so far. Lets just hope she's as good at feedback as she is at baking cupcakes...and that I don't cry when she hits me with the amount of holes in my plot and character flaws necessary to revise.
Right now I have a date with the bread maker, or there will be no packed lunches tomorrow.
Cheerio x

Friday 18 March 2011

eco cookies

Twins are not radioactive, so that's good news. They are, however, both as tired as old dogs after their night on the school football field, so I have made a command decision not to go to the school's eco fair to buy environmentally friendly cookies with them this afternoon (I'm sure the eco fair will survive without our presence - and I did contribute some choc chip biscuits to the PTA stall, so don't need to feel too guilty about the destruction of the rainforests, etc.). However, there was a certain amount of wailing at the thought of missing the wild excitement of buying overpriced eco munchies, so I bribed them with DVDs and chocolate coated strawberries to just blooming well stay home.
Tomorrow is Holi, where everyone dresses in white and splats each other with water and dye (well, I say everyone, not us, thanks - we are going to the swimming pool with water pistols). Some particularly enthusiastic Holi people have been getting in early and we were got with a couple of water balloons during lunch at the japanese cafe today. At least the water wasn't suspiciously yellow and smelly, as has been known during previous Holis...
I've been finding excuses not to write today. Luckily the Twins finishing school at lunchtime was a good one. I did a bit of a read-through this morning, but I'm not happy with chapter seven and I'm downright nervous of chapter eight. At least I've got the whole weekend to procrastinate and will just have to hope that inspiration strikes by monday morning (otherwise I might just have to have an emergency trip to the spa).
Take care x

Thursday 17 March 2011

radioactive rain

Twins are on their school camping trip (tents on the football field) and tonight we're due to have rain. Feel sorry for the teachers looking after thirty five-and-six-year-olds in the pouring rain tonight (and really, really glad I didn't volunteer to help out - instead I will be indoors watching Coronation Street with a few friends a and a cheeky sauvignon blanc). My hairdresser and my cook both told me to stay out of the rain. The rumour is that it will be radioactive rain from Japan, but I don't think that's true - otherwise my poor little Twins will appear in a green glow after school tomorrow...

Wednesday 16 March 2011

imaginary circus of torture

This afternoon I took Twin 1 to play tennis with her little friend at the Himalaya hotel. I think the tennis coach is Nepal's number 1 tennis player, or something very impressive like that (it's a wierd expat thing that you always get to access the very best that your host country has to offer, and it's always cheaper than in the UK). Anyway, he was jolly nice, and soon had them both scurrying about practising their backhand, etc. Halfway through the lesson he took a call on his mobile. Afterwards he explained to me that it was from a friend in Japan, reassuring him that he was alive and okay. Then they all went back to chasing yellow balls around the court.
Twin 1 is already better at tennis than me, which makes me both inordinately proud and somewhat flabbergasted that a woman with my genetic code (perhaps one day they'll discover the 'butterfingers' gene and be able to eradicate it) could spawn a child so physically competent.
Twin 2 is still doing the trout pout thing and demanding apple juice cartons with straws and chocolate pudding. However, I saw her sneakily tucking into the grapes during Nanny McPhee this evening, so I think she's well on the way to recovering. Good job too, as the Twins are off on their school trip tomorrow and camping overnight on the school football field, which is probably the most exciting thing that's happened in their lives since...hmmm...since...well, ever, actually.
I have to go up and say goodnight to Son now. He is busy planning his talk for English homework. He is going to talk to his class for a full two minutes on an imaginary circus of torture that he has created.
I'll leave you with that thought...

Tuesday 15 March 2011

Lesley Ash and Professor Calculus

Twin 2 fell over at school today and landed on her face (her reactions aren't very good, so she often ends up with facial injuries as she can't get her hands out on time). Now she could do a passable impression of Lesley Ash...poor little thing.
The problem now is finding food she can eat until her fat lip calms down.
Yoghurt? But where in Kathmandu can you find little pots of fromage frais, hmmm? Luckily I found a packet of a kind of angel delight-type thing in the little blue shop, so it's chocolate pudding for breakfast and cheese triangles for lunch tomorrow. Nice.
Twin 1 is of course super jealous. I told her that if she smashes her own face in, then she can also have chocolate pudding for breakfast (I wouldn't put it past her - she demanded an injection the other day to try to get a lollipop out of me).
Son, meanwhile, has been spending most of the time pretending to be Professor Calculus from the Tintin books - which isn't at all wierd or annoying, honest.
At least I'm not as stressed and irrationally angry as I was yesterday. I have passed the stress baton onto Hubby, who is coming up to the year end and starting to chew his nails and has that look about him as if a small electric current is being passed from his baby toes to his earlobes (if he had hair, it would be standing on end).
Have to say goodnight to Professor Calculus now.
xx

Monday 14 March 2011

...and breathe...

Suddenly at school I really lost my temper. Not with my wonderful kids, of course, but with another mum. I even swore (I think I said 'I'm fed up with being f***ing unpaid childcare for people' - hope I don't get banned from the playground for bad language and general chaviness). This is what happened: I agreed to take a couple of the Twins' friends home from school and get them into their party dresses and drop them all off at a schoolfriend's birthday party. This plan was fine, as the girls are friends of the twins and their mums are always doing me favours, too, so it's all part of the general give and take of being a playground mum.
Then as I got to school (late, because I noticed armed police on the way and phoned Hubby to check there wasn't about to be a riot on the school run route), I got a text from another mum asking me to also pick up her daughter and take her to the party too. Now, this other girl is not a special friend of the Twins, and her mother has never done me any favours either. Moreover, for the past three years I have acted as a bus monitor to take kids to her daughter's birthday party when she has called me at the last minute to say she won't be on the bus with all the children and could I possibly make sure they all arrive safely at her daughter's party.
Then, when I got to the playground (late and flustered) I realised that all three of these other girls were at an after school club, thus necessitating me to wait in the playground for an hour with my own non-club children...blah blah blah.
That's when I lost it and did the swearing thing.
In the end I got to take my kids home on time and the others are being dropped off by someone's driver later.
The icing on the cake was meeting the owner of the car I pranged in the playground last week with a bill for ten thousand rupees for the damage on the way out.
Oh, and the sprinkles on the icing were on the way home, when the military policeman told me that the Prime Minister is visiting the road behind our house this afternoon. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to get the car past all the security and onto the birthday party.
I thought I was in quite a good mood today, but it transpires that I'm in quite possibly the worst mood I have ever been in.
I would have a sneaky glass of Sauvignon under other conditions, but this is probably not a good idea when I have to drive through an armed police road block with a bunch of five-year-olds in the back later on...
....and breathe....

busy, busy, no time for pants!

I've just emailed the real novelist. Yikes. Did I come across as sycophantic, desperate or just plain wierd? All three, probably. Wonder if he will respond to my email?

Have got back to the novel this morning: my protagonist is just about to meet up with her real father. How will she react when she discovers what he does for a living? And what will she do when she finds out the truth about her new boyfriend? Oh, the poor thing. She has a right old time ahead of her until we reach page one hundred and seventy. And at the speed I'm writing these days, it could take months for her life to finally get back on track.

Had a lovely weekend in Kakani with another family. What a joy it is to find other people who are not only nice themselves, but also have nice kids (you would think the two should go together, but in my experience, very rarely do). Horrible to come back and hear the news about Japan, though - almost made me feel guilty about having such a good time over the weekend.

Right, sorry, really must go now as I have four little girls to pick up from school, put into party dresses and deposit somewhere else. And then I have to help Son find the right website to do his maths 'enrichment' homework.

Busy, busy, no time for pants!
Take care, x

Wednesday 9 March 2011

wednesday

I know, I should be filling lunch boxes and snack pots with enticing and nutritious food, but I'm not ready to face it until I've had at least half a glass of wine. As the years go on, I'm becoming increasingly less excited about peanut butter sandwiches and dried strawberries.
My heroine still hasn't found out the truth about her Dad, although I think she may be beginning to get an inkling. He has, however, agreed to meet her. Will it all come out when they meet, or will she find out some other way (thus compounding her sense of betrayal)? hmmm...not sure myself yet, but I'm sure I will have figured it out by the end of the week.
I had a fairly productive morning, with only relatively small amounts of time staring into space, although I did have to spend some time discussion the merits of tupperware (well, not real Tupperware, but plastic pots with lids) vs just leaving things open in the fridge to dry up and taste funny. I might not have written that extra scene, but I can almost guarantee that there will be no more wilted salads that taste of sour milk in this house.
We have a new-ish cook. I don't want you to think we've sacked Meena, Heaven forbid, but she is now doing job share cooking/cleaning with her husband Manny. Manny is a very sweet older man who was knocked off his bike a year or so ago. The head trauma meant that he had to stop work for a while. He has lost his sense of smell, and taste (not ideal for a cook), and seems a little confused sometimes. However, Meena scurries down importantly every so often and tells him what to do. (Even with no sense of taste or smell he is a far better cook than she ever was...but we have forbidden the children from telling her that).
Hubby is in Pokhara. I suspect he is onto his fourth whisky by now. He did take quite a bit of cash with him, so maybe the dancing dwarfs are in for a treat (not sure what you would treat dancing dwarfs to - teeny tiny new pairs of shoes perhaps?).
Coronation Street is back on at mine tomorrow, which is very exciting - I will finally get to discover whether or not Peter Barlow snuffs it (I think I will be quite sad if he does, especially as Dev has survived - oh, the cruel hand of fate, so indiscriminate & unfair).
Talking of unfair, I weighed myself at the gym this morning and I have put on weight. How can that be right, what with my large intestine being salmonella city these days. Maybe all those bacterium are just really really heavy. It can't possibly be to do with the very tasty biscuits that Manny has been cooking this week, can it?
I have nearly finished my glass of wine now, so I suspect it is time to crack open the peanut butter and dried strawberries and get on with being a proper mum.
cheerio x

ps. if you are interested in what the ball was like, take a look at http://www.partynepal.com/view-photos.php?id=149 and see if you can spot us!

Monday 7 March 2011

another week, another tummy bug...

Felt very out of place at the wedding reception. Everyone else there was a teacher, or married to a teacher, and all with their other halves. I was alone, just me and my hangover. Still, it was a jolly nice do and the puddings were spectacular!
Yesterday son had a birthday party at the deputy ambassador's house, so the rest of the family slumped around at the Sterling club having endless cups of coffee and reading the paper, and then in the evening we went out for a pizza. Somewhere on this whirlygig weekend of social events and eateries, I've picked up a tummy bug, though. The bonus is that it's well and truly bikini season now (the pool was thirty two degrees yesterday), so I count a spot of botulism as a friendly interloper.
Tried to get back into writing the book this morning. I did manage a couple of scenes before deciding that I really had to get online and book our raffle prize (a weekend elephant safari in a posh lodge) as I was too excited to wait. At least my heroine is a few hundred words closer to realising the truth about her estranged father...I will try to get a move on with the writing this week, as I don't think it's fair to keep her hanging on much longer (even though the truth will crush her spirit and cause her to question everything she holds true!).
Okay, lunchtime now (tomato soup and homemade ham and olive rolls, if you must know).
Take care xx

Saturday 5 March 2011

cinderella

I did go to the ball! I did drink too much wine! My dress was tarty and inappropriate! And I won the raffle! So hurrahs all round.
I had a bit of a headache this morning. Hubby did too. He says it must be the air conditioning in the hotel room (couldn't possibly be the vast quantities of free booze we quaffed). However, we bravely fought into a vertical position and wobbled down to the breakfast buffet. After a huge fry up, followed by a continental breakfast and about twenty cups of sweet tea, I began to feel bit better.
Not sure if I did anything I should be embarrassed about, but I do remember dancing quite enthusiastically to 'Kung Fu fighting' at one point, so just have to hope that nobody had a camcorder.
The kids had a sleepover at a friend's house (the one who makes great cupcakes) and had a great time too. So this afternoon we are all a bit sleepy and wobbly and everyone is more than content to spend the afternoon watching Dr Who and eating chocolate biscuits.
However, I have to go out tonight, too - a wedding reception in Thamel. Not sure I will manage to be quite as chirpy as last night...
Take care xx

Friday 4 March 2011

sneak preview

Here's the first page from the first draft of my novel, just for you!


It was five thirty in the morning after another sweat-drenched and sleepless night under a dirty mosquito net.

“Job’s in boss,” Corporal Gibbs shouted into her corner of the tent.

“Mmmf,” Zoë managed to grunt before rolling out of her cot and scrabbling for body armour.

Half an hour later and the lumbering six-wheeled Mastiff armoured truck juddered to a halt three kilometres up the main highway that ran past their patrol base.

They tumbled wearily out of the back and into the already searing heat of a Helmand Spring morning: herself, Corporal Gibbs, Lance Corporal Jackman and Corporal Hankin. The five-man search team were there ahead of them. The eight-man patrol who’d called in the counter IED team were crouched in firing positions across the road ahead.

The section commander, a chippy green-eyed Welsh Fusiliers corporal, was already talking to the search team Staff Sergeant, ignoring Zoë.

“Ma’am,” he finally acknowledged her presence, then immediately turned back to the Staff Sergeant.

“Thanks, Staff, I’ll take it from here,” she cut in, deliberately keeping her voice low to give herself an air of authority she never really felt. Despite her year at Sandhurst, her countless months of counter IED training, and more than two months already in Afghanistan, she still had to battle with continually being ignored.

She thought she saw the Fusilier corporal roll his eyes at Corporal Hankin, her own second-in-command, but she couldn’t be sure, and let it pass.

“Okay, corporal, explain the situation.”

He told her about the veering tyre tracks, which suggested local vehicles were deliberately avoiding a certain stretch of road.

She nodded, resisting the urge to chew her left thumbnail as she listened.

She looked beyond the roadside at the fields of dun and beige whispering towards the purple smudge of horizon.

Two and a half months ago, when she’d arrived in Helmand, these fields were red, a gash of poppies running right through the Green Zone. It was just over a month since the petals fell to earth, and three weeks since the harvest began. Until yesterday, the fields were full of Afghanis, entire families painstakingly slicing each seed pod with a razor blade and scraping off the opium resin with a spoon. The ‘jingly trucks’, lorries painted like gypsy caravans, took the opium harvest away, north up the highway. Yesterday the fields were empty.

Everyone said it would kick off once the harvest was in. Things were getting interesting, just as she was due home on mid-tour R&R.

Thursday 3 March 2011

thursday

Off to the Bollywood ball tomorrow. I have a new dress. It is the sartorial equivalent of a 50-year-old man buying a Harley Davidson, but I don't care. I think most people will be wearing saris, but the only time I wore a sari, I felt such a lumbering old lump compared to all the beautiful, petite, graceful Nepali women. So instead I'm going for the mutton-dressed-as-lamb option. Hope it will be a good night (I'm especially looking forward to the bingo)...

Went to book club today with some other trailing spouses. I was very excited about it because the hostess is well known for her baking skills, and I have to say she didn't disappoint. However, the other mums were a brainy lot, and although intimidated is probably too strong a word to use, I did mutter an internal 'ooh-er!' when the woman on my left mentioned 'ironic distance' in a text. I suppose I should get over myself - after all when I'm doing the masters I will no doubt have to bang on about feminist perspectives, naive narrators, etc.

Oh, I wanted to tell you a true life story about a Nepali woman out here. It's very sad, but somehow says volumes about the state of women in Nepal today:
Our previous housekeeper's little sister, who is nineteen, had rejected the idea of an arranged marriage and run off with a boy from a much lower caste. As a result, her parents ostracized her, and when she became pregnant refused to accept the situation. Then, when she was about three months pregnant, her young husband was killed in a motorbike accident. The girl was just a student and had no means of supporting herself or her child. Her family persuaded her to have a termination, which they paid for. However, after the operation, the hospital staff handed her the dead fetus, saying that it was up to her to arrange a burial. She had no money to do this, so her sister paid five hundred rupees (about £4.50 - but probably three days' wages) to a hospital cleaner to dispose of the baby's body. The girl is now finishing her course. Ironically she is studying midwifery, and now has to spend three months doing the practical part of her course, working as an assistant midwife. She worked for us for a couple of weeks, but it didn't fit in with her hospital shifts, so we had to let her go.
To me this feels like a Nepali story: the caste divide, the appalling road safety, her powerlessness as a result of her youth and gender, all of these conspired to create this tragedy. And the worst of it is, you know that it's just one of many out here.

Sorry, I know it's a bit depressing, but I just wanted to share this.