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!