Thieving swine bastards that are car garages

Following yesterday's car drama, today I trundled off to the garage to have the stupid thing fixed. I call it stupid because it's a 7 seater people carrier. And it is the car equivalent of a cow. Big, slow moving, completely unexciting and looks about as gormless. You can probably tell how much I love it.

So I took it in. Thankfully a women was on the check in desk because they always seem to fully understand girl explanations of things that go wrong with a car. 'Any problems to report,' she asked. 'Actually yes, several,' I said. 'Firstly, the brakes make a loud high pitched squealing, squeaking, screeching type sound when I brake and it makes the same noise even when I'm just driving along.' She nodded and typed as though she fully understood what I meant. A man would have been: 'So can you describe the noise more carefully - do you think it's the brake pads or discs - and at exactly what speed are you going when this sound happens and are you sure you're not just imagining it in your teeny tiny lady sized brain?'

Given our obvious connection, I told her about the other problems (I would have stopped after problem one with a man). 'Well there's something wrong with the battery. Even if we jumpstart the car, it won't start again the next day.' 'Ooh, that is annoying isn't it,' she said. Again, a bloke no doubt would have asked if I had the jumper cables put on correctly. Full of confidence I said, 'Oh, and my seat belt is twisted and I can't untwist it.' (thinking this really was a problem I should be able to sort out on my own). 'I hate it when that happens,' she sympathised. I handed in my key feeling fully confident, not something I normally feel at a garage.

I then had to wait for a car hire company to come fetch me and give me my hire car - because I am nothing if not a realist and I knew that my list of problems was probably going to get longer once they started digging around.

And indeed, it was. A man just called. Apparently the brake pads (or discs - one can never be sure) were completely shot in the front and even worse at the back (the reason for the loud squealing/screeching sound). 'It was metal on metal,' he said in a tone that implied I was a car heathen and should be shot. It needs a complete brake fluid change. It needs two new tyres. And a new seatbelt. He didn't mention the battery come to think of it, which was the reason it went in. So all in, with parts and labour, they would like £1400. Fourteen hundred pounds! I'm almost tempted to offer to sleep with the mechanic in a desperate bid to get the price knocked down, but I don't think he'll go for it. Not unless I buy new knickers.

So I said, fine, I guess if we have to do it we have to do it. I then relayed this to husband who immediately said that we can get the tyres done cheaper elsewhere and to cancel all non urgent stuff so that we can sell it. But that would mean phoning the guy back and having to try explain this and figure out which are the non urgent bits and quite frankly, I'm just not up to it. I have told husband to do it but he hasn't and am sure they're now closed. There are certain jobs that are boy jobs, and cars are one of them. I hereby relinquish all responsiblity for the silly cow of a car.

All of this fannying about with a car has not helped my productivity this week. Let's add it up:

• A good hour long wait for my breasts to be fondled on Monday
• A trip to the dentist on Tuesday followed by a trip to the doctor for a child with possible pox
• A day trapped at home with children and no car yesterday
• Half my working day wiped out today plus an eye-stingingly awful bill that's definitely a greater sum than what I made this week working

And tomorrow I potentially can't work because pox child is still semi-poxy and the nursery will ban him. Meanies.

I am starting to realise why people don't work and are stay at home mothers. I mean it's just about impossible to get a full day's work done. I have a grand total of 4 days of childcare left until 5 September. And more work than I can possibly do. I need to splice myself into 4 people. But I think that would hurt.

I'd better stop moaning and go do my month end accounts and bath beasties - although probably not at the same time. Sigh. Sigh. Sigh.

I hope to post cheerier posts soon.

The day gets better

Despite the sun coming out and my laundry at last getting dry, the boys are bored, bored, bored. So in a bid to stop the nagging, I said we could to into town to the park to feed the ducks. After taking a good 30 minutes to get sunblock on/finding crocs/getting bread/final wees etc, we all got into the car, only for the sodding thing not to start. Cue much yelling along the lines of: 'Make it go mummy'. I would if I bloodywell could.

So I called the AA. They told me, after being in a queue for 10 years, that I'm only covered for roadside assistance, not home assistance. So if I could manage to push the car out of the drive and onto the road, I'd be fine. But again, I can't. So I could upgrade for £70. So I say fine, bloody fine. Just do it. Bleed me dry why don't you. But they tell me that my husband is the primary account holder and therefore me (a second rate citizen) cannot do it. I must instruct husband to do it. Husband is busy at a client. He's not going to be calling the AA.

And breathe in for four, and out for eight....

Chicken pox or not chicken pox - what to do is the question.

Youngest child may or may not have chicken pox. Symptoms: whinginess, bad temper, only eating one portion of food unlike his normal 3, a few spots on his left hand and arm that are sort of blistery, the odd spot elsewhere. For someone who is potentially ill, he seems to be full of beans. Quite frankly, I'd like it if he has chicken pox because then I can tick it off the list of childhood illnesses and I'd have a good reason for his vile temper. But he really doesn't seem very poxy.

This is annoying. We can't go play with other people in case he does have the pox (unless they're actively wanting to catch it themselves) but he really doesn't seem poorly enough just to sit around here all day. And they do seem quite intent on driving me mad this morning. This is largely because I am now reading yet another parenting book in a last ditch effort to manage the tantrums from son number 1. This book has so far told me what you're not supposed to do - which is everything apparently. You can't punish or give time outs. You can't reward or praise. I've yet to get to the bit where they tell you what you can do. (I do believe that I might get to the end and they'll just say: Sorry, but you're screwed.) But now I'm stuck in limbo, not really wanting to do anything to them but equally having to do something because they're systematically destroying the house and each other.

In accordance with the book, I'm trying to give them unconditional love, loving them for who they are and not what they do. This is a lot easier said than done. Especially when they smear syrup all over the furniture and decide that shredding a newspaper is a barrell of laughs. And it probably is. Except that they're not the ones having to pick up minute pieces of paper that keep appearing. But I am digging deep into my patience reserves and trying to ignore it. After all, it's just mess right?

My patience is also being tested by a deadly combination of moutains of clothes (about 1% of which are actually mine) which need washing and drying, but the tumble dryer seems to have decided to go on strike and refuses to dry anything, despite using up just about a year's worth of electricity and massively screwing up our carbon footprint, the washing line is still a dismal, wonky version of it's former self and even if I can manage to string a few things up without them touching the ground, the weather keeps changing its mind about whether it's sunny or rainy.

And once again we seem to have run out of food (except for pasta salad which quite frankly I cannot face and will be putting in the bin) which means a grocery shop. That might be a good outing with a poxy child as long as he doesn't actually touch another person. Then again, an online shop is infinitely more peaceful.

So that's my day. Looming large. It's been going since 5.30am and I'm ready to go to bed right now. But I shall soldier on. One very good line from the book I'm reading said something about how the breathing techniques you learn for labour really only come into their own many years later. I whole heartedly agree. And breathe in for four, and out for eight...

Mummy, how do you make babies?

I had just written a complete blog post all about my heady day in which my washing on my proudly erected washing line got soaked in a thunderstorm. I also wrote all about my delightful trip to the breast clinic for a cursory fondling. I moaned about British people moaning about the weather. And I pointed out that I was feeling lethargic thanks to a carb induced coma as a resulting of eating too much left over pasta salad. But for some reason, blogger decided that it wasn't worthy of posting and so failed to save it and simply deleted my post. Which was a little frustrating, given that although the subjects weren't incredibly exciting, they did have a good rant quality to them.

But I cannot be arsed to try and remember what I wrote. So I shall instead relay the conversation I had with my eldest son during bath time (luckily it just wooshed loudly over the little one's head). It went like this:

son: 'Mummy, how do you make babies?'

me: (nervously wonders whether 4.5 is too young to be telling him about the birds and the bees but not managing to think of a very good reason to lie other than that he'll be the kid telling the other kids all about it at school and I'll have several parents ringing me asking why my child was telling their child obscene stories during breaktime). So I thought I'd go for an honestish answer and said: 'You grow them from a seed.'

Cue very puzzled look from son. 'Well how does the seed get in your tummy?'

Good, so that worked well then.

Trying to postpone the inevitable I asked: 'How do you think the seed gets in my tummy?'

son: (ponders the problem for a little while and then says) 'Do you put it in through your belly button?'

I should have just said yes. I should have. And left it at that. But I decided that really, what's the use in lying. He's only going to be picked on mercilessly when he's at school and he tells someone that the way babies are made is via your belly button.

So, taking a deep breath in, I said: When you become a grown up man, your willy will be able to make a type of water that carries the seeds in it. And (even deeper breath) daddies put their willies into mummies girly bits to make the seeds go into mummy's tummy.

And the two of them fall about laughing. Me fearing the worst that this is going to now be repeated to all of their little pre-school friends, wait for the hysteria to stop. 'Water with seeds in it from our willies. Ha ha ha.' The bit about the willy and girly bits seems to have been ignored in their mirth having discovered yet another exciting thing that their willy can do.

Once the jollity had calmed down, he asked: 'But is the baby inside the seed?'

'Well sort of, but it doesn't look like a baby,' I attempt to explain, not really wanting to go into how the sperm finds an egg and then splits into a bunch of cells. Probably a bit Too Much Info. So we then discussed how our tomato seeds didn't really look like tomatoes before they were planted but now they've grown into big green plants and that babies grow the same way.

He considers all of this for some time and then says: 'So when the babies are grown, can we eat them?' I felt like saying, in some cultures they do mate, and well done them. But I didn't.

And after that, I feel I deserve wine.

Well whadduyaknow? The sun shone

Glorious. That's what the weather was (and indeed still is). It was as though we had a hotline to the weather gods and we'd managed to be the 100th lucky caller, thereby getting exactly the weather we wanted.

And so, under blue skies and baking sun, we had our summer party. And amazingly it actually felt like summer. We had about 100 small naked boys tearing around the garden with one or two bemused looking girls sitting on the side wondering how they'd landed in a scene from the Lord of the Flies. They swam, they splashed in an inflatable pirate ship, they ate sprinkles out of ice cream cones filled with ice cream sauce, they bounced on trampolines, they stole handfuls of crisps when they thought no-one was looking, they generally ran amok being little boys and having a ball. We, the grown ups, got to watch while sipping on wine. Some of us were even brave enough to unleash our matronly figures to take a dip.

All in all, it was lovely. There was a slight problem on the catering front insomuch as I obviously thought that I was feeding the entire population of West Berkshire and wanted to ensure everyone also had seconds. So despite applying ourselves diligently all weekend, we still have several large vats of salad and potato bake loitering in the kitchen. Getting numbers right is a female problem. Men don't have this problem because if they were left in charge of the catering there would be one tomato and a lettuce leaf to share between all the guests as salad doesn't count as a food group. There would be a huge surplus of meat, but because it's meat, it would all be eaten by the men in question, so again, no wastage.

But women, we feel the need to make sure that every person must be able to have exactly what they want to eat. And that might well mean an entire bowl of salad to themselves. Which means you have to multiply that volume by the number of guests to ensure everyone has enough. What we should actually do is count the number of female adults and create a small portion of salad for each of them. They won't actually be able to sit still long enough to eat a big portion. The men won't eat salad and the kids think it's poison. So note to self: for future catering, less green stuff.

The company was marvellous and I'd like to take a moment here to mention a special friend who wonders how I can blog without actually discussing anyone in particular. She feels it would be beyond her abilities to not gossip. So Fifi. Here you are. A mention and a gossip just for you. Fifi was the lady who resolutely refused to believe that summer was actually here so came attired in long jeans and a long sleeve shirt and then spent the entire weekend trying to stop her face from turning purple. Next time mad woman, bring a swimsuit.

There was one down side to the party, which only came to my attention this morning. We had to remove our washing line (one of those twirly whirly ones) to make space for small beasties to charge about. This morning I had to hang washing on the line as we seem to have used every towel and swimsuit we own, not to mention that all of last week's laundry was ignored in the pre-party build up. So I attempted to re-erect the washing line.

I feel that the manufacturers of these devices should include some kind of instructions that are stuck on the central pole. I spent about 30 minutes simply trying to get the thing to open. In the process, I managed to break one of the supporting joists and tangled all of the lines. After much cursing and with burning arm muscles, I finally had the thing looking sort of like a washing line again. As I tried to hang the first shirt on the line, I realised that it wasn't quite right given that the shirt was draping on the grass due to a complete lack of tension in the lines. Five years later I had rethreaded the whole sodding thing. It's still not right. But at least the clothes are now dangling a foot off the ground instead of being on it. This is a job for husband.

And now I must pretend to actually do some work instead of staring wistfully out of the window at the sunshine. Although I think I might take a break mid morning to go for a swim....

Summer party - just a casual BBQ - not much effort required really

Tomorrow is the big day. Our annual summer party. We expect to have about 30 adults....and roughly the same number of children....all under the age of 7. The intention is to be outdoors, enjoying the garden, eating our own body weight in BBQd sausages and swimming in the pool. For the kids we've got face paints, bubbles, inflatable plastic things, ride on tractors, sports day games, the trampoline and the pool. For grown ups we've got lots of wine. It should be fab.

But according to the BBC weather page, the forecast is light showers. Excellent. Just what we need. At least they're 'light' showers as opposed to torrential rain with galeforce winds. Which was equally likely. So can't complain really.

As a result, this evening, husband and I shall attempt to erect two marquees - our rainy day back up plan - plus inflate two large inflatable ball pool thingies that will irritate the living hell out of me when the children scatter the balls all over the garden so that we spend the next year finding them nestling amongst our tomato plants. I also have to defrost the 17 tonnes of meat, make a potato bake to feed the masses and attempt to curry some peaches (my casual nod to a South African side dish. If this was a real South African affair, it would be called a Braai and there'd be double the quantity of meat cooked over a coal fire with beer bread, mielie pap and carrot and orange salad with beer - Castle Lager. But it's not, so it's a British BBQ with sausages and Pimms.)

Tomorrow we need to collect ride on tractors, a big gas BBQ from the pub down the road, prepare the rest of the food, clean the pool, set up a million other things including tents for people camping in the garden. And then once people arrive, I'll get to paint children's faces, organise kids races, shout at too many children jumping on the trampoline at once, instruct drunken grown ups to get off the trampoline altogether, serve food, break up fights, get kids into bed when they're over excited and over tired, and clear up.

At some point I do plan on having a glass of wine and a lie in the sun should the rain bugger off.

But it has become apparent to me that I am a fool for organising this party every year. For it to truely be a success I need a) Guaranteed sunshine (not something I'm ever going to get on this grey island) b) staff and lots of them including a herd of babysitters and kids entertainers, plus cleaners, chefs and groundsmen, c) lower expectations.

But fingers crossed it will all go swimmingly. I will attempt to report back with a hangover on Sunday evening. Till then, have a good weekend.

The end of my tether

I wouldn't say I'm at the end of my tether with my 4.5 year old son. However, the tether in question is coming up fast in my rearview mirror and is about to hit my butt.

He's never been an easy child. How fondly I recall my 31st birthday in which my 3 week old baby cried and cried and cried. All day. Non-stop. And of course there were all those days when we tried to go out like normal people who had babies - say to a pub for lunch - and while the other people's babies the same age as ours would merrily fall asleep in their buggies, ours would cry and cry and cry, so that one of us was always pacing and patting, patting and pacing.

Then there were the twos. Never a particularly relaxing time at best. But add a new baby to son number 1's already volatile temper and the result was tantrums of gargantuan proportions. I clearly recall a trip to the park in Henley in which son 1 wanted to go on a carousel and then didn't want to and then did want to and then didn't want to. And eventually, having driven the carousel operator completely mad, we left. This did not please son 1. And he produced the mother of all tantrums. People in powerboats on the river could hear his screaming over the roar of their engines. I had to push a buggy, carry a bag, a picnic blanket and a kicking, screaming, scratching, roaring demon-possessed beastie the full length of the park back to the car with everyone else watching in awe. I was dripping in sweat by the time I got there. My friends had managed to catch up with me at this point and it took three of us - THREE FULLY GROWN ADULTS - to get one small devil into his carseat.

He mellowed slightly in his 3s, eager to please but still prone to violent mood swings. But since turning 4 he has apparently left childhood behind and headed straight into puberty. The attitude and back chat is something to behold. He's taken to spitting, hitting and kicking. He sulks. If you attempt to explain why you want him to do something, he covers his ears and yells: 'I'm not talking to you.' In fact, I'm not even sure why he bothers covering up his ears because I don't believe they work anyway. I think when I talk, all he hears is a low level hum - like an annoying bee - so he simply walks away from it. This has meant that I talk louder until I shout.

I have become that loud, shouty mother who constantly threatens with counting to 3, warnings of sitting on the step and most recently plenty of talk about certain bottoms becoming acquainted with my hand. I know that all of it is completely and utterly ineffectual.

I know what I need to do. I need to pick my battles. I need to follow through. I need to praise the positives. I need to distract and turn things into games. And I need to give him plenty of one-on-one attention. I've read the books. I know what you're supposed to do.

However, those books are obviously written by people who don't also have 1 besqillion other things that they have to get done in any given day. They're also written by people who have all won nobel peace prizes and are saints in waiting. They're written by people who don't mind picking up the same puzzle pieces seventy times a day or having their ear buds used by their child and thrust back into the box so that you can stick a waxy ear bud in your own ear at a later date. They're written by people who have an infinite amount of patience and a super human ability to not get riled by doors being slammed in their face or felt tip pen artwork on their brand new kitchen cupboards. They're written by people who don't mind spending 15 minutes to reinforce the point that cushions live on the chairs and not the floor. They're written by people who don't mind having to eat another slice of toast with peanut butter because their child has insisted on having it only to say: 'But I don't want more toast. You're stupid. You shouldn't have made it. You eat it.'

These books are obviously written by people who can laugh in the face of adversity. They're probably war correspondents in their spare time, keeping calm in the face of life threatening danger. They probably negotiate world peace on their spare afternoons and give 'anger management' counselling to Sadam Hussein and Slobodan Milosovic (obviously they're no longer clients), Robert Mugabe and Osama Bin Laden. And if that isn't enough, they probably knit their own lentils and make lampshades out of recycled newspapers.

I applaud the authors of those books and I wholeheartedly invite them into my house to take over for a while. Because I need a time out and I'm going to go sit on the naughty step.

(And if my parents are reading this: yes, I know exactly who he sounds like and yes I know it's karma and that I thoroughly deserve this, having been a beastie child myself. I would like to formally apologise now for being the revolting little creature I was. To be fair, I couldn't help it, just like he can't. But now I fully understand why you always had a drink in the evening.)