Lion for school dinner? WTF.......

Look, it's Christmas, the retail world has gone berserk, the British consumer has gone bonkers and I'm in no mood for jovial banter.  I'm having to drag my fingers along the keyboard as we speak.

However, I've decided that my annual festive whinge about, well, festivities of a festive nature, must come to an end.  You can just go back and read my Christmas-time blog cerca 2012 and 2013, my feelings haven't changed and I've nothing further to add on the subject. (If you believe that, you'll believe anything!)

So instead, here's what's been on the menu in the daily grind of the lives of my family, and other animals.

Me: "What did you have for dinner at school today Teddy?"

Teddy: "Pork lion and chips."

Note to self, ask teacher is Teddy is displaying any other signs of childhood dyslexia and, if not, report the school catering service to the WWF.

I'm dyslexic but did quite well in my O' Levels (well, when a B was a good grade, those were the days eh!?) and launched myself into the Sixth Form studying Economics, French and English Literature.

After a full year of wasting my teachers' time, my French had not progressed past ordering a cheese and ham toastie and I still didn't have a clue what Economics actually was.

The only good thing about Economics was the size of the text books.

One day while babysitting my friend's younger brothers, a mahoooosive spider decided to wander by the table where I doing my homework (and, well, largely still sat wondering what Economics was all about).

Being arachnophobic as well as dyslexic, I found that one of my Economics text books finally had a purpose in life (or should I say, in death).

Speaking of babysitters, our own babysitter proved to be just as resourceful the other day when he locked himself in our downstairs toilet.

While my two sons wet themselves laughing at him from the other side of the door, emptied the sweet tin and watched half an hour of porn, the babysitter finally used his initiative and employed my best eyebrow tweezers to undo the screws on the door handle mechanism and remove it, in its entirety.

And speaking of FaceBook.... OK, so I wasn't actually speaking about FaceBook but I have completely no suitable segue so I'm just winging it.

I recently saw a post regarding the sale of a hoodie aimed at bra-burning divorcees proclaiming heroine status and bearing the printed on words, "Happily divorced, never make the same mistake!"

I have ordered one, but decided to personalise it.  On the reverse mine reads: 

"Oops, I did it again."

And speaking of tasteless slogans (ah, see, the segue works this time), I've just bought myself a Toyota Aygo despite last month's Go Fun Yourself! blog rant AND went even further by buying my son an item of Hollister clothing DESPITE the poster above the rail bearing the letters WTF?

Dear advertising executives, please think outside the box and ditch the bad language.  There must be people out there with fresh ideas in their heads rather than just blindly following the Simon Cowell-style theory that controversy creates headlines and headlines create sales / audience growth and therefore any publicity is good publicity. Or am I being too optimistic?

I'm worried that my social rant has stepped into the realm of my professional opinion and therefore I will continue this 'debate' on my PR business blog over at www.deadlines-pr.co.uk.

So to round off withdewrespect-style, WTF, let's just use a picture of a fit chap with a surfboard.

The birthday monologues

It's been that time of year when, like car showrooms on weekends, we've been festooned with balloons, remortgaged the house, lived off beans on toast for a month and sold the sofa on ebay.

Yes, it's birthday time!!  The time of year when I watch my two boys rip open their presents with joy and I weep as my ISA bleeds.

Daniel, about to become seven, opted for laser warfare followed by Macdonalds with four friends, his self-made invitation reading, READY TO FIGHT PEOPLE?

Mum and dad traipsed the five boys around in two cars from home to LazerZone to Macdonalds and back home again.

On the last leg of the journey, I asked the giddy chattering boys who would like to come in my car.

Billy put his hand up, the others went silent and looked at the ground.

"Great Billy, jump in the car sweetheart."

"But....why can't I go in Gary's car?" whimpered Billy.

"Well, you put your hand up when I asked who wanted to come in my car," I replied.

"Oh, I didn't hear the question properly."

Once some of the boys had been bribed with confectionary into getting in my car (clearly not the fun option) I enjoyed their banter.

"Woah, look at that Mazda Oliver," said Dylan.

"That's not Asda, that's Sainsbury's," said Oliver.

As we passed the Huddersfield Town stadium, Billy piped up: "I go there to watch the footie."

"That's nice Billy, do you go with your mum and dad?, I asked.

"No, just my dad, my mum doesn't like football, she just likes boring trampolining," scoffed Billy.

Blimey, seems all us mums are very dull aren't we?!

Teddy has also had a birthday and received a card with £12 in it from a dear friend and neighbour.

"I wonder why Monica gave me £12 and not £10," pondered Teddy, "it's a strange amount."

I let him stew over it for a few days, before asking: "Teddy, how old were you last week?"

"Twelve mum, why.......ah, that's why Monica gave me £12 for my birthday!"

Friends, and now close family members (you know who you are mother), now use a stock phrase, 'it's a good job he's gorgeous!'

Friends no longer give me gifts, they offer presents in kind in the form of blog fodder with the opening, 'hey, I've got a good one for your blog Dianne....'

Here's one such classic gift.

At an aerobics class my friend attended, the instructor hollered: "Come on ladies, shake what your mama gave you!!"

My friend dutifully grapevined and muttered under her breath, "what, you mean low self esteem, fat ankles and arachnophobia?"

And speaking of car showrooms....

What bunch of marketing diploma'd twerps sat round a glass table in a glass-walled office in their Top Shop suits dreamt up the summer's Toyota Aygo slogan?

And I wonder how many brightly coloured helium-filled balloons were required to counteract that welcoming (?!) 'down with the kids' play on words....

Is this the future of advertising?

Nice.

(Funnily enough, when I Googled the words, go fun yourself, the next predicted word was, 'complaints'.)

True story (well, I wouldn't make that up would I?!)

My journey to work yesterday, dull though this narrative may at first appear as potential blog-fodder, was actually, well, quite a journey.

Walking up the steps to my sleepy unmanned village station I passed a gentleman I see every morning.  I won't say we exactly exchange pleasantries, but as fellow commuters we do exchange the British 'nod'.


Half way up the steps (OK, this is a long story!), the platform speaker stirred into action with the mechanical disjointed announcement that the, next, train, at, platform, three (oddly numbered as there are actually only two platforms) is, the, 9.02, to Huddersfield; my train.

Three steps higher (bear with me....), and I could see the train pulling into the station.  I shouted back down the steps, 'it's here' to prompt the aforementioned gentleman to get a wriggle on.

I leaped on to the train, waved my customary wave to my hubby as I passed our house (it's getting very Enid Blyton today isn't it?) and settled down to send a few texts and e.mails.

Ten minutes later I looked up and had that awful heart-sinking realisation that the landscape out of the train window was not the landscape of my usual route to Huddersfield.

Indeed, two minutes later the conductor confirmed my error by announcing our imminent arrival in....Brighouse, not Huddersfield.

The blood drained out of my face and as we pulled into Brighouse I was crossing every finger and toe that the gentleman had not heeded my erroneous holler and followed me on to the train like a lamb to the slaughter (well, OK, Brighouse).

As I waited for the train doors to open on a drizzly Brighouse morning, a familiar nodding head popped up from a seat further down the carriage, looked around in shock and confusion. I shrugged my shoulders and hung my nodding head in shame.

I could not have been more embarrassed and apologetic and in the space of a few minutes we moved from sharing a train to sharing life stories as we jogged around the streets of Brighouse trying to find a taxi, calling bosses and cancelling meetings on our mobiles and eventually sharing the final leg of our eventful journey by road.

Having bared my story of idiocy with the world (world, four blog readers, potato, potato), I will now segue seamlessly to other journey stories from the mouths of, yes, you guessed it, my very own babes / angels.


Daniel, 15 minutes from the end of a 14-hour-journey to Cornwall involving four feature-length Disney films, two MacDonalds, one Little Chef, four wee stops, a dozen games of Eye Spy, six car colour counting competitions and seven rounds of 'I went to the supermarket and I bought...': "Mum, I'm bored, are we there yet?"

Bless.

Teddy, on the journey of an ebay sale from my 'things to ebay' box, half way around the world to the ebay purchaser in Australia: "Mum, will they send a whole plane just with your jacket in it?"

God help us!

A Voyage into the Unknown or A Night Under Nylon or Carry on Camping

I never use the 'c' word, it's just not nice is it?

I do use the 'f' word, 'w' word and the 's' words though, a lot!!!

(please see key at end of blog before reading on)

My mid-life crisis finally manifested this week as a sudden urge to prove my family and friends wrong and show them that I am indeed capable of....camping!  Bearing in mind, my idea of slumming it had previously been a new style executive lodge at Center Parcs! 

Get me!!  .....to coin a phrase, it's 'cheaper than a (-nother) divorce, a Mini Cooper soft top and colonic irrigation'.

In fact, on hearing the news my mum immediately rang my brother and gave him three guesses what item his sister was least likely to buy:

Guess 1:  A 4x4 (please refer to previous blogs for references to my loathing of all vehicular monstrosities)
Guess 2:  A motorbike (see above)
Guess: 3: A tent.

"Boys, get in the car, we're going to Go Outdoors!" (please note the capitalisation, Go Outdoors is the name of a shop, not just me letting the kids out of the attic; please don't call Esther, I'm on a final warning)

So, my knowledge of camping is limited to the fact that one needs a tent.

I bought a huge tent in the sale and splashed out on a portable toilet (stop it, you're making your own jokes up now!).

I arrived home quite pleased with myself and booked a camp site for that very evening.  Sorted.

It was then that my camping-savvy friend pointed out I would need more than a tent and a toilet.

Quite a lot of f***ing stuff.

Anyways, said savvy friend has all the gear so I loaded up the car until I  could just see out of a square foot through the windscreen and I've got the kids strapped to the roof (put the bloody phone down, I'm only joking!).

Friends scoffed that a 5* camp just up the road with a heated pool, shop, pub, spa and golf course was not necessarily slumming it or being at one with nature.

So here's my camping experience in a series of number 1s (I told you before, STOP with the toilet humour).

No 1 weird experience: Walking away from a check-in desk without a key.

No 1 catchprase of the weekend: "It's a right blooming rigmarole." (even the 6-year-old was saying this after the first few hours)

No 1 (and no 2) new experience: Being so hot in the UK that I thought I would melt, being so cold at night I thought I would freeze.  Note to self, tents are not good at heat regulation.

No 1 best experience: Playing rounders with a bunch of complete strangers as the sun goes down.


No 1 surreal sighting: A lady in a bikini with her baby the small circular paddling pool. (...and realising you had seen her before....on the telly in a bikini in a small circular birthing pool popping out her baby on One Born Every Minute.)

No 1 lesson learnt (despite having the phrase 'never a lender nor a borrower be' drilled into me from birth): Don't borrow a friend's fancy fridge then fried it to 'beyond' an inch of its life in the baking heat.


Pre-camping No 1 desert island soundtrack of life: Kids playing, the sweet titanium tonk of driver head hitting golf ball and birds tweeting on a summer's morn.

Post-camping No 1 'line-them-up-and-shoot-them' soundtrack of life (when I'm trying to sleep): Kids playing, the sweet titanium tonk of driver head hitting golf ball and birds tweeting on a summer's morn.

No 1 son camping blooper (uttered en route to camp site):  "Mum, when they are driving, how do blind people read the road signs?"


I'm enjoying the list thing but going to stop now and leave you with a classic non-camping-related blooper borrowed from a friend (I'm sure copyright / libel writs will one day haunt me, if only from my own son).

Child of friend: "Mum, you know that insulin stuff that that they have in lofts, is that the same thing which keeps Diabetes people warm?"

KEY
c = camping
f = five star hotel
w = weekend in Paris
s = spa

Why are there so many bikes on the roads.....?

From the ballet to comedy-drama, blimey withdewrespect has gone all theatrical daahrlings.

Bear with me, normal whinging and observations on the absurdities of life (and my family) will resume shortly but for now here's a review from LOST BOY RACER, a partnership production with West Yorkshire's beautiful, amazing number one arts venue...drum roll.....the Lawrence Batley Theatre (oh, and also my employer!).

Apparently there are some biker chaps heading to Yorkshire next week.....have you heard anything about it?!

LOST BOY RACER
Lost Boy Racer is a theatrical foray into the world of cycling-obsession and ties in nicely with upcoming phenomenon of the Tour de France getting underway on Yorkshire soil.
Suiting its billing as a comedy-drama, the production has moments of frivolity, poignancy and downright darkness with a hooded BMX-er dancing with a bike to a sombre soundtrack.
Sean Racer has 'unfinished business' with a childhood spent on two wheels and the tale of a schoolboy race which ended in a broken friendship threads through the performance.
We meet Sean as a lonely fish-and-chips -scoffing tax inspector whose encounter with dodgy-dealing hairdresser Linda-Marie inspires him to get back in the saddle and compete in Le Tour.....in his garden shed.
There are notable performances from Thomas Aldersley as Sean and Robin Simpson as Claude, his bike tinkering / ex-pro mechanic friend whose every line is a clever metaphor to reflect his belief that cycling lives in the heart, soul and even sentences, of those who love the sport.
The cast move around a giant sculpture cannily crafted from bike bits, the creation of Tim Tolkien (yes, a distant relative of J.R.R himself).
The performance, although punctured with the odd opening night teething problem, was an excellent showcase of new writing emerging from Yorkshire and specifically the pen of Julie Bokowiec.
With fast-flowing direction from Liz Postlethwaite (yes, another distant relative of the one-and-only late Pete) there's never a dull moment during the hour and half ride through the themes of love lost and found, the hardships of self-employment, thwarted dreams and the extremes of human emotion from despair to elation.
It's gritty and real apart from perhaps the slightly unbelievable hair salon sideline in motor oil which gets even less believably mistaken for shampoo.  The oil is illegally procured from next door, syphoned off a chip shop fryer which eventually goes up in flames, freeing the owner from her shackles to jump on a bicycle made for two and head into the sunset, sorry Scunthorpe, with Claude.
One highlight,  ticking the publicised 'off-the-wall' box, is the supporting cast of community volunteers, donned in a heady mix of colourful costume ensembles from onesies to tutus, as the road-side crowds cheering Sean on reaches the end of the road.
Accompanying the pounding music of Mark Bokowiec (yes, the husband), the cast throw some excellent shapes, literally, and create some visually stunning freeze frames.
A partnership production with the Lawrence Batley Theatre, Lost Boy Racer is heading from Huddersfield to The Lowry in Manchester and then on to Harrogate and Wakefield in early July.
If you missed the show in Huddersfield, you can still call into the Lawrence Batley Theatre for some cycling-themed art and check out their tactile exhibition of crocheted and knitted bikes in the theatre's foyer, yes really, life size cycles make of wool!

A 'living' swan

Don't you just love being British?  I do.

I'm not making a political comment here by the way, I'm just saying.

The etiquette of the Brit is, in my opinion, second-to-non on the planet.  (Says she with very little experience of anywhere much further afield than Brid).  However, as The Beautiful South sang so beautifully, I shall carry on regardless.....

I  know in my last blog, I was banging on about lack of etiquette when it comes to the Per Una lady taking a leak in M&S but today I'm putting a positive spin on the peculiarities of habitual behaviours in our green and pleasant land.

And, before I'm accused of making a religious comment, I refer to our green and pleasant land in the literal sense and countryside British etiquette in respect of the rules of the road.

NO, it's not another lecture about bad driving.  The road may be the same, but I'm referring to different users, those who choose to travel along them at speed, but on foot.

I'm a jogger, not exactly gaining any of the aforementioned speed as I pootle along the country lanes near my home, however I am technically jogging.

While out on the green lanes and roads, I exchange the customary nod and 'good morning' or 'good evening' (as the hour dictates) with anyone who crosses my path; fellow joggers, dog-walkers, ramblers, everyone except those pesky cyclists who just whizz past with an air of superiority and not so much of a glance in my direction.

However, the nearer I get to the built up areas the etiquette takes a stark change of direction.  What was a pleasant formality a few metres away would now appear just plain weird.  I mosey past people, sweating and panting, but my eyes are fixed firmly on the pavement and, in turn, the other people also do everything in their power (i.e. look at their watch or mobile phone intently) to avoid looking in my direction.

Why does the presence of homes and shops change this etiquette?  It's not that there are more people in the built up streets.  For example, if I met just four people on the country roads and also only four people in the town centre, the aforementioned pleasantries would only be exchanged with the four folk on the country lanes.

It's like being on the tube.  I've noticed as a mother travelling with children, it's OK to smile at other mothers travelling with children of a similar age; not weird at all.  However, outside the parameters of these exact specifications, no one EVER smiles at anyone else on the London Underground.

There are times when I ponder the unspoken laws of the road, the tube and indeed the time-honoured rules of what one is and is not expected to do at certain times in life and I just think, 'oh fuck it!'

For example, I took up ballet when I was 40 and now spend a couple of deliriously happy hours a week dancing with a bunch of ladies, and gents, of a certain age and we have a whale of a time (no pun intended).

In fact, I penned a little something, mainly for myself, but as I'm clearly in a 'fuck it' mood (must be the cheap white wine), I thought I'd share.

Why ballet?

Ballet at 40, who'd have thought?
A tutu she dashed out and bought.
She huffed and puffed as she pulled it on,
Picture a flaccid, bingo-winged swan.

Her piroettes got just half way round
And echappe jumps would shake the ground.
Grand plies; too much for the pelvic floor,
And saw her running for the door.

Back in class, she'd fondu with the rest
But chaines turns were a bit of a test.
Like cheap white wine, they'd spin her round
Until she'd land in a heap on the ground.

But for her, there is only one barre,
And within the year, she's come so far.
With strength and grace, her head held high,
She replies 'why not', when they ask her 'why'?

Ballet at 40, who'd have thought? 

The tutu? Best thing I've ever bought! 

Please note this is NOT me....it's some dancing bird called Darcy, never heard of her myself.

Too busy writing to do lists to write

Dear Blog,
I apologise profusely that your big brother, the writing career, has been getting all the attention lately.  As the younger and less lucrative sibling, the writing hobby, I'm sorry you've been neglected.

So with five minutes to spare, I thought I'd give you a little bit of my time for being so patient.

Thank you.

Speaking of me running around like a blue @*&$% fly setting up my own writing business, can somebody out there please find my husband a job!?

Our back garden has started to look like a village railway station eagerly awaiting the judges of Britain in Bloom.  Our local B&Q has sold out of hanging baskets and bedding plants and he keeps buying new lawn mowers to improve the stripe in the grass (all six sq ft of it).  He's really going to town on the whole 'garden leave' thing.  Well, no actually, he's not going to 'town', he never actually makes it past the garden centre.

Anyway, my new business DEadlines (PR, Journalism, Copy & Creative) is coming along nicely.  So far, I've been to Staples (Gary came with me because B&Q is next door) and bought 'supplies', raided my neighbour's garage for an old desk, set up shop in the corner of a friend's office and started designing a fancy website.  I'll get around to actually doing some work some day soon!

I'm also very busy networking (or as some might call it, 'drinking coffee') but not neglecting mum duties and even baked buns for my boys' football presentation day last week.  I was devastated, however, when out of the hundreds of goodies, lovingly baked and donated to the homemade cake stall, mine were the ones left at the end that they couldn't give away!

My little cherub, the one who's 11, came out with another corker as we baked never-to-be-eaten buns together.

"Mum, can I help with the misker?"

"Eh?"

"The misker, that machine thing you use for baking."

"Do you mean the whisk, or the mixer?"

"Yes, that's the one!"

I've also been busy ridding myself of a nasty chesty, upper respiratory, sinusy, allergy thing (the doctors hedged their bets) that has plagued me for months.

One day I developed a severe pain in my ribs so I dumped the kids with a neighbour and rushed off to A&E fearing the worst, such as appendicitis or an ectopic pregnancy (with hand of God intervention).  Some people (a very rude group of 'some people' consisting largely of my husband) alleges I'm a hypochondriac. Nonsense, I say.

I did however get the feeling, after waiting many, many, many hours and watching every other patient in the waiting room (and several shifts of staff) come and go, that perhaps the nurse in triage had also joined the group of 'some people'.  However, instead of being categorised with the triage code H for hypochondriac, I think I was a J (which stands for 'Just ignore her and she might go away').

I was eventually diagnosed with intercostal muscle strain from coughing and sent home with a flea in my ear for wasting NHS resources. (I even had to return the flea the next day)
(I once had an emergency appointment at the dentist only to discover that the source of my agonising pain was some food stuck between my teeth.)

Anyway, speaking of humiliation.  I would like to formally and unreservedly shame Per Una-wearing 60-something-year-old ladies who shop at M&S, well, just the ones with a bad aim (you know who you are)!!

Crime scene: Ladies toilets, first floor, Marks and Spencers, Trinity Centre, Leeds.

You've queued for ten minutes, propped the door open with your foot and it's now your turn.  Mrs Per Una comes out of a cubicle, you smile and politely side-step her, close the door and hang up your bag.  Then you spot it. Wee, ALL OVER THE SEAT.  You can't walk out and use another loo as there's a queue of hopping ladies outside and there's only so much Tena Lady can handle.

MY aiming prowess is second to none.  However, in this scenario, I'm duty-bound to wipe someone else's wee away, just so the lady who dashes into the cubicle after me doesn't glare and tut.

I have a friend who has a sign above her guest loo.

"If you sprinkle while you tinkle,
Please be sweet and wipe the seat."

Maybe I should print this out on my shiny new printer, on finest Staples paper, laminate it on my new laminator and fly post them in every cubicle in every M&S in the country.  Then, I'll get some work done.

Fair point, I DO write a lot

What my six-year-old can't do with paper, the inside of toilet rolls and sellotape, isn't worth doing.  The other day he constructed a clever little hand-held device thingy, all pointy and just super.
He asked me if I liked it.
"Yes, it's great Daniel, is it a watch?"
"No."
"Is it a wrist band?"
No."
Think woman, think.
"Ah, is it a Ben Ten Omnitrix?"
"No."
"I givey up love, what is it?"
"A knuckle duster."

I've written about my dear father before and the post-stroke / mid-dementia state of his mental health. One beautiful story from just a few weeks before he went into full-time residential care is this, short and simple.
He rang my mum to ask what her number was.
For 15 minutes mum tried to explain that he already had her number as he had just called it but it was to no avail so she distracted him by asking what the weather was like (even though they lived about a mile apart).

I'm happy to report that my dad has taken to residential care like a duck to water.  I made a surprise visit this week and arrived to find he was down the pub with a fellow lady resident!
The carers had mentioned that my dad had struck up a friendship with a lady called Dorothy so I naturally presumed he was out with Dorothy.
When they arrived back, I rushed over, keen to say hello to Dorothy, only to be quickly corrected by one of the carers.
"Oh, that's not Dorothy, that's Margaret, Dorothy's over there," pointing to the lady who was glaring a jealous glare at Margaret as she waltzed back in from the pub!
You still got it eh dad!?

I seem to be making incorrect presumptions quite a lot recently.
I'm setting myself up as a freelance writer with a Government start-up scheme and I have a mentor who is guiding me through the Business Plan preparation.
We met the other day to discuss the first draft of my Plan.
Now, friends have often said the biggest hurdle to my entrepreneurial dreams is that I'm not very good at selling myself and believing in my abilities.
As this is something I'm trying to work on, the perfect opportunity arose when my mentor looked over my draft plan and said: "Well, I can see you're a writer."
Normally I would have replied: "I'm not that good, there are much better writers than me, I just like throwing words together."
But I decided the new me would accept the compliment so I simply said: "Thank you."
He looked up, surprised at being thanked and corrected himself: "No, I just meant you'd written a lot more than most people do."

My wonderful son Teddy has been at it again, opening his mouth without the words passing anywhere near his brain beforehand.
On the way to Bridlington this week, the train slowed and I told him to put his coat on as we were nearly in Hull, where we had to change.
We passed a football stadium just before we arrived in Hull station.
"Mum, is that Huddersfield Town?"

I speak Portuguese (as does Teddy, much better than me).  But it occurred to me today that, other than being able to converse with my Brazilian neighbour in her native tongue and sing along at Nando's, it's not of much benefit in West Yorkshire.

I've written a poem about ballet and I've got something to say about the ladies toilets at Marks & Spencers but I'm trying to learn from my mentor that less is more!

(PS: I'll be back)

My dad

Let's hope Joseph Priestley never needed to order a ham and cheese toastie

Teddy (11) has been doing his homework.

He had to make sentences using ten words which he then needs to learn for next week's spelling test.

"Muuuuum, what does psychic mean?  Is it like Robin is to Batman?"

I don't feel I need to write any more in my blog this time.  Less is more and all that....

But any longstanding withdewrespect reader will know full well, that's never going to happen.

Am I bit strange (no, you can't send answers on a postcard!)?

I like school dinners, hospital food and especially the food in little compartmentalised plastic cartons on aeroplanes.  What's that all about?  (that's not rhetorical, I'll ask my therapist)

I like the television volume on an even number (preferably 10) and my coathangers all have to be the same way around.  Isn't that just good sense?

My OCD stared me in the face the other day when I spotted 6-year-old Daniel wiping his mouth with a wet wipe after tea, opening the Brabantia and giving it a quick wipe round the inside rim before throwing the wipe inside and closing the lid with his elbow.

Daniel and I share brown eyes, and clearly so much more.  We struggle to walk down the street together as we bump into each other as we try to avoid the cracks in the pavement.

However, my little 'quirks' aside, at least integrity is high on my list, if not at the top of, my approach to parenting.

I just don't get those smug and overtly mumsy mums in the park who say in a very loud voice, for everyone to hear: "Come on sweetheart, ten more swings then we're going home to make gluten-free brownies and play Junior Scrabble before we get out the crafting activities and enjoy our salad and fruit lunch."

You know full well that as soon as they get home they'll stick CBeebies on the box in the kids' bedroom, hand out the Hula Hoops and Haribos, put the kettle on and settle down to watch Jeremy Kyle on catch up.

I've been reading about Joseph Priestley (1722 - 1804) this week.  No, not an actual proper book, just on Wikipedia.  (I would read an actual book but I've still got seven episodes of Jeremy Kyle to get through)

Joseph was born in Birstall, near Batley, not a million miles from where I now live, hence the interest.

What a guy!  He was a theologian, clergyman, natural philosopher, chemist, educator and political theorist who published over 150 works, and was credited with the discovery of oxygen and invention of soda water.

Blimey, what a super intelligent chap.

Or so I thought.  Until I read this paragraph.

"Priestley's illness left him with a permanent stutter and he gave up any thoughts of entering the ministry at that time. In preparation for joining a relative in trade in Lisbon, he studied French, Italian, and German in addition to Chaldean, Syrian, and Arabic."

Don't put that in your blog......

There was some sort of twisted irony involved or a little horned Devil character somewhere going, 'nah, nah, nah, nah nah' when my friend took a tumble at home and badly injured her knee.  She went sprawling on her stone kitchen floor having tripped up on the handle of her Tesco 'bag for life'.  What sort of message is that!?  Do a good deed for society, future generations and the world, save trees, cut waste to landfill etc etc, and what do you get, a huge bruise and a limp?!

It's rare these days that friends actually divulge such stories, and if they do, it's usually preceded with, 'don't you dare use this in your blog!'

It's usually Teddy who unwittingly walks head-first into blooper-ville, then he'll turn, frown his beautiful frown and warn, 'no mum' as I surreptitiously reach for pen and paper.

Who, me?!  As if I would Teddy, I reply, indignant (and pretend to write a shopping list).

Why, it was just last week that I promised I wouldn't write about him trying to use his little brother's bucket and spade to make 'water castles' on the beach in Dubai and I swore I wouldn't re-tell his struggle to adjust a sunbed.

Teddy: "Mum, how do I make the back go down a bit on my sunbed?"

Me: "Just pull your arms up and then lean back."

So he did. (cue smiley face with a raised eyebrow and a slight incline at the corner of the mouth)

(Sorry if you're a newcomer to withdewrespect, you're expected to work out the endings to some tales yourself and reading between the lines is a must.)

And, back to Teddy, it's absolutely not even worth mentioning what he said as he bobbed around in the swimming pool, buoyed up by the jet of warm water from the pool's temperature control system.

"Look mum, I'm defining gravity."

The thing is, I can justify using the words and actions of my nearest and dearest as blog-fodder as I'm only too happy to wag the finger of parody at my own bloopers and let's face it, moments when quite honestly I'm a right dingbat, an embarrassment to myself, my family and the human race in general.

I recall, for example, one of my first college lectures when I was doing my Degree as a mature student and keen to be cool and be down with fellow freshmen nearly ten years my junior.

We were in a small room, seated side-by-side in an intimate horseshoe shape with the literature lecturer facing us reading out the register to check our attendance.  I was full of cold.

"Beckton?"....I just managed to confirm my presence with my bunged up tones when it happened.......'ha, ha, ha, ha.......ha, chew!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'

There was no time to pull a soggy tissue from up my sleeve or even raise the lecture notes to take the force of the blow.

A marble-sized globule of dark green phlegm shot out of my nose.

Thankfully, as a long-term cold-sufferer, my hand-nose coordination is fairly good so I managed to catch aforementioned matter and clutch it in my fist for duration of the class.

Uncomfortable you may think.  Well, yes.  But the discomfort of a fistful of snot is nothing compared to the fact that the young student dude sat next to me had witnessed the whole thing.  AND, my humiliation doesn't even end there.  I caught his eye as he saw me catch the sneeze and I then heard him practically choke to death on a suppressed guffaw as the lecturer paused, then continued with the next name on the register.

"Greening?"

I swear it's a true story, well you wouldn't make it up would you!?  Ooo, I've kept that story a secret for a long time, I feel its telling was a very cathartic experience for me......or do I mean catarrh-tic?

Anyway,  back to Dubai.  Like a Center Parcs holiday many moons ago, I return from the UAE with very little blog fodder. Disappointing.

What can you say about Dubai that everyone hasn't already seen a programme on!  Here are the things that stuck in my mind about Dubai, in no particular order:

• It's man-made
• It's hot
• It's big and there are lots of sky-scrapers, lots and lots of them
• It has the world's tallest sky-scraper (and, as and when Japan build a bigger one, Dubai will no doubt stick another floor on top of the Burj Khalifa, simples)
• It's man-made (did I mention that already?)
• Not many of the people who live in Dubai are actually from Dubai, or indeed the UAE
• It's made out of concrete (which has been made by man and machine)
• I'm bored of this list now
• Very rich people live there, in the concrete, and drive around in fancy cars, on roads made out of concrete
• The concrete is made by men who look really unhappy as they sit hunched on the cronky old buses which ferry them into Dubai at the crack of dawn and then ferry them back to their homes in the sandy suburbs late in the evening, looking equally unhappy and very tired - I could go on about the many, many instances of inequality in Dubai but I won't
• Why do people on aeroplanes stand as soon as the plane has finished taxi'ing and then stand for the next 20 minutes with their heads at a jaunty (and surely uncomfortable) angle and one ear pressed up against the light switch and air blower panel?  Answers on a postcard.

Whodunnit?

Dragon's Den here I come....

In fact, I'm not sure I should be writing about my most recent stroke of genuis while I'm on hold to the Intellectual Property Office helpline.

My proposal is to create a simple testing kit, a bit like a pregnancy test, however it will utilise multiple colour-coding to present results.

It's going to be costly to produce initially as DNA technology will be involved in the process of creating the testing formula.

But, my goodness me, it will sell like hot cakes.  There's not a woman in the land who won't rush out and buy one as soon as they hit the shelves.

The instructions will read thus:

Remove plastic wrapper and dispose of responsibly.

(The kit is made from 100% recycled materials).

Holding the white plastic end of the stick, firmly rub the other end on the test area.

Ensure the end is fully coated.

Wait five minutes.  The tip will gradually change colour.

Bingo!  Your culprit will be revealed. For example, let's say blue is for husband, red for son no.1, green for son no. 2 and orange for visitors etc.

Poirot-like, you can waltz into the front room and declare: "Ha, ha, now I know exactly who has been splashing their wee around the toilet seat and carpet!"

The Dip-stick (working title) instructions will have small print:

Dip-stick does not accept responsibility for matrimonial disharmony, sweets-withdrawal-style punishments or violence which may ensue following the testing procedure.

Well, what a great idea all you ladies are thinking (yes, I'm stereotyping, so shoot me (no, not you Daniel, put the Nerf gun down).  Dip-stick will put an end to the following scenario:

Wife: "Who has wee'd on the toilet seat and the carpet?"
Husband: "Not me."
Son no 1: "Not me."
Son no 2: "Not me."

By the way, the numbering of my children is purely chronological, not favouritism.

But as E. Nesbit said in The Railway Children:  "Of course, mothers never have favourites, but if their mother had had a favourite, it might have been Roberta".

Anyway, I've banged on about the very different forms of love we feel for our children in a previous blog so I won't repeat myself.  Go and read it!

I've leave you with another of my favourite 'tales from Teddy', voiced just this week.

"Mum, if we knocked down our conservatory, would you get your money back for it?"

You couldn't write this stuff.

Oh go on, you know you want another.....this is yesterday's,  hot off the press.

"Mum, you know how sometimes the weeks seem to fly by and then other weeks seem to go slower?"
"Yes Teddy, that's true and very observant, good boy."
"Well, do you think different countries take it in turns having weeks that go slow or fast?"

I don't know about other countries, but apparently next week is due to fly by, with mild temperatures and showers, on Planet Ted.

OCD, I have thoughts on that as well as males with bad aims, but more of that for my next blog....

Note to new product researchers at Betterware or Lakeland, please contact me on my landline.

Say what you mean, and mean what you say....

....that's my motto.

I have other mottos, many, many other mottos, but 'say what you mean, and mean what you say' is today's 'theme'.  (Yes, OK, thank you for pointing out there isn't usually a 'theme' and I just ramble from one topic to another without rhyme nor reason)

Hypocrisy, there's a lot of it about and I don't deny I fall under its evil spell from time to time.  But by and large I try my best to steer clear of it, hence the blog name, i.e. .....with due respect to whoever I'm about to p*** off, I'm just saying what I mean!!

Let's take guns as an example.  I abhor warfare and violence, full stop.  However...

"Oh, you let Daniel have a gun?!  Well, I'm a pacifist and I don't let my children play with guns," a fellow mum told me many moons ago.

Her son was eyeing my son's new Nerf N-Strike Elite Alpha Trooper Blaster with what I can only describe as pure lust while his mum made me feel like had a dinner plate-sized swastika tattoo'd on my thigh.

The thing is this; some kids will be 'into' guns, others won't.  And one thing is certain, children who play with guns won't automatically join the armed forces (if that's the concern of anti-toy gun mums) and I'm fairly certain most won't become gun-toting mass murdering lunatics either.

IT'S A TOY!!!!!  I'M not being a hypocrite, I don't like racing cars either but I don't stop my son having dozens of them to race across the laminate in the kitchen.

My elder son showed no interest in guns whatsoever, in fact, unless it was football-shaped and, actually a football, he wasn't interested in anything much, oh, apart from football, did I mention that!?  I don't like football much either but what's a girl to do, force her boys to play with Barbie and make-up?  Well, actually Daniel did go through a doll phase and I was chuffed to bits!!

But now little Daniel has moved on and owns a small arsenal of plastic guns which fire sponge darts.  And my goodness me, he's such an amazing shot, if I youtubed it would go viral like a dancing dog.

So, a keen eye and steady hand working in perfect harmony, check.  Skills that will come in handy when he's performing heart surgery on babies I'm sure.

Oh, and imagination.  When Daniel hasn't got weapon handy for playing cops and robbers, he'll make one out of Lego, or, let's face it, two fingers and a thumb trigger will do!!  He's doing the gun thing in a make-believe environment, he doesn't really want to kill his brother (well, OK, maybe sometimes, especially when they're on a shared Minecraft server and Teddy lets lava destroy the world Daniel has taken three days creating).

I'm just not sure that suppressing a child's 'urge' to play with a toy gun when his friends have them, is the way forward.  But hey, this is from the woman who inadvertently yanked her son's front tooth out (see last blog) so maybe I should slither down off my soap box and shut it.

And the 'pacifist' mum? I always thought her energies would be much better placed stopping her husband playing Call of Duty on the X-Box in front of the kids.

And......just one more thing.

Today, I walked into a hail of (imaginary) bullets streaming out of my front window and blasting unsuspecting birds out of the sky.  Daniel's 'gun'?  A machine gun, he told me, or, in actual fact, the empty box which had contained the three juggling balls I had bought him for Christmas.  

I rest my case.

Well, until I pen the next blog, and then I'm sure my case, regarding some other noteworthy issue, will be re-opened.