Thursday 22 October 2015

Just where is Mount Everest?

One of my many current jobs, in a theatre box office, supplies me with a wealth of classic withdewrespect-esque moments.
Earlier today a lady booked her ticket to a show and asked: "Will we be seated in rows?"
As opposed to....? Sitting on top of each other, sitting in a line, sitting at jaunty angles....?
I'll be adding that to our 'daft' comments book which is aptly entitled "What part of sold out do you not understand?!


So back to my usual stream of withdewrespect nuggets from my children; always true, never unknowingly embellished.
Now remember, the seven-year-old is usually, how shall I put it, the less dingbat-ish of my two adorable children but last week he slipped.
Watching the men's 1,500m in some athletics championship or other, he piped up (expression: deadpan): "Mum, are they allowed to overtake each other?"


You are reading a blog called withdewrespect therefore I make no apology, nay want to hear any moaning and groaning, about my tongue-in-cheek un-pc, unsubstantiated, stereotyping, light-hearted banter which may or may not tweak the nose of any 'isms, 'ias that we are quick to quote these days.
I've already decided that my 7-year-old son is gay.
Why?


Picture me in the shower.  Well OK, picture that you're stood outside my bathroom door when you hear a hollering.
Me: "Daaaaaaaniel!"
Daniel: "Yes mum?"
"Can you please bring me the towel that's hung over the bannister?" (we're dead posh in our house)
"Which one?"
"The green one, please."  (posh, and polite)
Daniel: "Erm, do you mean this mint one?"


The world has gone mad.  I took my children to a new leisure centre the other day and at the top of a slide a lifeguard was sporting a full body harness which securely shackled them to a steel bar.
Clearly it didn't matter if any of the bustling queue of giddy, bare-footed small children slipped down the slide.  Oh, wait a cotton pickin' minute, that is what they were queueing up to do.
That night on TV, I watched Earth's Natural Wonders and saw children as young as seven going to extraordinary death-defying heights and lengths to hunt for food to keep them and their families alive. No ropes in sight.  And un-harnessed rescue doctors on Mount Everest used just a ladder to cross a 10m wide, 50m deep crevasse up a mountain as high as planes fly.


Interestingly, in recently recounting these comparative stories to a fellow Hons Degree graduate friend, we both admitted we didn't know where Mount Everest is.  In the Himalayas apparently but I don't know where they are either.


Is it any wonder I'm thick with the array of quite frankly, shit programmes on the television these days; Botched Bodies, Nightmare Neighbours, Benefits Street, How to get a Council House, Britain at the Bookies, need I go on?
And the wealth of food programmes never ceases to amaze with every single aspect of nutrition, cooking, baking and eating covered from every angle and every country.
However, I have found a gap in the market and am currently writing a pitch for the BBC, Breakfast Beauties (working title).  It features the art of opening a box of cornflakes and putting a slice of toast in the toaster, I've written the script for a six-week pilot run.


I was watching the programme about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and internally scoffing, how ridiculous to wipe the hob a specific number of times?! It was so daft I had to rewind and watch twice and to hear better put the volume up to number 20 (it has to be an even number or a number divisible by 10). (Pot, kettle, black)


Thankfully, my youngest son enjoys nature and history programmes.  The other day he watched something about the Stone Age and was inspired to make a dagger.  He went out into our cul-de-sac and found himself a branch and a flint (well that fancy stuff people have instead of soil these days) but struggled to find a strong root.  So I gave him some sellotape and told him they might have been developing early Sellotape prototypes in the Stone Age.


He also made a fighter jet made out of Karcher steam cleaner box (OK, I hold my hands up to the OCD), coffee shop stirrers as guns and was keen to factor in air bags made out of sponge.  Deadly, but also quite safe in the event of a small bump over Syria.

Friday 18 September 2015

Keeping the children toasty

I puff and blow on a daily basis about traipsing the kids uphill and downdale to their various sporting commitments.

However, if I didn't have this special family time sat in the rush hour traffic, I wouldn't have the chance to chuckle at their banter and this blog probably wouldn't exist (so what, I hear you cry - good point, and please don't cry).

Many a time as I inch along gridlocked roads, travelling from swimming classes to athletics training, inconveniently place at opposite ends of West Yorkshire, I jot down a reminder of their conversations.
A note from last night reads, cat, cow, field (Daniel).

"Mum"
"Yes Daniel."
"I wish I was a cat so that I could go anywhere. I would jump over a fence into a field and have a game of cards with a cow.....(pause for thought)....and if I was really talented I could learn to ride a bike."

Then he swings from the ridiculous to the sublime as he tells me a tale about a boy he knows called Jack *. Being a mum who (as you may have noticed) calls a spade a spade and doesn't really do 'mummy speak', I communicate with my children as contemporaries.

Me (44): "Ah Jack, is he the one with the loud mother?"
Daniel (7): "Well yes mum, she is, but she does have to cope with Jack and two other youngsters."

I do sometimes worry about Daniel's penchant for joining in 'adult' conversations.  We were sat at Wakefield train station the other day, admiring his brother's new trainers when Daniel suddenly said: "Is it just me or is Teddy looking hot today?"

And then he swiftly returns to being seven and super cute (and perhaps slightly deaf).  In a local cafe, I ordered the Seafood Trio Salad.  When it arrived, Daniel peered intently at my platter of prawn, smoked haddock and salmon and after a few minutes of inspection, I had to ask: "Daniel what are you looking at?"
"Well," replied Daniel, "I'm trying to work out what's see-through."

And speaking of food, to deter Teddy from throwing chewing gum out of the car window, I painted the picture of some poor unsuspecting little spearmint-partial mouse coming along for a nibble and dying a horrible clamped-jaw death, to which he replied with a perfectly serious tone: "Oh, can't you feed chewing gum to animals?"

Gypsies recently set up camp on a local park.  As we drove past the other day (football training to more football training), I put on my PC hat (yes, I do  have one, thank you for asking) and chatted to the kids about the lives of travellers, the difficulties they encounter through their nomadic lifestyle and also the rights and wrongs of the local residents' reactions.  We had a very mature and sensitive conversation about the pros and cons for each group until Daniel suddenly piped up in his broad Yorkshire accent: "Y' should just taser 'em!"

I gave him a good talking to about this attitude but, in his defence, this is Daniel's answer to most situations from world peace to his brother singing too loudly.

His arsenal of Nerf products grows and now extends to crossbows, snipers, machine guns and rifles, he has a frighteningly accurate aim and his bedroom wall is adorned with a countdown calendar of the 1,825 days until he can join the Cadets!

I'll end with a classic that's actually not from the mouths of my own babes / angels / gun-toting warmongers.

En route to a recent camping trip with my friend and her children, we arrived at her house in leafy Cheshire.

As they were leaving their moggy overnight, my friend ensured the cat had everything she needed; clean litter tray, ample supply of fodder, open window, pack of cards etc.

However, her concerned (and perhaps slightly over-dramatic) daughter asked: "Mum, what if she eats all the food at once and runs out before the morning and dies of starvation?"
Before my friend could speak and reassure her daughter that the cat would be absolutely fine, her son jumped in: "If she does die, can we get a dog?"

I am referred to as the member of my family 'with no sense of humour' and admit I don't often find much LOL mileage in double entendre or glaringly ambiguous print, however, I did have a brief (inward) chuckle at this sign in a Slaithwaite bakery the other day.



* She's loud and quite big as well so I've changed the name to protect all parties, mainly me

Saturday 22 August 2015

The elusive passport

So, where was I.....?

The lack of recent blogging is due to the fact that I've been on my travels, largely to North Wales, Bridlington, back to North Wales and Gatwick Airport.

The airport jaunt, as seasoned withdewrespect readers will know, is a thrice annual affair. Well, actually I head down six times, three sad trips three happy trips, which alternate.  (If you've no idea what I'm on about, please refer to previous blog editions and all will become clear.)

My recent outward trip to the South Terminal was, undoubtedly and predictably sad, but also slightly more traumatic than usual.

Here is my original schedule (I like schedules)

Schedule
06:30:00 Leave house, walk to local train station with one child
06:37:00 Catch trains / buses to Gatwick (via Wakefield Westgate, Kings Cross and Victoria - dodging the tube strike which ironically turned out to be the least of our worries)
11:30:00 Put child on flight to Portugal
11:45:00 Catch trains / buses home (via Victoria, Kings Cross & Wakefield Westgate, blah, blah, blah)
17:30:00 Arrive home, put kettle on

Simples.

Here is what actually happened

Schedule (revised, re-revised and then torn into little pieces)
06:29:00 Put on shoes, open door
06:29:01 Give negative response to husband's question as to whether I've got child's passport
06:29:02 Commence house-ransacking when aforementioned passport not in its usual place
06:34:00 Leave house in a blind panic, dragging dazed, bed-head child and suitcase, sprint to local train station (minus passport)
06:37:00 Catch train to Wakefield Westgate - sit in a complete daze with head in hands wondering what the fuck to do - swear under breath a lot
06:50:00 Arrive Wakefield Westgate, text husband, text ex-husband, text son's football manager, text friend who works at Manchester Airport - all seeming very logical at the time, still swearing
07:10:00 With a range of helpful / unhelpful responses to my texts, we board the London-bound train and I spend the next two hours ringing airlines, airports, embassies, passport offices, consulates and the Samaritans just for good measure, child sleeps
09:20:00 Arrive Kings Cross, mentally exhausted and once again, excuse my French, still wondering what the fuck to do.  Courses of action open to me; ex-husband posts son's Portuguese ID card (valid for Europe-wide travel) - however, we don't have a secure address in London and it might not arrive on time; keep wracking brain about where British passport is hiding; go to Portuguese Consulate and beg for temporary travel documentation.
09:30:00 We decide to do the latter and, with tube strike laughing at our predicament, we jump on a bus
09:59:00 Bus moves at snail's pace due to strike-induced gridlock on London streets, pedestrians walk past us
09:59:01 Get off bus and set off walking to Portuguese Consulate, battling our way along packed pavements, yes, I'm now adding drama to a story that really needs no adverbial additions
Approx 11am - the schedule has gone so far out of the window, it's unreachable, and I've now lost all track of time, the flight has been missed and a new flight booked for tomorrow evening, the race is on....
The rest of the day was spent mainly at the Portuguese Consulate, a little pocket of Portuguese blandness, baffling bureaucracy, bolshiness and, for the masses in the waiting room, boredom.
At around 4pm, we are just minutes from collecting the documentation when I have a flash of inspiration and text my husband telling him to check under the photocopier lid in the kitchen.

My phone rings: "You're a bloody numpty." (passport located: check)

It is a special day in my life, my husband and ex-husband are in total agreement - united in the accurate realisation that I am indeed a numpty, having left passport on photocopier around a month previously.

Happily armed with a five-day licence to leave the country (somewhat ironically when the news is full of the truly tragic chaos at Calais as people clamour to enter the country) we bade a cheery farewell to the Consulate, at which point Teddy reverted to form and asked: "Will we need to go back to the Consulty place?", and we head to an over-priced hotel room near Kings Cross and proceed to haemorrhage money in various restaurants and an extortionate tour of Wembley.

The truth is we both thoroughly enjoy some rare mum and son time and I, for one, am bloody delighted that I'm a right numpty!

The flight is duly caught at 9.30pm the following day and my lovely husband drives five hours to bring the contentious passport and makes it with (literally) seconds to spare due to static traffic on the M25.

Teddy arrives safely in Portugal and we arrive safely home in the early hours of the morning and I put the kettle on, just 32.5 hours behind schedule.  (I need to stress that an extra 30 minutes was added to the return leg of our journey by my husband who managed to take a wrong turn on the M1 (wtf!!) and head on the M6 to Birmingham!!  Clearly numptiness is infectious.

I have to say, my boy was an absolute superstar throughout the whole scenario (as were aforementioned ex and current husbands) and we all learned a valuable lesson in, well, remembering to remove items from under the photocopier lid.


Sunday 19 July 2015

The case for the defence

The theatre where I work has some tenuous historic association with Stanley Baldwin and Rudyard Kipling and I was quite shocked when a visiting high school teacher had heard of neither.

Still huffing and puffing about it when I got home from work, I told my husband the story and asked if he'd heard of them, to which he replied: "Isn't that Mike Baldwin's brother and that chap who makes the cakes?" I give up!

It's not often that my other half provides blog fodder, it's usually the prerogative of my delightful sons, mainly Teddy.  I sometimes think that one day he'll sue me for libel and my entire blog will be read out in court and I'll get sent down for defamation and child cruelty.

So I'm going to write my defence in readiness for the hearing.

Although he's a complete dingbat at times (sorry, your Honour, but he is), my life, quite frankly, would range from dull to incomplete without him. 

Teddy born with transposed arteries and had lifesaving open heart surgery when he was seven days old and again when he was one-year-old to mend a hole in his arterial wall.

At the age of four, his parents parted and I moved him away from his birth country, his father and half of his family.  He said goodbye to friends, nursery school, bedroom and dad and coped with the emigration, change of lifestyle and language with a maturity that belied his young age.

From then onwards, three times a year he flew alone with merely a chaperone service at either airport, from the UK to Portugal and at either end was completely immersed into two vastly different families and cultures.

He adapted to his new life and accepted his step-father, step-brother and step-sister with applaudable ease, acceptance, dignity and grace.

A new brother came along just weeks after he started school and he proceeded to worship, adore and protect this child with every bone in his body.

Society bizarrely labels my boys 'half-brothers' which to me suggests incompleteness. I seem to distinctly remember them both coming out of me, pretty much intact as two entire wholes, and therefore people use the word 'half' at their peril around me and my children.

Despite his early life on the operating table, Teddy now speaks two languages fluently, runs like the wind, plays football and rugby, is the life and soul of the party and has moved from the cotton wool of primary school to chaotic corridors of a high school the size of a small town with confidence and composure.

My Facebook wall is covered with posts from mums understandably proud of their children's achievements but for me it's always nicest when accolades come from others.

Last Sunday, we had just finished a meal at a Bridlington restaurant when the couple at the next table came over as they left and the gentleman said: "We just want to congratulate you on your children, they are an absolute delight and a credit to you."

Luckily, my husband and mum were capable of speech and thanked the couple and agree with them.  I just blubbed, that's what proud mum's do.

Anyway, no edition of withdewrespect would be complete without a Teddy-ism, and I will conclude my case that I would simply give my life for him.....but he is a right dingbat!

Teddy: "There's a lad at my school that we call Gary, or Big G or sometimes even Gary the Snail."
Me: "Really love, that's nice.  What's his real name?"
Teddy: "Blake".






Monday 1 June 2015

Are we 'sharing' or really sharing?

My personal jury is still proverbially out on whether Facebook is guilty on all counts of being dangerous, divisive, fake and wasting billions of hours in the workplace.  (I am not, by the way, anywhere near my place of work as I write).  Or, whether it is a friendly and fun way to stay in touch with friends and family old and new, share news and photographs and bring together communities.
Hmmmmmmm
............................
...........................(talk among yourselves)
...........................
Sorry, had to break off there, the boss walked in.

So, what was I saying?

Let's look at exactly what we 'share' on Facebook.  We share pictorial evidence of family trips to parks and museums, walks in the fresh country air and paddling on sandy beaches.  Smiley happy siblings ambling alongside rippling streams or skipping over lapping waves.

It gives the impression of family life where life is a constant walk in the park.

Who are we kidding!?

You don't share pictures of mum pulling her hair our, having a nervous breakdown in the kitchen while the kids lay into each other and dad sits ignoring them watching A Place in the Sun (Home or Away).  Or is that just my house?

Speaking of sandy beaches and educational TV, Teddy was watching The Island with Bear Grylls the other day (again, I didn't feel the urge to photograph and share).

However, it was a special moment when one of the men decided they'd had enough and wanted to leave the island so they had to use the 'emergency radio'.

Teddy turned to me and asked: "This is a rubbish programme mum, they're supposed to be living in the wild on a desert island and they even have an emergency radiator."

The other week, I felt honoured and proud when a dear friend asked me to judge an Easter bonnet competition at a children's party she was organising.

Hindsight.....I won't be doing that gig again!!

Ten expectant angelic faces glued their beady eyes on me as I inspected every creation laid out on my friend's kitchen table.
I noted detail and complimented each one on the different way the fluffy blobs and colourful feathers had been artistically glued on.

Then I had to choose the winner.....cue drum roll and held breath (don't try this at home kids).....

As I reached out my hand to point to the winning entry, the floodgates opened. 
Nine wailing five / six-year-olds is quite a din let me tell you, police helicopters were soon hovering above and a bright search light was panning up and down my friend's street.
Funnily enough, the happy smiling winner clutching her prize is the very image that would make it onto Facebook, not the nine red-faced blubbers hurling themselves at their mothers as they threw me daggers and made a mental note to cross me off the next party invite list.

Forget on-camera 'hey, I take my kids to the park every day' sharing, my idea of sharing with friends is actually physically sharing time with them; round at their house, judging Easter bonnets, eating cabbage soup and chatting about conservatory roofs, being beaten by my 12-year-old neighbour at draughts or helping them de-clutter their spare room.  Those are the good times that you just share and enjoy, and don't need to share on social media.

And don't get me started on emojis.  Again, it's an opportunity to share your image of yourself as a fun, hip, cool person, when perhaps in reality, you're not!!  The other day I posted a snippet on Facebook followed by a cocktail glass, a Cuban cigar and a Panama hat.  In reality, I'm a 'don't drink, don't smoke' repressed and depressed wuss and I don't even know where Panama is!!

And another thing....sharing medical ailments....what's that all about?!
Speaking of which, I went to the doctor's this week..... (I'm aware this blog sometimes verges on an entry in a 1980s Crack-a-Joke book).....  Why is it that when you arrive in the doctor's surgery, a mole that just an hour earlier was the size of a small Carribean island owned by Sir Richard Branson is suddenly barely perceptible to the naked eye. 
Sorry, just felt the need to share.

I'll leave you with a classic Ted'ism.

Driving along the M62 on the way home from visiting Grandma in Bridlington.

Teddy: "Mum......"
Me: "Yes Teddy?"
Teddy: "I wish I was a bird, then I wouldn't have to pay to go on holiday."




Monday 23 March 2015

As time goes by

How is it that when you're changing nappies, it seems you'll be changing nappies for eternity and just a few short years later you can't remember when you last changed a nappy, or the last time you put them in their car seat or tied their shoe laces?

There are times in parenthood when you feel like a salmon swimming upstream, or like you're walking the wrong way through IKEA (don't try this at home folks) and that each stage will last forever, and then suddenly, it's all over.

The boy who insisted on saying 'dada' and refusing to say 'mama' is suddenly returning a packet of Haribos with, 'thanks anyway, I'm not overly fond of them', and telling me he's star of the day for 'resilience'.....turned out it was 'perseverance' (potato, potato).

He's seven FFS!

He even got lippy with the hairdresser the other week as she gave him the little boy speech about sitting nice and still while she used the shaver round the back of his neck.

"Right Daniel, where shall we shave today, shall we shave off your moustache?"

Daniel: "No, let's shave yours!"

And she wasn't the only one being subjected to the cutting edge of Daniel's new-found sharpness.

I was getting out my Spring wardrobe and came across some shorts.

Daniel: "They won't fit you any more mummy?"
Me: "What do you mean?"
Daniel: "Well, now that you're bigger."
Sharp intake of breath.
Dramatic pause (thinking time for Daniel).
Daniel: "I mean taller mummy, they won't fit you now that you're taller."

They grow up way too quickly.

Mind you, the 12-year-old still has his moments.
Teddy: "Muuuuuum."
Me: "Yes, love?"
Teddy: "I wouldn't like to be a phone."
Me: ???? (words fail me)
Teddy: "Well, I would hate to get dropped and scratched and I couldn't have a shower or I'd break."

I'm 43 and wouldn't go back a single day.  It's funny that people often wish they could go back X number of years and do it all again.  I wouldn't.

I'll be 44 this summer, which sits well with my numerical OCD, although I don't recall if 33 had the same effect, maybe OCD wasn't so popular then (cue winking smiley) or at least there weren't as many documentaries about it on Channel 4.

As humans we're never happy really though are we?  At work, I have to ask customers if they are UK Taxpayers and would therefore like to Gift Aid their donation.
Whether they say 'yes' or 'no', they always start with 'unfortunately....'.

Maybe dementia helps.  My dad and a fellow resident in his care home had a fantastic 20 minute debate about whether, when they went to (apparently!?) the same grammar school 70+ years ago, the boys turned left and the girls turned right once through the entrance gate, or visa versa.

My dad makes little or no sense at the best of times and recently spent a frustrated ten minutes trying to drink a can of beer with a dessert spoon and couldn't understand why it wouldn't go through the ring pull hole in the top.  Then, as clear as a bell he pronounced: "You don't come and visit me often enough."

Then the following week, on one of my clearly infrequent visits, another of my dad's aged friends showed me an entry in a battered old address book.
Stabbing at a barely legible name with his finger he recalled: "That man went away to fight in the war, came back and discovered some bloke had been banging his wife so he murdered him and got away with it.  Look, I've got his address."

I'm aware of rambling today so going to end with another random observation about 'the world that we live in' (cue deep sigh).

What a shame a petrol station has to use a piece of string to tie a hand soap bottle to the disabled hand rail in their toilet for fear of it being nicked, and display a huge laminated sign telling people not to flush nappies down the loo.

Funnily enough, although I don't recall changing nappies, I'm fairly certain I never had the urge to do that.


Monday 26 January 2015

I never thought it would happen with me and the girl from Clapham

We don't come into this world Dyson-like with a two page instruction manual packed neatly (I weep as landfill, well, fills) in a sealed layer of organic polymers of high molecular mass (i.e. a plastic bag).

But, panic not, we're now in the 21st century so the source of all knowledge is just a mouse-click away.

My printer isn't working.
It can't be seen on my wi-fi network, or so my laptop tells me.
I followed countless Canon troubleshooting options in vain and returned the manual to its plastic home.
I shouted at it.
I sat my laptop, printer and BT hub less than a foot apart, personally introduced them and took them out for a drink.
Nothing, nada, zilch.
So, I took the bold and intrepid (is that the same thing?) step of heading to online support.
I followed the link 'my printer is not working' and spent several hours of my life that I can never reclaim, going through all the options.
Finally, I arrive at the very last possible clickable icon, which asks me (without a hint of sarcasm), if I would like to 'print this page'.

My printer is now, sadly, heading to landfill.  That is, when it finally lands back on planet earth from the stratosphere that I kicked it into.

But forget IT hardware illness, online homo sapiens symptom checkers are the best.
In just a few clicks of the mouse, you can become the proud sufferer of IBS, migraine and sciatica whereas a mere few minutes earlier you had a bit of wind, a mild headache and a twinge in your back.

On checking some niggling family symptoms recently, I discovered my husband was in his third trimester, my seven-year-old has two broken legs and the 12-year-old is peri-menopausal.

Ah, the internet, how it has enlightened and educated us, enriched our daily lives and brought a myriad of sights and sounds that were once imagined to be beyond our reach.
Only yesterday, Daniel was transfixed by a cute dog playing with Christmas wrapping paper while Teddy was absorbed in shaky out-of-focus footage of a small child warbling Danny Boy.

Mind you, it's useful for looking up song lyrics, such as Up the Junction (Squeeze).  I used to sing this to Teddy as a lullaby (I'm so rock 'n' roll) when he was a babe in arms.  Now in high school, I wonder if I should explain to his teacher where his random tense-switching in prose and his dodgy rhyme in poetry originated.  How did Chris Difford get away with rhyming 'kitchen' with 'missing' and 'ready' with 'telly'?  (Oh yes I do, he's a genius, all hail Squeeze, watch this space for the fabulous Mamma Mia-esque stage musical I will one day pen based on their eclectic songlist).
 
And lastly, the internet is also (not so) handy for.....heading to Tripadvisor to find out that the hotel I've booked in Rome is.....'a shithole' according to thehappytraveller, 'the finest hotel in the world' according to poodlepompoms and 'comme si, comme ca' according to pierrepetit. (sigh)

Where would we be without the information we squeeze out of those three little Ws?

Well, if you ask me, it really is my assumption that we'd all be, quite frankly, up the junction.