One born every minute

I think he's asleep, so I creep upstairs with some freshly ironed clothes. (That's my attempt at portraying myself as a yummy mummy again, see how I just slip them in?)
A very wide awake voice pipes up from the box room.  (By that I mean the 'third bedroom', sorry, I'm a 70s child)
"Muuuum....(pause).....  Was I a baby in the olden days?"
Another gem from my five-year-old, I should write them down (!).

It's fifteen minutes past the ten-year-old's bedtime and he's, what's technically know as, 'trying his luck', 'chancing his arm', or if I was a swearing lady, he would quite simply be 'taking the piss'.
With Kevin the Teenager-like tendencies these days, he's barely grunted at me all day.
NOW he wants to talk.  Chat, chat, bloody chat.  He's had all day to tell me about his Match Attax swapsies, why he was kept in after school for talking (don't know where he gets that from!?), learning the arabesque position in PE (que?) and whether he should, hypothetically, deck someone who teases him about his glasses.  NOW, he wants to have a cosy tete-a-tete with his old mum when he's trudged ten paces in front of me all the way to school and home again. NOW, he has time to tell me what he had for dinner at school and what costume he wants to wear on World Book Day.
Well, it's a little too late, sonny Jim (he's not called Jim, or James, really), One Born Every Minute is about to start, off you go to bed!

Some of us girls from tap dancing (I use the term 'girls' in the loosest sense, we range from 41 to 73) went out for a meal on Saturday.  I did a straw poll on how many of us had prepared dinner for our families before coming out.  There were some thoroughly modern men around I can tell you (except mine!!).
One lady had even had a bath.  A BATH!
Complete with bubbles and scented candle.
We were all agog as we leaned in to hear her story like she was recounting an enchanting tale from a bygone era.  Cue dry ice machine and soft piano.
She had dimmed the light and sunk, TV commercial-like, into the deep vanilla-perfumed water, closed her eyes and sighed a deep sigh.

The door creaked open (I'm embellishing now, bear with me, pretend it's an old house).
Her 11-year-old daughter sauntered into the bathroom and soundlessly took up position on the closed loo and continue to play on her DS.  Mere seconds passed before her nine-year-old brother likewise wandered in, surveyed the scene and finding the bath and toilet already occupied, sat cross-legged on the floor and continued reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid.
My friend once more closed her eyes, sighed, and smiled.

A snapshot from 'the olden days', my own episode of One Born Every Minute

It's a man's world

"Thanks lad."

This is what a customer said to me the other day in the shop (Howley Hall Pro Shop, open to the public 364 days a year with great customer service and competitive prices.....have I mentioned that before?!).

I know I've completely failed with any anonymity, despite calling my blog withdewrespect instead of my name.  But as you may have noticed from my pictures, childbirth experiences and lack of football expertise, I am clearly not a 'lad'.

Now, I recently took a leaf out of Anne Hathaway's book (but without the resultant media attention and international exposure for my new project - I wish) and cut my locks into what is termed in the trade as a 'pixie crop'. (see previous blog re: Les Mis)

Boy-ish, I grant you, but surely when accompanied with a pink jumper, lipstick and boobs, it was hardly an attempt at gender swap.

The customer, when corrected, was very apologetic and said he hadn't really looked at me and was used to seeing only men in golf shops.

Indeed, a similar thing happens when I answer the phone.
"Good morning, Howley Hall Pro Shop, Dianne speaking."
"Morning dear, can you put me through to the Pro Shop please?"
"Yes sir, this is the Pro Shop".
Silence.
"Oh sorry, I thought I'd gone through to the office."
I wonder why!?

I read in Psychologies magazine that, as a 40-something-year-old, I've still got 65% of my productive career years left in my life.  (Good to know, I may need to look for a more 'suitable' job for a girl)
When I look at my career to date, it's true that I've done rather a lot in a short space of time, but without that varied life/work experience I wouldn't be the person, nor the writer, I am today.
I thought I knew it all in my 20s.  In my 40s, I realise I didn't!

I'll leave you with another theory from Psychologies, that if we constantly seek constant happiness, paradoxically we are less likely to be happy.  I like that.
(Note to husband, please not another 12 month Psychologies subscription for Christmas this year, I'm turning into bloody Freud - and we all know women shouldn't be allowed to think don't we, Mr Golf Shop Customer!!)

Actually I won't leave you with that nugget, I've got a better one which I came across in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (currently being ticked off my literary bucket list).
Arthur asks: "What's so unpleasant about being drunk?"
To which Ford replies: "You ask a glass of water."

I'm not even going to end on that note.  I've got an even better tip of my own.
Don't let your child nod off for 50 seconds on the way back from Macdonalds at teatime.  Those mere 50 seconds will equate to your child bouncing off the walls for the next 48 hours.  50 seconds v' 48 hours, your choice dear fellow (tired) parent. 

Who needs internationally-renowned and published psychologists and comedy fiction legends when you've got withdewrespect!?

Toot toot, toot toot.....

Smiley Spidey!

Nothing like blowing your own trumpet is there....?!  No, I'm not talking about face-painting abilities, which are clearly lacking (see previous blog).  I post this picture safe in the knowledge that my inbox won't be bombarded by village fete and school fair organisers desperate for my skills.
Actually, I don't understand painting activities with children.  It takes you 25 minutes to set up the table, paint, water pots, paper, aprons etc etc.  They then paint for seven minutes and it takes you a further 25 to clear up!  Who exactly has been entertained?

Music, as well as art, is not a strong subject but I feel like toot, tooting my own trumpet today as I've been blown away by all the nice things people are saying about my blog.  So, thank you to the following well-wishers; as the saying goes, you know who you are!

"Hey up Dianne ! It's like virtual sitting down with you and a bottle of wine.... Kerry Katona eh, well I was next to Harry Gration in the q 4 bacon sarni at boys hockey last Sunday!"

I love the idea that my blog is like a nice convivial evening with friends in a country pub but I have to question whether Harry measures up to Kerry in the hob-nobbing stakes.....does anyone north of Bedale or south of Dinnington actually know who Mr Gration is!!!???  Mind you, I looked him up on Wikipedia and discovered he went to the same uni as me, no less!

"No football to go to, so spent interesting half hour or so catching up with your blogs,  

Had quite a titter (not twitter) to myself."

"Very entertaining as ever!"

"I have been reading and really enjoyed your blog  -  very funny and have just read yesterdays and can't believe Teddy's traumatic birth  -  how horrific for you but how fantastic looking at him now, 
a handsome and healthy boy."

Agreed!  
Although, I think his heart surgery must have had some effect on his common sense, he does come out with some howlers.  In London the other week, we stood on the roadside opposite Big Ben taking photographs when he piped up: "Muuuum, what time is it?"

"Just to let you know I have been reading and really enjoyed your blog  -  very funny."

 "Love the blog! All very heartfelt and heart worn on the sleeve topics."

"Well written ~ very honest and from the heart."

I also love the idea that I 'wear my heart on my sleeve'.  It's oft been said of me and would be a suitable epitaph.   That, and 'gobby, opinionated and never shuts up'.
A former President of the Oporto Ladies Guild once described me as a 'breath of fresh air' in the community and I shall never forget that as a wonderful compliment.  I was even honoured with a request to take over as President but my imminent return to the UK meant this wasn't possible.  Hey, I've just found some articles I wrote about the Guild, don't you just love the www!

 http://www.theportugalnews.com/news/view/685-34 
http://www.theportugalnews.com/news/view/833-33 

(Sorry, these won't mean much to most of you, but there will be a few readers out there who have fond memories of these times.)

And speaking of readers, can I just end by saying  Здравствуйте! (that's 'hello' to my Russian readers, of whom it seems there are many!).

Thank you for reading, wherever you are in the world. 

Creche at the Oporto Ladies Guild Christmas Fair, a few years ago

Who needs school?

Don't you just love snow in Britain and the school closures which inevitably ensue?  My boys might not have moved forward with their literacy and numeracy but have had a great lesson in how to make a huge snowman and how to keep your limbs intact when you fall off a small piece of plastic while hurtling down the 17th fairway at a particularly hilly local golf course.

It's also a time when another of my pet hate stock phrases (see Christmas blogs) are bandied about at will.

We begin by discussing whether it's too cold to snow.  Was it Ben Elton who did a piece of stand-up about this?  I think so.  If anybody remembers, please e.mail me, withdewrespect@gmail.com

We then progress to discussing whether we like snow or not.  And you can bet your bottom dollar that people will respond: "Oo, I like the snow when it first comes but I don't like it when it gets all slushy."

(or words to that effect).

Take heed Mother Nature, this is something you need to work on.  You need to send us the beautiful white picture-postcard snow we all love, but develop a way that all the dirt and grime that human beings and their filthy motorised machines spew forth into the world doesn't muddy the lovely snow.

Good luck Ma'am.

While I'm on  the subject of stock phrases that drive me bonkers.....

"Aw, you're having a baby, lovely, would you like a boy or a girl?"

 "Oo, I don't mind really, as long as it's healthy."

"That doesn't answer the bloody question.  I didn't ask you whether you wanted a healthy baby or an unhealthy one did I?! " (Sorry, I apologise, it's rude and unkind to shout at pregnant ladies)

When I was walking around looking like I'd swallowed a beach ball, I always answered the question.  "A girl."

What did I get? Two boys.

And I wouldn't have it any other way. (and I don't apologise for shouting that out loud)

Now that's what I call a proper snowman!

A lean, mean snowballing machine

Empty shelves and empty tables

I'm full of cold and feeling sorry for myself.  I wait all year for the snow to come and then I'm too darn sniffly to go and play out.  All I can do was push my sore red nose against the window and peer out through bleary eyes as the boys throw snowballs at me / the window and frolic in the garden.  It's just not fair!
They've managed, in ten minutes flat, to send every neighbourhood girl back into their house crying with snowball-inflicted injuries (well, mainly damaged pride).  What can I say, my boys have a good aim!

Yes, it's that time of year when the country braces itself for misery, transport mayhem and empty shelves at the supermarket.  I'll leave the mass media to bang on about commuter chaos and question again why we don't devote more public spending to grit and snow ploughs (when will people get it into their heads that we don't get quite as much snow as Norway which explains why large chunks of our national budget are not similarly devoted to snow management - it's not rocket science, is it?)

However, the empty shelves situation is just insane, INSANE!

How can fellow planet dwellers stoop to such levels of selfishness when the first flake is spotted floating down from the sky?  And I have to question just how many milk sandwiches people can actually eat? (doesn't it make the bread soggy!?)
Yesterday, we GENUINELY ran out of bread (it happens, please don't call Esther) and my boys like sarnies for lunch on Saturdays.  So hubby nipped round to the Co-op only to be greeted with a war-like scene of totally gutted bread shelves and empty dairy chillers, fruitlessly and milklessly whirring away to themselves (there wasn't even any red top or rye bread - people must have been desperate!).
I mean, honestly, what is that all about!?
It smacks of images from Les Miserables; Jean Valjean's years in slavery for stealing a loaf for his starving niece, the poor and wretched of Paris, clamouring at the bourgeoisie stage coaches, pooh-coated Ali G and Helena BC in the sewers picking over the dead and dying like rats.

I feel a song coming on......

Have you seen it?
I took my reluctant husband last week and, with dry humour and equally dry eyes he merely commented, 'there was too much singing'.
Does he not have a heart?!
For me, the tears flowed from the get go and reached a sobbing crescendo at a particularly horrific and harrowing scene which filled me with anguish (ooo, it's an adjective-fest today).....no, not when Fantine dies or Eponine realises Marius doesn't fancy her.  No, the scene which made me really weep was when Anne Hathaway has her locks chopped!  OMG.
The things we do for our art, daaaahling.

Great film, with Russell Crowe showing he can hold a tune, Hugh Jackman making stubble look attractive and the eye-poppingly gorgeous Amanda Seyfried transporting herself from a sun-kissed Greek Isle to a much darker place with apparent ease.  It's an emotional roller-coaster which offers no straight sections to catch your breath and you are truly immersed in Hugo's sad, sad world for nearly three hours (of course, with the help of performance art's old friend 'suspension of disbelief' which allows you to overlook the most unlikely scenario of a load of French folk talking (nay, singing) in perfect English).
But I think my mum summed it up perfectly this morning when she asked which I would choose; to see the film again or return, as we have many times, to the Queens Theatre.  No competition, I'd book my train ticket in a heart beat.

To tweet or not to tweet....

I sold out this week and let Twitter get hold of me; darn the lure of the www!

Thanks to meeting Kerry Katona (see previous blog), she twitttered about my blog and I had 1,221 hits in the first five minutes, slowly rising to more than 2,500 that same evening.  Now, that bird has a powerful tweet!  I could make some hilarious link about birds and kittens (get it?), but I won't......

I've also been ignoring one son's pleas to paint his face like a vampire, letting the other become one with his iPod touch, and whiling away hours at my 'day job' Googling how to promote my blog.
Seems there are two options:

Option A

• Google + it (seems a bit too Facebooky for my liking - see previous blog)
• Add ads (if you see what I mean) to my blog page
• Spend every waking moment tweeting and RTing
• Find new friends on Facebook and beg them to read my blog

Option B

• Get a life.

Think I'm gonna choose option B.

I ADORE writing this blog.  I ashamedly prefer it to facepainting (which I'm not very good at anyway) and it's certainly better than my 'day job' (sorry darling, please don't sack me!).  But I don't want my page to be covered with adverts 'relevant' to the text (anyway, I didn't know you could buy bottled crap or gift-wrapped nonsense or you could drive away in a new Audi 'drivel'!).
And, I don't want to spend every waking moment checking my cronky old laptop (I'm not iPhoned up yet) for comments / tweets / mentions yadder yadder.  I struggle enough, as friends know well, to keep a simple text below 80 words.  I simply don't do text talk; capital letters in the right places, punctuation and full and correctly spelt words are wot i wos yrs at uni 4.  See I'm no good at it and I didn't get my NCTJ qualification or my BA (Hons) writing like that I can tell you!

So, if there's just a handful of you out there reading my blog, so be it.  Quality not quantity eh!?

Mind you, it's funny isn't it, friends and family have always said I'm a good writer but it's sad that we often take these compliments for granted or think they're just being nice.
As soon as a complete stranger tweets a positive comment I get all giddy. In fact, I'm so giddy, I've cut and pasted some here!

"Read your blog, love it."

 "Just read your blog and you're a really funny writer"

"We had a giggle reading the in brackets () areas"

"Just read your blog, honest and humorous"

  "What a lovely read your blog was. How nice to be so positive. Well done and look forward to reading in the future"

"Think your blog is very funny and true, hope more people get to read it" (Kerry Katona)

Hey, just thought they could release a 'Text-speak' version of Scrabble, complete with smiley faces!  (I should apply for a TM quickly, just in case Mattel read my blog)  Dragons Den, here I come!

Thank you for reading, as always, and social media prejudices aside, I would be delighted if you would like to 'share' the blog address by whatever social media avenue you choose.  (I know, I  know, I'm such a hypocrite, hey ho! (winking smiley face!)).  And should any publishing house read it and wish to sign me up, I'd be tweeting from the rooftops!!!

Twitter: @diannewatkinson
E.mail:  withdewrespect@gmail.com
http://withdewrespect.blogspot.co.uk/?m=1

"It's his heart"

Those three words are etched on my brain forever.

Scene: Hospital Sao Joao, Porto, Portugal, 2002

My first child arrived into the world in a frenzy of multi-lingual profanities, pillow-biting, forceps and a bunch of students no doubt sent in to see the crazy English lady trying to do it without an epidural.

Exhausted after a two-day slog and stitched up like a patchwork quilt (but not quite as attractive!), I spent my first night with my beautiful baby by my side.
He didn't cry all night; I felt like the luckiest mum in the ward of crying babes.
The next morning I headed for a shower, little knowing that my world was about to be rocked.
I hobbled back into the ward to find other mums holding their babies tight and trying to hide their pitying looks.  My baby's cot was surrounded by doctors in white coats and dad sat with his head in his hands. "It's his heart."
It's all a bit of a blur after that.
He had a transposition of the great arteries.  Here's the technical bit: -
Baby was rushed to have a catheter and balloon fitted inside his tiny body.  The two major arteries leaving his heart were connected to the wrong ventricles (the lower chambers of the heart).  This meant blood containing oxygen from the lungs was pumped back into the lungs, while blood lacking oxygen was pumped around his body.
On his seventh day, he had open heart surgery.  The arterial switch took six hours; the longest six hours of my life.
All went well thanks to the skill of Dr Manuel Pedro Magalhaes and his team at Hospital Cruz Vermelha in Lisbon and I eventually took my baby home with a mended heart and staples down the middle of his tiny chest.
The scars healed, only to be opened again a year later when a check-up discovered a hole in his arterial wall which also needed open heart surgery.

Today, he is fit and well and Captain of his league-winning football team no less (yes, I'm very proud!).

Now, you think I've gone all serious don't you!!?  And indeed, my beautiful son's start in the world was very serious and I am grateful every day for his life and the efforts of those who ensured it was not cut short.
However......once my little boy had survived two goes on the operating table, you think I'd take extra care of him wouldn't you?!

Well, (just to make sure nobody calls Esther), the following tips for bringing up your precious bundle after double life-saving heart surgery are TOTALLY RANDOM and ANONYMOUS!

• Don't leave your sleeping baby on the bed while you vac the lounge; that will be the day he / she learns how to roll over and over....
• Don't let them wave their arms around while you are ironing; a stray finger is bound to find its way between the iron and the creased garment.
• Don't let your child slip in a neighbour's hot tub and bang their chin (the blood goes everywhere and you have to leave a perfectly good party to spend hours in A&E)
• If a tummy ache moves from the middle to the right, don't tell them to have a sit down and stop moaning.....they may need an emergency appendix op.
• Don't leave your child upstairs with a neighbour's daughter; she will open the stair gate and your child will land face-down in the hat and gloves basket at the bottom of the steps.

If Dr Manuel read this, I'm sure he'd be thinking; 'bloody hell, after all my hard work....!!'

Then

And, now

How do you know......

....he's been driving your car while you were away in London for the weekend?

Simples.

• Your seat is so far back you need a taxi to reach the pedals.
• The rear view mirror is pointing towards the stars.
• The petrol tank is running on empty.
• The handbrake is on so tight you need to call Green Flag to release it.
• The radio is on Talk Sport.....aaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!

In London with Grandma, seeing Buckingham Palace for the first time ever!

Me, Kerry and our airport reunions

My Christmas tale (see previous blog) had its happy ending this weekend when the final piece was slotted into the jigsaw at Gatwick Airport.  (I apologise to anyone over five or under 85 who may not appreciate the jigsaw analogy.....put another way, it's like finding that elusive App which makes your life complete.)
Of course, I wasn't the only anxious mum waiting in the arrivals hall nervously flitting from announcement boards to the sliding doors and soaking up the emotional atmosphere of couples, friends and families being re-united.
Kerry Katona was also there.
With platinum blonde hair (part-shaven, a la mode) and trendy specs, she was dressed down in green parka, joggers and Uggs; just another mum waiting for that special moment when, in the throng of anonymous faces, the person you adore walks through the sliding doors.
I say she's just like me, apart from the fact that she was waiting for offspring shared with a world-renowned singer-songwriter and international television star from a chart-topping boy band, and she's much younger than me!
But despite her public eye working life (on Wikipedia, Kerry is summed up as "television and media personality, actress, singer, author and presenter" - phew!) and having appeared in  more newspapers and magazines than I've had hot dinners, she was perfectly happy to stand and chat to a fellow mum.
The usually grid-locked M25 had been surprisingly free-flowing so she had misjudged her journey from home in Surrey and ended up with a long wait for Molly and Lilly-Sue to arrive back from Dublin.  Like my son, they had been to stay with dad for Christmas, leaving younger siblings behind.  Another young family, un-blended for Christmas (see previous blog).
Like me, Kerry is a working mum whose life usually operates at about 100mph so it's a strange sensation to find you've nothing to do except pace from announcement board to sliding doors.  Of course, for Kerry this anxious wait was occasionally interrupted by fans holding an iPhone at arms length and grinning inanely with their face squished next to hers. 
Like a true pro, she assured me she didn't mind and politely promised to read my blog.  I joked that I have about twelve twitter followers and she admitted that she has 'one or two' more.  About 174,000 more it turns out.  Well, hope you like it Kerry and here's the return of favour, check out www.kerrykatona.biz where she looks rather fabulous I have to say (please tweet my blog Kerry!!).
Joking apart, it was genuinely lovely to meet a kindred spirit and a down-to-earth celeb.  As the doors slid back to bring a smile to Kerry's face, right behind Molly and Lilly-Sue was my reason to smile, a handsome young man who makes me more proud than he will ever know.
So, maybe the true metaphor for a 'blended' family is more akin to the old jigsaw than mushy soup (see previous blog).  Where the pieces don't have smooth edges and don't make any sense by themselves but, if you wait patiently enough in the Gatwick arrivals hall, the blobs will instantly fit back into the holes and the picture will be complete (until the Easter hols anyway!!).
To segue seemlessly into the blog below, maybe I should mention that Kerry Katona was born at  Warrington Hospital.....confused new readers, please read on, it is relevant......(sort of)

Christmas comes but twice a year

Happy New Year everyone!
Let's see if I can ramble on some more in 2013.

I'm sure we're not unique.  Well, we are because every family in the world IS unique, but I'm positive we're not the only household with a somewhat unorthodox Christmas.  I Googled 'unorthodox Christmas' and got a string of film titles, but ours is definitely non-fiction and the twist is that Santa comes twice. (anyone under eight, please look away!)
Yes, it's true, good old Saint Nick finds his way down our fake chimney breast and is fed wine and mince pies (with carrots for Rudolph) on two occasions.  (gifts are halved, not doubled, I hasten to add!)
Those readers with a near-extinct 2.4 children and a red Sierra family  (sorry, I just time-warped into the 80s) may be confused; 'blended' families will know exactly what I mean.  You know, I never really got this terminology, so I Googled again.
'To blend' means either; "to be merged into one; unite.  To create a harmonious effect or result." (definition from thefreedictionary.com), OR;  "to mash, chop and grind the constituent parts at high speed so they become mushy, almost obliterated and completely unlike their original shape and form." (my definition, which could equally apply to soup or our family!)
The first definition makes a blended family sound rather romantic, like the Von Trapps with matching clothes made from curtains.
 But remember, when you move house it's always unlikely that the colour, pattern, length and width of your existing curtains will fit in your new abode without a lot of hard work altering them.

Anyway, with 'blended' families, Christmas comes as many times as required to keep everyone happy!
I may have previously mentioned that my oldest son was born in Portugal.  It's funny, but I must have forgotten this geographical location when my waters broke, 'cos I called Warrington Hospital!  Although I spoke Portuguese perfectly well, the all-consuming, body-doubling, brain-mashing intermittent pains (otherwise known as contractions) seemed to adversely affect my second language fluency so I plumped for calling a maternity ward a thousand miles away.  The kindly receptionist advised me that, taking into account the regularity of screams during our conversation, I should be hauling my sorry ass to the nearest hospital pretty pronto.

So born in Porto he was.  Cutting a long story short (divorce is never a short story is it?), I now live in England and his father lives in Portugal.  I also have another son whose father lives in England, hence the 'blending' and the two Christmases.  Are you keeping up?
Flippant though I'm being and happy as my boys are with their 'unorthodox Christmas', it's all fine until we are standing on the platform waiting for the airport-bound train and the boys have to say goodbye.  My youngest holds on to his brother's hand for dear life, trying to be brave but quite frankly bereft beyond tears.
I don't know about them but at that moment, my heart and soul are instantly mashed, chopped and ground up at high speed until they turn to mush.

Animal print onesies prove a hit on Christmas Day: Mark I