Hoppa fever has taken over my life!!!

I was asked the other day if I'd abandoned withdewrespect.  My indignant reply was, 'certainly not'!
It's been a busy old few weeks as I'm launching 'an innovative new project' (or so my press release boasts!) at my children's school next week and it's taken over my life, leaving little time for idle ramblings.  So I apologise and reassure you that normal service will resume once our Hoppa is up and walking.

Your 'what' I hear you cry?!  (well, I thought I heard a small noise, were you just yawning?)

The Hoppa is a hybrid; a cross between a Walking Bus and a Park & Stride scheme, both of which, in my opinion, for various reasons are not a viable or sustainable alternatives to just driving to school.

Like most primary schools around the country, traffic is chaos outside our school.  And with that 'chaos' comes danger, 'an accident waiting to happen' as the media likes to dub these scenarios.
So, I've taken it upon my little self, enlisting invaluable help from the Head, fellow parents, local business and road safety professionals, to come up with a scheme to help our school children get walking.

I'm not driver or car-bashing, like some national road safety organisations tend to do.  We need to accept that cars are an integral and essential part of every day life and gone are the days when we all walked long distances to school.  Let's face it, in my days as an infant in the 70s few folk had cars anyway.  (I'll move on before I start sounding like a Monty Python sketch, and suggesting we lived in a shoe box in the middle of a road, which we cleaned with our tongues....).  Those were the days eh, when comedy was comedy and not watching Miranda fall off a chair (again)?

Sorry, where was I, oh yes, the school run.  It shouldn't be a chore. It is a rare chance to catch up with your children while they are not physically attached to an ipod, laptop or wii controller with their eyes glued to a flickering screen.
It's also a chance for them to socialise with and make new friends, get their chit-chatting out of the way and be ready to learn when they arrive at school.  It also gives them exercise, another increasing 'issue' in society.

Remember, 'stop, look and listen'?  These days our kids only hear these words when we say, 'hey, stop messing around in the back, look, you'll be in trouble if you drop those crisps on the back seat, I've had the car valeted, just listen to your music and shut up while I drive, we're late!"

And you see secondary school kids ambling down the middle of the road and wandering in front of cars because, if they're not ensconced 'inside' a car, they simply have no idea how to behave on the roads.  We all try to wrap our children in cotton wool, the cotton wool in this case being the latest  Ford SUV (other models are available).

It's simple, human beings are made of rather brittle materials, skin, bone that kind of thing whereas cars, lorries, vans and buses are made of rather strong chunks of iron, steel and glass.  It's not rocket science.  In an argument, human beings don't fare well.
We need to teach our children how to behave around these chunks of metal and we're  not going to do that if they are always 'inside' the aforementioned chunk.
Well, anyway, can someone give me a lift down from my soapbox please cos I need a wee?

Thank you.
That's better.

So, where was I?  Oh yes, I can assure you that, amid Hoppa activities, I've been storing up lots of anecdotal banter to keep you reading withdewrespect instead of Googling your own name when you're bored and the boss is out (ah, is that just me?).

Oh yes, and I've been running, that's what else I've been doing.  Here's a pic to prove it.  I did the Harewood House Age UK 10K in a gruelling one hour and 47 seconds.  Darn those hills, darn those 47 seconds and darn my running partner who lost me in the pack and cracked the hour!

On the buses

Being as I've been away a while, I'll get straight on with today's beef.
I sat opposite a very well turned out, forty-something professional lady on the train to Leeds yesterday.  She smiled politely at me and I formed an immediate opinion that she looked like a nice genteel individual.

Right until the moment she drank the dregs of her coffee, stood up and got off the train, leaving her disposable coffee cup, well, un-disposed, right there on the table!  Why do people think they have a God-given right to leave litter, let someone else come along and sit with their used coffee cup in front of them and leave someone else to clear it away.
It is just me?
Probably.

Sorry, withdewrespect has been on a short holiday, coupled with a nasty chest infection and followed by, oh what's that thing I do again.....?  Oh, that's right, work!
Also, Easter left me with far too much chocolate around the house so I've been on such a sugar high I couldn't string a sentence together.  Well, OK, the kids were left with so many eggs that I hid six in a kitchen cupboard and have been steadily munching through them ever since.  Whenever a child sneaks up and asks me what I'm eating, I smile sweetly and reply, 'an apple, do you want one'?

My holiday was to Portugal, as you know, once my country of residence.  I returned with a friend who was also travelling with children to visit their father.  Going towards the EU or Nothing to Declare exit choices on arrival at Porto Airport, my friend joked there should be a separate exit for International Divorcees.  It would be a busy exit I can tell you!!  And among those using it would be non-other than JK Rowling (and not a lot of people know that!).

On this trip we hired a car and ended up re-mortgaging both our houses thanks to the 'hidden extras' ( well, thanks to Groupon and affordablecarhire.com, NOT!)
Back in the days before I owned a car and the fantastic Metro do Porto was just a twinkle in a Transport Minister's eye, I was a regular on city's bus routes.
There was never a dull moment on the buses in the mid 90s I can tell you. Getting to empty seats was like a rampage scene from Jurrasic Park, jabbing elbows, right hooks and swinging handbags were commonplace in pursuit of an uncomfortable, wet and dirty blob of orange moulded plastic.  Put it this way, seats were as rare as a smile in a Portuguese Post Office (JK knows what I'm talking about!).

It was a daily adventure, often more farcical than Sid James' trousers falling down or Barbara Windsor making a boob of herself.
One day, my newly-purchased Nokia house brick rang.  I delved into my bag (as did everyone else!).  One minute, I'm just a face in the crowd.  I say, 'hello?', and I'm the daughter of Beelzebub!!!
Like a Wild West saloon when the baddie walks in, there's a deathly silence, everybody stares.

'Oh, hi mum, you OK.....yes I'm fine, just on the bus......'

Mothers gather up their babes in arms, children point, old ladies stare, men shuffle away.  Lock up your daughters, there's an alien on the bus!
I'm the one they stare at!!!  Opposite me a lady has two puppies in her shopping bag, behind me two women have set up a cottage industry, crocheting table cloths.  (Is this some form of tax evasion, crocheting on a moving bus, like duty free on an airplane?).  The man next to me retches, gargles and sends an expertly formed green globule of phlegm hurtling over my head and through the open window.
All this, everyone ignored.  I say 'hello' and you'd have thought I'd stripped naked, pulled out a pair of maracas and started singing Viva Espana.

I hasten to add that I am firmly in favour of 'when in Rome' and worked tirelessly to learn the lingua.  Even when I spoke near word-perfect Portuguese, I still had a noticeable (OK, dodgy) accent and grew to love the intrigued stares on the buses.  Or maybe I just bought a car....memory doesn't serve me well.

The Portuguese language is notoriously difficult to master.  Like all Latin languages, it's feminine this and masculine that, with no rhyme or reason, and there's more past and future tenses than you can shake a stick at.  And, perhaps much like English (sun / son), there are many similar sounding words with completely different meanings.
I once walked into a shop with a runny nose and asked for a packet of bed sheets.  (lencos = tissues / lencois = bed sheets)

 (PS: I love Portugal and its people really and I was always, and still am, made to feel at home in the land and like one of the family among its people.  The Portuguese are wonderful; every home should have one, mine does!!!!)

Toss an Escudo or make a run for it

Being a hen in Portugal must be pretty darn hard work.

The average inhabitant of the country seems to consume at least four eggs a day; that’s a whole lot of laying.

You’re about to tuck into your roast beef and lo and behold a fried egg is sat on top of it, as they do alongside most meat dishes.  Boiled eggs accompany many a fish dish and there’s none of your fancy slicing or mashing with mayo; it’s just boiled and shelled. I always approach my chocolate mousse with some trepidation, and a pinch of salt, just in case.

Returning to Portugal again (you may recall I lived there for a number of years and returned to the UK in 2006) is real culinary trip down memory lane.

I remember the first time I met my intended’s (now ex's) parents; I spent an entire day smiling for England and eating twice my own body weight.  My facial muscles ached for days and the whole chicken (and several eggs) in my belly took its toll I can tell you.

Meeting the prospective in-laws is an ordeal at the best of times.  The ‘best of times’ for me would have simply being able to speak their language, or them speaking mine.

There I am at the dinner table with the whole family, nodding, grinning and feigning an expression of complete comprehension as they put the world to rights in, as far as I was concerned, gobbledygook.

I had been tipped off that Portuguese women like people to enjoy their food.  So, unable to contribute conversationally, I ate, and ate, and ate (and nodded and smiled).

Suddenly, there was a lull in the incomprehensible jabber and all eyes were on me.  Oh no, what’s wrong?  Have I got egg on my chin, parsley in my teeth, sprouted another head or, even worse, has someone asked me a question?

I reckon have a 50/50 chance with the simple response 'sim' or 'nao'.  

Should I toss an Escudo or make a run for it? 

Now, thus far, my very basic understanding of the language armed me with ‘your house is lovely’ (tem uma casa bonita), ‘pleased to meet you’ (muito prazer) and ‘I’d like a ham and cheese toastie please’ (quero uma tosta mista por favor).  In those days, I wasn’t quite ready to share my views on the European Monetary Union.

What a relief it was then when my fiancé translated that his mother had simply asked; ‘why was I at university when I was so old, was I marrying her son to gain Portuguese nationality and would I like another chicken leg?’

I nodded, shoved in another potato and smiled.

We'll be BFF!!!! (until the kids arrive)

It's a tricky subject to broach but thought-provoking non-the-less and something I've been pondering over.

Last week, this very topic was echoed in a conversation I overheard while ear-wigging in the playground (as you do).

Can friends who are parents remain 'really' close friends with friends who aren't?
Oooo, controversial!!!  And I can hear you all thinking of fine examples to immediately dispel this theory (and my non-parent friends thinking, charming!!!).
Bear with me.
What I'm getting at, both from the point of view of parents AND non-parents, is that although staying close in a friendship after the arrival of children might not be impossible, it certainly isn't easy.

The conversation I overheard at school was about a group of forty-something-year-old girl friends who had been trying, for many years, to plan a short trip away together, just the girls!
It had never happened; running the home, the demands of kids, taxi duties and sheer exhaustion, had always got in the way.....until one day.
On that day, the ladies decided to still go away, but.......take the kids with them.  Eureka!!! Suddenly it was do-able and the trip was planned within hours!

I'm not just coming at this from the 'parent' perspective and bemoaning my own lack of time and opportunity to meet up with non-parent friends, without the kids around.  I ashamedly admit sometimes struggling to understand why my friends can't just drop everything to meet me when I have an hours gap between football training and street dance class.  How mean!!!

In reality, how wrong I am.   For one, I selfishly forget that my friends without kids have a much wider circle of friends, more diverse hobbies and busier social lives.  More importantly, they all work a hell of a lot more hours than I do, in very stressful and demanding jobs, and therefore their spare time is also a rare and precious commodity.

In some ways, FaceBook has provided us with a new level of relationship, filling the gap between BFF (Best Friends Forever) and FOF (Fallen Out Forever); where we can maintain contact through regularly sharing family / social / work and hobby news and photographs.  We can stay in touch with all our busy friends without actually having to stay in touch, if you see what I mean. (Yes, that's right, I've gone soft on FB)

I guess it's just practical that my social timetable as a mum fits in better with friends who are mums, making meet-ups more logistically manageable.  The kids are, of course, usually around but at least they can play together while we chat.  We just accept that during such mum-to-mum conversations we never actually finish sentences; there's bound to be an interruption from some small person needing a bottom wiped, or in my son's case, something urgently needing sellotaping (two non-linked examples, I hasten to clarify).

Likewise, before I had the boys, in meet-ups with already-burdened friends, I recall being frustrated at such seemingly trivial interruptions from their snotty kids.  I simply didn't understand why bum wiping was more important than discussing my boyfriend trauma or hairstyle dilemma (those things being of equal importance at the time).

I guess it's all about compromise and finding the middle ground where mums understand the varied stresses and strains of everyday life without kids and, in return, our friends understand that since we've given birth to the darn things we're apparently morally and legally-bound to give them priority with regard to that most precious of commodities; time.

At the end of the day, all friendships that survive childbirth or any life-changing event are surely worth working at in real time, and not just through a FaceBook post (see, I'm not totally convinced).  Meet-ups may be less frequent but non-the-less special and worth making time for.

PS: I've gone all serious and pensive again so I'll throw in another one of my pet hates, courtesy of 'motorway management' and specifically the signs warning drivers that there are pedestrians in the road.

Rather than having to repeat these signs for miles and miles to hundreds, nay thousands, of drivers, why not just have one sign directed at the pedestrians saying: GET OFF THE ROAD YOU FOOLS!?

Friends.

Happy days, when sentences were never finished!!!

See you soon, face-to-face, or on FaceBook.

Is the new Pope really Elliot Carver?

Is it just me or has anybody else noticed that the new Pope could actually be evil media baron Elliot Carver?
Well, OK, Elliot Carver is actually a fictional character from a James Bond movie played by Jonathan Pryce, but you tell me they're not lookie-likies!

I went to see the much-celebrated Agatha Christie whodunnit Mousetrap at Leeds Grand last week.  At 41-years, I was a somewhat 'young' member of the audience and, dare I say, the 'ambiance' of the dress circle made me think of Blanche Dubois' famous line in A Streetcar Named Desire, 'the smell of cheap perfume is penetrating'.  Sorry, that's not much good as a review is it?  I think my mum summed it up when she admitted she only wanted to see what all the fuss, and 60-year historic West End run, was about.  It's stood the test of time in some respects, with great cast and production values in this touring performance, but I think, when the Rights become available, it would be better placed as a village hall am-dram.

My theatre trip followed a couple of days in Wales, including a trot up Mount Snowden, followed by three days of staggering around in agony!
Here's my White Waters Country Hotel review......
You know you're in a cheap hotel when the stir and tap of 'tea spoon on coffee cup' in the next room is your wake up call.  Or perhaps the parrot in reception was another sign.  And you know it's a Groupon deal when having a shower, hanging clothes and walking down a corridor are chargeable 'supplements'.
Mind you, the hotel did have a spa of sorts (oooh posh, I thought), although I think their definition of 'spa' and mine are two very different things.

But we decided to make use of the over-sized bath.  There being just the two of us in the spa, I became, dare I say, carefree and, well, positively risque!  Clearly thinking I was on an 18-30 holiday or Big Brother, I cheekily decided a quick flash was in order before I joined my hubby in the bubbles.
Chuckling away to myself at my own recklessness, it became like a scene from a low budget family sit-com when I looked up and spotted the all-seeing, all-winking red eye of the CCTV camera and remembered the bank of screens in the reception area.  Red-faced, I restored my respectable tankini to its rightful position and submerged myself under the water in haste.

(That tale is a bit like watching an episode of Embarrassing Bodies and observing that nobody who is genuinely 'embarrassed' would go on national TV and show their bits!)

My 'gaff of the week' is not a Teddy-tale this time, it is my incredibly intelligent, well-read and worldly-wise friend.  Intelligent, well-read and worldly-wise she may undoubtedly be, but clearly the difference between blue and green is an area she needs to work on! Not really a problem day to day I suppose.  However, at a school event is another thing, especially when she leaps out of her seat and skips to the raffle prize table in front of a hundred fellow mums brandishing the winning number on her blue ticket, only to be told it's actually green (and therefore not a winner)!
(Hey mate, at least (hopefully) only a parrot saw my boob!)

Come on slow coach, just another 1,000ft to go!

My egg-cellent son

This is dedicated to my son Teddy, without whom this blog, and my life, would be very dull!
He may get egg on his chin once in a while but the beauty of it is, he just doesn't care!
But more of that anon.

As a quick random rambling aside, a la Ronnie Corbett sat in the Mastermind chair, I might change the name of my blog to, 'what or whom is annoying me this week'.
And first up are.....people who clean the pavement outside their house by sweeping the fag ends etc in front of their neighbour's house!  (I saw it with my own eyes on my way to work yesterday, why would you do that; maybe I should have stopped the car and asked!)

Anyway, where was I?
Oh yes, Teddy.  I'm so proud of him this week I could pop.

Back in September, he was adamant that he was NOT joining his fellow Street Dance 'crew' for the dance school's show Legends, professionally hosted by the Lawrence Batley Theatre.
Last weekend, I joined nearly a thousand fellow popping mums, dads, grans and grandads to see him dance in four performances over an exhausting weekend.
The show itself is an absolute credit to Katie Philpott, her school, teachers and, of course, the dancers, aged from just-out-of-nappies to school-leavers, some of whom are heading to prestigious dance colleges (oh, and an excellent group of fellow forty-something-year-old tappers).
A cast of 300+ girls and boys danced ballet, tap, jazz, modern and street with musical theatre thrown in for a few giggles (unfortunately, I now can't stop humming It's a Hard-Knock Life! - bet, you can't either now!).
I cannot gush too much about how excellent this show truly is (regardless of whether your own budding Bussell is in it or not).  Mind you, ask me which the best dance was and I may show slight bias....the Smooth Criminals of course!

But I'm most proud of Teddy for facing his fears and showing a growing confidence that I hope will stand him in good stead in future life.

Anyway, about that eggy chin of his......
On the way home from the final show, I was asking Teddy and fellow street dancer Jacob about  World Book Day and what costumes they were planning to wear for school (by the way, this idle chat was just a cunning ruse to keep the shattered pair awake).  The conversation went thus: -

Me: "Who are you going as on World Book Day, Jacob?"
Jacob: "Hamlet"
Teddy: "Isn't that a sandwich?"
Me and Jacob: "Eh?"
Teddy: "Oh no, hang on, that's Omelette."

I could write a book........

Smooth Criminals

A damp cloth and a squirt of Febreze

I was hoping this blog, after a break with friends and family at Center Parcs (Sherwood), would be brimming with news, views and my usual scathing (yet hilarious!?) anecdotes on the annoying nuances of everyday life. 
I've come home with a blank notebook.

Darn Center Parcs and their smooth-running, nothing's too much trouble, safe, car free, squeaky clean forest of wholesomeness.  (You know if you Google 'forest', the third result is Center Parcs; how good are they at SEO?!)
And as for the 'friends and family', they were no good for blog fodder either.  Nobody fell out, nobody got injured, sick, lost, drunk or disorderly, stuck up a tree; nothing!  Getting scraped, bruised and up close and personal with strangers' bottoms on the rapids is hardly even note-worthy.
Actually, the only pain in the aforementioned, was that, after four days of non-stop laser shooting, archery, football, tennis (short and table), badminton, squash, climbing, snooker and relentless swimming, I came home with a nice dose of flu!

Wait a minute, I forgot fencing!
That's right, weaponry-obsessed Daniel wanted to fence.  Thinking it would be foam swords and non-parent-participation I took him along.
How wrong I was, on both counts.  After a very short introduction to 'en garde' and 'lunge', the five-year-olds AND mums and dads were kitted out for battle, complete with real life foils which were bigger and heavier than the kids!
I know CP in half-term attracts the 4x4-driving, North Face-coated brigade but I still don't want to come face-to-face with my fellow campers' halitosis and activity-OD'd sweaty pits.  Let's just say, the masks and jackets were in need of a damp cloth and a squirt of Febreze!

There we go, I knew I'd find something to moan about!!!!

Speaking of Daniel, back at school this week he came home with the usual tonne-weight of parent sheets (I shudder for the rain forests).  The term's topic seemed perfectly Reception-age-friendly; Colour and Shape.
However, I'm  not sure how adult-age-appropriate the parent advice sheet was.....
Under Communication, Language and Literacy, item four read: - 'To sequence familiar stories and encourage emergent writing' (eh?).
In Expressive Arts and Design they will be ' looking at works by the artist Kandinsky and creating a piece of art in his style' (who?). 
And at home, we were asked (among a whole raft of things) to help our children 'identify and write initial, medial, final sounds in the CVC words' (oh boy!).

Can't we just stick CBBC on and give them a bag of Quavers?
I'm even considering boarding school as I need the free time to crack on with my Masters in 'Understanding and Deciphering Primary School Parental Literature'.

PS: Of course, I do know who Kandinsky is really.
(I just didn't realise she was an artist and a cross-dresser - but I did always think that Bill Clinton chappy was up to no good)

En garde - Daniel has me cornered!