Got milk?

We've Moved!

2004-06-27T20:35:00.000+01:00

My darling Milk Monster has been generous enough to allow me some space to house my blog at her fab new website.

See you there!

The Rise of the Monkey

2004-06-23T13:56:00.000+01:00

On Monday when we went down to breakfast we noticed the distinctive stench of monkey in the house. This made us a little nervous, as we had no wish to see a repeat of the Monkey Fountain display of recent days. However, water from the sink seemed to be draining away, albeit a little slowly, so we decided that watchful waiting would be the best policy to adopt. In the meantime I decided to visit the new DIY store that has just opened in town, and purchase some tools designed to extricate stuck monkeys - a long bendy pokey thing, a super dooper power pumpy thing and a can of compressed air (lemon scented). Once home, said items were deployed and any monkeys that might have been hanging around contemplating getting themselves stuck were well and truly scared off. Job done.

Yesterday morning when we went down to breakfast we noticed the distinctive stench of monkey in the house. Ostrich. Obviously this wasn't a problem that was going to go away. MMD decided that he urgent action needed to be taken before the monkeys started to invade the house again. The logical thing to do would be to lift the drain covers and see just how many monkeys were down there. There are two drain covers in our garden, set into the patio. There is one patio in our garden which, due to the ongoing entrenchment, was temporarily buried under a 4 tonne pile of soil. Double ostrich.

Once the soil had been shoveled to another patch of the garden (one which we're sure provides no access to any sort of services) we tentatively lifted the drain covers. A large crusty mass of monkeys was sitting 6 inches below the cover. It didn't smell good. We covered it up again pretty quickly.

The man from the council came, along with his stooge, and peered down the hole.
"It's full of monkey" he said.
Very astute, the man from the council.
"But I'm afraid it's not our responsibility" he said.

So we called the nice man from DynoRod, who stuck his high pressure nozzle in the hole and scared the monkeys off for good.

We also took a look under the manhole cover in the garage. Up until now we've assumed that it's another connection to the sewer, so we wanted to make sure there weren't any monkeys in there either. Turns out it's nothing to d with the sewer - there's a ten foot deep hole which opens out into a cavern the size of a small bedroom. We couldn't see any further. We've no idea what it is - possibly a storm drain.

There was one good outcome - whilst we were shovelling soil from one side of the garden to the other, we found real buried treasure! Solid silver, hallmarked and everything! According to Google, it was made in London in 1906 by George Jackson and David Fullerton.

CNPS - 29
Good - Yarr! Piratey treasure.
Bad - Enough monkeys to sell tea to the Yanks.
Teeth - 2
Pink - 5ml

Ho hum

2004-06-21T00:40:00.000+01:00

It's been a busy weekend doing not very much. The Milk Monster was gracious enough to grant us a lie-in on Saturday, and I spent most of the morning pootling around the house doing Nothing Very Much while MMD went into town to order more supplies for the fortifications. After lunch a couple of friends dropped by unexpectedly for cuddles with the Monster, and I spent a very pleasant couple of hours catching up with the gossip while MMD readied himself for a school reunion in Reading.

I had felt a little nervous about this reunion thing - what if MMD bumped into an old flame and found himself instantly transported back to the days of his youth? It turns out that I needn't have worried - a few of the girls from the adjacent school were there, but by all accounts the intervening years hadn't been kind to them.

As MMD was staying in a hotel so that he could partake of the alcohol, I was alone with the Monster for the evening. Once I'd helped the Monster to make a Father's Day card, and cuddled her to bed, I set about making a batch of gluten free biscotti, as we have run out and I'd also promised to send some to Stu. Biscotti is supposed to look like this, but somewhere in the process I must have had a concentration lapse cos when it came to cutting it into slices for the second baking it all fell apart. I did consider giving it a second baking anyway and passing it off as gluten free muesli, but in the end I did the decent thing and fed it to the birds instead. Sorry Stu! I'll have another go soon.

Somewhat disheartened, I sought solace in the chatroom, where at least one person was somewhat the worse for wear. And very entertaining (and educational) it was too.

I finally staggered to bed at silly o'clock, having first retrieved the Monster from her cot.

MMD got home this morning on a high - which was improved still further by the home made card and "I'm The Daddy" t-shirt that the Monster gave him. Without further ado we set off with our tails up to purchase a shiny - and following some technermological jiggery pokery this evening, our ADSL router is up and running so we don’t have to fight over the internet connection any more. Hurrah! MMD also bought me an early birthday present. It pans and tilts all on its own and reminds me of my favourite robot.

CNPS - Still 28 despite trawling round the huge carpark at the shopping centre.
Good - New shinies!
Bad - It's 1am and I should have been in bed hours ago.
Teeth - 2.
Pink - 5ml.

Going Through The Motions.

2004-06-18T13:12:00.000+01:00

I'm going to be a bit distracted for the next few days. Yesterday was rather draining, so I'm restricting my time on the poop deck until the bilges have been pumped and the decks well and truly swabbed.

Oh, I got my blood test results back. My blood isn't treacly anymore, it's more like a light maple syrup - according to my rather dashing Doctor this is a Good Thing. Hurrah!

Daddy's Girl

2004-06-15T23:13:00.000+01:00

Milk Monster's Dad has been harbouring a suspicion for a while that I have the better deal out of this "one parent stays at home while the other goes out to earn spondoolies" arrangement that we have. Every day he leaves a smiling happy baby in the morning, slaves away in the office, then comes home to a smiling happy baby. His suspicion is that the Milk Monster is smiling and happy all day, and that I do indeed have a cushty job of it back at the ranch.

He's absolutely right. Due to some quirk of genetics, a lot of luck and exposure to vast amounts of chocolate whilst in utero, the Milk Monster is one of those babies that believes life is great, entertains herself for hours on end, and only cries when her teeth hurt (and then only until we give her some pink). I don't deserve her.

As if to cement MMD's suspicions that he's missing out on all the fun, he had to change his shirt 3 times when he got home last night as the Milk Monster decided that what he was wearing needed livening up a bit. Just to top the evening off she gave him a classic demonstration of the "Fountain of Spew" trick when MMD was drying her off after her bath.

Poor Daddy.

CNPS - 28.
Good - 2 Galaxy Ripples.
Bad - Baby sick.
Teeth - 2.
Pink - 0.

Risky Business

2004-06-14T23:52:00.000+01:00

As the Milk Monster is becoming increasingly mobile, we've decided that the time is right to think about rearranging things around the house to make it a little safer.

I'm quite a safety conscious person, and finally all those years of Risk Assessments that I did when I had a job were going to pay off. I decided that I'd start with the kitchen, as this would give me a good reason to sort through the larder, and I might just manage to do something more useful with the three cupboards that are currently full of junk that we never use.

When carrying out a Risk Assessment it's important to put yourself in the position of the person who will be exposed to the potential hazards. Since that person is only 70cm tall and will be travelling about on hands and knees for quite some time, I sat myself down in the middle of the kitchen floor and took a good look around. And it was scary. The numerous items within reach that could cause harm included:

1. The coffee grinder
2. The chopping blades for the food processor
3. The various highly caustic cleaning products under the sink
4. The huge number of plastic bags in another cupboard
5. The First Aid kit
6. The knife drawer
7. The cheese grater
8. The oven

After procrastinating for a while in the chat room I finally set to work. Unfortunately a 7-year-old tin of prunes in the larder waylaid me, so I didn't actually get very far. But at least it gives me something to look forward to tomorrow.

CNPS - 28. I need to go out more.
Good - The bread and butter pudding MMD brought home for tea.
Bad - The local chemist only sells the sugar free version of pink, which the Monster spits out.
Teeth - 2.
Pink - 0.

Resurrection

2004-06-14T12:37:00.000+01:00

Hooray! After 4 days finally I can blog again!

I was going to blog but...

2004-06-13T22:40:00.000+01:00

... I've just finished watching the footy. Gutted.

Dental Speed Demon

2004-06-12T22:41:00.000+01:00

For months now we've been waiting for the Milk Monster's red cheeks and abundant dribbling to bear fruit. Every morning we check inside her mouth for signs of toothy pegs peeking through the gums, but all to no avail. We'd all but given up.

So you can imagine our surprise when we checked her mouth this morning and found a tooth! We hadn't had much warning - we haven't had to administer pink for quite a few days, and there were no signs of discomfort other than a single yelp in the middle of the night.

We were even more surprised when another tooth appeared next to the first this afternoon. Perhaps the Monster could represent the country in the Speed Teething category in Athens this summer.

CNPS - Yep, still 28.
Good - Piratey smiles from a toothy Monster.
Bad - It hurts a lot more when the Monster chews your fingers.
Teeth - 2.
Pink - 0.

Your Flexible Friend

2004-06-11T22:46:00.000+01:00

I had my penultimate appointment with the physioterrorist today - despite my initial apprehension she really has done a splendid job knocking me back into shape. I can touch my toes again. Two months ago I couldn't even reach my knees.

Now she's teaching me Pilates to strengthen my 'inner core', and by the end of the summer I should be able to start rowing again.

CNPS - 28. Grrrrr.
Good - Woohoo! Nearly the weekend!
Bad - Nothing. An all-round good day today.
Teeth - 0.
Pink - 0.

UXB*

2004-06-10T22:49:00.000+01:00

YAY - I was woken up by a Smiley Happy Morning Monster.

BOO - I had to go for a blood test,

YAY - but they managed to hit the vein at the first attemp.

BOO - When I left the surgery I saw the Surgery Loony

YAY - but I hid behind the postbox (again!) and she didn't see me.

BOO - Some idiot nearly crashed their lorry into my car.

YAY - When I got home the weather was so good I decided to walk to the Polling Station to cast my vote.

BOO - I couldn't find my polling card,

YAY - but you don't have to have it to vote.

BOO - I didn't know where the Polling Station was,

BOO - it wasn't at the school,

BOO - or the Scout Hut,

BOO - or the church hall,

BOO - or the other church hall,

BOO - or the youth club.

YAY - It was at the cricket pavillion.

BOO - The local candidates were all outside trying to get hold of my number so they could record whether or not I'd voted.

YAY - I couldn't tell them it 'cos I'd lost my polling card.

BOO - I had to take the Monster back to the Surgery for the Child Health Clinic, and the Surgery Loony came to sit down next to me.

BOO - The Milk Monster threw up,

YAY - all over the Surgery Loony,

YAY - and not over Milk Monster's Mum or the Milk Monster.

*Unexploded Baby

CNPS - 28. I'll be cruising the car parks any day now.
Good - Everything listed as YAY.
Bad - Everything listed as BOO.
Teeth - 0.
Pink - 0.

Blood, Blood, Glorious Blood.

2004-06-09T15:22:00.000+01:00

I'm a little nervous. Tomorrow I've got to go for a blood test to monitor the stickiness of my blood. I don't have a good track record with blood tests. For a start, I'm known to the Practice Nurse as a 'fainter'. If I don't start off horizontal, you can guarantee I'll end up that way. There's also the risk that they'll have to take several stabs (quite literally) at getting a sufficient amount of the red stuff out of me. I used to have veins that you could have hit with a kiddy's bow and arrow from the other side of the room, but sometime during my pregnancy they all disappeared and now it takes quite a bit of slapping, prodding and coaxing to find something big enough to stick a needle in. As if that wasn't enough to send me running for the hills, I've been having nightmares, all as a result of knowing that my blood is too viscous.

SCENE: Treatment room at the local surgery. MMM is lying groaning on the trolley with a large needle stuck in her arm. The nurse is trying to pull the plunger out of the syringe with both hands, and has one foot on the side of the trolley for extra leverage. The Doctor enters the room.

NURSE: It's no good Doctor, this is like trying to suck treacle through a piece of quick cook spaghetti.

DOCTOR: We'll need a bigger needle…

(the doctor whips out a needle that looks as if it would be more at home stuck in a MacNasty milkshake)

DOCTOR: … and more suction.

(produces a piece of equipment more commonly used for pumping out boats)

CNPS - 28
Good - Almond slices
Bad - Eating 5 almond slices
Pink - 0
Teeth - 0

National Pride

2004-06-07T16:54:00.000+01:00

MMD commented today that there was an unusually high level of support for the BNP in the forthcoming local elections - the village is usually a Tory stronghold.

I hadn't seen much of this myself, apart from a flyer that came through our letterbox.

"Haven't you see the flags?" he asked. "They're everywhere."

Poor thing. He doesn't seem to realise that the football starts in just under a week.

CNPS - 28.
Bad - The Chat explodified and we had to struggle along with Messenger.
Good - e10t fixed it!
Pink - 0
Teeth - 0

Sunstroke

2004-06-06T13:41:00.000+01:00

I'm blogging early today - I've numerous domestic duties to complete, I need an early night, and also want to spend a bit of time brushing up on my JavaScript skills.

MMB and MMD have been working extremely hard in the garden this weekend, expanding the network of trenches, felling trees and digging out some monstrous tree stumps. Judging from their apparel, they may have caught a little too much sun. MMD has become delusional and believes that he is Lawrence of Arabia, whilst MMB doesn't seem to have fully returned from his gap year in Autstralia yet.

However, all their hard work is starting to show results. By the end of today we should be ready for the 3 tonnes of sand, 2 tonnes of ballast, 33 bags of cement and 8 concrete gravel boards that Jewson are delivering on Tuesday. Once that lot is in place we'll be ready for the cobbles, walls, paving slabs and enough additional soil to house a few thousand immigrant worms. If they can keep up this impressive rate of progress I should be able to plant out the 20* or so sunflower seedlings that I have been nurturing in a couple of weekend's time. Oh, and if any of you have suggestions for suitable** plants for a cottage garden, please let me know!

* Quite remarkable, considering that I'm about as green fingered as Agent Orange.
** Where 'suitable' means idiot-proof and low maintenance.

CNPS - 28, curses!
Good - The roast beef left-overs I'm about to eat.
Bad - The number of cats using the 3 tonne pile of soil on our patio as a litter tray.
Pink - 0. So far.
Teeth - 0

Questions, questions

2004-06-05T22:06:00.000+01:00

The problem with the half term holidays is that young whippersnappers with nothing better to do lead you astray, aided and abetted by others who really should know better.

This time it was the online personality quizzes - to start things off I took the Which Childhood Toy of the 80s Are You? Quiz, with the following result:

"You're a Speak & Spell!! You nerd, you. Just because you were disguised as a toy doesn't mean you weren't educational, you sneaky bastard."

Woohoo! I was always impressed by Speak & Spell, and Texas Instruments still make some pretty nifty calculators and stuff. Whoever wrote this test was clearly a genius. And for your information I rather like being a nerd.

Next up was the Battle Cries Quiz.

Seems reasonable. I'd have liked it to have a bit more punch, but I'll settle for being a furry nerd.

Onto Greek Goddesses - now this is strange. Apparently I am both Gaia (Mother Earth with tons and tons of kids) and Athena (virgin Goddess). Can anyone spot the inconsistency here?

I'm not going to tell you my result from the Personality Disorder Test, but neither of me agrees with it.

CNPS - 28 Goddamnit!
Good - I resisted the temptation to buy another box of Mars Ice Cream bars.
Bad - Well, technically I just forgot to buy any, but that's as good as resisting temptation.
Teeth - 0
Pink - 0

The Thief In The Night

2004-06-04T21:37:00.000+01:00

A little while ago Milk Monster's Dad went outside one morning to put some rubbish in the bin. But the bin was missing. We tried looking in the garage, thinking that we might have moved it an absent-minded moment, but it wasn't there. It wasn't in the passage beside the house either - we sometimes put it there if we're expecting high winds. We were certain that it wasn't the local family of foxes as there was no rubbish strewn across the lawn

There was only one explanation. Somebody had stolen our bin, along with all the rubbish that was inside it. This wasn't implausible - I'd heard some noise in the back garden the previous night and had put it down to the local wildlife, but it was just as likely that some local kids had been messing around. The fence at the bottom of our garden had a big gap in it, due to the building work that was going on in the field next door. Perhaps they had got in there. MMD went to investigate.

A minute or so later a triumphant cry arose from the back of the compost heap. The bin had been found, lid still attached - minus it's rubbish.

We'd had some trouble with badgers over the previous weeks - a month or so with no rain meant there wasn't much in the way of crawly things for them to feed on and in desperation they'd taken to raiding the neighbourhood bins. We were regularly awoken by the noise of a badger knocking the bin over to get at its contents. Usually the security light scared them off before they could do much damage, but the contents on the bin would be scattered around the back garden. To try and prevent this, MMD had taken to securing the bin lid with a couple of strong bungee cords. Judging by the bite marks on the bin handles, this had really annoyed the badger, and, determined to get the bin open, Brock had dragged the (full) bin 20 metres down the garden out of the glare of the security light in order to give it a good going over. However, the bungee cords held firm. But the badger was hungry. Undeterred, Brock had located a small crack in the lid of the bin, and this was sufficient to permit a badger-sized hole to be chewed in the lid.

We still haven't got around to replacing the bin, but when we do, we're buying a metal one.

CNPS - Still 28, although this is probably because I haven't been out of the house for the last 2 days.
Good - Henry, Bean and SimonG dressing up as Maggie Thatcher.
Bad - Henry, Bean and SimonG dressing up as Maggie Thatcher.

She who dares...

2004-06-03T22:02:00.000+01:00

It’s all Mort’s fault.

No scrap that, it’s all Mort’s Mom’s fault – she was having a smug moment about cabriolet being a type of chair leg, and not just a car with its roof missing. I happened to be chatting to the Morticle at the time, and she dared me to work cabriolet into a conversation with the Phallic Veg man who delivers to our house every Tuesday.

Foolishly I accepted.

Now, normally the Phallic Veg man arrives at about 10:30am, ready to ply me with his knobbly parsnips and suchlike. This gives me plenty of time to fit in a quick row* while the Milk Monster is sleeping, and then get showered up and changed lest I look anything other than respectable when I answer the door. This time, he was half an hour early. So, clad in my rowing lycra, ‘glowing’ a little, and slightly breathless, I hadn’t had time to prepare myself properly when I opened the front door.

The Phallic Veg man has always been a little wary of me ever since the time I opened the door to him wearing a red leotard and a Santa beard**, and he was just a little flustered this time. In his panic he gabbled “You’re looking very fit today!”, and equally flustered I replied “Would you like to come in and see my cabriolet legs?”.

At this point he turned and ran for the hills, discarding sprouts and potatoes as he went. I’m expecting a letter any day now informing me that my patronage is no longer required.

* as in boat, not argument.
** I was expecting MMD, not the Phallic Veg man.

CNPS – Still 28. Where have all the 29s gone?
Good – Mars Ice Cream bars
Bad – Eating too many Mars Ice Cream bars

Strictly On A Need-To-Know Basis

2004-06-01T21:09:00.000+01:00

I always like to know what's going on. I like to know what's happening, and when it's going to happen. I hate it when things don't run on schedule. I put all this down to insecurity stemming from the time my parents moved house and omitted to tell me.

Of course, I knew we would be moving house at some point. We'd been to look at lots of houses, and our house had been full of tea chests and cardboard boxes for weeks. It was just that, when the actual day came, no-one thought to mention it to me. So I trotted off to school, blissfully unaware of what was going on. I was 7 years old*. When the bell rang for the end of school I trotted back home. I was more than a little surprised when a stranger opened the door, but probably less surprised than they were when I walked into the living room and demanded to know what they'd done with our furniture.

Once I realised that what had happened, I was met with a bit of a dilemma. I knew where the new house was, but I didn't know how to get to it from the old house. So I had to walk back to school, then walk to the new house from there. This was definitely not an as-the-crow-flies option, but since I didn't know the street name for the new house, and my parents hadn't left any instructions for the forwarding of their offspring, I didn't have any choice.

I eventually made it to my new home, very tired and with aching legs, where my Mother administered a hefty wallop for being late for my tea.

*This was back in the days when 7 year olds regularly walked to school without parental supervision. It would never happen today, as today's 7 year olds have evolved people carriers in place of their legs.

CNPS - Still 28
Good - Smiley Happy Monsters
Bad - Unhappy Chummingtons

Things That Go Screech In The Night

2004-06-01T08:53:00.000+01:00

Well, things seem to be picking up. Over the weekend MMD and MMB have continued to dig the new network of trenches in our back garden. Of course, now it's started to rain, so I expect that very soon we'll have a nice water feature with a pond at each end where the main craters are. All this effort has produced an enormous heap of soil (about 3 tons by my reckoning) which needs to be sieved, with large stones being saved for hardcore and smaller ones being saved for backfilling the new wall of the raised flower bed which we're putting in. We've also dug up two bungee cords (still stretchy), two marbles and a Ferrari*.

I directed operations from a safe distance.

Whilst all this was going on, we plonked the Milk Monster in her travel cot on the patio so that she could spectate. She found it all very exciting, especially the tree felling bit. It also meant that by the end of the day she was covered in a fine dusting of soil, so had a slightly muddy bath. Never mind - my G.P. says all children should be fed dirt from an early age to ward of namby pamby allergies, so I'm sure it will do her the world of good.

After all this exertion (I ironed a laundry pile of Himalayan proportions) we were both ready for some rest, and tumbled thankfully into bed, too tired to watch Total Recall, even though it is a splendid fillum. Unfortunately, we were awoken by the Milk Monster screaming at 1ish. It seems that the Tooth Fairy has come to visit, and he's a viscious bushbaby. However, we administered the best combination therapy known to man - lashings of Calpol® and cuddles in the Big Bed with Mummy and Daddy - and she slept soundly for the rest of the night. After all that, there's still no sign of any teeth this morning. Doh! I suspect we may have a few interrupted nights ahead of us.

* A toy one, not the real thing. Shame.

CNPS: 28
Good: A twelve-pack of Mars Ice Cream bars. I've eaten 3 already and feel much better.
Bad: MMD's inability to move at more than snail's pace, due to very sore muscles.

Down, down, down, down

2004-05-30T22:31:00.000+01:00

I wasn't going to bother blogging today, but then I thought that perhaps I should, just to explain why I wasn't going to.

I feel really down. There's no reason why I should be feeling this way - I have a wonderful Milk Monster and an equally wonderful Milk Monster's Dad. I have few real worries. Plenty of people are worse off than me. But I just feel down. It's been creeping up on me for the last couple of days, but I only realised it tonight when I was lying in the bath and decided I couldn't be bothered to treat myself to a milkshake. That's always a sign that things Aren't Quite Right.

I'm not sure what's causing it - perhaps it's just a result of the tiredness I'm feeling on account of my sticky blood, or maybe my girlie hormones are having a bit of trouble sorting themselves out now that I'm no longer breastfeeding. But after a day of being forcing myself to be cheerful and sparkly for the Monster I'm absolutely cream crackered and suffering from a severe case of Can't-Be-Ostriched.

I'm sure this feeling will disappear of it's own accord very soon. I hope so. 'Cos it's not any fun at all being Mrs. Amis. E. Rablegit.

CNPS: 28
Good: A pressie in the post from Omallyallyally (I'm glad we were in to receive it, I don't fancy my chances of proving that my name really is 'Milk Monster's Mum' to the local sorting office). Thankyou Mallers! Although, having explored it a little, it seems that there's a real risk that I could become hooked and get into trouble with the authorities for Child Abandonement.
Bad: Being unable to get even a teensy bit enthusiastic about banana and peach flavour milkshake.

$%&@#?!

2004-05-28T20:50:00.000+01:00

Today I shall take a leaf out of Henry's blog and have a jolly good rant.

Here goes...

Most days of the week I take the Milk Monster out in the buggy and walk into the village. It's a very pleasant walk, the roads are quiet, there's very little traffic and it only takes ten minutes or so to get to the library and the High Street.

But every once in a while I forget the Golden Rule and walk into town at about 3:30pm. The tranquility of the village is shattered by dozens of ridiculous people-carriers, each laden with at most 1 adult and 2 of their idle offspring. Yep, you've guessed it - chucking out time at the primary school. The pavements are impassable with a buggy because of the number of cars parked on them. Crossing the cul-de-sac outside the school gates is like trying to cross a busy street in Rome during the rush hour. The zig-zag markings which are supposed to keep the area by the school free of traffic are covered by more cars. And what is most ridiculous is that most of the children live within 15 minutes walk of the school. The mother who lives opposite us collects her kids by car every day, even though she often has to park at least 5 minutes walk away from the school.

I have asked why these parents all drive their kids to and from school. Reasons given include:

1. Too much traffic - yes, you're creating it.
2. Bad weather - haven't you heard of wellies and raincoats?
3. It tires them out - oh pur-lease. They're in danger of losing the use of their legs.
4. Perverts - so walk with them.

When the Milk Monster reaches school age I have vowed to implement a Walking Bus, if they haven't already taken up my suggestion to do it by then.

CNPS - 28
Good - Going out for a suprise dinner with MMD and the Monster this evening.
Bad - The huge library fine I was charged for taking my books back a day late.

Sleepy Ted

2004-05-27T23:59:00.000+01:00

OK, I admit it. I'm cheating. I'm writing this on Friday morning and changing the date and time to make it look as if I wrote it last night.

I was out on the razz last night - this is only the second time I've been out on my own in the evening since the Milk Monster was born, so I made the most of it. Suffice to say much fun was had and by the time I stumbled back through the door it was very, very late and I was feeling very, very sleepy.

As I'd missed the Monster's bedtime, I crept into her room to check on her, and sat down by the cot for a while to watch her sleeping. This set me thinging about how much she has changed over the last five months, and wondering about the new things she'll learn over the rest of this year. She'll be one year old a couple of days after Christmas. MMS and I are already looking forward to taking her to the Christingle service in the village (and helping her to eat her christingle). Of course, there'll be all the children's carol services to go to, and one day, when she's a few years older, she'll probably experience that rite of passage which is standing in front of all the Grannies and Grandads and singing 'Away In a Manger'. Aged four years old, I went through this experience myself - with the microphone in front of me I sang my heart out:

Away in a manger, no crib for a bed,
The little Lord Jesus laid down his sweet ted.
I think I prefer my version.

Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft...

2004-05-26T22:09:00.000+01:00

Earthlings,
The one who you know as the Mother of the Monster of Milk will be unavailable for blogging tonight as she is currently aboard our orbital laboratory for evaluation by our team Research Scientists.

It is evident that her status as a Mother within your social structure indicates a higher level of mental thought process, the ability to perform multiple tasks simultaneously, and an innate ability to defend her offspring.

We are also particularly interested in her ability to handle toxic waste, as we feel this could be of benefit in developing new defenses against chemical warfare.

She will be returned to the Colony in approximately 12 of your Earth Hours.

Lub-Dub

2004-05-25T23:05:00.000+01:00

I went to visit the Doctor today so that he could confirm what we both suspected i.e. that my current feak and enweebled state is due to anaemia, and that swallowing a tablespoon of iron filings a day will soon have me back on the road to recovery.

But guess what! It turns out that my iron levels are perfectly healthy, as are my glucose levels, haemoglobin levels and a whole bunch of other levels that I can't pronounce. In fact, as we went through all the possible things that could be a bit out of whack I was starting to wonder why on earth he'd insisted I go back to see him. We established that there was nothing wrong with my kidneys, and my liver seemed to be functioning perfectly. Just as I was beginning to think he was playing some sort of practical joke he finally got around to what the problem was. Apparently my blood has gone sticky. It's become more viscous, which is why I've been feeling so exhausted lately. The most likely cause is the inflamed disc in my back, so, as taking anti-coagulant drugs isn't an option while I'm breastfeeding, it's more trips to the physio for me. I've got to have another blood test in a couple of weeks to see if things are improving.

He didn't tell me (or more to the point, I didn't ask) what the implications of treacly blood are. But I've just googled 'viscous blood' and scared myself silly by reading about all the nasty things that happen to you when your blood gets a bit sluggish on its way around the pipes. Suffice to say it's not very good news for your heart.

The Exorcist

2004-05-24T23:57:00.000+01:00

Since we've introduced the Milk Monster to the delights of 'solid' food, we've been pleased to discover that she something of a Tin Tum. What goes in invariably doesn't come out again, unless properly processed and via the appropriate channels. This is just as well, as her appetite is legendary amongst the other Mums and Babies. Just the other day at lunch she demolished half a large mango, then carried on to demolish the other half which I had reserved for my dessert. I expected her to be spectactularly sick, or to suffer from a sudden rush in the nappy department, but she took it all in her stride with no ill effects.

Today, however, things didn't go slightly smoothly. I'd just given the Monster a bottle of milk, and had popped her into her high chair ready for some yummy carrot and swede*. The prospect of food is always a cause of great excitement for the Monster, and she was showing this by flailing her arms and legs around and attempting to dive forwards onto the spoon. All of a sudden she sat up straight, smiled a huge smile, then opened her mouth and emptied out the entire contents of her stomach in a beautiful 3-second flow. Fortunately I managed to leap out of the way just in time, and the waterproof splash mat caught most of it. It's quite amazing how far 7 fluid ounces of recently ingested milk will go when you lay it out flat. Well, we cleaned up the mess, and the Monster didn't seem in the least bit perturbed. The only problem is I keep discovering previously unnoticed splashes of secondhand milk. Somehow she managed to get some in my shoe (while I was wearing it). My sock feels rather soggy and my feet smell more than usual.

* Yes el10t, I know you think that swede is the vegetable of Satan, but the Monster doesn't know any better, and if she eats it then MMM and MMD don't have to.

CNPS: Still 25
Good: The photo of my mate's new hair colour that made me smile a lot.
Bad: The smell of pre-digested milk in the dining room.

Bless Me, SimonG, For I Have Sinned...

2004-05-24T09:38:00.000+01:00

... it's been nearly a week since my last blog. I realise that I am falling short of requirements in the Blog department, and I promise to try harder. As a rather flimsy defence, I'd like it to be known that I've been feeling all feak and weeble, due to suffering from the same affliction as a certain fridge-bound chummington. Indeed, had it not been for her, I probably would have bimbled on regardless until my red blood cells disappeared altogether.

Anyway, here's a quick and rather dull summary of what's been going on Chez Monster. I promise I'll try and blog properly later today.

Wednesday, May 19, 2004
The Surgery Loony turned up at playgroup - which is miles from where she lives. I am beginning to suspect that I am being stalked. My suspicions were confirmed when she came round to the house. Fortunately my pals in the chatroom had numerous handy suggestions (some more practical and legal than others) on how to deal with her. I am glad we don't have a rabbit.

Having arrived in Abu Dhabi, MMD rang to say that he'd been told to come straight back again to attend a meeting.

Thursday, May 20, 2004
MMD arrived home at about 10am, having spent 12 hours in the United Arab Emirates and considerably more hours on various aircraft.

I took the Milk Monster to the Health Clinic to be weighed and measured. The Surgery Loony was there with her sprog, but I took SimonG's about being rather nasty and then blanking her. She seemed to get the message. I also discovered that she's been removed from the surgery list because she was harrasing one of the Doctors! Eek!

The results of my blood test are back - I have to go and see the Doc next week though to find out what the verdict is.

In the evening we watched Big Fat Liar, which arrived in the morning post from Mailbox Movies. It was suprisingly good - very funny, and a heck of a lot more entertaining than Deathwatch.

Friday, May 21, 2004
Today the Milk Monster and I went to the Baby Show at the NEC. The Monster smiled her smiliest smile and got loads of freebies, and we managed to get a couple of cheap grobags as well. However, the most interesting thing was the
VRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
noise coming from one of the halls that they are preparing for the Motor Show.

Saturday, May 22, 2004
Did nothing all day, due to my feak and enweebled state. We put the Monster to bed in her own room for the first time. Doubtless we'll spend the next few nights being paranoid parents and going back and forth to check she's still breathing.

Sunday, May 23, 2004
MMD has started to dig a very large trench in the back garden. Odd - perhaps he's seen intelligence reports suggesting that my Mother may be planning an unannounced visit.

Please can someone explain why whenever MMD changes a nappy it is a harmless wet one, but whenever I change a nappy it looks like someone set off a grenade in a drum of toxic waste?

CNPS: 25

Loony Tunes

2004-05-18T20:56:00.000+01:00

Something has been worrying me for some years now. Wherever I go, I attract loonies. For some reason I find myself in deep conversation with people who are one biscuit short of a full packet. When I was a student in London I would attract the Tube Loony every time I went on the Underground. In supermarket car parks, the Trolley Loony spots my car the moment I arrive, and loiters by it until I reappear laden down with shopping and unable to make a quick getaway. In the village the Walking Loony and the Parish-Magazine-With-Menaces Loony regularly ring the doorbell to have a quick chat.

This is fine – I’m quite happy to spend a bit of time chatting, and they’re all lovely people (even if they are slightly batty in their own unique way).

But today I encountered a new type of Loony – the Doctor’s Surgery Loony. She sent my Protective Mother instincts into overdrive. I had met her before – when I was 'with Monster' I met her while she was waiting to see the Midwife. I remember thinking that she was a bit strange then, I couldn’t put my finger on it, but she seemed just a little too forward, too intrusive with her questions. I put it down to the strange phenomenon that happens when one pregnant woman meets another.

Today I had to pay a visit to my GP. As I was wheeling the Monster across the car park I spotted the Surgery Loony pushing a pram. “No harm in saying Hello” I thought to myself. She obviously had the same idea, as by now she had turned round and was heading straight towards me. I was somewhat unprepared for the barrage of deeply personal questions that hit me. The Spanish Inquisition could take lessons from this woman. I was keen not to miss my appointment with the Doc, so I made my excuses and headed for the surgery. She followed me. My concern deepened when I saw the look that passed between the receptionists. In the surgery waiting room, she quizzed the other patients, and started to broadcast details of her own very intimate medical complaint to all those who didn’t want to listen. Most people hid behind their magazines. I flashed “Help Me!” looks to the receptionists.

But what happened next really shocked me. While I was checking in with the receptionist the Surgery Loony was unstrapping my sleeping Milk Monster from her buggy. I asked her not to. She carried on, saying “Oh, you’ve got to let me have a cuddle”. Now, I’m quite happy for other people to have a cuddle with the Milk Monster. After all, she is extremely cuddleable. But these are people that I know and trust. A lot of them are other Mums whose babies go to the same playgroup as us. We see each other week in week out and have become good friends. But this woman was a complete stranger as far as I was concerned. And she was about to throw the Monster up into the air, just as she had been doing with her own baby. The Monster started to scream. She never screams. She was terrified.

I’ve never moved so fast – I grabbed the Monster from her. I was so incensed that I was completely speechless. The Receptionist saw the look on my face and said “You can go through now”. This was a lie – she met me in the corridor and suggested that I might like to wait in the Nurses room.

It was such a shock that I was almost reduced to tears, and all I wanted to do was cuddle the Milk Monster and reassure her.

CNPS: 24
Good: An impromptu lunch date with MMD before he left for Abu Dhabi.
Bad: The thought of someone hurting my beautiful baby.

Baby Language

2004-05-17T23:50:00.000+01:00

We’re teaching the Milk Monster sign language. This isn’t because she’s deaf – according to the test that the health visitor did* her hearing is absolutely fine. The theory is that babies get frustrated trying to communicate – they know what they want to tell you, but they can’t talk. Teaching them to sign gives them an extra way of communicating so they get less frustrated. We were a little sceptical until we saw a video of an 8 month old baby signing, and then we were converted.

We’re starting with the most useful signs – milk, more, eat, all gone and giraffe – and every Monday I take the Monster to Sing and Sign. Usually the Teacher asks us if anyone has any useful signs they’d like to show to the rest of the group. I learnt some sign language at school, and can still remember quite a bit of it. Unfortunately, it was taught to me by a bunch of renegade teenage deaf kids and the only one I could think of to contribute today was the sign for teletubby**. It didn’t seem appropriate to teach that to young children, so I’ll tell you lot instead.

1. Hold your right arm out horizontally in front of you, across (but not touching) your chest. Clench your right fist.
2. Place your left arm on top of it. This is the body of the bull.
3. Clench your left fist, except for the index and little fingers. These form the horns of the bull.
4. Now repeatedly clench and unclench your right fist, as if dropping cow pats.

Ta-da!

CNPS: 23
Good: The Monster humming contentedly to herself as she ate her mushy avocado.
Bad: MMD has to go to Abu Dhabi tomorrow. :-(

*while she was asleep – how does that work?

** Where teletubby is the output of the SimonG© profanity filter

Bags please!

2004-05-15T20:31:00.000+01:00

The Monster is becoming more and more mobile every day - she can't actually crawl yet, but with some concerted efforts at wriggling she's able to get into some quite startling positions.

Her favourite place to practice her new-found mobility skills is in the confines of her cot when she's supposed to be taking a nap. Usually she manages to stay awake long enough to get into the sort of position that participants in a game of Twister would be envious of, then falls asleep.

Today she managed to adopt a whole new style - I went to check on her this afternoon and found her stretched out across the cot, on her back, with her feet dangling through the bars on one side and her hands dangling through on the other. It reminded me of a picture I'd seen somewhere... perhaps her new nickname should be Luggage.

The Gas Man Cometh

2004-05-11T09:43:00.000+01:00

Toady I had to do one of my least favourite things – wait for the gas man to come and check that our boiler isn’t about to explodify / break down / poison us or any similar catastrophic event.

You know how this works – they tell you that the gas man will get to your house sometime between midday and 6pm. Usually he turns up at three minutes to six, and is finished by one minute past, leaving you to curse a wasted afternoon sat at home waiting for him to arrive.

So you can imagine my amazement when the gas man phoned me at five past twelve to let me know that he’d be with me in ten minutes. He was true to his word, and spent a good half hour checking everything over. In fact he was so good that I won’t even need the follow-up services of the carpenter, electrician, glazier or painter.

All this meant that I had time to go to the chemist to collect the Monster’s special hypoallergenic milk. But first I had to don my cunning disguise. You see, the milk in question happens to be manufactured by Nestlé, who apparently are the Satans of Formula due to their ethically questionable marketing tactics in the Third World. They are so controversial that no-one in the UK stocks Nestlé formula milk products. This is all very well, but they are also the only company that makes the type of milk that we have been advised to use by the dietician. Fortunately the local pharmacy were happy to order some for me. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t be at all concerned at popping down there to go and collect it, but this area is very heavy on the hippy-happy-clappy. You can hardly move for all the tree hugging crystal danglers. I was terrified that I might provoke some sort of on-the-spot protest. I’d even considered placing the order under a false name in case they come and start waving placards outside the house.

The woman in the pharmacy obviously had the same concern – she waited until the coast was clear before producing a large tin of white powder from below the counter. Glancing furtively from side to side she quickly concealed it in a brown paper bag and handed it over in exchange for ludicrous amounts of cash. I made it back to the car just in time – the lady in the long flowing skirt with the rainbow earrings was right behind me, but I don’t think she suspected anything.

GiggleMonster

2004-05-09T23:55:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, the Monster giggled properly for the first time. She’s been able to giggle in her own unique way (big smile with excited thrashing of arms and legs) for a while but yesterday she actually giggled out loud. Of course, she saved this auspicious occasion for when she was alone with MMD (in much the same way that she saves the poo-less nappies for him) and it wasn’t until today that I was given a demonstration of this new skill.

It really is very cute. We spent a large proportion of the rest of the day trying to make her laugh, until she got so over-excited that she was sick. Oops.

You put your right leg in, you take your right leg out…

2004-05-08T23:55:00.000+01:00

I had my appointment with the physioterrorist this morning – the clinic is located in the old folks home just across the road, so I didn’t have far to drag myself. None the less, I left plenty of time to get there, which was just as well as in my state of decrepitude I was overtaken by two be-zimmered crinklies out for a morning stroll.

I have to say that the physio was excellent – after taking my history she set to work finding out exactly which bit of my back I’d wrecked (it’s L5-disc, whatever that means) and then proceeded to give it a good general pummelling and stretching. This wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it wasn’t excruciatingly painful either, and I feel much better already. I can’t quite touch my toes yet, but I am far more mobile.

The only problem was that, having just had a nice healthy breakfast, full of yummy fibre and fruit, I was terrified that my ostrich might embarrass me by coughing in a most impolite fashion, especially with some of the more bendy twisty exercises that I was being subjected to. However, with some determined ostrich clenching at appropriate moments I was able to avoid disgrace, and the hour passed without incident.

I’ve got some funky exercises to practise, and I’m going back on Friday for another session of pummelling and poking. If anyone has any tips on how to disarm an ostrich they’d be gratefully received.

De-lurgification

2004-05-07T23:55:00.000+01:00

I’m feeling a lot better – it seems that I must have been suffering from the short-sharp-shock variety of lurgy, so now all I’m left with is a slightly pathetic cough.

Unfortunately, I’m having some trouble with back pain (in sympathy with Omally and Mort’s Mom) and have spent most of today lying on the floor next to the Monster. She thinks it’s great that I’m spending so much time playing with her, but truth be told it’s agony to move.

I’ve suffered from the odd twinge of lower back pain before, but never this badly, and never when I had to pick Monsters off the floor / out of cots / into highchairs etc. etc. Something has to be done – there’s a limit to how long I can continue to drag the Monster round the ground floor of the house before Social Services turn up.

On the advice of MMD I rang the physioterrorist today. I’ve never been to the physio for my back before, as the ones I had the pleasure to meet whilst recovering from various broken bones were quite scary enough thankyouverymuch. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and fortunately there’s a very good physiotherapy service within crawling distance of Chez Monster. The physio has even offered to come in especially tomorrow to see me, so I’ll be able to leave the Monster with MMD.

I did check with the surgery to see if I could take anything for the pain in the meantime. They suggested 2 paracetemol. Presumably I should place them in my shoe so that the resulting limp distracts me from the pain in my back.

bleargh

2004-05-05T21:52:00.000+01:00

I’m broken. I’ve excused myself from blogging duties over the last few days due to my brokenitudinous state.

It all happened over the Bank Holiday Weekend. I was fine on Saturday, but on Sunday I underwent some process of lurgification, and by Monday I felt as if someone had rammed a kilo of cotton wool into my head via every available orifice, including my tear ducts.

I am desperately craving drugs, but as I’m still breastfeeding the Monster, the only drug I am allowed to take is paracetemol. And the only reason that I’m allowed to take paracetemol is that it has no effect whatsoever. It would probably be more effective if I took two tablets and shoved one up each nostril to try and stem the flow from my ever-streaming nose.

Yesterday was spent blowing my nose with such ferocity, and sneezing so explosively that the neighbours could be forgiven for thinking that a herd of elephants had blundered into a minefield.

Today things have improved slightly – I’m still finding coherent speech quite difficult, but my nose is no longer in danger of being mistaken for a distress beacon by any Search-and-Rescue helicopters that happen to be passing. I also seem to have turned into a manufacturing plant for ectoplasm – which necessitated a trip out to the shops to stock up on Kleenex and chocolate (medicinal). At least this meant that I was able to send a special parcel to a poor, deprived child, so I can feel that I’ve done something truly worthwhile today.

On Being a Responsible Adult

2004-04-30T21:47:00.000+01:00

The Monster and I had to go to Sainsbury’s today – usually I avoid the supermarkets like the plague on Fridays, but the depleted state of the store cupboard made it a necessity. As expected the car park was jam packed with people getting their groceries in readiness for the Bank Holiday Weekend. I cruised up and down the car park, hoping to find a space in the Parent & Child parking area. As luck would have it, another parent was just about to leave, so I pulled up, indicator flashing, and waited for him to go. But then, before I could nip into the space he had left, some complete Shetland Pony came the wrong way round the car park’s one-way system and stole the space that I was waiting for. Normally, that sort of thing wouldn’t particularly rile me. But what got really got to me was the fact that said Pony did not have the requisite Monster to qualify for the space. As a result I had to park miles away from the entrance, and almost had to smear the Monster with vaseline to extricate her from the car. In fact, I was so cheesed off that I intercepted the bloke in the store and exchanged words. He wasn’t very polite. Had it not been for the presence of the Monster I would have made a scene.

Anyway, this altercation got me thinking about the ways that my life will be changing now that I have to face up to the responsibilities of being the Milk Monster’s Mum. The future will be full of moral decisions such as “is the Monster allowed to eat items from the supermarket shelves before we have actually paid for them, or should she wait until we get home?”. I will be expected to set a good example by not burping in public. It will no longer be acceptable for me to pick which breakfast cereal I want on the basis of which one has the best free gift – I will have to eat Bran Flakes instead. Bouncing up and down in the car when I spot the number plate I’ve been looking for for days will be frowned upon, as will jumping in puddles on rainy days, or making mud angels. I may even have to surrender my Lego. The Other Mothers will tut-tut at me when I sing the Banana Song to the Monster. My slippers with the toy sheep on them will be exchanged for a tartan pair that fasten with velcro. I’ll probably even have to join the W.I.

One day, all this may happen. But not just yet. Besides, I’ve still got to find the freebie in the Ricicles I bought earlier, and the bunny biscuits are just about ready to come out of the oven...

I.T. Support #2

2004-04-30T13:09:00.000+01:00

Another late Blog… last night I had to hand over the computer for the Greater Good.

I’m a very, very lucky Milk Monster’s Mum, solely because I’m married to Milk Monster’s Dad. He’s a fantastic, caring and supportive husband,* and an absolutely smashing Dad, even if he can’t remember the words to the nursery rhymes**. He’s also a genius. I don’t say this lightly – he has Doctorates and Masters in subjects that would make your brain fry. He comes up with at least one truly patentable*** idea a week, and the patent lawyers live in fear of his emails. He does incredibly hard maths and stuff for fun. I am in awe.

However, likely most genii, he suffers from an affliction. In his case, it’s a complete lack of patience with the more subtle details of Microsoft Windows. It’s not as if he’s computer illiterate – he can do things with MathCad and Matlab that are so beautifully complex they’d make you weep. It’s just the day to day humdrum of computing that seems to pass him by.

I’ll give you an example. A little while ago MMD came home from work with a shiny new laptop. It was about a gazillion times faster than the one he’d had previously so he was very keen to get some of his control simulations up and running. The only slightly irritating thing about the new laptop was the touch-sensitive pad situated just below the keyboard. It was so sensitive that every time he brushed it with his sleeve it would move the mouse, or select a new window, or open a context menu. It was more than a little infuriating. But MMD knew how to sort it out – ignoring all my previous instructions regarding abuse of the Control Panel, he furtled about a bit and managed to disable the mouse. Unfortunately he hadn’t appreciated that this would disable all the mice, including the external one that he was using. And having disabled all the mice, MMD was unable to navigate back to the Control Panel to re-enable them.

It went very, very quiet in the Monster household.

After several failed attempts to fix the problem, MMD had to admit defeat and call in the experts. At first I told him that the only thing he could do was send it back to the manufacturers for them to carry out a factory reset. However, that seemed unnecessarily cruel, so I relented and taught him the secret magic of keyboard shortcuts.

He hasn’t been near the Control Panel since.

* Despite thinking that a number of my ‘hobbies’ are “a bit strange” he has never once tried to persuade me to do something “more normal”.
** The ones that he makes up instead are much funnier, although they may result in the Milk Monster developing some slightly unorthodox moral views as she grows up.
*** And patenty worthy, unlike some software corporations that I could mention

A note from the Editor...

2004-04-29T12:44:00.000+01:00

Due to a number of technermological hitches (most of which can be blamed on Mr. Gates) I've only just been able to post my blogs for the last couple of days. But don't despair Dear Reader - they've now arrived in true back-dated-blogtastic style.

PhotoGenius

2004-04-28T23:59:00.000+01:00

The Milk Monster needs a passport. When I was a kid, children were included on their parent’s passports. These days they need their own, even if they are only 4 months old. So today we went out to procure the necessary passport photo. I wasn’t expecting this to be totally straightforward – for a start, the Monster can’t sit unsupported yet, and she’s not particularly tall either. Even with the little spinny seat in the photo booth wound up as high as it could go we’d probably only get a picture of her nose upwards.

Fortunately, photo booths have moved with the digital times, and give you the chance to preview your photos before they are printed. What a blessing! So armed with plenty of small change I heading for the nearest shopping centre. They had two photo booths – one for ‘proper’ photos, and one that allowed you to appear alongside one of a selection of celebrity figures. However, it seemed unlikely that the UK Passport Agency would accept a photo of the Monster alongside Sully, no matter how cute that would look, so I opted for the ‘proper’ booth.

With the seat wound up to its full height, the only part of the Monster visible was the top inch of her hair*. Hmm. If I lifted her up I could position her nicely in shot, but it was quite tricky to do this without appearing in camera myself. After a bit of experimenting I found that by lying semi-prone on the floor of the photo booth with one leg** sticking out of the doorway we could achieve the perfect shot. I pressed the button and waited. Unfortunately during the 10-second countdown the Monster started to lose her balance slightly and began to tip sideways. The result was a picture of half of the Monster as she lurched out of view. Never mind – you get 3 attempts at getting a decent photo, so I gave it another go. By this time the effort of holding the Monster above me was causing a severe build-up of lactic acid in my arms, but I managed to hold her in position for just enough time for the photo to be taken. Or so I thought. It turned out that I must have lowered her a fraction of a second too soon, as the photo taken was perfect, but only showed her from the nose upwards. By this time there was a queue forming outside the photo booth*** so the pressure was on. I summoned up the last remaining strength in my arms and hoisted the Monster aloft one more time. With 2 seconds to go she started to make the telltale signs of a baby about to throw up, and not wishing to have baby sick all over my head I quickly lowered her. The result was a perfect picture of the white screen at the back of the photo booth.

I gave up, and decided to go to Dixons**** to buy the necessary piece of electric string to transfer my theme tune to the PC. And on my way there I passed a shop selling photographic equipment, which offers instant passport photos. Could they provide passport photos for a baby? “Certainly Madam” smiled Mr Extremely Helpful Shop Owner, whipping out a large white cushion to lie the Monster down on. Three minutes later we departed, with 4 shiny passport photos safely tucked inside my wallet.

* The monster has a lot of hair – certainly more that el10t and The Merman
** The other leg needed to be inside the booth so that I could nudge the “Take picture now” button with my knee.
*** One person stuck their head around the curtain to check that I was OK. Apparently they’d seen my leg protruding from the booth and thought I might have passed out.
**** My least favourite electrical retailers. Whenever one of their assistants comes up to me and says “Can I help you Madam?” I have to fight the urge to say, “I very much doubt it” in my most condescending voice.

Vo, Vi, Vomiti

2004-04-27T23:59:00.000+01:00

A conversation* in the chatroom today reminded me of my abilities as a Latin scholar. I studied Latin for three years at school, and I wasn’t particularly good at it. As the summer approached I began to dream of redeeming my abysmal performance with a good result in the end of year exam. Revision sessions had already started in class, and we seemed to be concentrating on translating two paragraphs in particular. One was about soldiers marching into winter quarters and the other was about girls singing in woods. It was obvious that one of these would feature in the forthcoming exam, so you can imagine my delight when our teacher gave us several large hints about which it would be. Seeing my chance, I memorised the translation of the passage about the soldiers and waited for exam day. The big day came, and with some trepidation I turned over the exam paper. Yes! There it was! “Translate the following passage…” . I carefully wrote down the translation, my feet doing an impromptu happy dance under the table.

A week later, the exam results were posted. I had achieved my most impressive result ever. I was bottom of the class with a negative percentage score. I hadn’t spotted that the passage given for translation was not the one about soldiers marching into winter quarters, but the one about girls singing in woods. Coupled with the teacher’s method of giving everyone 100% and then knocking a mark off for each mistake, this was an unmitigated disaster. I did gain a few marks for ‘sheer cheek’, but lost them again for ‘sheer stupidity’. I stuck to the sciences after that.

* We were reminiscing about the exciting exploits of a Roman family, as told in the textbooks of the Cambridge Latin Course. Those of you who suffered at the hands of Caecilius can get your revenge here.

Tango Baby, Tango!

2004-04-26T23:59:00.000+01:00

A friend told me today that the Milk Monster might be turning orange. You may be wondering why I hadn’t noticed, but it’s hard to spot these gradual changes. And she’s not very orange. Yet.

Apparently it’s all down to her diet – as regular readers will know, the Milk Monster is broadening her horizons beyond milk, and is showing good progress as an all-round Fruit and Vegetable Monster. (Oh, and custard – takes after her Mum there.) It seems that this is the source of her slight orange hue. She’s a big fan of carrot, butternut squash, pumpkin and sweet potato - all members of the orange food group*. They are also high in beta-carotene, which gives them their nice orange colour and, when consumed in large quantities, deposits itself in the skin giving a nice orange glow. I’ve been reassured by the health visitor that this is quite common in babies who like their vegetables, and is usually regarded as a good sign. Apparently beta-carotene is good healthy stuff, and you can’t overdose on it.

It did occur to me that this modified appearance could lead to new career opportunities (apart from the current one of advertising hair gel). Perhaps the Monster could promote a certain mobile phone network, or star in that ad campaign for a certain fizzy drink, or play the part of an Oompah-Loompah in the West End musical version of ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’. Or even make guest appearances as a David Dickenson lookalike. (On second thoughts, scrap that idea. She’s not that orange, and she’s a lot better looking.)

* As opposed to the white food group which consists of milk, baby rice, regular potato, cauliflower and parsnip. Not as yummy as the orange food group, but much easier to wash off the bibs, clothes, carpet, soft furnishings etc. etc.

I.T. Support #1

2004-04-25T23:45:00.000+01:00

A few years ago I got it into my head that it would be a really good thing if my Mother could become PC literate, learn how to use email, surf the Internet, that sort of thing. I was confident that I’d be able to teach her the basics and soon she’d be Googling™ with the rest of them.

Looking back, I should have known better. This was the woman who had rung me at school to ask why the CD player wouldn’t play the B-sides of any of her albums. Undettered, I tracked down a nice, simple, cheap PC. Nothing too fancy, just the basics. I configured it to be as idiot-proof* as possible , put it in the car and drove all the way down to deepest, darkest South Wales**.

We managed to plug it in OK – thanks to the fact that some bright spark had decided to colour code the connectors. Switching it on was relatively straightforward. From here I had naively thought it would just be a case of pointing out the handy icons that I’d placed on the desktop, and giving a quick example of how to send and receive email. Just how wrong can you be?

The first problem was using the mouse. I have a number of pointers here:

1. The mouse works best when in contact with the mouse pad.
2. When ‘clicking’ it is not necessary to remove your whole hand from the mouse first and then stab the button with your best pointy finger.
3. To make the mouse go down the page it is not necessary to rotate it through 180 degrees first.
4. Double-clicking: See 2.

It was obvious that we needed to master the basics of mouse control. So I set up a ‘mouse gymnasium’ in a practice folder, with items to click, right-click, double-click and drag-and-drop. Things were going so well that I decided to nip off to the kitchen for a drink while Mother kept practising. By the time I got back she had successfully closed the gymnasium, and dragged-and-dropped the entire contents of the desktop into the Recycle Bin, which she’d then right-clicked and emptied. At this point I would like to thank the kind and benevolent Mr. Norton for the UnErase Wizard. The desktop was restored, and the wallpaper was modified to read “Do NOT put ANY of these little pictures into the Recycle Bin”.

Time to move on to email. This went surprisingly well – I’d configured the PC to connect to the internet with a simple double click, had already set up the Contacts list and had even sent a couple of practice emails for my Mother to download. After a shaky start, things were looking up. However, I obviously hadn’t given a very clear explanation of how these things work. My Mother said that as it would be “expensive to send an email to her friends all the way over in America”, she wouldn’t do that too often. I suggested that as the local phone lines are all above ground it would be best to unplug the “little cable that went from the computer to the ‘phone socket”*** during thunderstorms. My Mother was worried that if someone tried to send her a message during the storm it would “come out of the cable and get lost”. I started to explain about viruses but gave up and hoped that the virus checker would do its job. I started to explain about spam but gave up and hoped that her email address would not find it’s way into the hands of dodgy Nigerian businessmen, or individuals offering sure-fire methods to enhance bits of equipment that women are not equipped with.

Perhaps the Internet would be easier. The home page was set to Google™, and I explained that all she needed to do was type what she was looking for into the text box near the top of the page and click the ‘search’ button. At last, something straightforward. She had no trouble in locating the text box, or clicking the button. The only problem came with what she typed in. Google™ is great, but it does come unstuck when someone tries to enter an entire paragraph in the search field. With retrospect, this could have been my fault. I’d described the Internet as a huge reference source, and to think of it as a giant library where she could look up whatever she wanted to know. So, just as she might go and ask the Librarian for some help, she clicked on the text field and started to type: “What I'm looking for is any sort of recipe that tells you how to cook sprouts so that children would like to eat them, as I'm trying to encourage my godson to eat more vegetables”. You can imagine the results. There were lots of them, and they were mostly irrelevant.

By this stage my patience was wearing thin, so I decided to skip the introduction to MS Word, and went online to order her a copy of ‘Word for Dummies’ instead. I don’t really know why I bothered, as she’d kept insisting that she’d be keeping her typewriter because she still needed something to write letters to send through the post on. With a 3 hour journey home ahead of me, I bid my Mother farewell and reassured her that I was available on the ‘phone if she had any problems.

By the time I got home there were 3 messages waiting for me on the answering machine.

1. The wire on the mouse wasn’t long enough to move it all the way to the edge of the screen.
2. When she tried to print something the computer said that it couldn’t see the printer. Should she move it so that it had a better view?
3. The computer was interfering with the telephone line because when she tried to call me earlier there was a horrible screeching noise on the telephone line and it didn’t stop until she turned the computer off.

My Tech Support role has continued over the last few years. We’ve been able to sort out a few things over the ‘phone, but invariably I have to get in the car and drive all the way to Deepest Darkest South Wales. So far problems have included:

1. The ball falling out of the bottom of the mouse.
2. Coffee spilt in the keyboard.
3. Two complete rebuilds for as yet undiscovered reasons.
4. Numerous disinfections of nasty viruses.
5. Removal of that spyware which makes ads for porn websites pop up every 30 seconds.
6. One case of the PC failing to boot because the hard drive was so full (because of all the emails which have never been deleted).
7. Not getting any email for a month because the modem cable had fallen out.
8. Numerous reconfigurations of the dialup settings after free CDs (usually from Ostrich-holes On Line) arrived in the post and were run on the computer “just to see what they were”.

But the end may finally be in sight – apparently the PC is now starting to show signs of some sort of terminal disease (no pun intended!), as it has taken to randomly turning itself off with no warning. I think the power supply will probably pack up any day now, and I’m certain that it would be very costly to replace. No, really, I’m sure it would.

* Robert Cringley said “Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the universe trying to build bigger and better idiots. So far, the universe is winning.” How right he was.

** Go down the M4 until it runs out, then keep going on whatever cart track is ahead of you. When you get to the sea, you’ve arrived.

*** I wasn’t going to start using technical terms like ‘modem’, the poor woman was already thoroughly confused.

Engineers Don't Read Instructions.

2004-04-23T21:38:00.000+01:00

When it became known to the assembled masses that I was 'with Monster', one of my very best friends from school, who already had a Monster of her own, was good enough to ~~clear her loft of junk~~ lend us all sorts of handy Monster clothes and accessories, thus saving us from having our bank account emptied by the scary people in Muggercare.

One of the more useful items was a baby carrier - the sort that allows you to strap a Monster to your front; either facing you so that the Monster can gaze adoringly at you as you lug it round Ikea, or facing forward so that you can utilise the Monster to clear a path through the throngs of Christmas shoppers by setting it to Projectile Vomit mode.

Having already been used by one Monster, the instructions for the carrier had long since disappeared. This was of no concern to us - everyone knows that when there's an engineer in the house it is compulsory to ignore any instruction manual. Indeed, if you can't get whatever item it is to function without reading the instructions, you can guarantee that it's due to poor design, and never incompetence on the part of the operator*. In the two-engineer household the disregard for instruction manuals is even greater - if any do accidentally enter the house they are taken outside to the bottom of the garden and ritually burned.

Anyway, I digress.

The baby carrier was a masterpiece of strappage - there were enough straps and buckles to scare Houdini. It was obvious that a test run would be required in order to maximise comfort whilst wearing and to avoid bystanders thinking that we were incompetent parents. In the absence of a real Monster to practise with, we commandeered a suitably sized teddy bear.

As well as being a masterpiece of strappage, the carrier was also a masterpiece of poor design.** After much swearification and false starts, including strapping the thing on back to front and inside out, engineering excellence over came the obvious design flaws. Triumphant, I strapped the thing on for the final time and stood up. Teddy dropped out head first onto the floor.

The Monster must have been watching from her position 'in utero'. When she was a couple of months old we decided we'd use the carrier to go on a local walk. As soon as it was brought into the room the Monster assumed the 'Starfish Position' and screamed until we gave up and took it away again. Smart kid.

* Keep reading...
** See *

Stupid, stupid, stupid

2004-04-22T21:24:00.000+01:00

I've got a lot to do tonight, and very little time to do it all in. Milk Monster's Dad is returning from Mission Control tomorrow, and I'll need to be up at silly o'clock in the morning to collect him from the airport. So I'll keep this short.

Why oh why do people find it so astounding that lost items are always found in the last place that they look?

45 degrees

2004-04-22T00:19:00.000+01:00

The Milk Monster learnt a new trick today. She's discovered that when she's lying on her back she can grab hold of her feet and rock backwards and fowards.

She was practising this new trick tonight while I was running her bath, happily rocking too and fro on the bathroom floor. It's been a busy couple of weeks developmentally. She started on solids*, and has learnt how to laugh as well. What I hadn't appreciated was that solids make a considerable (but generally beneficial) difference in the nappy department. We now get a four minute warning of a dirty nappy, which manifests itself as crossed eyes and a bright red face.

Tonight I missed the warning signs. Nappy free, and rocking away merrily, the explosion occurred at an optimum angle of 45 degrees. I'm glad the bathroom floor is vinyl and not carpet. And I'm glad the bathroom door was shut, otherwise I'd still be scrubbing the landing carpet. As if this wasn't bad enough, I made a fatal mistake. I laughed. And that made the Milk Monster laugh. Now she thinks it's the best game ever and can't wait to play it again.

The sooner Milk Monster's Dad gets home to change her nappies the better.

* in the loosest sense of the word 'solid'.

The Strange Case of the Sock in the Shrubbery

2004-04-20T23:51:00.000+01:00

Just as I was beginning to think that my Blog may have peaked too early, and I would have to take Simon's advice and tell you about the chickens in the library, something truly blogworthy happened right on my doorstep.

Imagine the scene. There I am, sat at the computer chatting away, when the burglar alarm at the house opposite starts to ring. And ring. And ring. Of course, I immediately do what all civil-minded members of the British public would do. I ignore it. The ringing soon becomes so irritating that I am compelled to mention it to my chums in the chat room. It must have been a very dull afternoon because the resulting flurry of excitement in the chat room was enough to cause a slight ripple across the duckpond in Painswick*. Urged on by the others I was soon scouring the street for signs of a man in a black hat, black and white hooped shirt, with crooked teeth and a bag labelled SWAG. Simon was terribly disappointed when I reported that the master criminal must have got away already. However, flurrying was resumed when I reported the arrival of a panda car AND a copper on a bike. (One of the few advantages of living just up the road from Royalty)

Well, nothing much happened for a few minutes, until the doorbell rang. So off I went to answer the door to a Very Nice Looking Officer from the Gloucestershire Constabulary. Apparently there had been a series of break-ins and attempted break-ins. Of course, being too idle to look out of the window when the alarm first started to ring, I hadn't seen a thing. The Very Nice Looking Officer asked if he could check for signs of an attempted break-in, so off we went on a merry tour of the double glazing units, cat flap, doors etc etc. Nothing. Obviously any self respecting burglar would take one look at the state of our garden** and decide that we probably didn't have anything worth nicking. Just as we were finishing our tour of Chez Monster, the Very Nice Looking Officer bent down to examine something on the ground. Unfortunately this coincided with me looking up to see if any more tiles had come off the roof during the recent high winds. I nearly tripped over him, but after a second or so of desperate floundering I managed to regain my balance, and nonchalantly asked if he'd found anything interesting.

"There appears to be a footprint in your shrubbery" said Mr. Very Nice Looking Officer. "I'll request a Sock Officer to come and record an impression for evidence. He'll be along shortly." And then he left, presumably to go and inspect next door's shrubbery.

Meanwhile, back in the chat room, concern had been mounting during my prolonged absence. Fortunately I was soon able to reassure them that I had not been arrested for failing to take any notice of my neighbours alarm. We turned our attention to the problem in hand. I'm not terribly good at impressions*** and I didn't want the Sock Officer to have a wasted trip. The chat room gang soon came to the rescue, and after a bit of practising, I could manage a passable impression of Jimmy Saville. How's about that, then? On to the next problem - it seemed a bit suspicious that there were no signs of attempted break-in Chez Monster. What if the footprint in the shrubbery turned out to be mine? What if I was arrested? Who would look after the Milk Monster until Milk Monster's Dad got back from his international travels? Mort's Mom was quickly volunteered to look after the Monster, while I considered a number of cunning plans to avoid arrest:

1. Throw away all my shoes.
2. Stage a break-in.
3. Take the Monster and flee to Brazil.
4. All three of the above (just to be on the safe side).

With arrangements in the event of my arrest taken care of, all that remained was to sit back and wait for Sock Officer. This was all too exciting for Simon, who couldn't resist asking "Is the sock man there yet?" every 30 seconds, ‘till I had to leave the chat before I said something rude. Besides, the Monster needed her tea, and there was a police chopper circling over head, so figured it was time to dig out my false documents and don my disguise. Just as I was about to glue on the fake moustache from the Santa outfit, the Sock Officer arrived.

"Good afternoon. I'm the Sock Officer, I've come about the footprint in the shrubbery" he said. Phew, no mention of impressions, perhaps I was off the hook. In order to avoid looking suspicious I offered him a cup of tea, and turned my attention back to feeding the Milk Monster. Meanwhile the Sock Officer started furtling in the shrubbery. I kept an close eye on him - I wanted to make sure he wasn't radioing for a SWAT team to swoop in and arrest me.

I must have got distracted. I'd just finished feeding the Milk Monster and was treating her to a rendition my famous "Give Me More Bananas"**** song and dance routine when I noticed that the Sock Officer had returned and was watching me with a rather alarmed expression from the kitchen doorway. If this wasn't suspicious behaviour I don't know what was. Surely he was going to slap the cuffs on me any second. Somehow the Sock Officer managed to stifle a laugh.

"Did you get anything useful?" I enquired.

"Oh yes." he replied. "It's the same as another footprint we found at one of the houses that was entered, and it matches the trainers of a chap who they caught acting suspiciously in a compost heap a couple of doors down."

Well, that was it, I was off the hook. The Sock Officer took his leave and I went upstairs to remove the Santa beard.

* This is the Flurry Effect, a more gentle cousin of the Butterfly Effect. Not to be confused by the McFlurry Effect, which causes waves of intense nausea.

** It's a work in progress. We're titling it "Battle of the Somme".

*** Except for the dripping water one. Used to drive the teachers barmy looking for the leak.

**** To the tune of "Gimme hope, Joanna" by Eddy Grant

'He used to burn down houses just to watch the glow...'*

2004-04-19T23:07:00.000+01:00

Today I carried on procrastinating in the study. I have actually managed to tidy it up a bit - there's now a Milk Monster sized patch of carpet visible. Thankfully the Milk Monster thinks watching me furtle through boxes and throw screwed up bits of paper at the bin is far more amusing than playing with baby toys.

One of the reasons that it's taking me so long to make any progress in this mammoth tidying exercise is that I keep finding interesting things that I completely forgotten about. Yesterday it was the photo of me kicking a football to Bobby Moore, and the cassette recording of me singing the Speckled Frog Song when I was four. Today I found a copy of the photograph taken for the local newspaper when our Brownie pack went camping.

I was a reluctant Brownie. I had joined under the misconception that it would be rather like the Cub Scouts, and involve camping, lighting fires, having adventures and being a Tenderfoot, whatever that was. I was sorely disappointed. The Brownies seemed to involve an inordinate amount of prancing round toadstools and carrying emergency sewing kits with you at all times. Whilst my friends in the Cubs were earning badges for tracking animals and making shelters, I found myself forced into gaining my Needlework and Hostess badges. I was not impressed. I told my parents that I wanted to give up the Brownies. Having splashed out on the tasteful brown uniform and bobblehat, they weren't having any of it. I was destined to be a Brownie for ever.(or at least until I reached the age where Brownies turned blue and became Guides).

And so it was that every Tuesday I would attend the meetings of the 2nd Chelsfield Pack in the church hall, and every Tuesday I would let my Six (the Gnomes) down by not having all the required items in my handy Brownie purse. This was because I usually spent the 10p (for emergency telephone calls) in the sweet shop opposite on the way there.

Then, just before Easter, it was announced that our pack would be going to Camp! At last it seemed that things might be about to improve. We wouldn't be allowed to sleep in tents, but there was a big dormitory with bunk beds. I could almost taste the adventure when they showed us the photographs. We were assured that there would be camp fires and songs and adventure trails in the woods. Things were definately looking up!

At last the date for Camp arrived. My parents dropped me off in the afternoon, no doubt delighted at my new found enthusiasm, and I prepared myself for the adventure that lay ahead. Things started quite well. I managed to bagsie a top bunk, and my fellow wannabe Cub Judith took the top bunk next to me. However, it was not to last. I had hoped that perhaps the evening would be spent scaring each other witless telling ghost stories around a camp fire. Not a chance. We gathered together for circle time (AARRGGHHH!!!!) and sang jolly songs. I have managed to supress the memory of most of them, but there was one about getting married and having kippers for tea that haunts me to this very day. I retired to my bunk to read my beloved copy of The Compleet Molesworth by torchlight under the blanket.

The next day things went from bad to worse. As it was Easter Sunday we had to make - no, it was worse than that, we had to sew - bunny ears. Then wouldn't you know it, out comes the blasted toadstool, and we prance around it singing jolly tunes and generally being made to look stupid until we all get given a Cadbury's Creme Egg. Sheesh. My patience was being tested by this stage. I was almost apoplectic when I discovered that the afternoon's activity would be an Easter Bonnet competition. Wasn't one piece of ludicrous headgear enough?!? After lunch, Brown Owl and all the other Owls (known to me as 'the Coven') decided to take us for a walk in the woods to let off some steam before the bonnet making commenced. This was much more fun, with plenty of streams to explore and trees to climb. The only slight fly in the ointment was the pathetic and weedy girl who announced to the Coven that she was 'scared of climbing over stiles'. Good grief. So we were constantly being held up while they coaxed her, wimpering pathetically and shrieking in the most ridiculous manner, over every single stile. Then when they'd finally got her across they'd stand around and coo about how brave she was. This was just too much. After a while we started to cross a field where the farmer kept his cows. In the corner was a water trough, and the ground around it was at least ankle deep in the most gelatinous and foul smelling muck and mud you could possibly imagine. One carefully timed shove sent Weedy Girl straight towards it. Unfortunately I had not considered just how weedy and melodramatic she was, so even I was a bit shocked when she ended up falling face down into the mire. I'm not sure which was more satisfying; watching her flail helplessly making a Muck Angel, or the slurp-pop sound that she made when the Coven pulled her upright out of the slime. I was laughing so hard that I was hardly capable of breathing. The stench of Weedy Girl was unbelievable. I can only assume that the cows had their drinking fountain and toilet in the same place. Suffice to say, Brown Owl had a complete sense-of-humour failure, and Judith and I were sent back to the hut and told to stay in the dorm. Our punishment would be to miss the Easter Bonnet competition (Hooray!).

We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on our bunks, swinging our legs and complaining that it was all very unfair, that Weedy Girl shouldn't have been such a weed in the first place, and why did the Cubs get to have all the fun. After the Easter Bonnet competition some of the other girls came back into the dorm and told us that Weedy Girl had had two baths and still smelt awful. This made us feel a lot better. Unfortunately this coincided with Brown Owl coming in to see if we were suitably repentant. As we obviously weren't (Judith was having to lie down because laughing so much had made her sides hurt) she told us that we would eat our dinner in the dorm, and we wouldn't be going to the campfire sing song afterwards.

We were absoutely gutted. Roasting marshmallows around the campfire was one of the fwe things we had been really looking forward to. As we sat, still swinging our legs, we became more and more indignant. One of us (to this day I can't actually remember who) said that it would jolly well serve them right if we had the camp fire without them. And five minutes later we were outside in the dark, heading for the site where the camp fire would be held. Now, I may not have had 10p and an emergency sewing kit, but I did have an emergency survival kit packed into an old tobacco tin. It had fishing wire, and a penknife, a bit of candle and some matches with their heads dipped in wax to keep them dry. I suspect I'd copied it from something I'd read in Swallows and Amazons. Aided by some pages ripped out of my Brownie Handbook we soon had quite a respectable blaze going, and set about looking for more fuel. We found some branches that had been cut from a pine tree. They were still very green, but there was so much resin in them that they burnt tremendously well. There was a tall plume of hot sparks shooting upwards, and the fire gt so hot that you had to stand quite some distance away. Unfortunately we hadn't noticed that a good number of the burning embers were being blown into a small outbuilding nearby. Or that they were landing on a couple of large sacks of secondhand clothing that was being stored in there. Pretty soon we had two bonfires on our hands. Just as we were considering what the heck to do next, the Coven arrived along with a bunch of Scout leaders from the adjacent camp. We tried to convince them that we had just being trying to help by getting the fire going ready for the others, but I could tell they weren't buying it. We were escorted back to bed while the outbuilding fire was extinguished.

The next morning a rather tense looking Brown Owl summoned us to a meeting and suggested that "perhaps we weren't really suited to the Brownies" and it was "time for us to move on to something new". Our parents were called, and we were taken home. I don't think we were quite labelled as arsonists, but it was made clear that Lord Baden-Powell would be turning in his grave and we should never darken the doors of his hallowed establishment ever again. And so I was able to hang up my brown uniform and bobble hat for good. What a lucky escape!

* If you don't recognise this, you need to listen to more Tom Lehrer.

With this wine...

2004-04-18T22:06:00.000+01:00

Well, I've been procrastinating over starting to blog for at least a month now. First of all I was too busy tending to the needs of the Milk Monster during the day, then I was too busy tending to the needs of the domestic chores* during the evening. But now, having faffed around pretending to be too busy tidying up the study all day, I can't put it off any longer. Besides, I promised Simon I'd tell the story about the wine. So here goes...

The formative years of my education were spent boarding at a splendid establishment in Kent. It's probably best that it remains nameless, but those who were ~~inmates~~ pupils there will know that William Shakespeare referred to it as "an establishment for the corruption of youth". Having been brought up on a literary diet of Molesworth, Jennings & Darbishire and the Famous Five, I had a pretty good idea of what boarding school should entail. And so it was that a plan for adventure was hatched.

My willing accomplice was a young chap by the name of Shane who was incarcerated in the Junior Boys boarding house, Lambardes. Chatting idly during one lunch break we decided that we would stage a break out from our respective boarding houses and roam the school grounds in search of adventure. Over the next few days we honed and tested our plans. Camouflage fatigues were borrowed from friends in the CCF. I plotted a path across the lawn of my boarding house that would avoid triggering the security lights, and devised a method of closing the common room window behind me without the safety latch locking it. We covered the lenses of our torches with red cellophane. We decided that to minimise the risk of being caught, we should wait until 0200 hours. My accomplice was in a large dormitory with the other junior boys, and could not risk using his alarm to wake him. In contrast, I shared a room with one other girl, who could be trusted not to dob us in. So we agreed that I would leave my boarding house and make my way across the campus to Lambardes. As Shane's dormitory was on the ground floor, and his bunk was close to the window, he was able to tie a piece of string around his ankle and dangle it** through the open window. As soon as I arrived I would pull on the string and Shane would climb out through the shower block window.

Our plans in place, we decided that the time had come. That night we concealed our army fatigues in the shower blocks of our respective boarding houses and went to bed. I spent the next few hours hiding under my duvet reading a book by torch light. At 0130 hours my alarm signalled that the adventure was about to begin. I left the boarding house barefoot, to minimise the noise from crunching across the gravel path. Once I had reached the safety of the shrubbery I donned my shoes and made my way through the fields into the deer park, as we'd decided that to avoid detection in the early stages it would be better to cut around the school campus. My nerves were on edge and I nearly had heart failure when the large bush a little way to my left suddenly reered up and charged towards me. It was a stag that had been sleeping - I suspect it was almost as scared as I was. After a quick squeal of terror, I regained my composure and made my way to the road opposite Lambardes. From here I had to pass another boarding house, Park Grange, and I was horrified to see that a light was on in one of the ground floor rooms, and the Housemaster was sitting at a desk by the window, marking some exercise books. Undeterred (and oblivious to the fact that to be caught would mean suspension, if not expulsion) I smeared a handful of mud across my face and started to crawl through the flower bed directly below the window. A few minutes later I had made it to safety and crept round to the side of Lambardes. I quickly located the string and gave it a sharp tug. Nothing happened. I gave it another tug. Still nothing. After about five minutes, something did happen. The string broke. For a few moments I considered what to do. I could try climbing in through the shower block window, creeping into the dorm and waking Shane up. However, even I could see that if the Housemaster caught a Fourth Form girl in a First Form boy's dorm, dressed in combat fatigues with mud smeared over her face, the fallout could be messy. Feeling rather dejected I stopped to rest for a few moments before making my way back across the school. Just as I was about to leave I heard a sound behind me and turned just in time to see Shane fall head first out of the shower block window. Once we'd established that he hadn't knocked himself unconscious we danced a rather strange gleeful jig and set out to explore the school by night.

We didn't really have much of a plan (although we did for later adventures) so at first we just commando crawled our way from one side of school to the other, pretending we were hiding from the Khmer Rouge. This started off as a bit of a laugh, but while we were crawling along the steep grassy bank by the car park we heard voices. In a blind panic, with nowhere to hide, we lay as still as possible as the School House Housemaster and the security guard walked past with the Housemaster's dog. Fortunately it wasn't a very good guard dog as it didn't even notice us. Slightly shaken, we decided to head towards the other side of school, well away from staff quarters. For a while we explored the area behind the language labs, and then, just as we were getting bored and about to go back to our boarding houses, we discovered that the doors to the Meeting House had been left unlocked! Joy! We piled in, shut the doors behind us and sat on the floor in the dark recounting the night's excitement. Now, the Meeting House was also used by the older boarders for something called Boarder's Bar, where refreshments would be served a couple of evenings a month. This meant that there was a good chance that we might be able to some hot chocolate mix and biscuits if we rooted around a bit. Feeling that we deserved these rations after our night of advenure, we set about looking. We didn't find the hot chocolate or the biscuits. What we did find was the communion wine and the sacred bread. Wine makes me yak so I wasn't all that interested. Shane, on the other hand, was rather thirsty. He polished off half a bottle in one go. Not bad for a twelve year old. Feeling refreshed, we decided that it was time to head back. We replaced the (half empty) bottle of wine and left.

An hour and a half later I was up and making my way over to the early breakfast sitting. I'd been too excited to sleep once I'd got back to my room, but I was feeling remarkably good considering I'd had no sleep. There was no sign of Shane but I figured that he was probably getting as much sleep as he could before House Meetings started. An hour later I found myself sitting in Middle School Assembly, desperately fighting that falling feeling you get when your body is determined to make you sleep. It was horrible. The words of the Undermaster drifted towards me as if in a dream - I wasn't taking any of it in. Suddenly I jerked awake; "intruders on the campus last night", "most serious matter", "theft of communion wine from the meeting house". Oh my gawd, they were talking about us. I looked around, certain that someone must have noticed my panic. Nope. They all looked bored witless. On my way out I passed close to Nick the Vic (the School Chaplain) and heard him commenting to another member of staff that he couldn't believe anyone would actually drink that much communion wine, as the preservative in it made anything more than a small mouthful taste absolutely revolting.

At break I went looking for Shane to tell him what had happened in Assembly. I checked all our usual haunts but couldn't find him anywhere. Eventually I asked one of the other first formers where he was. Turned out that he was "off sick". I guessed that he'd been too exhausted after the previous night's lack of sleep and had managed to convince Matron that he had a migraine. Smart.

After school I went over to Lambardes to see how Shane was. This impressed the Housemaster no end, as they were delighted to see such a caring bond between the older and younger pupils. (I was a model student - they never would have believed how many school rules we'd broken the night before). It turned out that Shane's 'migraine' was quite severe. Matron told me that the "poor lamb" had been suffering from violent vomiting attacks all day and couldn't stand bright lights. Basically he was suffering from a severe hangover, coupled with the effects of whatever chemical it was that they used as a preservative in the wine. They did let me see him, and he was looking extremely green around the gills. He continued to throw up for another 48 hours, and didn't make it back into school for four days. To this day I'm amazed that they didn't put two and two together - or perhaps they didn't think that a sweet and innocent new boy would get up to something like that. It didn't put him off though, and we were still going on the odd late night excursion four years later when I was in my final year at the school.

* More accurately, attending to the need to procrastinate over the domestic chores.
** The string, not his ankle. That would be silly.

Postscript:
Several years after I'd left the school, I was visiting during the annual Open Day. I bumped into Nick the Vic, who I'd always got on well with, and decided to come clean. He took it all very well (in fact I'm pretty sure he was stifling a laugh) and had the good grace to forgive us.