Chez Spud

I am frantically clutching at these last few precious weeks of having two pre-schoolers, just knocking about at home, pottering around together, chewing the cud and testing my patience to its very limits…

Today we decorated spoons, made houses for pandas, built improbable flying machines, ‘biffed’ a legion of imaginary Romans, invented our own version of drum & bass, used the decorated spoons to turn MrSpud’s guitar in to a cello, played ‘extreme train wrecks’ and discovered that the Ninky Nonk WILL get wedged in the train wash if you shove it in hard enough. And that was just this morning.

Later their crazy mother, oh wait…that’s me…,took them out in the mid-day sun on the hottest day of the year to the park. I lay down in the shade and enjoyed the gentle breeze. They ran around like lunatics in full sun. Here they are, pictured above,  in a moment of enforced stillness edging slowly along the balance beam because it’s, ooooooohhhh, about a 20cm drop there you know.

Just to round things off we engaged in a high octane 3 hour play date this afternoon. And yet Diggy, 3, insisted, “I’m..not…TOIRED!!!” in his strongest Suffolk accent at bedtime. The child has been up and bouncing since 5am with no rest or nap. Must be something in the water. I need something in MY water believe me, something alcoholic…

Today my son sacked the wife’s husband. That’s a complex sentence. Freud might have something to say about it. Certainly Shakespeare could have based a play on it with which to torment generations of school children. And ITV could make a shitty mini-series out of it for sure…

We were discussing the process of how houses are built and that you use an architect, like my best friend’s (AKA ‘the wife’) husband, to draw up a plan of how you want your house to look. And then the builders use the plan so they know how to not bother and do as they please what to build.

“Oh but that’s EASY!”, quoth Bertie, age 4 going on 44, “I can easily do that. Don’t let the wife’s husband do that. I’ll do it. I’ll draw the house and the builders can build it and that will be nice”.

Um, yes…but I don’t want to live in a 2 dimensional wonky house with perma-curly whirly smoke coming out of its impossibly tall and twisted chimney , with 70s hippychick flowers in the garden almost as tall as the house and a Mr Potato Head style ‘person’ squatting in the garden forever.  [hand on hip ] Am I being unreasonable? [/hand of hip]

But the main news of today is that I am a truly outstanding parent. As well as eating veg my children now eat SALAD LEAVES and have declared them to be, “YUM!”. I win…I win…punches air in manner of tragic person. Bertie has been flirting with the occasional lettuce leaf since we started harvesting our crop a few weeks ago. Today Diggy ate his own bodyweight in rocket at lunchtime and MrB ate at least two whole little gem leaves. Stands back awaiting parenting accolades, fame, fortune, book deal etc etc.

Bertie won’t eat cucumber or melon. Diggy won’t eat tomato or chicken. These things are a puzzle, but I saw actual LEAVES go in to their mouths today and not come out again. Ah, what smuggery is this? Who cares, I’ve got a 4 year old leaf eating architect. Beat that…mwha ha ha.

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For a professional communicator, I have a disturbing knack of saying exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time. I’m a lot better these days, but as a child and teenager my lack of tact was verging on the legendary. I think I must be over the worst of it though as I struggled to think of any recent examples but there are some absolute corkers when I look back in to my murky past. I present the evidence:

1. When I was 18, I was a prefect at school (well of course I was, such a good two shoes). One of the less glamorous responsibilities of being a prefect was controlling the lunch queue which had a habit of snaking around the entire school unless it was properly managed. Pupils were fed by age, with the little ones getting lunch last (seems very harsh looking back, but that’s English public schools for you). One day the queue was taking on a bit of a life of its own, and the master on duty kept shouting at me to keep the queue shorter. So I would get rid of 20 or 30 little pips and tell them to come back later. But the minute my back was turned, those little squeeks would join the queue again. Exasperated I shooed the ruffians away, and shouted that the next person to join the queue would be ‘ on fatigue’ (English public school for ‘given loads of nasty jobs to do as a punishment). That had told ‘em, the criminals.

So I couldn’t believe my eyes when, bold as brass, a girl walked up to the queue and joined it. That was it, I flipped and bawled at her in front of the entire lunch queue to Teach Her A Lesson. I finished up by shouting ‘What is the MATTER with you? Were you not listening to what I said? Are you DEAF?’. “Yes”, she sobbed…at which point I noticed her hearing aid. Cringe cringe cringe.

Lesson One: not all disabilities are visible. Do not make assumptions. Do not make flip remarks about disabilities, they will rightly come back and bite you on the bum.

2. A good few years ago I had the difficult task of taking a very senior member of the management team of the law firm I worked at on one side, to tell him he wasn’t allowed to talk to the media, and that he had broken every rule in the book by doing so and had put the firm in a difficult position. It was a very awkward discussion, he was more senior than me, more experienced, older. He took it reasonably well but his pride had clearly taken a knock. Determined to part on good terms I finished the meeting by saying, “No hard feelings, hey? Let me buy you a beer some day”. “I’m a mormon” he replied, “I don’t drink”. Cringe, cringe, cringe.

Lesson Two: do not make assumptions. Not everyone is a total lush like you. Stop insulting people, they don’t like it and it’s completely unnecessary with a bit of thought.

3.In my 20s, I worked in a small team of people headed by a wonderful, if rather scatty, old lady. She was a marvellous person, loving and kind and was so supportive of me – like a second mother really. But working with her was quite a challenge at time as her age was against her in many ways. One day she started wibbling around, I was on a deadline and didn’t have the time for any wibbling. Needing an outlet for my frustration, I emailed another girl in our team and said,

“Oh, X has only just walked in and already she is annoying me so much I want to kill her!”

You know, one of those exaggerating for effect kind of emails. Except I didn’t sent it to the other girl in our team, I sent it to X herself. CRINGE CRINGE CRINGE. And you know the worst bit? When she read it and I realised what I’d done, I burst in to tears…and she came over and put her arms around me and gave me a hug. Yup, the lovely, kind, caring lady gave ME a hug because I felt bad. Uh, I still feel sick with shame thinking about it and that was about 15 years ago.

Lesson Three: if you really must say something bad about somebody, either seriously or in jest, never EVER put it in writing.

I always fancied a career in the diplomatic service, but alas I’m not sure the quest for world peace would be well served by my bombastic style. Plus, I’d never be able to actually negotiate anything on the basis that my mouth is normally full of my feet.

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In my head, I have shapely lower legs, slender ankles and slim feet with long, delicate toes. They are a strong point, people compliment me on them, and skirts and strappy sandals are my friend.

Folded over legs or 'my stumps'

In reality, I have calves on the chunky side, big thick ankles, chubby small feet and even chubbier, stubby toes. Believe me, this photo is very, very flattering.

This is deeply unfair because I NEED slim ankles and dainty feet for the vast collection of elegant designer shoes which I own (in my head). I love shoes, but not that many of them love me apart from Birkenstocks, Uggs, Clarks and other footwear loved by lentil weavers.

A ‘friend’ once told me I didn’t have ankles at all, just ‘folded over legs’, and no feet ‘just stumps’. So I killed her.

I inherited the stumps from my mother. She was even more self-conscious than me and, as a teenager, used to make my Dad and his friends walk ahead of her so they couldn’t see her big fat ankles.

Having shoes made for my wedding day was a particular low point. I had lovely shoes made to match my dress, made to my design, with beading to match my dress and – ahem – a very low heel so I didn’t completely swamp MrSpud who is on the little side. During my first fitting it became apparent I would need EXTRA LONG ANKLE STRAPS to accommodate my vastness, oh the shame.

So back to the cobbler they went who, I am sure, still dines out of the Tale of the Heffer With Folded Over Legs to this day.

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