Chez Spud

I accidentally ‘fell’ in to the Crumpler store in London this week and was forced, against my will, to buy stuff. Don’t you just hate it when that happens? You’re skipping along the pavement thinking happy thoughts when BAMMM, a vortex engulfs you and twirls you in to a store where elves and pixies relieve you of your cash in return for bags full of things you never knew you needed. It happens to me all the time, I’m blighted like that.

Later, I caught MrSpud eying up my new Hard Suit Special Edition laptop case with naked lust and longing for it, although presumably not in turquoise? Then I saw him attempting to shoehorn his gigantic Dell lapbreakertop in to the hallowed temple of loveliness which is now contaminated with Windows poo as a result…cry, cry, cry. Meanwhile my MacBook was sniggering in the corner, presumably feeling like Cinderella watching the Ugly Sisters trying to cram their trotters in to her dainty glass slipper. 

‘How much was that?’ he asked, quickly qualified by ‘Oh, I’m not being funny or anything – I’m just interested’. So I thew him my best Paddington Hard Stare and told him, without bothering to half the price or any other such witchery which is my usual tactic when put on the spot like that. Anyway, I went to work this week for a change and thus I am entitled to blow every penny that those naughty little elves and pixies can snaffle from me. It’s only fair and proper that MrSpud should work to pay the bills, put food on the table, clothes on our back etc while I work to buy the pretties for myself. Also, I’m warming to my theme here, we are in the midst of a major world recession and the only way out of it is to keep spending. That’s a fact…the only way to drag the economy out of the doldrums is to spend our way out of it…only by buying stuff do we create the need to make the stuff which creates jobs. So, in fact, I’m just doing my duty [shrugs shoulders nonchalantly, hands open with palms up in manner of 'Trust me; I'm a spendaholic']

All of which is an aside as what really got me thinking, beyond my attempts to save the world economy all by my own (as Bertie would say), is my huge admiration and love for all things Crumpler. I am completely in love with of all their products and would ideally like to own one of everything in all the sizes and all the colours. Not because I am obsessed with the products (although they are fabulous) but because I am obsessed with the Crumpler brand and have the utmost respect for the quiet way they have built a cult following, by consistently developing products that ‘do the job’, look stunning and don’t cost the earth. Add the icing, which is a uniquely quirky approach to marketing and copywriting, and it’s a winner….Crumpler has consistently set itself apart from the field, differentiated itself in a very crowded market and I, for one, am a total sucker for it.  Because when those elves and pixies entice me in to the Crumpler store, or online, I feel like I’m in Crumpler World and am part of the Crumpler family…and that some of that Crumpler quirkyness might rub off on me and I can be one of the gang. And when I buy something, it feels like a little bit of ‘cool’ just fell in to my shopping basket.

And here’s the thing…I know the Crumpler ‘world’ and ‘family’ are just pure whimsey on my part, that I’ve spun off there on the back of some very well thought out marketing plan. And yet I can’t help myself. I know I’m being ‘sold to’ and that I’m ‘selling out’ by falling for it time and again, and yet I keep going back for more! Am I alone? Or are there brands that have sucked you in like this? Tell me!

My other big brand love is Moo and, when I’m not in Crumpler World I like to vacation in Moo Land. I could wibble on but actually I’m currently not on speakers with Moo who charged me £9.00 to deliver a pack of 60 postcards and 3 books of stickers. I’ve long been irritated by their vast postage charge, and the complete lack of incentive to bulk order; if you order more, you pay more postage, end of story. I think they are the only company I buy from regularly that sting me like this. I bought 5 Moo card frames as Christmas presents last year at £25.00 each. The postage FOR EACH was £5.00. So I spent £125.00 on frames and £25.00 on postage. Sorry Moo, but that’s just all wrong. Your products are fabulous, the branding is outstanding, Moo Land rocks…but you’ve got to get the postage charges sorted out.  Thanks very much.

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I got so fed up of my ‘temporary’ blog template, and disappearing designers, that I decided to jump in and choose a better, temporary template. I’m not especially fond of butterflies with their flappy flutterings and ‘oh look at me I’m just a glorifed worm..no wait…LOOK AT ME WOAAAAH DID  YOU SEE WHAT I DID THERE?… I just like the cheery yellow and the layout. MrSpud is SO thrilled to be spending the evening reprogramming it to make it work for my shambolic witterings, really he adores it. He loves nothing better than spending his entire working day programming and then, oh joy unbounded, programming some more in the evenings. He’s mad for it.

Hopefully this template will be a little more temporary than the other shocker. The jury is out…can I attract the attention of a suitable wordpress designer and actually keep hold of them this time? You decide.

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This was my birthday  present from MrSpud last year and I adore it. I had been hinting for a ‘nice pen’ and then held my breath and hoped for the best, and this was a really excellent choice…complete with a sapphire to match my engagement ring (although MrSpud admitted he had no clue that this was the case, just a lucky fluke!)

As we all know MrSpud has a record of poor gift choices but, to be fair, sometimes he’s right on the money. For my birthday one year he booked us in to a very swanky hotel as a surprise. We went out for the evening, and he then suggested a drink at said hotel. But when we got there he shovelled me in to a lift and produced a room key. He’d even packed a bag of clothes and make up for me, and stashed it in the room. To complete the lovliness he’d hidden all manner of perfect gifts all over the room…perfume…champagne…champagne glasses etc etc. So, you see, sometimes MrSpud Gets It Right.

Let’s pass over the year I did all the Christmas shopping and told him the only present he had to buy was his father’s (beyond my gift buying expertise). So he did. He only bought a present for his Dad, and nothing for me, and then claimed, “But you didn’t tell me I had to buy a present for you!”. Hmmmm.

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I’m not sure that my wedding dress is a very sensible addition to the Ten Treasures list, given that I’m unlikely to wear it again (not least because I’ll never fit in it again). But it is very special to me, and symbolises the day I finally dragged MrSpud up the aisle and enslaved him to me every bit as much as my pile of bling. For, although I dig and poke fun at MrSpud and make him the butt of all my jokes, I completely adore him and my marriage to him is the foundation of the very blessed life that I lead. I thank the sun and the stars for MrSpud and feel so lucky to be married to him, apart from when he balls up his dirty socks and leaves them all over the house like love gifts. Then I just feel cross with him and give him the evils.

Oh how I wept on my wedding day; not tears of sorrow, nor tears of joy (OK one or two might have crept out), but tears of laughter. I was laughing my pretty white beaded arse off at MrSpud who, only a few years earlier, had earnestly vowed that he would never marry me nor ever have children. Ho ho ho…look how well that worked out for him. In his defense, he did offer to go out with me ‘forever’ but that just didn’t have the same kind of ring to it as the whole ‘in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall live’ kind of agreement.

My wedding dress is the only piece of couture clothing that I own and it was worth every one of the many pennies it cost. It sparkled in the candlelight and I felt like a million dollars all evening. I couldn’t breathe or eat in it but these are mere details that we should not concern ourselves with as it looked the business. SECRET TREASURE….a flower from my mother’s wedding dress is sewn in to the lining. My mother died long before I met MrSpud but I know she would have adored him, admired his cleverness, fondess for caffeine, his quirky sense of humour and his total devotion to his family.

The dress is hanging in my wardrobe hoping, against hope, that I might actually get round to getting it cleaned sometime soon. It’s been nearly 5 years now, you can’t rush these things. If I’d had girl children I might have considered chopping it up to make a Christening gown; another reason to be grateful for my boy children as I’m not sure I actually had it in me to hack that beautiful Italian hand beaded fabric about.

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Only a worry if the hypothetical fire happens at night, as I only take the pile of bling off at night..I just can’t sleep in jewellery. Full make up, skanky bitch style? Fine, no problem. But not my jewels.

So my engagement ring (the sapphire), wedding ring and the Ring of Shame or ‘Medley of Misery’ as I like to call it (the diamond one; it looks pink in the picture..it’s not: I’m not J Lo, I don’t dig pink diamonds). What’s a girl to do with a drawer full of ‘old’ engagement rings? Sell them? Cry in to your gin about them? Or break ‘em up and make one big gigantic sparkler?

I wear The Ring of Shame as a constant reminder to MrSpud that he owes me TWO pushing presents for delivering him TWO delightful children. He actually guffawed the last time I reminded him and said pushing presents are a ridiculous notion, like a ‘reward’. HELLO! Yes, that’s the whole point MrSpud: I grew and delivered two human beings therefore you should buy and deliver two big fat diamonds. That’s The Law.

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Bunting at the Regatta

Despite a grey and drizzly start to the day, which involved frantic head scratching Chez Spud about ‘what do we do when the weather is rubbish?’, things brightened up pretty quickly and by lunchtime it was glorious.

Just as well as it was our town’s annual regatta today…think: loads of boats, boat racing, nautical types, pink shirts, collars up, Crocs by the million, poor sound systems, tombolas, hog roasts, bad live music, warm beer, ice cream, bouncy castles, carousels, candy floss, children pumped on sugar and parents on the edge etc etc. All so quintessentially English. And all so delightful; it even involved a successful ice-cream ‘in public’ attempt which is always a bonus.

Two of Diggy’s biggest EVER tantrums have been over ice-creams ‘in public’, more specifically him letting his ice-cream melt too much and thus dropping it on the floor and then totally losing it. One of them was so bad I ended up having to shoehorn him back in to his car seat by effectively elbowing him in the stomach to get him to bend -  he was totally rigid with fury and had been for 20 minutes whilst a small crowd of JudgeyPants gathered and tutted  at me(thanks guys, your reward is in heaven..remember that). He was 16 months old…you can imagine how we feared the ‘terrible twos’ given that he was a seasoned pro by 16 months.

Moments before the first, monumental ice-cream droppage tantrum..it set the standard..

It’s been a year since an ice-cream related tantrum occurred, but the memory of them is terrifying enough that ice-creams ‘in public’ still bring me out in a bit of a sweat. The main issue is that he never stops talking (hmm, now where does he get that from?) and thus the ice-cream melts whilst he is chattering away. A previous tactic to avoid ‘the droppage’ has been for either parent to swoop in and lick the melty bits before the entire structure gives way. Such a mistake, he has a tantrum about that too – he hates it if you take his food, even if he has no intention of eating it (clearly not the case with ice-cream) and has been known to attempt to take food out of your mouth if he thinks it’s ‘his’. Thus, by deploying the ‘emergency licking’ technique to avoid a tantrum, you actually end up causing one.

Tip: ALWAYS take the tub option over cone...NB ice-cream on the beach in mid-winter

So ice-creams ‘in public’  now involve ignoring any of his attempts to engage you in conversation and constant ‘KEEP LICKING!’ orders, barked at him in a slightly shrill tone. It takes an age, and by the time he’s finished we’re normally running late so he has to take a ride on MrSpud’s shoulders to override the default toddler walking speeds of dead slow/stop/reverse to examine every leaf on the path. That works out well; we get where we need to in good time, and Diggy saves me the job of clearing up the post ice-cream aftermath by wiping his sticky hands on MrSpud’s hair. What’s left of it…

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A couple of months ago I read a wonderful and very poignant post on the Pioneer Woman’s blog which suddenly made me so aware of how few photos I have of me with my boys, or MrSpud for that matter. That’s the downside of having a camera stuck to your face 24/7; no one dare wrestle it off you and attempt some snaps for fear of scorn and ridicule.  Plus, many of the photos that are taken with me in them are deleted as I don’t like how I look, or it’s not a ‘perfect’ moment in some way or another…no make up on, hair looking like a bird’s nest, mountains of laundry in the background, not wearing fancy dress etc etc.

But Miz Booshay makes an excellent point that, in the future, the viewers of your snaps won’t care on jot about such details…they will just see a lovely moment in time, preserved forever.  I have very few photos of me with my mother, who died many years ago, but the ones I have are so precious. So, since I read that post, I’ve been trying to ‘get in the shot’ for some portraits and also trying to get some ‘snaps’ of us just hanging out, doing the normal ‘stuff’ of life. It’s harder than it sounds, and it involves MrSpud getting regular ear bashings for ‘GETTING IT ALL WRONG….AGAIN’ (mostly for out of focus shots, sigh, how hard can it be?).

But slowly, very slowly, there are some photos of me with the boys. I can’t go back and get the shots that are missing, notably any shots of me with both my boys when Diggy was a newborn, but I can try to make sure my thick necked, speccy twat face sneaks in to a few shots going forward.

So, I challenge you all…if you’re the ‘family photographer’, then start getting in the shot. Get in there with your partner, your children, your pets, your friends, your neighbours…anybody who is important to you. YOU might not like the way you look, or handing over your camera (especially if you are a Nikon owner…Canon? Not so much, it’s no big deal for you…tee hee)…but if you don’t do it, the people who look at your photos in the future will be so sad that you’re never in the shot.

So get in there.  And when you have, come back here and post a link for me so I can have a good nosey. I neeeeeeed to seeeeee you!

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Bertie...often mistaken for 'Betty' as he is a bit girly..clip doesn't help?

Julocha’s very funny post today about her learner driver buddy named ‘Snow’ got me thinking a bit about names, specifically the huge responsibility that we have when we name our children. It’s so tough…interesting but not to whacky, popular without being ‘too’ popular, meaningful, easy to spell, goes with your surname etc etc etc. And then there are all those people who can’t resist sticking their noses in and giving their unwanted, unasked for opinion of your choices. A friend of mine named her son Barnaby..her mother in law rang her when the baby was a few weeks old to tell her she was, ‘Coming round slowly to the idea of the name Barnaby’. WTF?

When I was expecting Bertie I made the mistake of telling my cousin we liked the name Celia for a girl. She launched in to a major rant about what an ugly/old fashioned name it is and that I would be cruel to name a child Celia. I was rather hurt but put it down to her being completely off her face slightly tipsy at the time. But the next morning she sat me down, with a hurty head, to tell me again what a vile choice Celia was for a girl. Then she added insult to injury by adding that her chosen girl’s name was Lucy, our grandmother’s name…which was my second choice for a girl’s name. Two lessons learnt here: (1) NEVER discuss your name choices with other people and (2) bagsy family names quickly.

On which note, ‘Celia’ turned out to be a boy and we named him Albert, but he’s known as Bertie. Albert is a family name on both mine and MrSpud’s side: it’s my grandfather’s name (although he’s known as Bert) and it was MrSpud’s grandfather’s middle name. We thought it was a fitting choice and that everyone would be so touched at our thoughtfulness. Oh…how…wrong we were.

My grandfather’s reaction? “Bertie? Bertie? No, I don’t like that, not at all. No. Bert is a good name. You should call him Bert”. Hmmmm. And MrSpud’s grandmother on hearing the news that her recently departed husband’s name would be carried on? “Bertie? As in Albert? Oh darling, Grandpa HATED that name!” Lesson three: do not depend on family to be pathetically grateful for naming your child after them.

Another tip, check your chosen name isn’t a traditional dog’s name. We chose Digby (always known as Diggy or Diggers) for our second child because we love the name. No other reason than that. But sooooo many people say, “Digby? What, as in ‘The Biggest Dog in the World’” Gah, I’d never come across that film as it’s not on The Approved List. Ah well.

Finally, the acid test for all names should be ‘Does it pass the rock star/prime minister/president test?’ i.e are you saddling your child with a name which will preclude them from pursuing their chosen career without ridicule and scorn? Can Bertie be a rock star, probably not but his initials are ART which kind of works. Can Digby be Prime Minister? Yes I think so, although he’ll have to quit the tantrums.

Not so the two children I came across recently. I know, I know…you shouldn’t criticise other people’s name choices but these were SO ridiculous that I don’t care. If you are reading this, mother of GYPSY and PIRATE, then you are a cruel woman. Pirate? Pirate? Who on earth told you that was a good idea? Long John Silver?

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It’s pretty exhausting keeping up with the non stop fun at Chez Spud, that much I will admit. My boys are generally well up for it but, sometimes, it all gets a bit much for them. They concede, they admit defeat, they submit and then they lie down on the floor and take a nap.

Here’s Bertie, 3 years old, a few days ago. It was about 10am when it was suddenly all too much…he couldn’t take the pace. So he grabbed a couple of cushions and lay down on the kitchen floor. Strange choice, we have beds, sofas, floors with carpets on them even, all mod cons but, apparently, the cold, hard, filthy kitchen tiles are the place to snuggle down for a doze:

Eyes…barely…open…

Meanwhile, in the playroom, Diggy was following his brother’s lead and was also settling down for a nap. He was probably exhausted having drawn all over his face with a red pen. In fact he’d also drawn all over the piano too. Later, I drew all over my Grudge Book...

I swear I took these photos within seconds of each other. So I had Bertie dozing on my kitchen floor, and Diggy thinking about a nap on the playroom floor. And it was 10am – I’d not even cracked open the dressing up box yet. Oh, hang on, this one is nodding off…eyes rolling back…note blue colouring in on hand…

For a child who, from memory, didn’t sleep AT ALL for the first year of his life he’s developed quite a talent for ‘on the hoof’ snoozing. Here he is, a few days before, sneaking a teatime nap on MrSpud

Oh, and look! MrSpud is snoozing too! It seems he can’t keep up with all the Chez Spud antics either. Shame on you Mr Spud, sleeping on the job. Like a horse. Well, more like a pony of course in your case. A Shetland Pony. A very, very, small Shetland Pony. A Shetland Pony foal, in fact.

If I don’t ever blog again, it’s because MrSpud has finally cracked and has beaten me to death with The Saucepans. SOS (save..our…saucepans).

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I love MrSpud for many reasons, one of which is his sheer gutsiness. I must say that I do try not to tell him too often, just to keep him on his toes and also as a kind of ongoing vengeance for The Saucepans. On which note, a friend  told me that his wife just bought him one of those files for removing dead skin from your feet as a wedding anniversary present….love that, “Here, Happy Anniversary! Now take this and turn those trotters back in to feet wouldya?”

But back to MrSpud and his funny little ways. Yesterday he goodly offered to take the boys to the park in a bike trailer despite the blistering heat. The boys were pretty chuffed about this as they’ve never been in a bike trailer before. So we borrowed one from our friend, who luckily was too busy filing his trotters to take his own children out and about in it.

Here are the boys, clipping themselves in and ready to go. Note hard hats…don’t you love their utter trust in their father’s ability to get them places in one piece:

Is there a life jacket with a whistle for attracting attention anywhere?

Bye Mummy! Feel free to loaf around on the sofa surfing the net while we’re gone won’t you?

Bertie looking a little unsure, still looking for the life jacket?

Ready for the off, MrSpud looking confident…er but MrSpud, you’re not supposed to PUSH the bike, you’re supposed to cycle it?

MrSpud looking confident

Oh good, he’s worked it out, he’s getting on the bike, this is good:

Nice sandals...do you wear socks with those sometimes MrSpud?

Hoorah, they’re off. Oh, but MrSpud…it’s a bit of a hill…do you think, perhaps, you’ve over estimated your own strength? You’re only very little remember and you’ve got two heffalumps in the back there?

Note Bertie looking entirely unimpressed in the back

Oh, and he’s OFF. Yes, he is OFF the bike and pushing again having cycled for approximately 2 metres (admittedly a little better than my 21cm shot put).

And he's off...I repeat..he is off

COOOOEEEEE MrSpud, turn around, let’s get a shot of you in your moment of shame shall we? No?

Run MrSpud! Run like the wind...

Giggle. I don’t ‘think’ he pushed them all the way to the park, but MrSpud learnt a valuable lesson about how embarrassing it is when you wildly overestimate your own strength and have your wife photograph the entire episode and then write about it on the WWW DOT, as my Grandad calls it. How he must wish he’d ticked the ‘must be loving and supportive’ box when shopping for me on the internet. No point trying to get a refund now MrSpud, I’m used goods, my packaging is not intact and my labels have been removed. You’re stuck with me! Now stop whining or I’ll buy you a de-trotter for your birthday.

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