Chez Spud

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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Her Royal Maj put Spud in the corner

Picture the scene. It’s the summer of 1977 and I am 6 years old. The UK is gripped with  Silver Jubilee celebration madness; the Queen had been ‘on the throne’ (snigger) for 25 years and we cracked open miles of bunting, shut streets and had parties in them and printed terrible photos of Her Royal Maj on cheap mugs to celebrate. Not to be outdone, our village had a whole day of celebrations including ‘Decorate your bike in red, white and blue’ (I won that, my Raleigh 14 had never looked so splendid – it even had a massive union jack rigged up on the back), ‘Fancy Dress’ (I went as Britannia) all rounded off with an afternoon of traditional games for the children.

It was going reasonably well and tantrums had been averted due to my success in the ‘decorated bike’ contest (I bet my Mum slipped a little something to the judge, she’d got the measure of me by then). I shed my Britannia outfit (recycled Angel outfit from the previous year’s Nativity play, plus trident fashioned from a pitch fork – er hello? Health & Safety anyone?) and limbered up to take part in a few races. Already it was a terrible idea given that I can’t run/jump/do anything atheletic, although I was about to find out that being crap at games was the least of my worries. A whole new issue was about to rear its ugly head in the shape of my big, fat tummy.

So, race 1. Easy enough. Amble up the field towards a line of school chairs, duck under the chair, amble to the finishing line…throw a wobbler due to finishing last as usual and have to be taken home, kicking and screaming. That was how it was supposed to go. In fact it went like this:

Amble up the field towards line of school chairs, duck under the chair…oh…it feels a little tight?… REALLY try to squeeeeeeeeze through…help! I can’t move…wriggle a lot while grunting…look up to see the other children have finished the race and medals are being handed out..meanwhile I am well and truly stuck under the chair and people are laughing…try to back out…can’t move….try to wriggle forward…am completely wedged in…start howling…look up to see my mother running across the field to ‘save me’…start shrieking at her….she lifts the chair off me using a degree of force as I am well and truly wedged under it…I throw a GIGANTIC tantrum out of sheer humiliation and have to be taken home, kicking and screaming.

So, your Royal Maj…I’m very sorry that I didn’t get in to the spirit of things as much as I might have done all those years ago.  I apologise for cutting short my hommage to your Big 25. I would have stayed but I’m afraid I was just too fat. Sorry about that.

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Oh I was a HORROR as a child. Feisty, angry, bossy, aggressive (scratching other children was a favoured pastime) and moody. What a delight I must have been! Add in a temper as quick thing from quick land and it was a heady mix. But way worse than any of that was my penchant for throwing monstrous tantrums, often several times a day, for up to an hour at a time. And that went on for years.

My mother, who must be nearing Sainthood by now surely, used to call it ‘having a paddy’ or, more often, ‘throwing a wobber’. “Spud is throwing a wobbler again” she would say, pointing with resignation to the seething mass of chub on the floor – screaming like a banshee, puce in the face, body rigid with fury and arms and legs flailing up and down like paddles. When I go to my Pilates class and attempt ‘full Pilates swimming’ (lying on the floor, arms and legs outstretched and moving opposite legs/arms up and down a few inches) it feels like a graceful version of ‘throwing a wobbler’ and I often take a moment to consider what it would be like if 20 grown women spontaneously moved on from ‘full Pilates swimming ‘ to ‘full on throwing a wobbler’. I think we’d all feel very cleansed, don’t you? Although the instructor might feel a little alarmed.

My favoured response to anything that didn’t please me was to ‘throw a wobbler’ but my other party trick was to take a gigantic, audible breath and then hold my breath for as long as I could, meanwhile going purple in the face while my mother begged me to breathe. Eventually I would have to breathe, of course, at which point I would launch in to high pitched wailing accompanied by running on the spot with my arms pumping the air at the same time. That was called ‘having a paddy’. Sometimes, just to mix things up, I would start the show by ‘having a paddy’ and finish up by hurling myself to the floor and ‘throwing a wobbler’.

Outtake shot...NB purple sparkly eyeshadow used as face paint

After a few years of this tension was running high Chez Spud, as you might imagine. But a quick trip to a motorway service station on the M6 put a stop to it, more or less. I went in to the shop with my father and demanded a Cadbury’s Chocolate Machine. Dad refused (what was the MATTER with him? Had he not learnt by now just to give in and let me have my own way?). I pushed a bit harder, he stood firm and refused to buy it. So I retaliated with a ‘warm up’ paddy as a kind of warning that the full monty was on its way. Naturally, the show drew quite a crowd and my Dad finally flipped…he had Had Enough. So he rolled up the newspaper he had in his hand, and walloped me round the back of my legs. I went flying. He gasped, the crowd gasped…there was silence…I considered my options. I can remember this moment in time so vividly, I was SO shocked as my parents never, ever hit me. I decided it was game over. And that was the end of the tantrums, I never did it again (well apart from one in 2005 when I was 34, but I’d shrunk my favourite T shirt in the tumble dryer so I really think that was justified?).

My Dad and I laugh about it now, but at the time he was very shaken. It wasn’t against the law to smack children in those days (hell, he WAS the law…he was a policeman!) but certainly wasn’t in his nature to do so. Still, I’m sure he must feel there is a certain karma at work right now as Diggy LOVES to tantrum. He nearly always ‘throws a wobbler’, but any day now he might broaden his repertoire and ‘have a paddy’.

Diggy doing the 'wobbler warm up' - NB bottom lip, nice touch

Today Bertie tantrumed all the way around the supermarket, most unusual for him I must say. Not to be outdone, Diggy had a couple of turns too. I noticed they both piped down momentarily when I approached the newspaper stand though, wise move my boys, wise move….;-)

Bertie having a 'warm up' tantrum in the car this morning

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Here I am, throwing my toys out of the pram yet again. I’m not grimacing with fury (for a change), but with pain…turns out I’d been wildly optimistic in terms of calculating the likelihood of being able to squeeeeeeeeze my backside in to the pushchair. Spud’s arse in to pushchair does not go.

I’m ashamed to admit it but my rather quick temper and competitive nature can mean that I’m not much of a good sport. I play to win, end of story. Fortunately I am hopeless at all competitive sport so the world is generally spared the worst of my lashing out these days.

To my eternal shame I once stomped off the rounders field in a rage during a match against another school. My cheeks are actually burning as I write this by the way. There were very few girls at my school, as it had only just gone co-ed when I started there. There were upsides to this (mainly involving an endless stream of boyfriends, hurrah) and downsides, the main one being that if you were female then you were ‘in the team’ for every single sport regardless of your talent or interest. I hated it, but the numbers were against me…there simply weren’t enough girls to choose from.

Back to the rounders match. I was the bowler which was the position I could do the least damage in as I can’t catch. Turns out I can’t throw either and after endless ‘no balls’ with the other side racking up freebie points I’d had enough. Off the field I stomped yelling “I’m not playing anymore!” over my shoulder. I was 15. FIFTEEN! Not 5, but 15 years old. Oh…the…shame.

Worse, there were no ‘reserves’ on the team of course (not enough girls) and the match came to a grinding halt while I had a tantrum. After a bit of negotiation I was persuaded to do ‘The Walk of Shame’ and return to the field, head hung low, cheeks aflame and tear stained. I proceeded to bowl a million more ‘no balls’ but the umpire relaxed the rules and ignored most of them. Poor bloke probably feared I might do for him with a rounders bat if he crossed me.

As a child I would tantrum and howl so badly if I didn’t win a party game that I was frequently sent to my room during my own birthday parties. Eventually my mother gave in and would have a prize for the real winner, and another for me to shut me up. I could go on…but I’m not sure my pride can take it. I have put myself in the Grudge Book.

Diggy having a tantrum...proof that what goes around comes around

Mind you, my mother was so competitive that she cheated at Trivial Pursuit. One year we played TP after dinner each evening on holiday. It was getting pretty feisty and Mum was getting a bit narked at her poor ‘cheese’ rate. She was caught red handed one night, after we’d all gone to bed, REVISING the cards and answers. Very, very shabby.

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• 30 Secrets in 30 days…everyone’s at it now!