Old skin, young bottom. Yikes.

Following my last post, written sometime in the last century, I have had a number of people ask me if that’s me in a swimming costume and snorkel set in the photo. The woman being chased by a gigantic frog in marshland somewhere in the world where frogs are gigantic. Well, no, that is not me. I am glad to say it’s not me for 2 reasons: 1/ I am not as wobblesome nor as pasty as that woman, and 2/ I have never been chased by a gigantic leering frog. However, I reckon that woman must have a wicked sense of humour as the photo makes me laugh every time I look at it. And to write the last five sentences I have just looked at the photo at least six times, resulting in precisely six laughs/grins. This may be a sign that tonight I have little to laugh about, or it may just be that that pasty, wobblesome woman in a snorkel set is a fine comic actress. Or maybe it’s just that I am a strange, twisted soul.

I searched for a photo of me in a swimming costume and then thought how utterly pointless it would be to post it up on my blog. Either I choose a good photo of me in a swimming costume, which would just be vain and boring and annoying, or I choose a crap photo of me in a swimming costume which would be brave but just as boring. And that set me wondering whether I will actually wear a swimming costume this year as we live in the south of France where you can usually count on it being hot and sunny from April until November, but this spring it has turned into the Outer Hebrides (I had to just check that the Outer Hebrides are where I thought they were, and they are, they haven’t moved, phew) so I don’t reckon I’ll be putting my winter boots, woolly tights and scarves away this year.

This may be a good thing. At least for my sun-damaged skin. Sorry, sun-destroyed skin. Sun-ravaged-and-ruined skin. Sun-totally-fucked skin. My step-mother makes soaps and skin creams and serums and when I pointed out the 8 zillion lines and creases around my eyes and criss-crossing my face and cleavage and entire body, and asked why oh why oh WHY, she screwed her nose up in a sort of apologetic manner as if there really wasn’t much she could do for me and replied “well, you know, sun-damage”. This made me fast face up to the reality of my sun-baked childhood years in Egypt, Ghana and Brazil and then summer holidays in France soaking up as much sun as I could take without turning into a cockroach or a cactus. It also sealed my fate. There is nothing you can do for sun-damaged skin except accept the fact your face is lined and always will be.

My skin is ten years older than it should be. But my bottom is 20 years younger than it should be. This makes it very confusing for people meeting me on the beach. I have turned into one of those women who look pretty hot from the back, and then the woman turns around and you realise she is old enough to be your granny and you wish she hadn’t turned around or at least that you hadn’t seen her bottom. Those women used to give me the creeps. And now I am one of them.

So I went to a beauty shop to ask what skin protection I should wear on my face and the woman handed me a balaclava.

That last sentence was a lie. But it could well happen. Which is why I’m not going near any beauty shops. I am pretending that “beauty” is not for me. Nah, I don’t care, me. As long as I’m healthy, who cares about looking young and gorgeous? Not me. Honest. HONEST, REALLY I DON’T CARE. What? The bottle of Argan oil on my dresser? No, I had no idea it’s meant to make SUN-DAMAGED SKIN look smoother, what a total and utter coincidence. What? Photoshopping photos of my face? Blurring out the lines? ME? Nah, I wouldn’t do that. Honest, I don’t care about beauty and stuff. No, really. Honest. I’m just happy my kids are healthy. Pass me that skin rejuvenating laser machine thing, please.

Wrinkled skin? Wear a balaclava.

Frightened of the Frog

Every evening, when it gets dark, Léonie (2) points to the window, shivers and says “Mummy, me frightened of the frog.” Tommy (5) and I always chip in to check we understand what she means, “do you mean frightened of the dark?”. She nods and replies, “Yes. Me frightened of the frog.” So we just assume she is mis-pronouncing the word dark.

But maybe we are wrong.

Maybe there is a gigantic, drooling frog out there in the garden, one who creeps up from the valley every night and waits for me to feed the cats outside or get the laundry in, ready to leap on me and suffocate me in his frog slime, or simply blight me with his dreaded frog curse: “You will never EVER return to the stage again, NEVER! You will forever be wiping bottoms and carrying potties in your handbag and will never EVER get to sit down to eat a meal without getting up every 90 seconds to get a spoon/the ketchup/more kitchen paper. Your eyes will forever look tired and your eardrums will suffer permanent damage from toddler screams. Your friends in the theatre and film world will drift away, referring to you as ‘The Lost One’, you will end up filming yourself in character and putting the videos on YouTube in a sad attempt to continue acting, but NEVER EVER AGAIN will you reboot your career. HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAA!!!”

Blimey. Now I’m frightened of the frog.

Blogfast

For those of you that receive my blog posts automatically, this one may come as a surprise, as you probably assumed that having spent so many months with only under-5′s and sheep for company, I had lost the faculty for writing. But no. I have been on a blog fast.

A blog fast is the direct opposite of a Blogfest. A Blogfest involves hundreds, nay thousands of bloggers, all writing furiously, whereas a blog fast involves just me, not writing anything at all.

It was not intentional. I just had too many things going in my life that I simply could not write about. Things that were either too personal, or too boring, or too grim, or too involved with famous people (no names mentioned but he is the best children’s illustrator ever), or too involved with close family members, or too incriminating of other family members… my family members are now all sitting up straight, spilling hot tea in their laps, going “Who?!” “Me?!”… yes you, I might be talking about you, watch out, and send me a Cadbury’s Flake and some nice pants just to cover your backs.

Speaking of pants…

Léonie has decided she has had enough of nappies and wants to wear pants. The ‘had enough of nappies’ bit is fine, as long as she stays butt naked, as then she remembers to go and sit on the potty for her pee. However, with pants on, the sensation must be very nappy-like, especially when she wears six pairs of pants at the same time, which is her current desire, so she just ends up peeing through six pairs of pants. Today it was warm and sunny so I persuaded her to play outside with nothing on her bottom and she delighted in sitting on the potty in the sunshine. I only tell you this as I just discovered the UK is swamped in snow and ice and I want to make you jealous. Let’s face it, the climate difference is probably the only thing you might feel envious about where my life is concerned, so I’m going to make the most of it.

More on the theme of undergarments… (me? trying desperately to find a through line for this blog post? never). We watched Mary Poppins yesterday and this morning Tommy was singing “Let’s go fly a kite” at the top of his voice. Here is his version of the song:

Let’s go fly a kite
Up up, in the sky!
Let’s go fly a kite and send it boring,
Up through the underwear
Up where the air is air,
Oh, let’s go fly a kite!

Cowgirl and her faithful potty.

Six pairs of pants. Layering is in.

All that just to say, I’ve finished my blog fast and am now crossing my fingers to make it to a Blogfest.

Big Bushes, Full Bushes.

I am livid. Livid at the utter stupidity of what has just happened to my parents’ home back in the UK.

I shall just copy’n'stick into this post the letter I sent to their council yesterday, as it says it all.

If anyone has any experience of a similar sort of idiocy, please let me know what you did about it…

Dear Sir, Madam,

I am writing to you concerning the degradation of what used to be a pretty hedge on one of the most sought after streets in Newport Pagnell; Chicheley Street.

The hedge belongs to my mother and step-father, Helen and Malcolm Bullett, who live at n° 16 Chicheley Street. They planted it 30 years ago, as a greener, more beautiful alternative to putting up a fence, albeit a more expensive one. For 30 years they have given the hedge the care and attention it requires to keep it healthy and trimmed.

However, on the 20th of December, Mr Bullett received a letter

from Milton Keynes council ordering him to get the hedge cut right back. Apparently a ‘friendly’ neighbour (who has since been identified by other, much friendlier neighbours, as Paul Alexander, Lib Dem councillor for Newport Pagnell) had secretly complained the hedge was slightly encroaching on the pavement. It wasn’t actually stopping anyone from walking along the pavement, as there was still ample space to get by, even with a wheelchair or a pushchair.

Heather Baker from the council visited Mr Bullett and with a tree surgeon they discussed the issue. The tree surgeon said that by cutting the hedge back that far, all you would see from the outside was the trunks and dead, brown branches. It would be very ugly he warned, and would never ever grow back again. He also pointed out that the hedge was not preventing anyone from walking along it, whether on foot or in a wheelchair. Heather Baker still ordered Mr Bullett to cut the hedge right back; yet another example of someone “just doing my job”, without reflecting on the reality of this case (the hedge WASN’T preventing anyone walking along the pavement) and without taking into consideration the ugliness her decision entailed, not to mention the upset to my parents and to all the neighbours living around them.

Here is a photo of Mr Bullett’s hedge on the 11th of January 2013, after 30 years of care and attention. You can also see the pavement. The hedge is clearly not stopping anyone from walking along the pavement. Nor a wheelchair, nor a baby pushchair.

And here is the hedge after the instructions issued by Milton Keynes council were carried out.

I think you will agree that not much has been gained and a lot has been lost. What was once a beautiful, green hedge which added to the beauty of the street, is now an ugly, brown, hacked back row of trunks and branches. The only alternative now is to put up a fence, but my father cannot afford this (the tree surgeon has already cost him more than he can afford; he is 85, living on a small pension), and even if he could, it would also be a lot less pretty than the original green hedge. So this is what now surrounds his home, on one of the loveliest streets in Newport Pagnell.

I am writing to you at environmental services, because I would like somebody at Milton Keynes Council to at least take stock of the idiocy of this situation and to do something about it. Maybe Heather Baker could be given better training in making decisions concerning this sort of thing. It is too late to save this hedge, but maybe other hedges can be saved. And maybe the council could pay for something else to be planted to hide the ugly sight that now lines one side of Chicheley Street.

Mr Bullett has been stopped numerous times by neighbours deploring the council’s actions and encouraging him to send the story and these photos to the press. He is too mild to do that. But I am his daughter and I am furious.

I await your response.

Yours sincerely,

Claire Bullett

As Sister 2 remarked: “BIG BUSHES, FULL BUSHES!!”… forever. 

2013, here I come (very slowly)

A NEW YEAR.

I have given myself ten days to savour this new year and so far I can say it tastes a bit like a yoghurt that has just slightly turned. Or wine that you’re not sure is corked or just a bit weird. Or a nearly-but-not-quite stale biscuit. I’m not sure why these things spring to mind. I think it’s the feeling of looking forward to a fresh, new start, and then realising I need some new spark plugs if things are going to go anywhere.

I began this year with a damaged coccyx, which rather puts a damper on anything involving sitting down, moving from sitting down to standing up (and vice-versa), and picking anything up. Which, I discovered, is most things when you are the mother of a 5 year old and a 2 year old. I am proud to say it was the result of a motorbike accident. Yes, me, the daring, racy motorbike rider, all leather and denim and long blonde hair in the wind. I am less proud to say the motorbike is about 50 cm high, pink and yellow and made of plastic. It is a fine source of amusement for those between 2 and 7 as they race down the concrete drive at 90 mph and onto the lawn. Tommy was managing to pick up enough speed to go right round the tree at the bottom of the lawn. It looked like such fun I thought I’d have a go. And it was fun, really fun, all the way down the drive, the kids and I screaming with laughter… until I hit the bump which leads onto the lawn. The motorbike went up, so did my bottom, and then came crashing back down onto the plastic saddle which has a little upward curving protuberence at the tail-end. In flight, my own tail-end shifted backwards a couple of centimetres, only to meet whackingly with the knobbly bit. In terms of pain I would rate childbirth as the most painful thing I have experienced, followed by toothache and ear infections, followed by this. I have never ever hurt this part of my body so it was a surprising pain as it made me realise that bit of my body really REALLY exists.

This happened on Christmas Eve. For two weeks I couldn’t sit down properly. I had to twist sidewards or lean right forward. We had a long drive back from Barcelona during which I hung on to the passenger seat handle above the door and swayed my way home. We went straight to a friend’s surprise birthday party. She is an osteopath and told me to get it checked out straight away as it’s easy to break or fracture your coccyx without realising. There’s not much you can do about it except let time heal the bones, but if you know it’s broken or fractured you should take it really easy. This was the perfect excuse to get out of the house and read one of my Christmas books so the next day I drove to E&R and spent a few hours standing in a waiting room (still too painful to sit) and then had a x-ray done. Result: no broken bones (hoorah), but the coccyx had been “twisted” (yikes). The doctor explained it’s like twisting your ankle and that once the inflammation goes down it all goes back to normal, but could really benefit from an osteopathy session. Great, I thought, I’ll just see my osteopath friend as soon as possible. Alas, she doesn’t ‘do’ the coccyx. The look on her face worried me. “What does ‘doing the coccyx’ involve?” I asked. She winced. “Interior intervention.” Ah. “You mean, finger up the bum?” She nodded. I winced.

I have found an osteopath who ‘does the coccyx’. Thankfully, for the moment, L’Homme is away for 10 days so I can’t book an appointment as I don’t really want to take Léonie with me while having someone wiggle their finger up my bum. In fact, maybe I’ll keep on finding excuses until things heal all on their own. In fact, my coccyx already feels much better.

No, I’m NOT perching on the edge of my chair to write this. Honest. ish.

Another reason for not starting this year on jet-skis is illness descending upon both kids and me (it’s a family tradition to be really poorly for the first ten days of the year) and my friend Bernie slowly vanishing into the afterworld; wherever that may be. I’m not going to write much more about him right now as I’m not ready to, but I am thinking of him constantly at the moment, as he slips from here to there. Another brilliant, beloved soul who doesn’t deserve to go so soon.

It is 9:30 pm and Léonie (age 2) is leaping around the kitchen singing “Mummy, Mummy, MUMMYYYYYYYY, woter, woter WOTERRRRRR”, whilst tossing a sippy cup in the air and biting through the skin of a banana, sideways. Tommy is asleep on the sofa having had a worm intervention earlier on in the evening (me, Doc. Harrison-Bullett, P.H.D. in Worms – I won’t go into the details). I should carry them both up to bed but my coccyx won’t take it.

Welcome to my world, 2013.

The motorbike on which I had my Christmas Eve accident.

Merry Christmas

We’re off to Spain! I’m planning to go swimming in the sea on Boxing Day! Pray for my nipples! (they may well freeze off)
MERRY CHRISTMAS, FOREVER FAITHFUL READERS!
X x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x etc.

Someone (else) is wearing the (very small) trousers.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

A blood-curdling scream rips through our home. The kind that turns your heart inside out and liquidizes your stomach and has you dropping everything and running towards the source of the scream because a small child is in mortal pain, accidentally burnt or broken and close to death.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

WHAT HAS HAPPENED THIS TIME??!!

Socks.

Léonie does not want to put on her socks.

She wants to go outside, she has managed to put her Crocs on, but she does not want to put on her socks.

“It’s cold outside.” I tell her. “You can wear your crocs if you really want, but you need socks on to keep your feet warm!”

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!

“Okay, okay! Then no socks, but that means no crocs either! We’re going to the farm, you will walk in wet grass and some sort of poo and it will go through the holes in your crocs and then your feet will be cold, wet and pooey! Take the crocs off and put your fleecy boots on instead.”

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!  (throwing of fleecy boots across kitchen, re-throwing of socks, kicking of cartons-to-be-recycled.)

“Okay. Fine. Wear your crocs without socks. We have to leave right now or we’ll miss the post office. Come on, move it, let’s go!”

I bundle Léonie into Tommy’s red puffa jacket (because that’s what she has chosen as a coat), carry her out of the kitchen and down the stairs and try heading for the post office.

“Bike, Mummy! Bike! BIKE! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!! BIKE!!“

And so I strap her into the babyseat on my bike, put her helmet on and we bike up the hill, with the parcel I’m sending in my mouth, my teeth clenching onto it for dear life. We make it to the post office just before it shuts at midday, I hurl the parcel at our postmistress and off we bike down the hill towards the farm, Léonie singing quite happily behind me.

We visit the pigs, who look pissed off because today we didn’t bring anything for them to eat, then we visit the sheep and the hens and even the people because they are very nice farmers indeed. Often they’ll invite us in and Léonie will raid their baguette box (the Brits have breadboxes, the French have baguette boxes), a trick taught to her by her elder brother (we must owe them a couple of hundred euros in bread) and I’ll buy some eggs, but not today because Léonie has walked through wet grass and some sort of poo and her feet are cold and wet and pooey. And now she wants to be carried and I have no desire whatsoever to carry her with her pooey crocs on as they will wipe across my jeans and jumper rendering me pooey too. So I put her back on the bike and we’re just about to head off when the farmer’s charming son pops out of his essential oils boutique and I ask him whether he saw L’Homme’s show in Lyon and he says yes and starts to tell me about the evening he spent at the theatre but Léonie is ready to go home because her feet are cold and wet and pooey so she bangs on my bike saddle shouting “Mummy! Mummy! MummyMummyMummyMummyMummyMUMMYMUMMYMUMMYMUMMYMUMMY MUMMYMUMMYMUMMYMUMMYMUMMYMUMMYMUMMYMUMMYMUMMYMUMMY!!!!!!!    EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!! and that works a treat, I start pedaling straight back up the hill.

Just another morning in my life as a stay-at-home mummy in the middle of the French countryside.

Career options for a 5 year old.

Last week, while we were at my parents home in the UK, Tommy accidentally saw the beginning of a news report about a soldier whose leg had been blown apart. I managed to switch the telly off before he saw any more of it but he had seen enough to ask questions.

“Mummy, I don’t want to be a soldier because I don’t want my leg to be all in blood.”

“Well, I’m very relieved. I don’t think I would want you to be a soldier either.”

“I will be a doctor and make the soldiers better. And all the other people. And all the other legs in blood.”

“That’s a good idea Tommy.” (I secretly rubbed my hands in glee – my son, a doctor!)

“But Mummy, if I am a doctor, I will have to look at lots of legs all in blood. And more blood. I don’t like it.”

“Well, you don’t have to be a doctor” (my hopes violently dashed to smithereens).

He looked thoughtful. “Mummy, I will be a facteur. I mean a postman.”

Ah.

“No Mummy, I forgot, I want to be a gold statue maker. I will make gold statues and buy money with them.”

“Do you mean people will pay you money for your gold statues?”

“Yes Mummy.”

“And what will you do with the money?”

“I will buy things for me. Like shelves. And lights. Some food.”

My son’s mind may have been infiltrated by my home improvement plans.

“And statues.”

“So… when you grow up, you’ll make gold statues to get money to buy, amongst other things, statues?”

“Yes Mummy.”

 I’m not sure whether Tommy will be a famous sculptor with a huge art collection or a weird philosophy teacher who specialises in circular logic, but I am glad he doesn’t want to do a job that involves his leg being all in blood.

R.I.P. Queen of Labrador(ish) Dogs

I have been neglecting my blog. It is a bit like neglecting to clean the fridge. You know the longer you leave it the more hassle it will be, but then again it’s not a matter of utmost priority; the worst that will happen is a lettuce will turn into sludge or a pot of home-made jam will cultivate its own brain cells. In a blog’s case, the worst that will happen is your reader statistics will shrivel up into single figures. At the moment I’m not really bothered about that, but I promised a friend to write something this week, and to prove I can keep a promise, I am writing this.

My friend is French. He speaks pretty damn good English. But like a lot of my French friends, my blog is one of the only sources of English language he reads on a regular basis (poor him… poor them), so it it my duty to the people of France to keep writing, no matter what, in order to keep their English fit and healthy (if a little tainted with words made up by me which should exist anyway and which make perfect sense in the given context).

I have either been too busy to write – an unfamiliar situation in my current life despite racing about after the kids as I usually have nap-times and evenings to write, or I have been too happy – no-one wants to read about how great someone else’s life is, or I have been too sad – no-one wants to read about someone in tears over a pet who has disappeared. I did a week of dancing at Valence with a brilliant choreographer (I must write about that soon), followed by a week in the UK, followed by our return to France and the discovery that our trusty 15-year old Queen of Labradors had gone missing. She is, indeed, still missing. I think that means she is in Labrador Paradise by now, frolicking with other dogs of sexually diverse orientation; Baloo fancied males and females alike and didn’t care who knew. Neither did I, although my then-boyfriend was always very embarrassed to see her mounting other bitches, yo.

Anyway, Baloo turned 15 on October the 16th this year and I have just seen that my last post (an absurd one which does not merit being read) was indeed written on the morning of her birthday. Wicked mistress, I didn’t write anything about Baloo this year, partly so as not to bore readers, having written about her last year here. I sincerely thought she wouldn’t make it to her 15th birthday, but she did, if a little creakily. We celebrated it with some leftover cherry tart and candles and a dog bowl with stars and the word “DOG” written in it.

She seemed a little perturbed by the whole thing. But then, I suppose that when you get to 90-odd years (I think that’s the equivalent of a 15 yr old labrador), you’re not really into sweet desserts and loud singing, although she was deaf so she probably just wondered why we kept opening our mouths so wide and holding them there, while advancing with a bowl full of flames.

Tommy, our lighting engineer dealt with the pyrotechnics.

So Baloo made it to the grand old age of fifteen dog years. Which is like us hitting 90, 95 or so. That’s pretty damn good going. She had a painful hip and had started taking anti-inflammatory drugs every morning, but that was all she had wrong with her. When I dropped her off at my friend’s house, she was slow and creaky, but fine. Or so I thought.

Apparently one evening she just got up and wandered off.

She has never gone further than a few metres from the person looking after her. But this time she went far, far away. And no-one has seen her since. I was in England when I heard she had been missing for two days so I phoned round neighbours and the local authorities but no-one had seen her. When I got home I went looking for her in the countryside and woodland around our friend’s house, where she had been staying. But it really was like looking for a needle in a haystack. After a while I wondered if I even wanted to find her. What would I find anyway? Grisly remains? Did I really want to see her like that? I imagined what it must be like when it’s not an old dog you’re searching for, but a lost child. I suddenly felt very cold. I thought how lucky I was to have my kids safe at home in the warm. In the end I turned back to my car and drove home.

We are still getting used to Baloo not being around. Every time we arrive home Léonie calls her. Every time we drive past our friend’s house Tommy goes very quiet and sometimes cries a bit. I had a good old bawl the day I spent the morning searching for her in the woods. But in the end it’s typical of Baloo to spare us of the trouble of dealing with her death and the pain of seeing her dead. She was such a gentle, easy, loving dog.

R.I.P. Baloo. We loved you so very much.

NB: For those of you who can’t stand people going on about their pets, Normal Service will be resumed post hastily.

Alas poor toothbrush, I knew her well.

Yesterday was a day when everything seemed destined for failure/breakage/spillage/tantrum/desperation/loss of voice. The (squashed) cherry on the cake was when I was brushing my teeth and my toothbrush snapped.

Did she fall or was she pushed?

I cannot tell you how difficult it is to brush your teeth with just a knobbly bit of brush end and no “stalk”. It is impossible to do a half decent job and you feel utterly ridiculous. Tommy watched me and said “Mummy, why are you brushing your teeth with just your fingers?” because that’s what it looked like I was doing. I showed him the brush bit and he rolled his eyes. “That’s not a good idea, Mummy”. I had a flash-forward of him being 17 and watching me clean the kitchen floor with two small sponges, squatted down like a frog (my favourite technique) and him saying exactly the same thing. Maybe by then I will have become sophisticated and elegant and will no longer have breakable toothbrushes and use sponges to mop floors. Somehow I doubt it.