Caption competition – come and have a go!

Can you believe it? The novelty of being home after a week of camping still hasn’t worn off. And a source of particular joy for me today was my shower.

After spending days showering in a communal shower block, where the floor was muddy and strewn with leaves, twigs and other people’s hair [cue: dry gag. Other people's hair sticking to the underside of your feet is probably the worst feeling in the world apart from using a public toilet and finding the seat still warm from the previous encumbant]; it didn’t take much to make my bathroom seem like something out of Burj Al Arab.

I turned the shower on and the water was hot. I looked at the shower basin and it was clean. Man alive, I was in heaven. Living like a bearded goat-sacrificing heathen does wonders for appreciating what you have at home.

This evening, I will mainly be sifting through the hundreds of photographs that I took whilst living like a badger on holiday in order to try and cobble together a holiday blog post. In the meantime I leave you with this: It is a picture of Izzy and her friend Olly (who she wants to marry) “enjoying” a boat trip together.

Nature is not human hearted

At last, the rain this week eventually let up long enough for Izzy and I to undertake some outdoor activities. That’s because television is evil right? And children who watch too much of it are bound to have a penchant for mugging grannies and sniffing glue when they grow up. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen my superglue for a while…..

I had decided that the theme for our activities was going be nature, because I wanted Izzy to see some wildlife outside their normal context of roadkill. And with this in mind, we headed off to the Sutton Courtenay Nature Reserve – a place that had been advertising children’s activities for the summer holidays.

“Izzy,” I said in the car, “we are going to experience nature in its natural habitat.”

“What’s habitat?” Izzy asked.

“It’s like the outdoor house that animals live in,” I replied inadequately, turning up the radio in the car to avert further questions.

It worked and Izzy started singing along to Razorlights, ‘America’ which, in truth, is wholly inappropriate for a five year old.  

Once we arrived at the Nature Reserve, I marched up to the Reserve’s reception desk and said: “We would like to sample some of your nature and your finest children’s activities as well please.”

“No problem,” smiled the lady behind the desk (nature nuts are always ‘nice’, it’s from all that lovin’ animals), “that’ll be £2.50 please.”

Blimey, nature had gone up since last time I experienced it. That’ll be inflation then.

“So what’s first then?” I asked Mrs Nice once she had prised the money out of my cold, clenched fists.

“Pond dipping,” she said, “over at the pond.” Unsurprisingly.

“What’s that bloody hell’s pond dipping?” I asked.

“One of our helpers will explain once you are there,” she replied.

It took five minutes to walk to the pond, and I have to say, Izzy was pretty excited by the time we got there. We headed towards the helper, and I said, “we’d like to do some pond dipping please.”

“No problem,” she smiled (also terribly nice), “get one of those nets over there and dip it gently into the pond, decanting what you catch into one of these white trays,” she said, thrusting one into my hand.

“So basically it’s just fishing?” I asked her.

The horrified expression on her face told me that it wasn’t. “No,” she said, “we are looking for all manner of wildlife.” These nature types are very defensive of their wildlife techniques [note to reader: if you are at a nature reserve and see a spider, don't shout "UGH there's a spider! Kill it!" because they don't like that either].

So there we were, balancing precariously on a muddy pond bank and going in for the ‘catch’. The helper was watching us, and after dipping our net into the pond three times she shouted to us; “that’ll be enough now.”

Izzy and I scrambled back up the bank and poured the contents of our net into the white tray.

“Oh how exciting!” exclaimed the helper, “this is best variety of wildlife we have had all day.”

Izzy and I peered into the white tray; “You are obviously seeing something that I’m not” I said, “I can only see green sludgy stuff.”

“There!” she pointed; “you’ve two fish, a water beetle and some mosquito larvae.”

Call me a cynic, but it wasn’t the haul I was expecting. In fact, I was coming to the conclusion that nature was a bit crap.

“We can have those fish for dinner,” I said to Izzy, pointing at them and laughing my head off.

Izzy guffawed heartily in return, but Helper looked shocked beyond belief; “Oh no, you must put them back,” she said seriously.

“Erm, it was a joke,” I pointed out to Helper; “the fish they are no more than half an inch long, and even though I could do with going on a diet, that fish would be taking things to extremes.”

“Oh sorry, of course,” Helper laughed laughed nervously.

“Anyway, we’ve done pond dipping,” I said. “What’s next on the agenda?”

Helper looked totally relieved: “A bug hunt,” she said thrusting a piece of paper into my hands. It was a list of ten different bugs.

“What do we do with this then?” I asked

“There are pictures of these bugs hidden throughout the nature reserve, and you have to find them and tick them off the list,” she replied.

“Cool,” I said to Izzy, “you understand what you are supposed to do?”

“Yeh of course,” she replied indignantly like she had done a bug hunt every day of her life.

“Ok good. Now you are going to be Dora, and you are responsible for finding the bugs, and my name is Diego and I am responsible for writing the bugs’ names onto our list.” I said. Can you see the natural leader in me coming out? Yep, I felt the need to delegate even to a five year old. I shudder to think of the results of my Inkblot test.

Izzy, as always, threw herself into the task with gusto and rushed around with me lumbering and sweating glowing behind her. For hours we ran around meadows, squeezed behind bushes, climbed trees, scaled fences and explored dens in pursuit of those bloody bug pictures. 

So, fast-forward a while. The sun was starting to set, and Izzy had found nine out of the ten bugs. We had spent the last hour trying to track down the elusive ’snail’ but he wasn’t to be found anywhere. As I saw it, we had two choices: 1. Set-up base camp and continue our search in the morning; or 2. Abandon our search for the damned snail and head home.

Despite Izzy insisting that she would like to live in the Nature Reserve until she had found the snail (she was soooo proud of herself for finding the other bugs), I decided against it. I mean, it would be downright weird for me and a five year old to sleep under a bush in a Nature Reserve because we hadn’t found a picture of a snail. Especially all those people walking past us and pointing. I dread to think what Social Services would make of me trying to explain that one.

So we headed home, and to my great suprise, Izzy gabbled all the way home about what a good time she had had. Blimey, five year olds are really easily amused! How cool is that? She said that ‘fishing’ (her words not mine) was great fun, and that she ‘loved’ the bug hunt. Jeez, I am such a good parent – I didn’t see that coming.

Me, on the other hand, woke up at 2am that night sweating about not finding the snail. Seriously, I had a dream and I was manically running around only to be met with dead ends, and empty places. And I had been frantically digging my pillow. That’s not right is it?

Next installment of ‘back to nature’ coming soon……. in the meantime, has anyone else got any summer holiday tales?

Nature is not human hearted

At last, the rain this week eventually let up long enough for Izzy and I to undertake some outdoor activities. That’s because television is evil right? And children who watch too much of it are bound to have a penchant for mugging grannies and sniffing glue when they grow up. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen my superglue for a while…..

I had decided that the theme for our activities was going be nature, because I wanted Izzy to see some wildlife outside their normal context of roadkill. And with this in mind, we headed off to the Sutton Courtenay Nature Reserve – a place that had been advertising children’s activities for the summer holidays.

“Izzy,” I said in the car, “we are going to experience nature 

Once there, I marched up to the Reserve’s reception desk and said: “We would like to sample some of your nature and your finest children’s activities as well please.”

“No problem,” smiled the lady behind the desk (nature nuts are always ‘nice’, it’s from all that lovin’ animals), “that’ll be £2.50 please.”

Blimey, nature had gone up since last time I experienced it. That’ll be inflation then.

“So what’s first then?” I asked Mrs Nice once she had prised the money out of my cold, clenched fists.

“Pond dipping,” she said, “over at the pond.” Unsurprisingly.

“What’s that bloody hell’s pond dipping?” I asked.

“One of our helpers will explain once you are there,” she replied.

It took five minutes to walk to the pond, and I have to say, Izzy was pretty excited by the time we got there. We headed towards the helper, and I said, “we’d like to do some pond dipping please.”

“No problem,” she smiled (also terribly nice), “get one of those nets over there and dip it gently into the pond, decanting what you catch into one of these white trays,” she said, thrusting one into my hand.

“So basically it’s just fishing?” I asked her.

The horrified expression on her face told me that it wasn’t. “No,” she said, “we are looking for all manner of wildlife.” These nature types are very defensive of their wildlife techniques [note to reader: if you are at a nature reserve and see a spider, don't shout "UGH there's a spider! Kill it!" because they don't like that either].

So there we were, balancing precariously on a muddy pond bank and going in for the ‘catch’. The helper was watching us, and after dipping our net into the pond three times she shouted to us; “that’ll be enough now.”

Izzy and I scrambled back up the bank and poured the contents of our net into the white tray.

“Oh how exciting!” exclaimed the helper, “this is best variety of wildlife we have had all day.”

Izzy and I peered into the white tray; “You are obviously seeing something that I’m not” I said, “I can only see green sludgy stuff.”

“There!” she pointed; “you’ve two fish, a water beetle and some mosquito larvae.”

Call me a cynic, but it wasn’t the haul I was expecting. In fact, I was coming to the conclusion that nature was a bit crap.

“We can have those fish for dinner,” I said to Izzy, pointing at them and laughing my head off.

Izzy guffawed heartily in return, but Helper looked shocked beyond belief; “Oh no, you must put them back,” she said seriously.

“Erm, it was a joke,” I pointed out to Helper; “the fish they are no more than half an inch long, and even though I could do with going on a diet, that fish would be taking things to extremes.”

“Oh sorry, of course,” Helper laughed laughed nervously.

“Anyway, we’ve done pond dipping,” I said. “What’s next on the agenda?”

Helper looked totally relieved: “A bug hunt,” she said thrusting a piece of paper into my hands. It was a list of ten different bugs.

“What do we do with this then?” I asked

“There are pictures of these bugs hidden throughout the nature reserve, and you have to find them and tick them off the list,” she replied.

“Cool,” I said to Izzy, “you understand what you are supposed to do?”

“Yeh of course,” she replied indignantly like she had done a bug hunt every day of her life.

“Ok good. Now you are going to be Dora, and you are responsible for finding the bugs, and my name is Diego and I am responsible for writing the bugs’ names onto our list.” I said. Can you see the natural leader in me coming out? Yep, I felt the need to delegate even to a five year old. I shudder to think of the results of my Inkblot test.

Izzy, as always, threw herself into the task with gusto and rushed around with me lumbering and sweating glowing behind her. For hours we ran around meadows, squeezed behind bushes, climbed trees, scaled fences and explored dens in pursuit of those bloody bug pictures. 

So, fast-forward a while. The sun was starting to set, and Izzy had found nine out of the ten bugs. We had spent the last hour trying to track down the elusive ’snail’ but he wasn’t to be found anywhere. As I saw it, we had two choices: 1. Set-up base camp and continue our search in the morning; or 2. Abandon our search for the damned snail and head home.

Despite Izzy insisting that she would like to live in the Nature Reserve until she had found the snail (she was soooo proud of herself for finding the other bugs), I decided against it. I mean, it would be downright weird for me and a five year old to sleep under a bush in a Nature Reserve because we hadn’t found a picture of a snail. Especially all those people walking past us and pointing. I dread to think what Social Services would make of me trying to explain that one.

So we headed home, and to my great suprise, Izzy gabbled all the way home about what a good time she had had. Blimey, five year olds are really easily amused! How cool is that? She said that ‘fishing’ (her words not mine) was great fun, and that she ‘loved’ the bug hunt. Jeez, I am such a good parent – I didn’t see that coming.

Me, on the other hand, woke up at 2am that night sweating about not finding the snail. Seriously, I had a dream and I was manically running around only to be met with dead ends, and empty places. And I had been frantically digging my pillow. That’s not right is it?

Next installment of ‘back to nature’ coming soon……. in the meantime, has anyone else got any summer holiday tales?

Random Police and Shrek Rants

Police. Sometimes I question their powers of deduction. I was reading an article in the Oxford News today, and it was about the discovery of a decapitated man in the grounds of a golf course. When the Investigating Officer was interviewed, he confirmed that the victim was dead, and said that they were treating the death as suspicious.

WTF? Of course the bloody victim was dead. He had no head! …. unless in my ignorance there are people out there who have actually recovered from that particular injury? And of course his death is suspicious!….well, unless he had the worst golf swing known to man…….. 

Anyway, that story had nothing to do with today’s post. It was just something I read whilst I was in the supermarket exchanging a faulty tube of superglue that had led to me accidentally sticking myself to a child’s teapot earlier in the week.

Back to the matter in hand. After Izzy’s school holiday jaunts, she was back in Oxford and I was excited about having her for four straight days before she set off on another holiday. I had made sure that all my house chores were done so that we could concentrate on having fun. Yeh, you got it …….. I’m the bloody double of Mary Poppins I am.

I had it all planned. We were going to be doing loads of ‘outdoors stuff’ because I am a Victorian parent in that I believe that television is evil and if a child watches it too much, when they get older they will do horrible things involving fireworks and animals. The television rule doesn’t apply to me, obviously. I don’t know what I would do without my daily dose of ‘Big Brother’.

So along came Day 1 of our funfest. I opened the curtains and to my chagrin, it was raining. Damn! Actually, it wasn’t just raining, it was totally pissing it down. As I peered through a hole in the condensation on the window, I could see Naughty George in the garden having a wee whilst the rain bounced off his head. 

It became instantly apparent that my strict outdoors regime had been washed out, and that I needed to come up with a contingency, and quickly.

I jumped onto my computer and typed; “what the bloody hell can I do with a five year old if it’s raining outside?” Amazingly, Google came back with an answer, but I didn’t like it; “Shrek Forever After at Witney Cineworld.“

Ugh the cinema. I hate the cinema. But Izzy had already seen the picture of Shrek on my screen and had started jumping up and down and nearly spewing with excitement; “Can we go and see that mummy? Purlleeeeaase?”

I sighed……. and reluctantly agreed. Jeez, I’m a total pushover.

Two hours later, we arrived at Witney’s Cineworld, and it wasn’t long before all the things that I abhor about cinemas were pushed into my face. Firstly, there was the queue for tickets. For some bizarre reason, they were only selling tickets at the food counter (seems to be a new trend), so we had to stand in line for TWENTY minutes, watching people buy hot-dogs and popcorn, when all we wanted were the bloody tickets.

Then I had to actually pay for the tickets, and it cost £17.00 ($26.00 USD) …. oh yeh. For that price I could have bought the Shrek DVD and a DVD player to play it on.

So there I was, grumbling and swearing and cursing about the crap customer service at cinemas, but even I have to admit (begrudingly); Izzy abso-bloody-lutely loved it. It was all 3D, so things kept coming out of the screen making her laugh her head off. And I suppose that the film’s storyline was moderately entertaining.

But! And I say, BUT! Surely cinemas cannot survive in the long term with their current levels of customer service and price structure? Is it me?

Where’s Izzy?

After all the dashing around I have been doing over the last couple of weeks, it took a while to dawn on me……..

“What took a while to dawn on you?” I hear you cry.

Well, to be frank, the fact that I haven’t seen my daughter for quite a long time. As in about a week or so. Let me elucidate; I am not normally this scatter-brained about where I put down my daughter, but diary management (both Izzy’s and mine) has never been my strong point.

I decided to ring Izzy’s Dad, Steve (who is in charge of all Izzy’s engagements) and found out what was going on.

Me: [phone ringing]

Steve: Hello?

Me: Hi, it’s me. I just thought I would ring up to find out when I was going to see my daughter again. It’s been ages and I nearly had to refer to a photograph to remember what she looked like.

Steve: [sigh] I told you what she was up to, and that she is due back tomorrow.

Me: Oops, I’d forgotten, can you tell me again. …………..

It transpired that Izzy was like a real-life version of ‘Where’s Waldo‘ (or Where’s Wally, as it is called in the UK). Basically the little tinker has been popping up everywhere, with all types of friends and family, just like a five year old metaphorical prairie dog.

After piecing together the evidence and the pictures, I discovered that she had undertaken three major engagements in the last week and a half. I mean, WTF? She is five! She has a busier social life than me, and I am an like a cross between Mother Theresa, Paris Hilton and Justin Bieber (except I don’t do sex tapes…. like Mother Theresa ……. at least I hope that’s the case).

So, Izzy’s diary in the last week has been like this:

1. A weekend visit from Nana Shirley (paternal Grandmother)

Awww, it all started off so promising; Nana had dressed Izzy in a sweet little summer frock and matching sunhat. ‘It’ll never last’ I thought to myself when I heard that they were going to Shotover Park (the place where I used to live off the land).

Sure enough, two hours later. Dress – gone. Hat – gone. Sparkly sandals – gone. And what do we have in its place? I guess the best description is ‘feral’ crossed with ‘Bear Grylls’.

This time, the steady decline into feral-dom begins with an ice-cream………..

2. A holiday with her Dad in Woolacombe, Devon

How cute! Izzy and her dad went on a camping trip to Devon so that they could be by the sea for five days. Awww, it all started off so promising; Steve had dressed Izzy in a sweet little summer outfit with matching sunhat. ‘It’ll never last’ I thought to myself when I heard that they might be going to the beach.

Sure enough, two hours later. Dress – gone. Hat – already gone. Sparkly sandals – gone. And what do we have in its place? I guess the best description is ‘feral’ crossed with ‘Steve Irwin’ ….. but without the stingray. That was killed weeks ago by the turds.

3. A weekend at Grandad Paul and Nanny Sue’s house (paternal Grandfather and step-Grandmother)

The final stop of Izzy’s England tour, was a weekend in Birmingham with Grandad Paul and Nanny Sue. Demonstrating extraordinary foresight, they decided to skip the ‘lets dress her up all cute” stage and instead went for the jugular. Yep, straight off they geared her up for action. Roller blades on. Knee pads on, and accessorise with a Hello Kitty tube of sweets. Apparently she stayed in that exact same outfit for the full 48 hours she was there….. except for ……………..

………….. the time when Grandad Paul asked Izzy to do an impression of Mummy and she came up with this…………..

4. Prodigal daughter returns home

So. That was a brief summary of what went on during Izzy’s disappearance. And sure enough, as promised by Steve, she returned home on the predicted day, and he telephoned me to say that I could come and collect her. I arrived at Steve’s flat to be confronted by this ……..

I turned to Steve, “what the bloody hell is she doing?” I asked.

“I dunno,” he said, “she told me that her teachers at school said that summer must be spent outside.”

“But it’s pissing it down with rain,” I replied.

Steve shrugged and I shook my head; “We need to complain to that school,” I said.

But I have to say – feral or not – danger seeking or not – I was mighty happy to have my little girl back from her jaunt….. and I had a whole load of activities ready for our impending weekend together.

So how are all you other parents getting on with the summer holidays? What are you doing to keep them entertained? ……… We need to swap notes ….. only another two week push before school starts again!

How to execute the perfect barbeque

Last week, I found out that one of the outlaws inlaws – Izzy’s ‘Nana Shirley’ – was staying in Oxford for a couple of days [Just to clarify: Nana Shirley is Steve's mother].

I gave Steve a call; “hey, why don’t you bring her round to my house tomorrow and we can have a barbeque?” I suggested.

“You want to barbeque my mother?” he asked perplexedly.

“No. I want to do a barbeque for your mother you spod.” I explained.

“Yeh, sounds like a plan,” he replied.

“Great. Do you want to supply half the food and I’ll do the other half?” I said.

“Umm, yes ok,” he agreed.
___________________

‘Tomorrow’ duly arrived and Nana, Steve and Izzy turned up at my house bearing food and beverages. The sun was out so we all sat chatting in the garden, feeding chunks of chicken, onion, green peppers, halloumi cheese and mushrooms onto kebab skewers. [note to self: after a retrospective assessment of the injuries, I have decided that it is a bad idea letting a five year old make kebabs].

Once the kebabs were all made up and ready to cook, Steve suggested I light the barbeque in readiness, but at that exact same time, grey clouds started to scurry across the sky. Bollocks.

For some obscure reason, I persauded myself that a barbeque was still a good idea even though the aforementioned clouds had started to blacken (that’s denial that is), and as such, I was still trying to light the charcoal when the rain started falling. At first it fell lightly, but then it hardened; pummelling the charcoal and creating a carbon puddle at the bottom of the barbeque drum. Double bollocks. 

“I can’t light the barbeque,” I shouted feebly to Steve who was in the kitchen.

“Bloody hell, it’s pissing down out here,” he said after appearing at the back door.

“I know, but we promised your Mum a barbeque,” I said.

“Leave it with me.” Steve replied before disappearing into my garage. He reappeared with a petrol can.

I felt a little nervous about this latest development; “Are you sure you know what you are doing?”

Steve replied with a terse; “Stand back,” and proceeded to fling the petrol onto the carbon sludge.

There was an almighty bang, and the flames from the barbeque shot twenty feet into the air, roaring and spitting from the rain.

“Ok, we are ready to cook!” he shouted gleefully (and ever-so-slightly manically) as I cowered six feet away on my haunches, trying to save my eyebrows from the searing heat.

Handily enough,  following the intervention of petrol the kebabs were fully cooked within 30 (rather frenzied) seconds, giving me much-wanted respite from the rain.

“I like what you did there,” I said to Steve. He nodded and did a bit of a swagger; “thanks,” he replied.

Dinner was served, and Nana Shirley eyed her plate suspiciously; “how come you’ve cooked these so quickly?” she asked, “You’ve only just taken them outside.”

I quickly changed the subject, shouting “tuck in!” and passed around the kebabs with gusto. And then my eye fell upon a plate of green shit positioned in the centre of the table.

“What the bloody hell is that?” I asked, turning to Steve.

“Salad,” he replied, matter-of-factly.

“That’s the kind of crap that wild rabbits eat,” I pointed out.

“It’s healthy,” he said.

“It’s got vitamins in, and they’ve got a funny taste,” I said.

 Steve rolled his eyes at me as I begrudingly heaped some of the salad onto my plate.

“That’s the last time I invite you round for a barbeque and ask you to bring the food,” I muttered.

You will be pleased to know that except for the fact that I had to graze on plant matter like a feral herbivore, we had a very pleasant evening. And I am definitely going to invest in some more petrol for future barbeques. Ignoring the slightly lingering aftertaste it gave the kebabs, you can’t beat 30 seconds to cook a meal. That’s gotta be the way forward.

Ready meals and make up

Blimey, I was just looking at all the photographs that I have got lined up for numerous blog posts, and realised that I am further behind in my postings, than the Lib Dems are in the polls. So, I have decided to do what any self-respecting blogger would do in the circumstances; ignore the photographs in the hope that they will go away, and talk random crap instead.

I realise that this isn’t probably the greatest long-term strategy, but at the moment all I am looking for is short-term gratification. Actually, I can’t back that up. I tend to generally veer towards short-term gratification.

So what stuff have I got up to this week then?  Well by far the most important event was that I discovered a fundamental flaw with ‘ready meals’. Not that I live off ready meals that is, jeez, that would be lazy. The flaw is that once they have been cooked, the instructions say ‘peel off the film lid’. So you go to peel off the film lid and only the rim pulls off. So then you get a knife and try and cut through the middle bit and it comes off in thin strips, covering your fingers in superheated sauce as you try to pick the strips out of the food. Surely, bejesus, someone can invent a film lid that peels off in one go? Is it too much to ask in an age when we can send probes to Mars, that someone invent a film lid that doesn’t shred?

On a totally unrelated note, Izzy came up to me this week and asked, “can I put some make-up on?”

At the time I was a bit distracted trying to extract the Hello Kitty teddy that was wedged in the toaster.

“Yeh, yeh,” I said, tugging on Hello Kitty’s feet.

With the Hello Kitty finally free (but coated in breadcrumbs like a chicken kiev), I shouted up the stairs, “come on Izzy, we need to go to the supermarket.”

The sight that greeted me was this:

I recoiled in horror, “bloody hell Iz, we need to wash that off before going out.”

Izzy’s bottom lip started quivering. Aw crap.

“It took me ages, Nana showed me what to do,” she said, tears welling.

Aw, double crap. “Ok, ok, you can keep it on…. you look erm, very beautiful,” I replied despairingly.

Her face lit up and she beamed me a smile.

So in case you were wondering, yes I did have to take Izzy round Asda like that. She looked like Mrs Doyle from Father Ted, and everyone was staring at me disparagingly. My only respite was seeing another parent in there whose child was dressed in a full spiderman outfit. Our eye’s met and for a split second, we ‘connected’ without having to say anything.

Ah the joys of parenthood.

Monkey nuts and motorways

I know I haven’t blogged for two days, but I have just returned home after a long weekend in Leeds, and haven’t had a second to put fingertips to keyboard. Overdue blog posts are all lined up and advancing upon me like ants carrying chopped up leaves. It’s like a cyber horror movie. Even though I am running really fast, and the blogs are moving really slowly, they are still catching up. I have tried stopping and throwing something ineffectual at them (like a small twig), but nothing stops their terrifying advances.

So I have resorted to writing this post under the duvet, because duvets are the only thing able to stop zombie blog postings in their tracks. Cunning… yep that’s me.

I must apologise because the blog postings are all going to be back-to-front, starting with my arrival back in Oxford today, continuing with what I did prior to that throughout the weekend. There is a good reason that I am doing it that way round, and it’s because I have a hundred million blog photographs to go through, and I am too tired to do it tonight. As Izzy would say, “I have got some tired inside my eyes”.

After a three hour journey from Leeds to Oxford, I finally arrived at Steve’s house ready to pick up Izzy and Naughty George, by which time I was feeling pretty knackered. I pressed the buzzer, and it was like I had never been away. Through the open window I could instantly hear a volley of Naughty George’s barks, and Izzy shouting, “Is that Mummy? Don’t tell her that I am going to hide under the bed.”

“Hiya,” I said to Steve as he opened the door, “do I really have to go through the rigmarole of finding Izzy’s hiding place?”

“Yep,” he replied, and then lowered his voice, adding; “she is under the bed.”

“She’s always under the bed,” I replied wearily, “do I still have to act surprised?”

“Of course you do, she’s five. That’s what five years olds do.”

Because I am like Mother Theresa, I feigned searching the entire house before ‘accidentally’ stumbling across Izzy’s hiding place under the bed.

“RAARRRRR! I’ve found you!” I shouted, tickling her feet.

She laughed uncontrollably for about 15 seconds and then emerged from under the bed, greeting my four day absence in the way that five year olds do; “I’m hungry,” she said.

I went to find Steve; “Izzy’s hungry, have you got any snacks to hand?”

“Yeh, sure,” he said before disappearing into the kitchen and returning with a handful of monkey nuts, handing them to Izzy.

Knowing that Izzy was preoccupied with her monkey nuts, I picked up the coffee that Steve had made me and turned to him to chat. Not thirty seconds passed before we heard an anguished wail coming from the other room; “Naughty George has nicked-ed [sic - it's past tense for five year olds] one of my monkey nuts!”

“Naughty George doesn’t eat monkey nuts!” I shouted, walking into the living room where Izzy was hollering.

How wrong was I? It turned out that Naughty George was the mutt equivalent of those Brazilian Capuchin monkeys who have learned how to use tools to access food.

He had the monkey nut in his mouth, and he bit it gently until the shell fell away and then he scoffed the nuts inside. Bloody hell, my dog was transforming himself into the missing link. Question one: how did he know that there was something edible inside the shell? Question 2: how did he figure out how to get the shell off?

There was only one thing for it. After discovering Naughty George’s ability to crack open nuts, I am going to have to pickle him in a jar of Formalehyde and sell him to some forensic Darwinists, making a huge profit in the process.

“Here, Georgie, Georgie…… here Georgie, Georgie…….”

Sweet milestones……

Last night I was trying to sort out the hundreds of photographs that were supposed to go into various blog postings, when I stumbled across a video that I took a couple of months ago.

It was a video of Izzy on the day she first learned to ride her bike without stabilisers. I remember it distinctly.

Izzy’s dad, Steve, called me at lunchtime with the news; “Izzy is desperate for you to come over, she wants to show you that she can ride her bike.”

“Great stuff,” I said, “I will come round whilst I am taking Naughty George on his drag.”

As I walked up to Steve’s house, I saw Izzy sitting at the top of the driveway, poised for action on her bike.

“She’s been like that for 15 minutes, waiting for you,” Steve said. Awwwww, how cute?

Izzy saw me, and instantly became animated, “Mummy, watch me, I can ride my bike,” she shouted excitedly.

“Go on then, show me what you can do,” I said. 

“No,” she replied.

“Why not?” I asked her.

“Because you haven’t said 1-2-3 GO!” she retorted. Ah …. the things that are important to four year old minds.

“Ok. 1-2-3 GO!” I repeated. And so she set off on her wobbly, slightly out-of-control journey around the carpark in front of the houses, with her legs rotating furiously because the pedals were too short. 

She pedalled determinedly up the hill and swooped and turned, narrowly missing parked cars, and tall kerbstones, before pulling up in front of me.

“Izzy, that was absolutely awesome,” I said to her, clapping my hands and trying to shut up Naughty George who was barking vacuously for no reason at all. She swelled with pride and had trouble containing herself.

“Shall I show you again?” she asked.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” I said.

“Well go on then,” she replied.

“What?”

“You haven’t said 1-2-3 GO!” she added indignantly. Hey girl, is that a bossy streak I see in you?

So that was how I spent the subsequent hour, and it was great. 

I tell you, there is nothing better than witnessing your own child’s achievements. Well maybe that was bit rash; a Hot and Spicy from Domino’s comes close. And Pimms with Soda.

TheTowersey Fete – it’s oh-so-English dahlink

You will be pleased to hear that in amongst all the carnage that I have been dealing with the last couple of weeks, I managed to sneak an enjoyable day in.

Yep, last Sunday Sam and her husband Pete asked if I wanted to go with them and their three children to a village fete. The sun was out, and it was the perfect day to partake in something so quintessentially English. Cucumber sandwiches with Pimms, Tarquin?

[For the benefit of my overseas readers, a fete is an event organised by volunteers, generally with the intention of raising funds (in this case for the local church). The fete has games, entertainment, stalls and refreshments, and is a focal point in country life].

So, without further ado, I jumped into my car and followed Pete and Sam to the village of Towersey where the fete was being held. On the way, Pete nearly knocked down a pheasant that was in the road. “What pheasant?” asked Sam after I pointed out the bird’s near demise.

“That big multi-coloured bird that you swerved to avoid,” I replied.

“Nah, can’t say I noticed it,” she replied. Phew, good job it didn’t get run over otherwise it would have died in vain. There’s nothing more annoying than dying and nobody noticing.

Enough of discussing dead wildlife, let’s get back to the Fete which was held in the magnificent grounds of Towersey Manor. If I was to try and recreate the atmosphere, I would say that it was like stepping back in time into a 1930s Miss Marple film; a band was playing, there were Morris Dancers jingling their bells, and there were stalls around the main lawn advertising various activities.

Because I am kind – like Ghandi, but not wearing a sheet – I am going to give you a picture tour showing some of the idiosyncracies of the English fete.  

I hope you enjoyed my guide to the quintessential English fete. It was actually last weekend that we went, so you can see how far behind I am with my postings. Also, I need to apologise for the pictures being a bit grainy. After my iPhone went down the toilet, and I lost my camera at the Cornbury Music Festival, I am now reliant on the camera built into an ancient (circa 2004) Sony P900 brick phone. It’s one step above a pinhole camera.