Aotearoa Part II - Campervanning

Campervanning is a fab experience. I was tiring of villa holidays in Europe not because of the locations which were wonderful but just having to shop, clean and cook on holiday thereby making it feel not like a holiday at all. 

I have to say I don't mind cooking or cleaning or washing up in our campervan and I think it is because it's so small and such a novelty. Everything is so compact and neat and there is always that slight element of surprise. Will the sink drain? Won't it drain? Will I have to empty it with a saucepan? What is that smell? Isn't incredible how this broom just clears up all the grit and dust in seconds making for clean feet in the camper. It all just adds the fun into the functionality of chores. 

Furthermore, one of the most interesting quotes of our holiday came from my husband that could only have been asked if we were in a campervan and sitting high off the road. "I know it's a weird thing to say but I am so desperate to know what all this road kill is?"

Admittedly, it has been awhile since we have roughed it even a little. Days and days of no showers and long drop public toilets have been long gone from our recent holidays but I have to say the Kiwi management of their campsites from the most sophisticated to the most basic is just outstanding.
 
As with anything dangerous like negotiating a crevasse or crossing a rickety bridge on a mountain pass or a public porta potty the key bit of advice is don't look down. You always do and regret it but the advice holds true. Yet these potties have all been clean, have ample loo paper and some a hand foam dispenser, full of antibacterial hand foam. I mean, this is luxury in my book.
 
We are only staying at a few proper campsites and are mostly using the very basic DOC (Dept. of Conservation) sites which have no facilities other than said scheisse shack but are in areas of stunning natural beauty which we prefer. We are breaking up our trip with three to four days of scruffing it to one day at a well-appointed campsite where we can shower, use electricity and check Facebook. You know... essentials.
 
So far the DOC sites have been fantastic although it has been an adjustment becoming a campervanner. Given I hate most people and my husband hates everyone caravanners and campervanners have tended to score high up on our despicable you list given they take up the whole road and pootle along and don't give way.
 
Anyway now we have become those we hate has made my poor husband riddled with the guilt of hypocrisy and paranoia. I am quite comfortable with hypocrisy so couldn't care less but he has turned into a nervous meerkat constantly moving over to give way on the roads and poking his little head out to ensure he isn't obscuring some tenting campers view. It has made him nervous and as he hates people who campervan, being one of these folk for 12 days has actually turned him into a guilt ridden considerate person.  Well, to other road users and campers. Let's not go crazy and assume it is to all mankind.
 
I take his point. Campervans are a blight. As convenient, wonderful and fun as they are and ideal for a hassle free camping style holiday with long drives, in New Zealand where the vistas are so dazzling, the last thing you want is to be sitting in your nicely camouflaged tent staring at the mountains when some schmuck in a Winnebago parks in front of it. 

Next Week: Glaciers

Aotearoa Part I

I never set out to make this blog a travel one. After all it's bad enough having to sit through 300 photos of heather and pebbles (I took pictures of pebbles on a beach and then realized it looked like a Microsoft screen saver so deleted it) from someone's holiday and then have to listen to some epic commentary on how chuffing wonderful it was.

I lie.  I love listening to people's enthusiasim for their holidays and every time I think my bucket list is getting shorter a friend shares photos and stories from their travels and I get all excited and have to add another country to my list. I still have a lot of places I want to go to before I die so I had better not die or I will be very cheesed off.

Anyway I appreciate a blog on our trip around the South Island of New Zealand is not really for everyone. But if you do fancy a few little anecdotes from our travels but don't have two days to spare to read it I am breaking it into six parts like Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit combined plus bonus material to be shared over the next few weeks. This provides an ample break between the trilogies x two or the sixologies if that's a word as well as ensures a regular product output from me without having to come up with original content. Win win!

Hope you enjoy it!

What can one say about the South Island of New Zealand. Words honestly fail me. It is breathtakingly beautiful. 

The best way to describe New Zealand is in the vernacular of a Surrey teenager " it was like .... Oh my god ..... Just like ..... Ah..mazing .... I mean ... Like .... Seriously .... Just oh ... My .... God". 

I really cannot put it any better than that, I'm afraid.

Our first stop after flying into Christchurch on the east coast was to then drive back over where we flew to the west coast via Arthur's Pass.  A stunning cut through the Southern Alps. I have included my first holiday photo below just to give you an idea of why Tabitha de FieldHockey Delavigne's description was so apt. 

Given my sons name is Arthur and he was so tickled by the fact such a famous part of the South Island was named after him we desperately wanted to take a photo of him standing in front of an Arthur's Pass sign, ideally with his head obscuring the 'p'. 

There is a fifteen kilometre stretch within Arthur's pass where the weather suddenly turns from fairly warm and sunny to bitterly cold windy and wet and it is quite a shock given you were in shorts and flip flops a few minutes before. As Crowded House rightly said, there are four seasons in one day. What they should have also told you in that song is you also need four seasons clothing in one day or you are going home without one of your toes.

The other characters of great interest in the sub alpine range of Arthur's Pass are the Kea bird. A noisy alpine parrot that has developed quite a reputation as a kleptomaniac. I read about them prior to arriving and assumed them to be the size of a budgie. I nearly fell over when one swooped over my head. These birds are closer in size to a barn owl but more menacing. They are quite beautiful to look at with their brown green and red plumage but they are unshakeable in their persistence. No amount of shooing or hand waving is going to get rid of them. We were warned not to leave anything outside our campervan as hikers have often woken the next morning to find all that's left of their boots is a bit of shredded laces. They have very sharp strong beaks and can remove all the rubber off of the outside of your car.

So while quite sweet they are considered a menace. They are also fairly threatening given they cannot be shooed. They stand in very close proximity and stare at you with a cold cold look and say "I think you and I both know that it is time for you to rack off now because I am going to take that jam sandwich and your Milky Way. I might even come inside and take that marinating lamb chop out of your fridge. And you are going to let me because if you don't I will peck you. I will peck you hard ..... bitch".

Pardon my French. We have had to take a break from the fourth season of Breaking Bad to come on his holiday so I am struggling a little with being unable to feed my addiction to a show about cooking meth. Oh the irony. But irrespective of the Pinkman profanity the parrot did say that. Direct quote.

Next Week:  Campervanning

 

Christmas Crumble

It is my "getting out of Christmas card writing by sending one generic Christmas letter to everybody I know" time of year again.

I have a small confession to make.  I wrote a particularly lengthy Christmas blog last year around the same time but it was so depressing I decided not to post it.  Indeed, I had hoped that 12 months on I would be in better spirits given we have had a fantastic year with a visit back home to the UK in the summer and gallivanting around Asia during the holidays. And Singapore definitely feels more like a second home than it did this time last year.

However, recent events tend to overshadow the joys of months gone by.  I have been slightly laid out the last two weeks which has made me grumpy.  I have only had one fluey virus since arriving in Singapore and have been struck down again with another strange bug.  Given we are in Asia and the head cold and cough hooplah of our northern hemisphere days are different strains to the ones found down south means you tend to get struck down with odd symptoms that last forever.  They do not consist of anything like a cold or cough.  Just lethargy, a feverish feeling without a fever, a grumbling tummy and a nose stink. 

To add insult to illness I got bitten on my face by some flying beastie two weeks ago.  The bite became infected and I have been walking around with an enormous purple boil on my face. 

I refuse to go to the doctors for any of these ailments even though I feel quite lousy as I can imagine for my nose stink (I assume this is a sinus problem) and my heavy head I will be sent for an MRI and I believe the routine testing for an infected zit is a colonoscopy.

So you will forgive my poor mood.

On top of all of that Christmas time is very nearly upon us and if I forget about my diseases I should be getting very excited as we are not going to be in Singapore for Christmas but going on holiday instead.

Christmas in the stifling heat is a miserable experience and one I never ever want to do again after last year.  I know the region has been managing just fine for many years with hot 25th but I am afraid it really isn't for me.  I want the cold, the log fire (and not on an Ipad app), long weekend walks with a freezing face and a nice glass of mulled wine and mince pie on my return.

So we are departing the island on Christmas Eve and not returning until January 10th 2015 if you are interested in burglary.

We have never been away at Christmas since having the children and I am in a little bit of a quandary what with Santa having a fairly strict delivery schedule.  We have always had a bit of a problem with explaining Santa's movements.  Does Santa bring all the presents or just the stocking presents?  And if he brings the presents under the tree then why do they say "To Clemily lots of love from Goompa" and that sort of thing.  Surely they should all say "Love from Santa".  It is terribly confusing.  We have fudged the issue in the past by saying the Christmas tree presents are from us as a family and the stocking presents are from Santa.  Luckily our children are too stupid to question this cockeyed logic given both materialise on the 25th of December.

This year we are leaving on the 24th so do you think we can ask Santa to deliver the tree presents early or just put them out on the 23rd night without an explanation?  And what about the stockings?  We are taking them with us on holiday but how will Santa get them into the hand luggage in the overhead lockers while we are en route?  He is magical so it shouldn't be a problem although I do feel a little bad that the kids will be opening their stockings in an airport.

Actually I should not feel bad as frankly no presents should be given this year as we are taking them on a holiday of a lifetime.  Admittedly it is our holiday of a lifetime as opposed to theirs but still, the holiday in itself should be their best Christmas present ever.

I am feeling particularly mean about Christmas presents this year after watching a short video of a young Argentinian boy receiving a present on his birthday from his parents who were struggling for money.  He was given a chopping board and on opening it he smiled and embraced his mother with genuine thanks.  Then his parents told him they had a surprise present under the table.  The parents had scrimped and saved to buy him a small tablet pc and if you have seen the video and the little boys reaction it not only melts your heart but questions everything you have done so far as a parent.  He cries his little heart out with gratitude and before he can even open it or play with it he embraces his parents again.

This video has had a huge impact on me and touched me so much that I really have been reviewing how I have raised my kids who in the main are okay, as far as kids go.  Although, when I showed the clip to them and said look at this sweet child and how grateful he is to his parents because he understands the sacrifices they have made to get him this special present, my five year old said "oh my god.... this is so boring.... it's just some boy crying".  Yes, nice children indeed. Compassionless gits.

So I am on a mission this Christmas to get my children to understand the value of money and to appreciate how lucky they are. You would think this would be simple but it isn't.  In fact I think it is too late.

I was thinking back to my childhood and all the Christmas's past.  My parents were not well off but we lived a comfortable life.  We had close family and friends who kindly bought me presents for Christmas but my parents would only buy me one and it was the same form for birthdays.  I remember being overjoyed with it as well as all the other lovely gifts I was fortunate enough to receive from generous Aunts and Uncles.

When I think about my passions now however, it really isn't for things.  My biggest love is travelling and I have come to the conclusion the reason I am so obsessed with holidays and travelling and seeing the world is because we never ever went on a single family holiday EVER.  My father was married to his job and even though we had the means to go away we never did and I am not talking about anywhere exotic.  Just a short trip somewhere in the UK would have been wonderful. I think my desperation to see the world perhaps stems from the fact I saw nothing of it for the first 23 years of my life.

My other great passion is interiors.  I can once again blame my parents for this because we had the most grotesque furniture when I was growing up.  In fact when my Dad's bosses came over for dinner one night in the early 1980s one of them remarked that our front room looked like a funeral home as we had dark purple walls and not the lovely Farrow and Ball kind but proper, dark vampiric purple.  We had orange, black and red swirly carpet, which my Dad would not get rid of because we could not afford to but mainly because he thought it was Axminster and a hand me down sofa set that was made out of hay and the colour of cheesy wotsits.  Thank God the heavens opened in 1987 and our house was completely flooded.

Anyway, I am rambling on.  I think the passions you have as an adult, certainly in my case, stem from what you were deprived of as a child.  Mine is travel and I feel endlessly guilty about it.  Mainly because my friend is holding me and all other parents who take their children travelling around the world responsible for the destruction of the environment, the hole in the ozone layer and general demise of the earth.  I still think Chinese industry and cow farts are more to blame than me but I do take her points on carbon footprints and wastage. 

Yet while I know these trips are great extravagances I am still so excited, thankful and grateful that we are able to do them. And this is where my problem lies.  What have my children been deprived of in their short lives?  Absolutely nothing!  We certainly don't buy them much and I stick to my parents' rule of no present unless it's Birthdays or Christmas but even on those occasions, it is not one present but two or three and four plus thanks to our soppy idiocy for our children and kind hearted friends and family.  How can they appreciate what they have when they have so much?

My immediate reaction to that heartening video of the little Argentinian boy along with all the other internet trolls on the conversation thread was "yeah, bloody kids nowadays, all spoilt brats" etc etc but really it isn't their fault it is ours as parents. 

Like I say, generally I think my kids are quite nice, reasonably polite and appreciative (well, the big one is) but given how lucky they are what on earth are they going to want into adulthood?

For my 7 year old daughter, her huge desire at the moment is to have her ears pierced and wear a bikini.  I have forbidden the bikini because looking sexy on a beach should not be in the scope of being 7 years old.  I have also denied her the earrings as I think she is too young although I have no logical reason for why I think this.  Based on this I can only assume my daughter at the age of 39 will be writing her blog saying how she was so deprived as a child she pierced every single bit of her anatomy including her internal organs while not leaving her house because she was fed up of travelling.

I have no idea how to answer this question of not depriving ones children but still keeping them humble and appreciative of the lives they have while so many around the world their age have nothing.  We will just keep plodding along and trying to do our best and hope by the time the kids are grown up they will no longer be emotionless compassionless gits and if they aren't then we will go back to the old fashioned way of instilling good values in them by hitting them with a belt.

So after all of my Christmas preachy parenting plight I guess thoughts move to next year.

The small child and retarded adult in me are particularly excited about next summer.  Avengers Age of Ultron, Kung Fu Panda III, Star Wars and Jurassic World are all out next year.  I am hoping when I see Jurassic World I don't suffer the same fate that I did in 1993 when seeing Jurassic Park with a friend on its first day of general release. I was so scared and tense through the whole movie that my legs fell asleep during those three hours and I fell down two flights of stairs after getting up from my seat.

Other than that we are back in the UK for a short time in the Summer and are once again making the most of our time in Asia to see the region as best as we can.  So there is plenty to be thankful and excited about.

Unfortunately, a year does not go by anymore without us losing someone we love. And this year has been particularly heart breaking.  For all of you whose lives are a little less bright due to loss, please know that we love you and will be wishing you strength during this time of year when absences are so much harder to bear.

Finally, given I will shortly be hitting an age when I will be swapping one unpleasant routine female examination for another unpleasant routine female examination, it does put into perspective what is important in life and with that, all I wish for you, your partners, your children and your families is the very very best of health and happiness and all our love for a peaceful Christmas and New Year.

Vanity, Hypocrisy, Turncoaty

This blog piece is in three parts.

Once again, it is not terribly cerebral given I have had little to challenge my brain 16 months into our resettlement.  However, I am justifying yet another moronic post because I do have a potential job in the offing.  I am just awaiting the Ministry of Magic here in Singapore to approve my application. 

They rejected my first application because I did not submit any supplementary information in support of my request.  Given they never asked for any of that information demonstrates that I am clearly the idiot in this scenario.  I have submitted a second application with every possible piece of information on myself including my bra size and favourite colour.  Fingers crossed it gets approved.

If not, the Interpol building is just about completed so the subcommander position I applied for might still come to fruition.  Otherwise, they might still offer me the job supporting the EXCO.  I look forward to demonstrating my fluency in French, Spanish and Arabic in this role.  Is it the same thing if you only speak English but do it in all those accents really convincingly?  I am hoping so, in which case I will do very well working for Interpol.

So, we begin with Hypocrisy which relates directly to the potential job.  Of course if I do not get Ministry approval and don't become an international man of mystery then you can disregard everything I am about to say.

Hypocrisy
I don't know any working Mum's here who don't have a helper.  In fact, I don't know many people who don't have a helper but definitely those ladies who have very young children or a job do have in house help.  Again, this was something we really never wanted to do given we do not have a large apartment and any poor lady who would move in with us would have to live in a cupboard in the kitchen.  Terribly Dursleys.  Furthermore, because our landlord curiously decided to remove the toilet and tile over the plumbing, the poor young lady would have to go to the toilet in the sink in her little bathroom out back. 

All of this sounds rather icky which is generally how I feel about the whole helper thing, particularly when one cannot really provide adequate living accommodation.  I don't care that people say "oh, but it's so much more than what they had back in their home countries".  Unacceptable.  If it is not good enough for us, it is not good enough for someone else.

This gives us two options.  One, we move apartments which we will probably do when our lease runs out in May because we could probably have bought a small house in the UK with what we have spent on rent here in two years.  And the other option is just not getting a helper.  Admittedly, I will leave it to breaking point managing this imaginary international media espionage job I have with still being an average parent and take it from there. Of course, if I do get posted to the depths of the Pacific Ocean in the next month then a helper it will be and in a cupboard she will live.  Hypocrisy 101.

A wise friend did tell me to think very seriously before employing anyone as once someone is living in, you are never ever on your own and having a young lady working for us and living in our small quarters will definitely put a spoke in our walking about the house in our pants time which you may be surprised we do regularly.  This is due to the heat but having been the victim of social media verbal violence I have learned that one does not complain about that to friends back home.  Ahem ahem.

Turncoaty
I think when we moved here we were quite clear on the fact we would not get a helper and we would not get a car because they are so unbelievably expensive.  The helper discussion demonstrates we failed on point one and are now on the cusp of failing spectacularly on point two. We have completely changed our position on a car given we recently found out that there are alternative ways to have a car which does not involve paying $150,000 for a new Nissan sunny.

The answer to this is leasing and you can get an "on its last legs puddle jumper" for a slightly less gut wrenching amount of money than buying and your costs cover everything apart from petrol so it seems a sweeter option.

The reason we are reneging on this is recently I feel we have been missing out on things due to the lack of a car.  I think if it was just the two of us we would have continued to putter about on public transport but with Whingey 1 and Whingey 2 complaining their "legs hurt, they can't walk anymore, 8 miles is too much, I am so hot, I am going to die, I hate you, my feet are bleeding blah blah blah" the idea of a car does seem appealing. 

There is no way to justify the ownership or leasing of a car on the grounds of cost as it's a dead argument so you just have to accept it is a luxury to make your life just that bit dandy.  We are investigating at present but even the cheapest banger is still too much for our liking cost wise. 

The other option which I did consider is becoming a taxi driver, as long as I can own the car, use it personally whenever I am not working, only work during school hours and cover an area that does not exceed a radius of 5km from my home.  I am confident that this option is as realistic as my linguist's job at Interpol and I am a much better driver than the Mr Magoo's at the wheels in Singapore.

Vanity
Those of you who know me well, know I am mostly devoid of vanity given I dressed like a bag lady in the UK and dress like a sweating slob in Singapore.  My dress sense remains gross and unflattering and nothing I own costs more than around twenty bucks. 

However, as I have said in the past, humidity and the frizz ball hair caused by my Sri Lankan genes are not sympatico and after a year of steadily turning into Leo Sayer I had enough.  The breaking point came when my husband on asking him to sit down with me to discuss some holiday options said "I am sorry but I can't actually talk to you, listen to you or take you seriously with that hair".

My dear friend who is now my best friend in the whole world for ever and ever because of how she has ended my hair plight recommended this lovely little salon near where I live.  The salon is called "Hair Today" (which I think is strange because I instantly think "Gone Tomorrow", not a good tag line for a hairdresser's).

It is owned by a sweet Korean couple.  They are a bit White Stripes in that they are young and I have no idea if they are brother and sister or boyfriend and girlfriend.  Nevertheless, they could not have been nicer even though there was a bit of a language barrier given I can't speak Korean or even speak English with a Korean accent.

They were so utterly nice that it took me back to when I had my haircut after my second child.  I had grown it out and had no time to comb it in the 18 months since he was born so it was mostly dreadlocks.  My Mum came round to comb it out which took about 2 hours but there was one massive dread we just could not unknot.  I went to Toni and Guy the next day and the bitchy sweeper dolly (I use this derogative moniker because he was so rude) sneered to my stylist as he floated past on his broomstick "oooh, good luck with that".  Unfortunately, I only thought of a biting and mean retort to say about an hour later when I was back at home by which time it was too late and he was probably laughing at some poor ladies grey roots.

Anyway, back to the present day.  I went through a procedure called rebonding which is the Asian term for relaxing.  It took four hours with multiple layers of cream that smelled like Veet (again, not what you want on your head hair) being applied between various helmets of Steam, Darth Vader, Kitt the Trans Am, Lady Gaga and multiple washings.  After three hours and many of the above helmets and Veets, she washed my hair and it looked dead straight.  I actually began to cry with joy I was so happy.  She then blasted my hair with the dryer and I went from looking like Miss Silky Bob to Ann Widdecombe electrocuted.

At this point my tears went from joy to misery as it clearly had not worked.  She then used hair straighteners on my hair but because it is so short in places burned my head twice.  I never complain in such situations but it was so painful I did yelp and she was very apologetic.  Yet after 20 minutes of this tonging torture and a few second degree burns to my scalp, I still looked like a human microphone.  Luckily, it was not over.  Another layer of Immac, a wash and a quick dry with the hairdryer, no additional styling and my hair was poker straight.  I cried with joy again.

I am SO happy.  I am a simpleton.  I don't want riches, fancy clothes, jewellery and posh nosh.  Good health and an absence of piano hair is really all I ever wanted for a happy life.  And now I have it.  Well, apart from the good health but who needs that when you look like you just stepped out of a salon when actually you haven't showered yet and just stepped off a bus.

Formula 1

We are moving up in the world given this Formula 1 blog is not about the French B&B but that game / sport thing when men drive around in low cars really fast for two hours.

The Singapore Grand Prix is starting tonight with the big race taking place on Sunday night.  As we refuse to pay for anything slightly expensive when it comes to ourselves we have bought the cheapest tickets to walk around the most boring part of the circuit in the dullest section of the Grand Prix area with the headlining music act of the night being Jedward.

I have absolutely no interest in Formula 1 racing. However as we will only be in Singapore for a short amount of time we felt we should get into the spirit of it and go for the experience which as I am sure you can tell from my opening paragraphs, I am clearly doing.

I know nothing about Formula 1 other than everybody wears red and it is very loud and there are lots of busty blonde women walking about.  Again, boobs, noise and the colour red are not really up there with my most fun things in the world.  Yet, in two hours I will be humping my way across Singapore to see what the fuss is all about.

I feel about Formula 1 as I feel about golf.  Although, I remember having a rather nasty flu many years ago during the golf Open and as I could not get off the sofa, watched the entire thing and actually rather enjoyed it.  Given I have never watched golf since I can only assume my enjoyment was due to the fever.

The only redeeming feature of Formula 1 racing for me is the "cars going really fast" bit.  I actually quite like cars.  I know nothing about the mechanics but I do appreciate their aesthetics and I do like driving fast.  This was very apparent to me when I hired my Fiat wheelchair in the UK this June and watched old ladies on bicycles pulling off at the traffic lights quicker than me.

There is definitely something about having a powerful car.  As we got older and more child encumbered we gradually dropped down the rung on fancy cars.  Most people as they get older and have more children and get towards their mid-life crises tend to upgrade to rather fancy premium brands however we went from a BMW to a Volvo to a Toyota to the Fiat spaz mobile of this last summer.  The next vehicle we are hiring will be a Winnebago and frankly there is no recovering from that.

I think the other thing that annoys me about Formula 1 is I imagine most Formula 1 drivers to be knob heads because I can't see how else you can manage such an expensive piece of machinery without having a certain amount of arrogance and having seen a few interviews with Lewis Hamilton who seems a humourless prat I am fairly sure I am right.

Yet, the prat bit is what interests me most given the fact I myself get very excited at being able to put my foot on the accelerator and leave those suckers at the traffic lights behind.  I also think with the exception of about two women I know who don't enjoy driving that the rest of us ladies do like a bit of speed.  And I think this is due to the "inner prick" in all of us.  Men and women alike.  Basically, I am talking about testosterone which we all have coursing through our veins and is particularly heightened when we get behind the wheel of a car.  Scientific fact!  Testosterone isn't much fun when as a lady you have to shave your back every few days but when it kicks oestrogens butt as you park yourself behind the wheel of a fast car, my goodness it is a thrill.

I think this is true of me given at the Farnborough Airshow I actually cried a little when the Eurofighter Typhoon left my ribs rattling as it stormed past.  And yet, when we did the walk around later and saw the pilots posing by their planes there was no question they were assholes.  Admittedly, tanned, cool uniformed, aeronautical experts but assholes nonetheless.

Please don't take offence to my fruity language.  Both of those words are in the Highway Code appendices under "Dealing with Confrontation and Road Vernacular" and are therefore quite alright to use in this blog post.

Anyway, I think the inner prick in us all does enjoy that feeling of power even if it is tearing off at a roundabout to come to a standstill in traffic five seconds later.

I am hoping I will enjoy the Formula 1.  I am not going for the music as this year's lineup includes J-Lo and Robbie Williams.  Many a wonderful drunken night has been had singing Angels out of tune extremely loudly but sadly Robbie Williams seems to think he is Frank Sinatra these days and I really can't face listening to him sing constipatedly about "being like you hoo hoo".

No, tonight I am just going for the racing because even if you are a middle aged mother of two, sometimes you just feel the need .... the need for speed.

Dogs Lies and Videotape

This blog post is actually about dogs and lies.  I put the videotape in there to draw you in but there is nothing kinky about this blog.  Sorry for the deception.  But deception has been on my mind recently.  

On our recent trip back to the UK I visited one of my parent’s dearest old friends who they have known since the late sixties and I have therefore known since I was an egg.  She is without a doubt the most wonderful, batty, hilarious, divine person I know.  She has a thousand stories and anecdotes that will make you fall off your chair laughing and if I could bottle her I would as she is the best tonic for a dreary day.  I hate referring to people as he’s and she’s, quite rude, so for the sake of this post we will call her Aunty Norma, because in fact, that is her name.

So Aunty Norma related a story to me on this last visit about how she duped a friend over a pudding.  She had invited this good friend over for supper but not being that great on the dessert front she asked my Mum, who is a dab hand in the kitchen, to make her a pudding that she liked.  The pudding was a Pineapple Fluff.  For those who do not know it is a sort of light set pudding often served in a Champagne glass, very tasty, bit seventies. 

Anyway, as Aunty Norma’s friend ate the pineapple fluff she remarked how much she liked it and asked Aunty Norma how she made it.  Now given this lady was a good friend of hers, she could have quite easily said “don’t be daft, I didn’t make it.  My friend did” and they would have chortled about it and moved on.  But instead she came up with an elaborate lie of ingredients and method to pass off the pudding as her own.  Aunty Norma said that as she was relating this great British bake off fabrication she could see that her friend knew she was lying.

At the end of her tale, Aunty Norma said she had no idea what on earth possessed her to tell that fib.  This got me thinking and triggered a couple of memories from my past which I then shared with Aunty Norma and have decided to confess to here.

The two lies I will be discussing are from my childhood.  The first is more a withholding than a lie and the second is downright disgraceful.

Before I get into it, I do believe there are a few reasons why good people lie.  I think the main reason is to flatter.  I mean conversations would be very short if you responded “no” on every occasion someone asked you “have you read that book?”  “did you hear that piece of music” “did you see that film” or “do you know so and so?”.  

I am far too old for such lies now to blatantly say “yes” when I clearly have not read that book so instead I say “um, I am not sure.  It certainly sounds familiar” or “um, yes, it rings a bell … do go on…”  This then flatters the person to whom I am talking, helps encourage the conversation along so the person can tell their story and I can end it by saying “oh yes, now I remember”, even though I have no idea what they are talking about.

I think this is modern day gentlemanly conning or to put it in even nicer terms charming people.  

Anyway, getting back to my lies.

A colleague at work related a story about her young daughter taking to going to bed in a sleeping bag which she thought was very odd.  Naturally I remarked “well your child is clearly an imbecile” while twizzling my moustache and twirling my cane but within thirty seconds of that statement remembered that I used to sleep in a sleeping bag on top of my bed and I did not do it at the innocent age of 7 but as a post pubescent, full busted, graduated, working adult.  In fact, I realised I was still sleeping in that £7.99 Argos sleeping bag when I got engaged.  What in the hell does that say about me?  Or more to the point what does that say about my husband?  Clearly very little.

I found that gross old sleeping bag in one of my mother’s cupboards last week.  She seems to show more Cancerian cat collecting tendencies than me given she kept that horrid thing and moved it from her home in London to her flat in Guildford.

Anyway, I did not retract my comment to my colleague and confess that I was a secret sleeping bag sleeper. 

The second lie is the worst lie I ever told and I am so ashamed of it but after nearly 30 years I think I can confess without too many repercussions. 

  

The person involved was an old school friend of mine and is not on Facebook, although mutual friends are so they may have a memory of this in which case I will completely understand if I am unfriended and effigies of me are burned in Kingsbury. 

 

When I was 10 I left my junior school and did not go to the local high school with all my friends but instead was sent to a school about 20 minutes away.  I didn’t know a soul.  Over the next few months I made friends with a little gaggle of girls one of whom was going to get a dog.

 

I loved dogs.  I had wanted a dog for years but my parents were not animal lovers so this was never to be.  Anyway, during the whole process of deciding on breeds and doing their research as a family I became stuck to her like glue.  We were friends anyway so there was really no need for me to tell her what I did but I did because sometimes these imaginings of what your life could be run away with you and before you know what you are doing you have gone quite mad.

I told her that I had a dog.  It was a golden retriever and her name was Sandy and she was a 4 month old puppy.  I told her all about the dog breeder we found, where I took her for walks, that she ate pedigree chum (that was the only dog food I knew) but liked eating my food too.  She was a good dog and we had done puppy training and she liked to sleep in my room.  Lies upon lies upon lies upon more lies.

The truth was that I did have a dog.  It was a light golden Labrador puppy that was about 30cm long and used to shuffle along for five seconds then raise itself up on its hind legs and yap for five seconds before shuffling again for five seconds and then raise itself up again and yap for another five seconds.  

So elaborate was my lie and so strong was our friendship over this fib that she and her family invited me to Crufts one year.  God I actually feel physically sick relating this story.

They ended up getting a lovely little long haired daschund who I assume lived a long and happy life.  I don’t quite remember what happened to my fake dog.  I know my real dog did conk as its batteries leaked green goo inside its little power compartment and it was forever frozen  in a half bark, half sitting position, much like a dog lover might stuff their actual pet and stick it on the mantelpiece.

I can’t bear to think we might have thrown him away.  Poor old Sandy.  Don’t laugh.  My husband thinks my name choices for teddies are hilarious as I had a small teddy which I still own called Austin. 

Luckily for me my little boy takes after me given his favourite teddy is one that I was given when I was 7 that is now his and he called him woof because it is a crumpled old dog.  He recently got a small bush baby type teddy dressed in a coppers outfit and has named him Harry The Police.  This is because he has a friend called Harry and the bush baby is in the Force so there you go.

I will never know why I decided to construct this huge lie.  It is beyond me and in fact did not make my life any better. I never invited my friend over to my house because she would then know my golden retriever puppy was actually a toy dog from Hamley’s.

In hindsight I wish I had just started smoking instead if I was that keen to fit in with somebody.

I have never told any lies since other than on my recent application to become a submarine commander where I said I have conversational Arabic.  I didn’t really think I was going to be shortlisted for that job anyway.

And of course I lie incessantly to all young children.  Not about important stuff but everything else.  I think it is important while they are still wide eyed to feed that imagination with nonsense and fibs before they become cynical old goats.  

I learned that from Aunty Norma who told me an epic tale at the age of five years old while eating a pineapple fluff at our house that my Mum was a superhero because she had saved our whole family from a Boa Constrictor.  I was agog with interest and wonder but never told Aunty Norma that I had no idea what a Boa Constrictor was.  Well, now she knows.

Star Cats

As a small child, aged 8 and I know this for a fact because all my childhood books contain a sticky label on the inside cover stating "This book belongs to 'my name' with my age" and invariably a picture of Pooh Bear looking whimsical in the corner of said sticky.  I can only assume book thievery was rife in the 1980s given every one of my books contained these labels.

Anyway, the book I mention was named Star Cats and was about star signs. But specifically describing the characteristics of people / cats, based on their birth date.  

Now, generally, I do not go in for horoscopes but the description of my Cancerian personality could not have been more, spot on.

As for everyone else I know, it has turned out to be a total dud.  

My parents who were both Sagittarians were described as being "here today and gone tomorrow", "suitcase ready for a quick getaway", and "constantly in search of new horizons to explore".  Total guff given they never went anywhere in the 39 years (ongoing) that I have been their child and were total home birds.  

My husband the Libra is described as "stylish and easy going", "well balanced in peaceful pleasant surroundings" and "highly artistic".  For those of you who know my husband you would liken his level of flair more to Pob than Picasso.

I bring up this little book from my childhood because never has it felt so true of the last couple of months in our run up to returning to the UK, our time there and the feelings I had as we boarded the plane once again to leave the old country that we love for the new country that we like.

I quote, having memorised this book 30+ years ago:

"Cancer's moods change as often as the tide - from stormy and rough to calm and dreamy.  Very sensitive, they are easily offended and although they may eventually forgive, they never forget.  Great collectors of possessions, people and memories, they will never let anything go".

And just so we are clear, having read that back and realising I clearly think of myself as some moody old bat that holds grudges, the "never let anything go" is more to do with nice things such as possessions, people and memories.  I think sentimental is an appropriate summary. And for those who know me well.  I am almost entirely un-offendable.  So frankly, the majority of this personality analysis is bunkum.  Nevermind.

The point is my mood and emotions have fluctuated rapidly during the last month.  If truth be told the preceding weeks to our arrival I was riddled with dread.  We were finally nicely settled in Singapore and I just could not fathom what I was going to do with myself for a month in the UK.  Everyone is busy with work, families, children, lives and the day to day and I am no longer officially a part of the groups that I valued so much in the years living in our town.  So I worried a bit that I would spend the month in perpetual embarrassment.

I also have to admit that I did book our flights back with a pinch of spite. I was so upset about leaving home that within a month of landing in Stinkapore I had booked our return a year to the date that we left.  That was no coincidence.  That was a "hah!  I refuse to complete 365 days in this place and I intend to leave my husband for a month on his own as he did to me!".  Of course I was hoisted on my own petard as the reality was I was going home with two young children, no husband for help and company on a 13 hour flight and as Satan decided to twist the knife further gave me one of the worst fluey type viruses I have ever had the week of our flight.  Needless to say, at this point my mood was glum.

Luckily I survived the flight even though my dear concerned hubbies parting words were "do tell the stewards if you are really not feeling well on the flight because you don't want them having to make an emergency landing in the Middle East".  Thanks.  It was meant with love but not remotely helpful given I had spent the last few hours Googling stories about what happens when people get seriously ill on a plane.

The flight was okay and we made it off the plane and into our waiting taxi without any problems or me collapsing in a heap.  As we set out onto the M25, I really cannot describe my glee.  True, the M25 is not really noted for its spectacular countryside and scenery but WOW!  What countryside and scenery.  A smile appeared on my face as we sped down the M25 at full pelt, hardly a car on the road at 5.30am, beautiful sunny day, trees and greenery all around.  Sheep on the bank just before London Concrete but who cares and that crisp bright morning I longed for.  The glum ball was batted out of the stadium and I was happy.

Ten hours later after unpacking, lazing and then falling asleep on the sofa, I woke up feeling diabolical so went to the doctor and got some antibiotics for a chest infection, so my mood once again took a dive.

The next day I went to collect my hire car.  This cost me £2.80 in bus fare for a journey of less than a mile.  Not happy.  I was collected by Europcar from the station and deposited somewhere else where I waited for an hour while their wind up computer caused mayhem and I was trying hard not to collapse from fever.  Even, less happy.  

Anyway, finally the very nice man took me out to the Vauxhall Corsa that I expected.  Cheapest car as requested by my "you don't need a car that is safe or German or vorsprung" husband.  But instead I found they had given me the alternative which was a Fiat Panda, generally the preserve of the very elderly or those who deliver post and own a black and white cat. My mood dropped further.

It lifted however when I discovered I had not forgotten how to drive.  It dropped again when I got hooted at the roundabout because it really does not have much oomph to get up to speed.  As I discovered later on my intrepid 3 hour journey to Suffolk on a variety of fast roads and the dreaded Dartford and Orwell Bridge crossing of which I am mortally afraid, that once up to speed it is a pretty zippy little car.  I assume this is because it is made of fibreglass.  It was super economical and I think over the month I only put around £60 worth of petrol in it so all in all it was a good little car.  It didn't break down and we didn't get dead.  In my mind that is an excellent car.  So I take back all the mean things I ever thought and said about it from the outset.  Mood - very good.

The rest of my month from day two onwards was a packed schedule of visits seeing old friends and family.  Exhausting with the endless driving and I am positive the M25 at every hour other than 5am contains double the traffic it did a year ago.  But how wonderful it is to see people you love.  

Sadly, though the heart was willing the time and energy levels were not and we could not get to everyone but for all of those friends we did see it did fill me with such joy.  The weather was great, everyone was happy and while my mood was elevated so high that I could cope with the tiredness, it was also tinged with a little sadness in that it was a reminder of all that I had given up.  Told you, people and memories, don't let it go.

The last few days of our trip I devoted to the children, taking them to all our old haunts and doing the things that are non-existent in Singapore.  Children's farms, fruit picking, running through open countryside, throwing stones in rivers, general scampering in the great outdoors and commenting as my daughter did regularly, on all the dead things.  "Dead foxes, dead badgers, dead hedgehogs, dead deer.  Why is England so full of dead things?"  Our Yorkshire Dales alternative to the Philadelphia set Sixth Sense, "I see dead rabbits, Bruce".

We were also kindly welcomed back to the children's pre-school and infant's school which I adore and always will.  I say welcomed back but the truth is I invited myself over but we were given such a lovely reception and the kids were scooped up with hugs that they then decided they did not want to go back to Singapore and stay instead at their schools in Guildford where they could no longer stay anyway because they were too old and forgetting they were both in tears when the International School semester ended because they loved it so much.  Clearly my children have as fickle moods as me.  

As an example, my son asked if he could have a play date at one of his friend's houses so I said, "well, yes who do you want to go and see", to which he replied "what are their names?"  We did not invite ourselves round to anyone specifically from his original band of buddies as I doubt they would appreciate the fact they were picked off a list, I wrote.

All in all it was a fabulous trip and hugely emotional saying goodbye and leaving again.  We concentrated a year's worth of visits and activities that we would do if we were resident into one month which made it one of the best months we have ever spent in the UK. 

We did not intend to come back every year as we don't get the free tickets courtesy of the company but have to cough up out of our own coffers. However, I think there is a real value in coming home each year or at the least every 18 months.  It is good for the soul, great for the kids, it enables you to hold on to precious relationships you have made and most importantly it is just fabulous when people hold the door open for you, say thank you and please and smile just for the sake of smiling.  Just to be pleasant.  Not due to any strange psychosis.  Just to be nice.  What is not to love about home! 

And of course, the shopping is GREAT!  I bought myself nothing fun on this holiday but I don't think I have ever enjoyed buying boxes of ibuprofen, children's toothpaste and fondant icing more than I did on my one shopping day of my month when the kids were with their Grandparents.  It was true bliss.

Well, now we are back.  We had a good flight in on Thursday evening.  A very successful un pack as the joy of staying with parents is you come home with very few dirty clothes so a couple of spins and that was done.  We all fell asleep at 10pm and woke up the following day at 1pm.  Not bad I thought as we all seemed quite sprightly for the remainder of the day.  How my mood swelled with joy that we had mastered jet lag.

Night two and the kids are in bed at 9pm but then big one wakes up at 1am and wakes me up.  I then cannot sleep so we sit in the living room, me reading some work related stuff and she watching the first of five movies we watched that night.  Small child gets up at 3am unable to sleep and also stays up. None of us returned to sleep.

We kept them up and out of the apartment today even though number one child was converting to Zombiedom as the day wore on.  All this in the hope we would be back on Singapore time lickety split. As they are children and not drunks they were unable to sleep standing up so we really thought keeping them vertical from 9am to 4pm would do the trick.

Given it is 2am and I am at the computer this has not worked as number 1 child wailed so loudly two hours after she went to bed she woke me up just as I had slipped into a slumber.  I am now wide awake and will no doubt be sitting here again having been awake now for 26 hours with no sleep.  Needless to say my mood is now bordering on murder.  Luckily she is now sleeping with her Dad and I am on the other side of the apartment so when I do have my lack of sleep psychotic episode she will not be in arms reach.

I hope our future visits to the motherland will be as wonderful as this one was as the kids and I really could not have been happier. Hopefully we can encourage the old man back too at least for a portion of the summer.  

Unfortunately, as I hear footsteps approaching me right this minute, if we have to go through the jet lag horror that is my firstborn child again, we may not come back ever again and the outcome will be stormy, rough and Biblical.

Note.  This is a jet lag induced blog.  All content and characters appearing in this work might be fictitious and could bear no resemblance to persons living or dead.  But it also might.  Not sure.