I used to write little stories about work. Now they’re mostly about my children. Maybe it’s just another reflection of what now defines who I am.
One aspect of Toddler growing up is that now, and just two and a half years old, he has friends we don’t know. A couple of days a week he goes to a day nursery. Some days we pick him up and he mentions the names of some of the boys and girls he plays with. Mostly girls, actually. And some days when we pick him up we bump into other parents picking up their own sweet charges and get comments like “oh, so this is Toddler, Maisy is always talking about him, we wondered who he was”.
Yesterday Toddler got a party invite. Noah is going to be three. We don’t know how he is. But Toddler informs us “he my friend”. OK, time to pick up the phone and dial the phone number which we’re to RSVP to.
Mr Standard: “Hello. Errr, so you have a son called Noah?”
Woman: “Yes”
Mr Standard: “My son, Dave, has just been given an invite to Noah’s birthday party”
Woman: “From nursery?”
Mr Standard: “Yes, that’s right. I’m phoning to say Dave would love to come. I’m Howard, by the way. Who are you?”
Woman: “I’m Noah’s mum”.
Mr Standard: “Errr, yes. Do you have another name?”
Woman (laughing): “Yes, sorry! I’ve just been running around, you know how it is. I’m….”
My work, when I'm not day-dreaming, mostly involves sitting in an office doing complicated calculations to design little structures to help migratory fish (like the tasty salmon I ate last night) get upstream, and then giving a few sketches to one of the CAD technicians in the office to turn into a nice drawing that I can then give to an engineering contractor to build. When everyone in the chain is doing their bit, everyone is happy. When one link in the chain fails, the remaining ‘everyone’ gets seriously stressed.
Unfortunately for me, Slacker-Tech has, in theory, been drawing up my designs for the past two weeks. The work should have taken him approximately 3 days. The contractor needed the drawings last Friday. I gave my sketches to Slacker-Tech the week before last and then spent most of last week trying to press upon him the importance of getting them finished. Sometimes I think Slacker-Tech has selective hearing… or maybe it’s more ‘selective understanding’ given his ‘flexible' approach to his specified working hours and holiday allowance, and his strange ability to take off time-in-lieu without ever being in the office to do any extra work.
Of course, only half of the required drawings were done by Friday. I sent that half to the contractor with the promise that he’d have the rest at the start of this week. Yesterday the slightly-stressed-contractor phoned to ask where the remaining drawings were. I assured him he’d have them today.
I know things are getting bad when I spend most of the night waking up periodically having had dreams about Slacker-Tech and his lack of work. I told Mr Standard this morning that I’d had nightmares. But it turns out that actually they were prophetic dreams. This morning I get into the office to find a message from Slacker-Tech. He is ill, recons it’s ‘summer flu’ or something. Slacker-flu, more like… it’s another nice day in sunny South Wales, he’ll have gone out fishing for sure. I am not happy.
Crawler may be almost walking now, but she still only has 5 teeth. This, as Toddler observed at dinner last night, is not very good for eating cabbage. Toddler, of course, had no problem with the meal. He has good teeth. And he’s obsessed with cleaning them at the moment.
Half an hour after tucking the kids in bed last night I heard the pitter-patter of not-so-tiny feet. Toddler was located standing by the sink, toothbrush and paste in hand.
“What are you doing?”
“I clean my teeth, or they fall out”
Rather than tell him off, we had to praise him for this action… after all, us naughty parents had forgotten to clean his teeth that evening, and it showed that he has a pretty good understanding of the whole brush-regularly-to-avoid-tooth-decay thing. However, we did try to explain he only needed to clean his teeth once at bedtime. And after his teeth had been appropriately scrubbed, he was returned to his bed and told to stay there.
So we were less impressed when about two hours later Toddler was discovered asleep in our bed hugging the toothbrush holder, complete with toothbrushes and paste. Toddler was lifted back into his bed. And the holder and contents were returned to their position next to the sink.
Of course, the story doesn’t end there. Further joys were to be found when I went to clean my own teeth at bedtime. Because it was at that point that I realised that all the toothbrushes were upside down in the holder. And Toddler had put paste, remarkably neatly, on the head of my brush!
Roald Dahl knew about kids. Clever kids with a fraction of menace in them. Like my Son.
Toddler is getting to the giving-up-his-lunchtime-nap stage. Sometimes he sleeps. Sometimes he doesn’t. Yesterday was a non-sleep day. Only on-duty-Daddy didn’t realise this. Toddler was taken upstairs and left in bed. Daddy went downstairs to get-on-with-things. A while later Daddy heard Toddler calling. And then he smelt the Marvellous Medicine.
We are responsible parents (so please don’t report us to social services!). Our medicine cupboard has child locks. Only they don’t appear to be very effective. Clever Toddler has worked out how to open them. And how to open packets. And tubes. And bottles.
The scene that met Daddy when he ventured upstairs was one of total carnage. Toddler had decided that the best place to use his new-found opening skills was on our bed. Plasters stick quite well to sheets. Antiseptic creams, toothpaste, etc. are great for smearing everywhere. And toothbrushes are particularly useful for helping mix Daddy’s pot of hair gel. But best of all is when you discover that, although most medicine bottles have child-proof tops, suncream and Mummy’s pregnancy-pampering oil are really quite easy to open and pour everywhere.
Nothing was consumed by Toddler. Daddy binned the empty packets and bottles. The sheets were washed (although they don’t appear to have recovered very well from the oil!). And I guess at the end of the day our cupboard has had a really good clear out. So it’s not all bad.
But today I’ll be buying a padlock and chain (for the cupboard, not Toddler!).
And maybe some more pampering oil.
Most kids have imaginary friends. I didn't. But I do remember my brother having one. He was a bee. Dizzy Bee. And he seemed to spend a lot of time flying alongside our car on long journeys with my brother insisting that the window be opened so that Dizzy Bee could come inside and rest for a bit - he probably needed to after flying along at 60 mph!
My own son, I realised today, also has an ongoing obsession with imaginary beings. But they aren't friends. They are enemies. The Scary Monster often appears in our house and garden. I'm there quietly hanging out the washing or similar while Toddler plays and suddenly he'll shout to me "look mummy, there's a scary monster". Scary Monster doesn't actually ever do anything. So he's really not that scary. He's just there needing to be looked at at regular intervals.
The other regular visitor to our house is the Big Bad Wolf. He's a little more active. He knocks on the door wanting to come in and tries to blow our house down. He's never succeeded because, as Toddler says, "our house is bricks". But we have to keep an imaginary door closed to keep him out. And Toddler's pretty good at providing a whole long commentary about what the Big Bad Wolf is doing and what he said to him and what was said back:
Toddler (in middle of eating tea): Mummy, there's a Big Bad Wolf knocking at the door.
Mummy: Oh dear.
Toddler: Yes, he said "let me in" but I tell him "no". He want to blow our house down but he can't, I tell him "our house is bricks". Mummy don't open the door. Keep the door shut. He's knocking like this (demonstrates knocking on table). He want to come in and eat us, but I said "no, go away wolf". Mummy, don't open the door....
...and so it continued for most of the mealtime.
Although our house seems safe from the Big Bad Wolf, other homes and people are less safe. The other morning I was informed that the Big Bad Wolf was trying to blow Granny's house down. A few minutes later I was told that the Big Bad Wolf had blown Granny's house down, and having announced "he's a naughty wolf", Toddler wandered over to the corner of the room and says "Hello Builder. Can you come and build Granny's house? Can you make it in bricks?". I was wondering was Granny's house previously made of, but didn't have time to ask before Toddler informs me that the builder has finished.
Mummy: That's good. Are you going to pay the builder now?
Toddler: No. The Big Bad Wolf ate him.
Well, there you have it. My son has reoccurring imaginary enemies that eat the few imaginary friends he dreams up!
My office is tropical today. And it’s only 9am. I’m not looking forward to the usual temperature rise over the course of the day as our 5th floor open-plan greenhouse catches the sun. I am wondering if I should be here at all. And, it seems, so are a few others.
I arrived at work yesterday morning 5 minutes late. A gentleman’s tweed jacket was on the back of my chair and a briefcase was parked by my chair. Just as I was pondering the evidence, one of our site engineers appeared carrying the cup of tea he’d just made himself. He apologised, saying he thought I wasn’t in that day, and moved his stuff to another free desk.
Today I arrived (again 5 minutes late) to find someone’s laptop open on my desk and a rucksack dumped on the floor by my chair. Guessing that it must be the other, younger, site engineer that occasionally pops into the office to work, I wander down the single flight of stairs to the kitchen. He’s there making himself a cup of tea. Immediately he sees me he apologises and saying he thought I wasn’t working today, and he’ll move to another desk.
To be fair, I do officially work part-time. Although my bank and mortgage company inform me that they consider 30 hours a week full-time working. There is just one day a week I’m not in the office. And that day is always a Wednesday. Exactly half-way through the week. How hard can that be to remember? Too hard it seems for those that pop into the office occasionally and make me waste precious moments of my day as I try to re-claim my desk from them.
And then waste further time telling you all about it.
Mr Standard was away over the weekend. When he is I miss him. I also miss his help with the kids, particularly with the getting-up and the tea-and-bedtime bits. To survive I find I have to get up, shower and dress before they wake. They wake early. I need sleep. It's a balance guessing how late I can stay in bed while still having enough time to get up before them.
Saturday was fine. I got up at 6:30am, showered and had finished dressing before Toddler appeared from his room to tell me about the wolf that wanted to blow my house down.
Sunday wasn't quite so fine. I got up at 6:40am. No noise from the kid's room so I decided to go and shower downstairs. I get in the shower. A minute later the water pressure drops. I start to curse the house mate that must be using the upstairs shower at this unearthly hour. Seconds later the pressure returns. I figure that they must have just been washing their hands or something. Then it drops again. Then it returns. Then it drops. And returns again. I am confused. I shower with intermittent water pressure. When I come out of the bathroom I hear the cries from upstairs: “Mummy. Mum-eeeeee. Come upstairs mummy”. Toddler is awake. Toddler is standing at the gate at the top of the stairs. He grins when I appear. And holds up his arms: “Mummy. I wet.” Toddler has worked out how to turn taps on and off and on and off again.
It has been pointed out to be that blogging just before a bank holiday weekend means nobody will notice my update. So I have to do another one. About my weekend. Which was mostly filled with seeing family and having parties.
Summary of Crawler’s 1st birthday on Friday: Birthday-girl squashes cheese spread sandwiches into the carpet and smears her face with chocolate cake. Guests discuss how Toddler has decided he wants a doll for his next birthday (Daddy not convinced about this). Birthday-girl decides best presents to play with are the musical birthday card and a helium-filled balloon.
Summary of Great-Granddad’s 90th birthday on Monday: Birthday-boy stirs whipped-cream from centre of meringues into cold tea and smears his face with chocolate cake. Guests discuss the pram/ pushchair they’re thinking of buying for expected baby (Sister, Sister-in-law & myself are all currently pregnant). Birthday-boy decides best present is a helium-filled balloon.
Well it was a few hours ago. And it is approximately twice a day. Although I try to avoid being conscious the first time the clocks show that time each day.
Some years back my husband (who now says he wishes to be called Mr Standard!) set the alarm on his watch to go off at half past four (pm). The reason why is now long forgotten. But, through laziness, then a warped sense of amusement and now through tradition, the alarm remains. Every day his watch beeps at half past four. And Mr Standard announces to anyone within hearing "It's half past four".
A couple of days ago I was shopping in the supermarket - I place I tend to avoid. With both kids - definitely a situation I try to avoid. I either end up trying to shop with a toddler running crazily around, or I have to squash them in a twin-seat trolley and deal with the arguments. This week I opted for the latter of the two evils (aware for the first time that in about 5 months I'll have no option - I'll be dealing with both evils at once!). In the middle of the inevitable battle with his sister about elbow room, having made her start crying, Toddler suddenly announces "It's half past four". Crawler stops crying. I look at my watch. It's half past four. I am amazed. I praise my son for his genius and my daughter for having the sense to stop making so much noise. I continue shopping. And ponder my son's comment. I little while later there's a ding-dong sort of alarm bell over the tannoy. And Toddler again announces "It's half past four". This time it's actually 5pm. So I tell him so. And all the presence of his genius is gone as I realise that Mr Standard has a lot to answer for. Every alarm, for my son, indicates that it's half past four. I must have missed hearing the first ding-dong with Crawler crying, but Toddler didn't. He doesn't miss much really - except the fact that it cannot constantly be half past four.
More worrying than the books is the effect of cbeebies on my son. He doesn’t normally watch much TV but he’s had a bad case of chickenpox recently (add eczema and scratching and the result is infected bleeding skin). The only things that made him happy were the ‘chocolate stars’ Lemly brought him and standing in front of the TV. So I was soft for a few weeks. Now I regret it.
I can just about cope with Toddler announcing that he is “Iggle Piggle” and wants to visit Upsy Daisy. Dressing-up just requires wearing a blue t-shirt and trousers, and carrying a blanket. And he has a friend Daisy. So that works.
But what bothers me is the fact that my cup of tea, which he mustn’t touch, is no longer “hot”. According to Toddler it’s: “hot-hot”. I want to kill Big Cook.
And the repetition of words has spilt over into other areas. Just when we were starting to get proper sentences it all goes wobbly again. Take our conversation the other day:
Mummy: “Make sure you share your raisins”
Toddler: “Razins not for babies”
Mummy: “No, but Crawler is not really a baby anymore"
Toddler (thinks for a while, hands a few raisins to Crawler who immediately eats them, then observes): “She getting bigger-bigger like a toggler”.
Since when was bigger-bigger a word? Last month Crawler was simply getting bigger. Will she be bigger-bigger-bigger next month?
Like most parents of young children we’ve created a bedtime routine that involves reading Toddler and Crawler a bedtime story. This last week I suddenly realised what an influence the books were having on Toddler. And it’s not all good.
Toddler got new shoes on Tuesday. Daddy took him into town. The nice lady in the show measured his feet (large) and gave him a choice of three styles. He tried the first pair on. “Want those”. He reluctantly tired the second pair (with diggers on). “No, want those” (pointing at the first pair he’d tried). He refused to try the third pair. Daddy left the shop with Toddler wearing the wanted pair of Jungle ‘Doodles’ shoes. They have lion & tiger print sides, ants marching around the sole, and a velcro snake fastening. Mummy was suitably impressed when shown them.
Later that evening Toddler asked: “What snakes eat?”
Daddy: “mice, like in The Gruffalo.”
Mummy: “rats and baby rabbits, like Uncle Mark’s snake” (yes, Uncle Mark has a ‘pet’ Boa Constrictor).
Toddler: “NO Mummy, snakes eat mice”.
Another morning we’re having one of our usual conversations about imaginary beings while I'm trying to juggle breastfeeding Crawler and getting Toddler dressed without making myself late for work.
Toddler (pointing): “There’s a bear in the corner there”
Mummy: “Is it a scary bear?”
Toddler (thinking): “Ummm… yes”.
He pauses… then says, “Quick shut the door, Mummy!”
Mummy (shutting imaginary door in middle of room): “OK, it’s shut”
Toddler: “NO Mummy, it’s friendly bear. He’s just looking for friend”.
Mummy (remembering that Daddy often adds an extra bit at the end of “We’re going on a bear hunt” saying that the bear follows them home because he wants to make friends): “Sorry”.
So, there you have it. Mummy is always wrong. The books are always right.
Maybe I need to start writing my own stories to read to Toddler at bedtime.
(I'm so encouraged to find people actually read and comment on my blog I thought I'd continue posting!)
I'm off work at the moment. Sick. In the Feeling-VERY-Green sense. Normally Toddler and Baby go to nursery a couple of days a week so I should have got some rest. But 10-month old babe has had chickenpox so she's been at home too. So we gave up trying to pretend all was fine.
And on Sunday Husband went off to church on his own and told anyone who'd listen 'Hurrah! We're expecting another baby in October.' (Subtext: Help! We need a little support right now).
There were three kinds of responses:
1) The usual 'Congratulations' response.
2) The 'Gosh, that was quick' (Subtext: I'm curious to know if this was planned?) response.
And
3) The one mum-of-three who said, with feeling, 'Oh, I'm SO sorry'.
I think the mum had done the maths and realised that in just over 6 months' time we'll be dealing with three children under three in our house.
But I'm vomiting too much right now to be worrying about 'in 6 months' time'!
Toddler is now entering the world of imaginary play. Probably because Baby Sister is now crawling and stealing all the real toys. And he's pretty imaginative for a not-quite-two-and-a-half-year-old. And he does different voices for different characters - I love it.
Recently I overheard a conversation two of his imaginary friends were having with each other. The friends were clearly arguing about whose boat was better, and the conversation went along the lines of:
"this my boat"
"this my BIG boat"
"my boat has bow-thrusters"
"oh".
Oh, indeed. I am starting to wonder if it's normal for a child of his age to have vocabulary that includes technical terms like that. But then it's probably not normal for a child of that age to spend Easter day standing on a canal bank in the falling snow enthusiastically waving around a metal object shouting "look mummy - windlass!"
The wheels on the bus go round and round...
The mummies on the bus go Chat chat chat (sounds a like 'tut' when Toddler says it)...
The babies on the bus go Wah-wah-wah (Toddler does the actions to this = very cute)...
The daddies on the bus say 'Stop that noise'...
Maybe if my dear son had started with the mummies or the babies (or even mentioned the BUS!) I'd have got it. But obviously the daddies are most important!
So, my toddler is talking now. And singing. And mostly we understand what he's going on about. But sometimes it's a guessing game. And sometimes is a frustrating game for both of us.
Last weekend he sang to his baby sister as we sat in the car driving back from Granny's. His first song was 'Happy birthday' - an odd choice as his second birthday was in November and his sister won't be one until May... but he's probably heard it sung to others at the toddler group we go to. He sang in mostly on his own. But then he decided Mummy needed to sing too.
He requested 'Twinkle Twinkle'. No problem, we do that all the time: 'Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder...'
Next up was 'Knees and Toes'. I was pretty impressed with this - he hasn't heard it from me very often, or at the toddler group... but they must do it at nursery as he proved he knows the actions too: 'Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes...'
Then he requested 'Daddy stop that noise'. WHAT? 'Daddy stop that noise'. I thought very hard. And then I thought some more. But could I think of a song with that line in it? No. Having explained Mummy's lack of a clue, we sang 'Baa Baa Black Sheep' instead - well, it includes a noise!!
Another day - another singing session. This time Daddy is around too. 'Daddy stop that noise' Daddy gets offended that he's not allowed to sing. I explain that it's a song. Daddy tries to guess the song. He also has: NO CLUE.
The following morning, silly Mummy suggests singing (a ploy to keep Toddler sitting on the potty while Baby's nappy is changed). First request? Of course it's 'Daddy stop that noise'.
I try to explain that Mummy doesn't know that song. Toddler is now getting a bit frustrated by his clueless parents.
'Can you remember any other words?' I gently suggest.
Deep thought.
'Mummy goes Tut-tut-tut'
I'm starting to think this is a very funny song... and am imagining various scenarios where Daddy is told to stop making noise by Mummy. 'What's making the noise - is Daddy hammering?'
'No. Baby goes wah-wah'
Yep, sound's feasible... Daddy's noise has now woken up the baby. But I'm still no closer to knowing what song is.
Fortunately it's Tuesday. Nursery day. I suggest Daddy asks the staff when he drops the kids off what song they sing that has those lines in it.
Daddy asks. Staff scratch their head. Toddler tries to explain to Stupid Adults again... want to know what it was?
My name is Tracy. Not Tracey, Tracie, or any other variation. My e-mail address at work is Tracy.Surname@InternationalCompany.com it’s fairly simple for those I work with to figure out how to spell my name. But some of them seem unable to. Just last night I was chatting to friends about how annoying it is to get e-mails that start Dear Tracey. This morning I was annoyed. A random accounts person called Lucy e-mails me with a query. So I politely e-mailed her back: Dear Lucey…
In Britain it is usual to sleep in a bed. In other places the floor is favoured. My Terrible Toddler is going through a phase of preferring ‘other places’ at the moment. He’s been in a ‘big boy bed’ since he was just over a year old – displaced from the cot to make room for his baby sister – and he’s loved going to sleep in it. Until now.
It started on Saturday night when he decided he didn’t want to stay in bed. Totally happy going to bed. Just got up again the moment we left the room. We tried the telling-nicely-to-stay-in-bed way. We tried the being-firm way. We tried the supernanny-silent-treatment way. We tried the holding-the-door-shut way. And then his sister was woken by the screaming tantrum. It took over two hours to get him in bed.
The record was Tuesday night. First put in bed at 7pm – read story, tucked in, said prayers, kissed goodnight. Thirty seconds later he was out of his room standing in the hall. We had a guest staying. We alternated between nicely-encouraging-back-into-bed and totally-ignoring-the-child-in-the-hall techniques while we had dinner. Then Dad took Guest out to the pub. I tried the getting-firmer approach… then the cuddle-and-sing-son-to-sleep method. At 11.20pm he finally went to sleep. And so did I.
Wednesday we decided to revise our parenting approach. Child rearing is totally a make-it-up-as-you-go-along sort of thing. So we made up another approach. 7pm toddler in bed. 7.01pm toddler out of bed. Stairgate closed so he’s only got access to his room, our room and the hallway between the two rooms. 7.10pm parents downstairs relaxing to the noise of happy toddler chattering to Tedi in hallway. 7.30pm parents find toddler asleep on floor in hallway. And he stayed asleep when we lifted him back into his bed too.
I’m thinking- what’s the point in battling to get Terrible Toddler to stay his own bed? It may be standard to go to sleep there, but he won’t come to any harm if he quietly goes to sleep on the floor each night and is just lifted back into bed.
The company I work for claims to be one of the world's leading providers of professional, technologically-based consultancy. We are cutting edge. And we know how to make a profit.
One key aspect of this profit-making is outsourcing everything. Catering. Computers. IT support. If we want something we generally pay per person per month. So, if someone happens to go on maternity leave for three months their computer login is disabled and the company saves approximately 4p by not having to pay for a computer or any IT support services for them for those few months. The aforementioned person then returns to work. The local admin assistant spends half an hour (at a cost of £some/hour) sending a few e-mails to get the computer account re-activated. The returning new-mum spends half an hours (at a cost of £some more/hour) trying to get the newly issued login to work. The new-mum then spends almost an hour on the phone to the helpful IT support guys getting to password re-set (twice) before she can finally access her computer desktop. At the end of the first week the new-mum attempts to enter her timesheet on the computer system so the client can be billed for all the time she’s spent doing highly-productive work. But the login to the timesheet system isn’t working either. Another hour on the phone to IT support. More unproductive time.
I’m currently wondering how saving 4p by shutting down my account and then wasting £millions while I try to reactivate it (OK those amounts might be an exaggeration) actually results in the company making a profit.
But perhaps I’m just not cutting-edge enough to understand it.
Across the road from our house is a lovely little park with pretty plants, ambling paths, a duck pond (or is it a lake?), children’s play area, bowling green, crumbling pavilion and a boarded-up toilet block. After almost 5 years of promises, the local council has now started an extensive refurbishment of the park. Being the council they’re doing things in a random half-arsed order: first they ripped out the old play area… then they decided to start on re-roofing the bowls pavilion… then part-way through that job they started clearing an area for a new information centre and toilet block. I’m hoping they might start to finish some of the half-done jobs soon… but in the meantime I’m enjoying the suspense of ‘what will they do next?’
Recently they’ve started to do the new play area. They dug trenches, laid pipes… oh, the suspense, what was it for? They’ve backfilled with gravel for filter drains to ensure the area doesn’t get water-logged. They re-turfed the area. The grass died. They laid down soil on top of the dead grass… oh, the excitement, what type of surface was ultimately planned? They've started to lay down holey rubber matting to ensure a soft landing when the children fall. But, oh, the anticipation, what will the children fall from? They've put up various frames, for swings and roundabouts and climbing… and now they’re constructing the slides.
Yesterday I watched three men attempt to put together a flat-pack slide. How hard can that be? Well, it wasn’t quite flat. The pieces were yellow plastic curves. And a good few hours was spent with the men standing around trying to figure out how the make the bits fit together to form the spiral slide indicated on the instruction leaflet. It reminded me of the flat-pack committees that seem to congregate around the latest box purchased from Ikea or Argos. Only it wasn’t a group of my friends standing in the park pondering how to make part D fit into slot E. It was a group of supposed professionals... and they looked far less confident in the task than any group of my friends would do. I wonder whether the play area will have a safety inspection before it’s opened to the public? Or perhaps the council are just relying on the holey rubber matting to do its job efficiently!
One of the last things I do at night before going to bed is make my sandwiches for lunch at work the following day. Last night I stood, half asleep, staring into the fridge trying to figure out what to put in my sandwiches, having run out of the usual cheese. Eventually I decided on egg mayo. The only drawback was this meant waiting for the eggs to hard-boil. And I wanted to go to bed. Fortunately Mr Chef came into the kitchen at that point and, having said that he wanted to do a bit of work on the computer before retiring to bed, offered to watch the eggs and make the sandwiches for me.
‘How long does an egg take to hard-boil?’ he asked. I gave instructions, commenting that I didn’t think that it was possible to over-hard-boil an egg. Once it’s hard-boiled it can’t get more hard-boiled, can it?
I went upstairs to bed and read for a bit. I could hear the gentle tapping on the computer keyboard, interrupted at one point by a bang that I assumed was Mr Chef dropping something in the study. I dozed off to sleep.
A bit later I woke up and looked at the clock. An hour had passed. Then I became aware of a horrible smell, a sort of sulphuric burning smell. I called downstairs to the man in the study, ‘can you smell burning?’ There was a pause. Then the sound of running towards the kitchen.
I went downstairs. In the kitchen I found a sheepish-looking Mr Chef. In the pan on the hob were two cracked and brown eggs. ‘I’m so, so sorry’ he said, ‘I’ll do some more for you… and I’ll watch them this time.’ Pause. ‘Ummm, did you hear them explode?’
What could I say? I just laughed. Now I know that it is possible to over-hard-boil an egg. If you leave an egg in water boiling for over an hour, the water eventually boils away. Then the egg heats up, expands and the shell explodes with a bang. Then the exposed egg starts to burn.
The second lot of eggs Mr Chef hard-boiled for me have, however, made some very nice sandwiches for lunch. I’ve just eaten them.
We have a separate bathroom and toilet upstairs. The toilet bit is in the corner of the house. It is tiny. It has two outside walls and no radiator. It is freezing in winter. But this isn’t the thing that has annoyed me the most about it. No, what I’ve hated since we’ve moved in is the fact that it hasn’t had a proper door handle. It had a push-shut ball catch with a simple bar handles each side to pull the door with. It was stiff and noisy to open and shut. But it worked so we never changed it. Or rather, it worked until someone pulled the bar handle off the inside of the door. I observed the problem. I noted the likely danger of someone getting trapped in the toilet unable to pull the door open. I considered just replacing the bar handle. Then I decided to fit a whole new handle, a handle with a level so we could be rid of the annoying noisy push-shut ball catch.
It was meant to be a simple job. Just a few large circular holes to be drilled through the door and a rectangular hole in the frame, and then the job would be done. Simple jobs always take at least three times longer than expected. Simple jobs often involve overcoming one or two minor problems.
Problem number 1: The ancient old door wasn’t as thick as the rest to the doors in our house. So, should you wish to, you can observe a short section of the barrel of the lock from the inside of the toilet even when the door is closed. One day I’ll fix that minor problem by replacing the entire door.
Problem number 2: Forgetting to make a small recess for the plate around the hole in the door frame when fixing it. This wouldn’t have been quite so big a problem if Mr DIY hadn’t decided to go into the tiny room and shut the door to test it. It shut just fine. But opening it was a problem. A big problem. I’m not sure how advisable it is to go throwing yourself against jammed doors when almost six months pregnant… but ignoring cries of ‘help, I’m trapped’ is even less advisable. He pulled, I pushed, the catch bent and the door sprung open. A few minor alterations and the door handle works now. There’s no danger of anyone getting trapped in the toilet. But please can someone remind me to replace the handle with a non-bent version when I get round to replacing the entire door.
This morning I walked past a man painting a Royal Mail post box.
Yesterday when I went to post a letter the post box was bright blue. It made me smile. Students’ I thought, ‘…or perhaps bored ‘yoofs’!’ They’d obviously wanted to have some fun. It’s not a new joke, in my 12 years in this lovely ugly city I’ve seen a number of post boxes change colour, but I’ve never seen a job done as well as this one. Very little red was showing through the blue paint.
The man this morning was trying to restore it to the more traditional ‘pillar box red’ colour. He didn’t look like he was having fun, nor did he seem particularly well equipped to do a good job with his tiny inch-wide brush. I know I shouldn’t have, but had to smile. I wondered if that was his full time job. Post box painter. It’d make for a pretty unique CV, I think.
The night before last it rained. Lots. And lots. I woke up and laid in bed for a while wondering if our roof would hold. Last year you may recall me mentioning the saga of our roof and the indoor water feature we had. Lying in bed I feared the feature would return. So I got up to check. Inside was still dry... well, mostly. Our back door leaks. It has done for a while. In the morning we discovered a large puddle inside the door. But it was soon mopped up.
Down the road our friends had less luck. Mrs loves storms. She woke up in the night, got up and enthused about the severity of the rain and lightening… until she heard Mr, who had got up and gone down to the kitchen for a drink, shouting ‘Flood. Flood’. Their back door did more than leak a little. Two foot of water pooling in their back yard was seeking an escape route. Mr braved the weather, ran around the house and, after some difficulty, found the manhole cover and opened it. The foul water rushed away, swirling down the huge plughole. His boots are ruined. And their kitchen requires more than a little mopping.
I work with flooding. I investigate the risks. Study the rivers. Design defences. But it’s different when it’s your friends who phone up and say help, we’ve been flooded. Yesterday I felt a little sad.
Our housemate, on the other hand, felt very happy. The storm also directly affected him. But in a nice way. The call centre he works in had been hit by lightening in the night. The computer systems were down. He went to work and didn’t have to actually answer any calls. His Neverending Telephone helL took a break for the day. And the sun shone.
The road works outside our office are still on-going. The roundabout is now buried and a new road layout is emerging. Traffic and been diverted this way and that, and so have us simple pedestrians.
Each week my way to work changes as temporary barriers are erected and moved while sections of road and pavement are paved. This morning, picking my way through the maze avoiding tripping over the men laying block paving, I found that the ‘pedestrians this way’ signs had again changed. Not just in location and direction, but also in language. I turned the final corner on my way to work to be greeted by a sign that had been modified so that it read ‘this is the way to Amarillo’. I smiled. It was a nice way to start the day.
This morning I had a business meeting in the City (the Welsh one). It takes a hour to get there by train. So I figure catching a train an hour and a half before I need to be there will give me plenty of flexibility in case of 'we're sorry about the delay to this service' announcements. I figure wrong.
I bought my ticket and boarded an unusually quiet train. We set off. Two minutes later the announcement comes: 'We are sorry about the delay to this service.'
Hang on... we've just set off at the timetabled time. We're two minutes into the journey. How can we be late?
'Due to the on-going signalling problems at Botheration we anticpate a wait of approximately 25 minutes at Port Smog.'
Fantastic. They knew there was a problem before we boarded the train and we weren't told. I would have taken a bus if I'd known. Never mind, I think, I'll still make the meeting.
At Port Smog it's announced that we're in a queue of trains waiting to go through the 'effected area'. We're stationary for over 40 minutes. I call to say I'll be late for the meeting. Mr Bold in my carriage figures we're owed a free drink and heads off to the buffet carriage. He figures right.
He comes back with coffee. I go for tea. They're handing out free sandwiches and cakes too. I get a 'Pain au Raisin'. It goes a small way towards compensating for pain au journey. I drink tea, eat cake and read the ingredients list (it beats reading work paperwork) It says:
Flour Water Yeast Flour Improver Salt Sugar Milk
Powder Butter Sultanas Custard Apricot Glaze
Apart from the total lack of punctuation and strange line break that leaves me wondering what kind of ingredient 'Powder Butter' is, I am also puzzled by the lack of raisins in my 'Pain'.
Eventually we leave Port Smog and travel at a snail's pace through Botheration. We arrive in the City a full 60 minutes late. I am late for the meeting. But it wasn't that interesting a meeting anyway. I'm sure writing about my journey makes for a far more entertaining read.
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