When a spoodle meets snow

Charlie has had quite a few life adjustments to make this year, what with having to pack up with bed and his bone and move house, country and hemisphere.

Poor little Aussie pooch. Over the course of the last 6 months he has been poked, prodded and vaccinated to within an inch of his life. He has flown around the world in a tiny box and spent time behind bars.

He’s been chased by  cows and discovered sheep, got into a bit of a tussle with a swan and had a something of a run in with a donkey. He’s met relatives he never knew he had and encountered dogs he probably wished he hadn’t. He’s taken his first walk on a pebble beach, dipped his toes in the freezing sea and enjoyed the delights of Fleet service station.

And on top of all that, he’s had to get to grips with the rather strange Norfolk accent. Because, let’s be honest, some of the humans speak a little bit odd around here, so I can only imagine how the canines bark.

So this morning we woke up to snow and Charlie, who could cross his legs no longer, went on out into the garden on rather tentative tippy claws.

I have to say that for a dog born, raised and walked in a far sunnier climate, he did, for the most part, seem to enjoy the whole wintry experience. Though it must have been something of a shock for him to have to do his first wee of the day against something so cold it ran the risk of sticking to his doghood.

We’ve got l

We’ve got l

And for those of you who may be wondering ‘What is a Spoodle?’ here’s the answer!

 

We’ve got l

What a rubbish thing to do

Just a quick early morning gripe before I start work and gear myself up for the day.

This morning, as predicted by the weatherman all week, we woke up to snow. Not a lot of snow it has to be said, but enough to turn the roof of the car white and make the garden look as if it had been dusted with icing sugar. Needless to say my kids were ever so happy at the prospect of building a snowman this weekend. I however failed to conjour up quite the same level of excitement.

I do of course love the look of snow as much as the next person – it has the magical ability to always make the place look prettier than it sometimes is. Even the ugliest looking council house – the sort with a mattress in the front garden and an old rust bucket of a car being stripped for parts in the driveway – can often look lovely under 5 inches of the white stuff. Bung in a couple of robins and some well placed holly and it might just pass as picturesque… example below.

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OK, granted this particular dwelling I passed last year in Norfolk wouldn’t exactly be classed as ‘grotty’ without the snow, but I rather liked my photo so thought I’d add it anyway.

The downside of a winter wonderland is of course the inevitable drop in temperature. Add to that the daily windscreen de-icing fiasco and the often perilous driving conditions, and all that snow, as pretty as it is, can soon become something of a pain in your rather chilly backside.

But hey, we’re living in Norfolk now so I’m happy to accept that the first falling flakes mean that we’ll be living in Uggs and 2.6 tog socks until spring. Yes, you can actually get ‘tog rated’ socks, I found some last week and picked up several pairs. Along with some extra thick ‘booties’ from M&S. I’d rather they’d been called slipper socks than booties, but there you go.

So anyway, back to the gripe.

As I was rushing around the house trying to get both kids fed with an oat-based warm fodder and stuffed into their respective down-filled jackets, I paused by the front window. Mainly it has to be said because I was trying to woof down my own Oatabix on the move, and it seemed like a good idea to hover by the radiator to finish them off before they concealed into mush and stuck to the bowl like concrete.

Outside the house some miserable looking men were trotting up our hill to gather the recycling bins into the middle of the road ready for collection. I say miserable, because it was obviously cold out there, the bins were covered with snow and all of the men in question looked like they’d rather still be in bed. As indeed we all would have been I’m sure.

The lorry backed up, the rubbish was loaded and then it drove off. The miserable bin men then proceeded to return the bins to their rightful owners. Though not in a helpful way mind you, that would be far to kind.

Instead they plonked each bin back on its respective driveway, making sure that it was positioned right smack bang in the middle. Of course it could be a complete coincidence that they chose to place each wheelie in a place where no car – except a Smart car perhaps – could possibly hope to get by, but somehow I doubt it.

By the time I had chipped off the ice to open the car door and shoved an annoyed little boy into a seat that was probably cold enough to make his bits drop off, I certainly wasn’t in the mood to be trying to navigate between a bin and a hedge. Yes, I could and should have just moved the bloody thing out of the way first, but it was cold, I was grumpy and we were late.

I believe that some of the hedge may have been slightly damaged on our way out, but I’m sure it’ll survive and grow back. My bumper on the other hand, had it come into contact with the badly placed bin, wouldn’t have.

You probably think I’m being a tad over-sensitive and more than a little paranoid, thinking those men were out to get us all today. But I swear, the only time that those men cracked anything resembling a smile was as they walked away, smirking to each other and looking slightly too pleased with their handiwork.

Little sods, next time I won’t bother washing out my tins…

mnbkbk

 

Happy Birthday indeed

Today I feel older than I did yesterday. A whole year older to be exact.

This sudden aging could be put down to the last few stressful months. First there were the 5 weeks without my vision, followed by a rather painful broken toe, followed by a rather yucky dose of the Winter Vomiting Virus. They’ve all come in quick succession and have left me longing for the day when every part of my body does what it should and no part of me hurts like it shouldn’t.

Of course the overnight aging could also be put down to my turning another year older. Yes, it’s my birthday and I’m now officially on the wrong side of 35.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t usually have an issue with getting older, but right this second I’m looking every inch my age, and to top it off, I’m also feeling like I’ve been flattened by a hay bale. One of those large, round ones that you see scattered precariously around the countryside, just waiting to roll down the hill and squash you. It can happen you know.

So why do I feel like Flat Stanley on my birthday you might wonder? That would be the revolting flu symptoms that have hijacked my body today. Oh did I forget to mention that 2 days after one lot of family came and went – with vomiting virus in tow – my mother then arrived by Ryan Air with a rather nasty Italian strain of flu. And that would be the full on, shaking, sweating, incredibly painful variety, not the ‘Oh, I’m sniffing and sneezing, I must have flu’ type of flu. Or the ‘man’ type either for that matter.

I knew things were amiss before I even woke up this morning. Every time I laid on my back it hurt so much I had to roll over. Whilst I was still asleep and dreaming the pain didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but when the alarm went off it all fell into place. I came to with every joint aching, my skin feeling like it was covered with exposed nerve endings and my bones feeling like they’d been treated to several rounds in the ring with Mike Tyson. On the upside at least both my ears lobes were still attached.

Now I get that the above may sound a tad dramatic in description, but would you believe that for once I’m actually not exaggerating. Honest.

Getting both kids up, dressed and ready for school was definitely something of a painful mission. Trying to be excited about my birthday for their benefit required acting skills I never even knew I had. Having to melt the ice off the car windows,  negotiate the school run and make it home in one piece used up my very last ounce of energy.

By the time I limped into the nearest Boots pharmacy, draped myself across the counter and pointed with a rather pathetic finger at the excessively large selection of cold and flu tablets on offer, I was definitely on my last leg.

I say ‘leg’ not ‘legs’, as by this stage one of them had already started to buckle under me slightly as I walked. God knows why, but something somewhere in my lower limb was twinging and there was bugger all I could do to stop it. Had I not already reached the ‘feeling like hell’ stage, and therefore been completely oblivious to everyone around me, I might have been more than a little embarrassed about how ridiculous (and incredibly rough) I looked.

No doubt as I wobbled through the doors I resembled an alcoholic Mr Jelly with a mild dose of epilepsy – never a good look to be sporting out in public, especially when entering the hallowed aisles of Waitrose. Of course if I’d been in Tesco I might just have got away with it. If I’d been in ASDA I’d probably have fitted right in. If I’d been In Lidl I might even have been offered a job.

So here I am at the end of a very strange day, waiting for the ‘Night’ Benylin pills to kick in. My normally comfortable memory foam mattress feels like concrete, my bones feel bruised and my chest feels like it’s wrapped up in a boa constrictor. I’m restless, over-tired and achy. My nose won’t stop dripping and I sound like I’ve got a nasty dose of Kennel Cough. Even the dog is eyeing me up in alarm, covering his nose and keeping his distance. Not that I really blame him of course, he’s seen all the humans in the house drop like skittles in the last few weeks and he’s probably worried he’s next.

I admit I’m probably feeling slightly sorry for myself right now, but it’s not because I’m particually bothered about having slept through my birthday. I’ve already reached the age when you realise that your birthday – like Christmas – is more about watching your kids get excited about handing over their homemade gifts and cards, not worrying about doing anything exciting yourself.

In fact the highlight of the day for my daughter was bringing in The Cake. A cake that had naturally involved a three act drama all of it’s own yesterday when being made.

As I stood behind both children as they broke the eggs, sifted the flour across the kitchen surfaces and beat the butter to within an inch of it’s life I’d congratulated myself on how well it was all going. Then the cake emerged from the oven and I noted that the sponge had risen to the impressive thickness of a rich tea biscuit and was still raw in the centre.

How that was even possible I’m not sure, but there you go. We had somehow managed to bake a Victoria Sponge cake in exactly the same shape as a frisbee. That takes skill you know. Needless to say it ended up in the bin and we ended up trotting down the hill in the rain to buy a replacement from Waitrose.

All in all, not the best birthday I think I’ve ever had but at least my kids thought it went well.  I’m also the proud owner of a hand woven something from my daughter and a highly creative ‘monster’ card from my son.

Any mother knows you really can’t ask for more than that.

It may be cold but at least it’s pretty

There’s no mistaking that winter is almost upon us and any hope of some last minute warm weather is gone. Carved pumpkins are still sitting out in gardens, muddy wellies are cluttering hallways and ‘trick or treat’ sweets have just been hastily hidden away. Perhaps the biggest clue is the clocks having gone back and the evenings now feeling like they’re getting underway before your lunch has even finished digesting.

Some people it has to be said have no problem dealing with the long, cold months ahead, while others are already busy dragging their SAD lamps from the loft and dusting off next year’s summer holiday brochures in a panic. At least on the bright side there are some positives to the impending gloom. Having a legitimate excuse to whack up the central heating for one, and being well within your right to start planning The Big Shop and Feast that is Christmas.

While I’m not a fan of the cold weather I do love this time of the year. Mainly, it has to be said, because autumn does for trees what London Fashion Week does for the world of over-priced outfits.

It’s a time when Mother Nature brings out her finest paint palette and really goes to town, with splashes of reds, oranges, yellows and gold everywhere that you look. It’s a time when trees can appear almost luminous in the late afternoon sun. A time when wooded walkways are piled high with mountains of fallen leaves and grey city pavements are awash with a carpet of riotous colours. A time when the ground is littered with gleaming conkers and the hedgerows decorated with shiny berries.

Now granted that even with all the pretty leaves in the world, this nip in the air can only mean one thing. Coughs and colds are making everyone feel down and the annual ‘Man Flu’ epidemic is once again sweeping the nation. It should hardly come as a shock of course (germs and viruses being rather partial to the cold weather) yet still we all mutter, splutter and moan in surprise, and complain about how rotten we feel.

There is one glimmer of hope this week however in the form of some rather clever scientist types in Cambridge, who, this week, have achieved a major medical breakthrough in their search for the Holy Grail. Or in other words, they have taken a large step closer to finding a cure for the common cold.

Oh yes, you can already hear those pharmaceutical companies clapping their hands in delight.

But drugs aren’t always the best cure when you’re feeling sick. There was a time – a decade or so back – when a cold was just a cold and a sniff just meant you were wrapped up that little bit warmer when being propelled out of the back door to play. Bad weather was rarely an excuse to stay inside and get under everyone’s feet, especially when ‘fresh air’ and ‘exercise’ were considered to be the answer to everything – from treating a headache and ‘holiday boredom’ to sorting out squabbling siblings and childish sulks.

And while those of us of a certain age may have some rather unpleasant memories of shuffling around the garden with pink ears and icicles threatening to grow from our nose, we’d probably have to admit that there might actually have been some method to this madness.

Children after all need to be active regardless of the time of year or the level of the thermometer. They need to be running around in the great outdoors burning off calories, using up energy and expelling excess noise. What they don’t need (although most of us are guilty of it for our own sanity’s sake) is to be holed up indoors breathing in the same germs and establishing roots in the sofa.

So how do you coax your reluctant children out of the warmth and into the garden this winter?

 

Taken from my weekly BLOG written for Treehouse Life.

 

Raining Cats, Dogs and Maltesers

Mother Nature wasn’t very happy yesterday. In fact, I’d go as far as to say she was pretty pissed off. If I was a guy I’d probably say it was a case of PMT, but I’m not, so I’ll just hazard a guess and say she was having one hell of a bad hair day.

Whatever the reason, Ms Nature certainly gave 2 fingers up to anyone in Perth who’s been moaning about the weather. Or more specifically, the 40 degrees of constant heat with not a drop of rain since November.

Now I do appreciate that to people in wetter isles, England lets say, the idea of nearly 5 months without rain might seem like something of a dream. But let me tell you, it’s not. When a total lack of precipitation is teamed up with temperatures more suited to melting iron ore, it can make for some pretty uncomfortable living. Not to mention a rather dry, dusty, brown and monotonous landscape.

So that said, I think it would be quite safe to assume that rather a lot of people in Perth (and some extremely dehydrated plants) were rather looking forward to the dry spell breaking. And break it did. With bells on.

With barely enough time to drag the dog through the fly screen, the blue sunny sky disappeared and the hailstones arrived. Hailstones the size of Maltesers, pouring out of the sky so fast you’d think God had accidently left his freezer door open, and a passing angel had carelessly tipped it over. We were lucky only to get Maltesers, in the city they were apparently the size of golf balls.

Then came the rain. Or should I say the downpour, pelting in at us from at every angle but up. Within minutes our garden was several inches under water, and there was, what could only be described, as a flash flood going past the end of our drive.

Being me, of course I tried to take some photos of the hailstones stacking up 9 inches deep at our back door. But the moment I opened the door to take the picture, the bloody dog shot off into the garden. How stupid is he? He see’s, what to him must have looked like a Noah’s Ark moment, and he still decides to go out for a quick dig in the sand.

Needless to say once he went out I refused to let him, or his soggy wet fur, back in again. He may be of the non-smelling variety of pooches, but even a soaking wet Spoodle has something of a whiff about it. So I hardened my heart and held my resolve – right up until the point where my daughter stood sobbing at the window, looking down at a pathetic excuse for a fur ball, trying to pin himself flat against the wall with his damp ears plastered around his snout. Two clean towels and a vigorous blow dry later and he was back inside and on the rug. I hope he’s learned his lesson, that nothing is worth the pain of a dig in the hail.

Dumb dogs aside, in the sort of weather that heralds the start of Armageddon the average person normally chooses to stay indoors, steer clear of windows and turn up the TV. Sadly I’m not average, so I grabbed the car keys, swam to the car and set off with oars at the ready.

Of course as the sky turned pitch black overhead and the odd branch blew past like tumbleweed, it did cross my mind that this might not be the most sensible decision in the world. But really I had no choice. My son, who isn’t partial to loud noises and the car wash at the best of times, was stranded at his nursery 8 minutes down the road. Even if he’d had the foresight to take his water wings with him that day, I very much doubted he’d have managed the journey alone.

“The clouds are very angry” he told me, over and over all the way home.

My poor husband arrived back quite a bit later than usual that night.  Something to do with me having his car, the train tracks being flooded, every cab being taken and the buses being fit to burst. I’m not sure it necessarily helped, when I pointed out that if he had had his car that day, he’d no doubt still be stuck in the bumper-to-bumper traffic, as the world and their wet dog struggled to leave work.

Needless to say the news teams and anchormen (I would be P.C. and say anchorwoman, but all the women sound like men anyway) were practically salivating with joy on the TV last night. Finally, something worth reporting in Perth that didn’t involve a drunken AFL player, a misplaced kangaroo and a runaway shopping trolley on the freeway.

As I know I’m rather prone to the odd bit of exaggeration (creative license and all), I’ve added the pictures below to show that for once, Perth really did have something happen to get excited about.

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There’s no such place as perfection

Lots of people heading over to live from the UK want to know, what’s life in Perth really like? Is it all blue skies, suntan cream and sandy beaches? Is it better than the UK in every way? Is everyone as ‘happy as Bruce’ and do the kangaroos all smile and wave you on your way as you speed off to work your 5 hour day?

In a word, and a very short one at that, NO.

Despite popular misconception, it does get cold here as well – Perth has long winters with not much sun and a lot of rain. Just like the UK, everyone isn’t happy all of the time, and kangaroos don’t really smile. I’d say if anything they smirk.

Some people, understandably, given how many burning hoops they have to leap through to get a visa, want to believe that Perth is the answer to all problems on earth – and the very opposite of evil old England. Yes, without a doubt it’s a lovely place to live and the lifestyle is so laid back that many have trouble getting upright again. But like every country it’s far from perfect.

Houses are still expensive and the cost of living high. Jobs are often hard to come by, and the working hours and commutes long. Older kids are often tempted by the huge drug scene on offer. Gang crime, knife crime and gun crime still fills up the news. Politicians still fail to deliver and continue to talk out of their backsides… So Perth may be many things to many people, but if you’ve built it up in your mind to be ‘perfection’,  then you might just be shocked to find it’s not the answer to all of your prayers.

Those migrants fresh from the plane and still marveling at the vastness of the sky, the millions of stars on view at night and the wide open beaches will tell you that ‘Perth is as good as it gets’. And that, I think can be very misleading to those trying to decide whether to make the move over. Firstly because the reality of life overseas (once the initial excitement has worn off, whether that takes a week, a month or ever a year) can sometimes be very different to what people expect, and secondly peoples idea of ‘as good as it gets’ can vary greatly.

Many people move over from the UK for a better lifestyle and a house in the sun, a chance to escape a country that is spinning out of control. But despite this, a massive 40% of those who move over from the UK still decide to go back again. That’s an awful lot of people making an extremely costly and difficult decision to return – a decision no one would ever take lightly, or do without good reason. Moving your life around the world is a big enough upheaval in the first place, moving back and starting again is an even bigger one.

Everyone has their own different reasons for not wanting to stay. Some find the distance from friends and family too great. Some feel too cut off from the rest of the world. Some realise that problems faced in the UK are also faced over here. Perhaps some just didn’t want to spend their weekends surfing, hiking, fishing, camping and drinking beer around a BBQ. Or maybe once they’d had a year of cooking sausages in Kings Park, eating fish & chips at Hillarys and trying to spot animals at Perth Zoo the novelty of it all simply wore off. Who knows, maybe the reality of life here simply never lived up to the hype.

So if you’re leaving England and heading south in search of perfection, then it might be wise to really get the lay of the land before your feet touch down on the dusty ground. This way you cut then risk of being surprised, disappointed or disillusioned  by what you find. Because if you arrive ready to start your new life Down Under with your eyes wide open, then you will probably love it all and never look back.

To quickly go back to the original question of what’s it like to live in Perth, here’s my answer:

Today I got woken up early by the radio. It was grey, wet and cold outside and the drone of irritating DJ’s put me back to sleep – until the dog barked millimetres away from my ear. I dragged two children from their beds and fed them breakfast. I made my own breakfast and then watched it conceal into concrete as I hunted for last nights homework sheet. I stepped on the dogs tail as he rushed past me to the backdoor. It was still pouring with rain, so as the school bell went in the distance I threw the kids into the car.

I returned from the school run, cleared up breakfast, emptied the dishwasher, put on the washing machine, swept half the garden off the kitchen floor. I then rounded up my son, his water cup and potty and headed out to the supermarket. We navigated the aisles with a renegade trolley while I fed him pancakes to keep him quiet and contained. I loaded the car, filled up with petrol and unloaded the car – all in the rain.

Next came lunch, as requested by my son. I watched him push it around his plate for so long that I gave up, ate it myself and then cleared up. He got all his toys out just to see what would take his fancy – we played with Lego, blocks and trains. The school bell sounded, so we set off with the dog in tow. We ran to the park so the dog could wear himself out while we all stood under a tree in the downpour. I supervised homework, cleared up the house, cooked dinner for the kids and remembered the washing in the machine from this morning. I shoved it all in the tumble drier as it was still raining.

Fed both kids their dinner – felt my blood pressure rise. Cleared up the mess. Supervised their bath time – felt my blood pressure rise further. Overcame a toddler meltdown when Tellytubbies said ‘Goodbye’. Shoehorned two kids into bed and then cleared up the house. Again. Started dinner. Again. Husband arrived home. We both collapsed in front of TV – exhausted. The dog barked at next doors cat and woke me up at 1am. I lay there staring at the clock and waiting to go back to sleep again. I started to panic when I couldn’t fall asleep. Then I suddenly remembered I’d forgotten to turn the tumble drier on. I went to sleep convinced I could already smell the washing going mouldy.

I got woken up early by the radio….

Point made? Living in Perth is like living in many other countries around the world – 5% sunshine and light, 95% reality of your day-to-day life. So whether you choose to live at the top of the world or down here at the bottom, your bills will still mount up and your funds sometimes run low, your children will still squabble, bicker and sulk, and the contents of your ironing basket will still have doubled in size everytime you walk past.

That, as they say, is life.

A bad case of wind

I mentioned in the previous post we’ve been having storms here in Perth, but really the word ‘storm’ doesn’t do it justice. It’s been more like a series of typhoons, cyclones and hurricanes all rolled up into one. Most days it’s wet and windy, and there isn’t a long enough break between the rain to even take the dog to the park. I did try yesterday, but I had to flatten myself around a tree trunk as soon as I got there, and then wait for the horizontal rain to give up and go away.

The stupid thing was I had looked at both my raincoat and umbrella on the way out the door, and decided, that with the sun shining directly above the house and the nearest dangerous looking cloud out on the horizon,  I’d go without. Apparently a rain cloud can cover ground a lot faster than I can.

So this is my 3rd winter in Perth, and without wanting to sound like a whinging Pom, they are definitely getting worse. I don’t know whether it’s global warming that’s causing weather patterns to shift around, but the climate and seasons are refusing to stick to the guidelines. Australian summers are getting hotter and drier, winters are getting windier and wetter, and the Gods of Thunder and Lightening are definitely way out of control.

The first of the big storms came a few weeks ago. A Monday to be precise, the day that my son’s tonsils were due to go under the chopping block. Instead, I was staggering around the house losing my breakfast to gastric flu, my daughter was in bed, busy retching into a bucket and emitting a series of very dramatic moans and groans, and my husband had just flown to Sydney on business.

Setting off to collect my son from nursery, I lowered myself carefully into the car (fast movements are not nausea’s best friend) and went to open the garage door. It went up half way. It came back down again. I pushed the button again. It went up a quarter of the way. It came back down again. Now of course common sense should have told me not to push my luck for a third time. But I did. It was cold, wet, dark and blowing a gale. There wasn’t a chance in hell I was going to walk to the nursery to collect him.

So I pushed the button. Once again it went up half way – and then stopped. This would have been bad enough on its own, but of course I’m not that lucky. A massive gust of wind then swept up the driveway catching the garage door on the way, it snapped it off the rollers and then buckled it in half. The twisted hunk of metal than dropped back down – to within an inch of the cars roof, with me in it.

Now I don’t want to come across as a useless, blubbering woman who falls apart in times of trouble, but this really was the very last straw in an incredibly long day involving a high temperature and a toilet bowl. I did attempt to use my very limited strength to push the door back up to an upright position, but unsurprisingly, the door had other ideas. So with the metal rippling away in the wind next to me, I called a friend and sobbed out my tale of woe.

Lucky for me she saved the day, collecting stranded son and sending round further reinforcements, in the form of her husband who helped me to tether the door up with ropes. That night I laid in bed listening to it banging away and imaging how much damage it would potentially cause if it broke free and took off the roof of the house across the road.

3 weeks on and the storms have returned to try and finish off the garage door, which is still roped up and wedged shut with ladders. Trees in the garden are bending like blades of grass and rubbish bins are flying up and down the street like tumbleweed. I feel like Dorothy, minus the safety blanket of a pair of sparkly red shoes.

So the other night my husband came in from work and shut the door. An hour later the wind picked up and blew it back open again. Every other door in the house slammed shut, the roof hatch disappeared up into the eaves and all of the AC covers in the ceilings went with them. Trying to shut the front door again was the tricky bit.  With a cyclone now picking up pace by the door mat, the front of the house had turned into something of a wind tunnel, and we couldn’t get the hall door open to get out there. I half expected the front of the house to take off into the night sky, leaving us hanging onto a door handle below.

The two off us finally pushed the door open and slammed the front door shut, but not before the length of the hallway was covered in hailstones and the coats on the hall stand had all had a wash.

“And that is why I always lock the door when I shut it” I said.

With no sign of this bad weather letting up anytime soon, you have to wonder whether Mother Nature has a real axe to grind with this part of the world. Perhaps she’s ticked off with some Aussie half wit calling her a Sheila, or maybe she’s just having a shocking case of PMT. Either way, until we lower the excess on our insurance I wish she’d air some of her grievances elsewhere and give our badly built house a break.

When smelly children need surgery

Everyone has heard about those kids who stick something up their nose.

I’ve often thought what sort of idiot, albeit a pint sized one, does that? Images of a manky, sniveling little boy, with a crusted up, snot smeared face and unruly hair spring to mind. The sort of child who pulls wings of butterflies and feasts on worms and bugs. You know the type, they usually feature in the local paper, with a picture of the child proudly clutching the spanner set he somehow misplaced up his nasal cavity and his proud parents beaming away behind, quoted as saying “We wondered why all the magnets in the house kept sticking to his face.”

I also wondered what happened when this unfortunate event occurred. How did the child in question breath, when their nostrils were stuffed full of unidentifiable stuff? How did the parents not notice that little Jimmy had snorted his peas off his plate instead of eating them? And how on earth do they ever get the ‘foreign object’ back out again?

Last week I found out that I have one of ‘those’ children – oh what a proud parental moment that was. So off the back of that, I can now confirm the following. Yes, breathing is indeed restricted with something lodged up your nostril. It is easy to miss something different about your child, if it’s not visible to the eye. And believe it or not, it can take surgery.

The first clue that something was where it shouldn’t be was that my son smelt horrible, with a nasty whiff about his person that would come and go. The type of odour that simply refused to budge, even with much vigorous washing and twice daily teeth brushing. It’s hard to say exactly what the smell was even, somewhere between sour milk and a rotting vegetable perhaps. Fairly unpleasant in other words.

The pong went on for quite a while, until it escalated to such a point that my maternal alarm bells started clanging loudly in my ears. By this time I could no longer hug him on my lap without having to turn my head away to gasp for breath. Regardless of how much you love your child, no mother wants to sit and bury their nose into a compost heap every day.

Granted I do have a particularly sensitive nose, and could even detect a smoker walking 5 floors down and 500m away when pregnant, but this time it was more than me being fussy. So why wait till I was gagging you may ask? Well, apart from the whiff he was perfectly healthy. We checked him all over decaying flesh or rupturing boils, and like I said, he was washed and brushed regularly. Perhaps it was the fear of having a child diagnosed with halitosis that simply riddled me with fear.

So anyway, off to the doctor we went, where I told him that my son smelled horrible.

The doctor, as I expected, looked at me like I was something of a heartless cow when it came to my mothering care and concern. Then he looked into my sons mouth, and lo and behold spotted tonsils the size of walnuts. Or Brazil nuts. Or was it almonds. Anyway, regardless of the nut, apparently they were enormous and stopping all the air flowing down his throat. So the enlarged tonsils were blamed for the smell and I was referred to an ENT specialist to discuss having them removed.

A few weeks later we sat in front off the consultant. “He smells” I said, bracing myself for another raised eyebrow and resisting the urge to let out a “Mooo”, like the nasty Friesian that I am. The consultant looked at my son, turned him both ways and then informed me that he probably had something stuck up his nose. OK. Didn’t see that one coming. His nose certainly didn’t look any bigger than normal, and as far as I could remember, I hadn’t noticed him foraging around in the tool box and sniffing up a spanner. Perhaps it was a piece of Lego, or one of those wretched little Polly Pocket shoes I’m always telling my daughter to clear up.

Next stop for the doctor, the mouth, and his enormous tonsils were confirmed. They were then linked to his excessive sweating, loud snoring and irregular breathing at night, the long periods of time he spends awake and chatting in the early hours of the morning and his inability to shift a cold or cough. Well that cleared up all of those annoying habit’s then. I was told they needed to be whipped out ASAP, and as luck would have it, he had a slot to do it in a weeks time.

Marvelous, that would be the same day my husband was flying to Sydney for a week. Multitasking is one thing, but multitasking with a sick child alone is a whole other ballgame. By this stage, heartless cow was now looking more dazed and confused cow.

The night before surgery arrived, and with the bags all packed and ready for hospital, I promptly threw up. And then again. By 9am the next morning my husband had turned a rather sludgy shade of green. By 9.30 my daughter had been sent home from school. Or rather brought home, there was no way I was trotting into the school office to collect her dressed in my pyjamas.

I think it would be fair to say that so far ‘Operation Tonsil’ was not going to plan. With all of us (except the patient-to-be) now rolling around clutching buckets, the surgery was postponed for a further week. My son carried on watching Thomas, completely oblivious to the lucky escape he had just had.

A week later and into hospital we all went, lugging three enormous bags of essential items with us, only one of which was half unpacked. The other two sat in the corner completely untouched. My little boy was taken away by scalpel welding men in blue coats, and two nail biting parents sat in his dismal little room and watched the minutes tick by. Time does indeed go by much slower when you’re waiting for your precious offspring to survive.

On the way to be with him in the recovery ward I heard him long before I could see him. Weighing in at only 14kg, and just minutes out of a general anesthetic, I rounded the corner to find two nurses unsuccessfully trying to pin my little boy down onto the bed. Like a child possessed, he screamed blue murder and understandably thrashed around as he tried to figure out where he was and why he felt so odd. I have to say his show of strength was pretty impressive for his size, however it meant that he somehow managed to pull the tube out of his hand, and as I laid down with him to try and calm him down, he nearly catapulted me off the bed.

That night in hospital went as well as could be expected, considering the small and depressing room, the one colour suits all food and the rails of the bed that fitted in just perfectly between each of the vertebra down my spine.

For some unknown reason, all of the nurses also saw fit to raise their voices by several decibels as they barged into the room to check his stats, every 15 minutes throughout the night. To make continuous sleep even harder, each time they left they failed to close the door properly behind them. This left me with little choice but to climb over the rails of a ridiculously high bed, close the door myself and then climb back up and over and in again – in the dark. And all without waking the small restless child sprawled across the majority of a very small bed.

Did I mention this was a private hospital? No, I wouldn’t have guessed it either, if I hadn’t spotted the price list on the way in.

So now we’re home and I’m sitting with my little ticking time bomb of pain. Apparently he’s going to get a whole lot worse before he gets better, and he runs the risk of bleeding if he doesn’t eat toast everyday. Toast? I can’t even bribe him to open his mouth for ice cream right now. As far as he knows, his throat has just been attacked with a cheese grater.

This week is all about keeping him medicated up to the eye balls and preventing the dog from bouncing all over him on the sofa. It would be so much easier if he could understand why a day out ended in all this pain, but bless him, he doesn’t have a clue. Instead his sad little face looks up at me and I can just tell he’s thinking “What the hell did you let them do to me, you cruel and heartless cow?”

Oh, I almost forgot. The smell. That, I’m pleased to say, is gone. The ‘foreign object’ is still just that, as we have no idea as to what it might be. Let’s just say that if you blew your nose and that shot out onto the tissue you’d be somewhat alarmed, and probably feeling more than a little bit sick.

It’s sitting on the dresser right now, entombed in a plastic tub. I’m not exaclty sure why I’m keeping it, maybe so when he’s older I can whip it out and say “You may not have eaten worms and bugs as a child, but you did stick this up your nose. Happy 21st!”

Planes, trains and watery accidents

My 2 1/2 year old son has been undergoing toilet training for about 6 weeks now, and I have to say he’s doing a lot better than I ever expected him to. Boys are, after all, meant to be a lot slower on the uptake when it comes to the learning about when to poop and pee, and when to clench and hold.

Of course there have been accidents. One next to the sofa, one in the bedroom where he shut the door on himself and couldn’t get out, and a handful around the bathroom – normally as a result of him misjudging the volume of wee in his bladder and shooting off the potty before he’s completed the job.

Trying to shoo the dog away as I re-dress, empty, bleach and wipe is the hardest part of all.

Unfortunately my sons days at nursery do set him back sometimes. Whether it’s the excitement of finger painting or the 15 or so other kids queuing up for the potty, some days I go to collect him and am met with a bag of wet clothes and a rather nasty smelling teddy. The washing machine never had such a good work out for so few clothes. One day, when he had gotten through all 3 sets of spare clothes in his Bob the Builder backpack, I arrived to find him wafting around the room wearing nothing more than a kimono from the dressing up box. That was one of those occasions when you wish you had a camera to hand.

As with many things in life, thinking about doing something is often worse than actually doing the deed. The very idea of replacing nappies with pants on a leaking child is one such time. I found the only way to really stay one step of the game in the beginning was to spend every 4th minute asking him if he needed to go, and then ferrying him backwards and forwards to the potty, armed with 16 books and a thermos of tea (for me). It was monotonous and repetitive, but it did the trick. After a while, and probably because he got so damn sick of being asked, he started to tell  me when he needed to go. Or rather he’d screech “Poo Mummy” as he scurried towards me, with one hand behind his back clutching his bottom.

Seeing that I would drop everything and leap to attention when he needed to go, he quickly realised that the whole process could be manipulated into something of a game. I’d run to get him to the bathroom, peel off the layers, sit him down and then he’d laugh. “No Poo Mummy”. Hmmmmm. That one soon wears very thin, particularly when you’re in the shower, eating your breakfast or halfway up a mountain..

A Blue Mountain to be exact. Let me explain.

We’ve just got back from spending a week in Sydney. A week in Sydney in the rain. Who knew it would be so cold, or so wet at this time of year. Everyone but us apparently. Typically, the weather forecast for the week changed upon our arrival. It went from sun and a spot of cloud every day, to rain with a touch of rain every day.

Damp weather aside, holidaying with children is always a test – a test of a parent’s patience, stamina and will to live. Air travel in particular can be stressful at the best of times (something I wrote about before),  but throw in a couple of kids and several tonnes of ‘can’t get by without you’ luggage and you can find yourself half way to a nervous breakdown at 30,000 feet.

It’s always hard to know how your children will react to leaving the ground in a vacuum packed can. My son wasn’t amused. At all. Watching the aeroplanes through the terminal window – great fun. Walking down the air-slip onto the plane – not so fun. Sitting in his seat for take off – simply not going to happen.

So what does he call out in a desperate bid for freedom? “Poo Mummy”.

Yes, just what all the passengers around us wanted to hear. I’m sure some actually recoiled and held their nose in fear. So, with the fasten seat belt sign lit up and the plane doors already closed, he was whisked up the aisle to the toilet with potty in hand. Did he need to go? Of course he didn’t, but it would have been a pretty brave parent to take the risk.

And so followed a week of untimely potty stops. In the bushes in front of the Opera House. In the undergrowth next to the museum. Sat inside the land train going around Darling Harbour. Behind the seal enclosure at Taronga zoo. On a grassy knoll overlooking Botany Bay. On the train into the shops, and around the back of the Police Station in the CBD. There was no where he didn’t go. And there was no where we could go without a potty, wet wipes and spare clothes at the ready. It really is amazing how the bowels of a small child can shape and dictate your day.

The mountains, as previously discussed, were probably the worst. When he decided he needed to go, the rain was coming in at us diagonally from both sides – with the force of Niagara Falls. We happened to be out on a nature trail at that moment, trying to take at least one photo of the view to prove we had enjoyed the grey and misty scenery. We ended up in the car pack, huddled over him with umbrellas, as he sat on the ground to give it a go. Did anything materialise?  Nope, not even with the encouraging sound of gushing water hitting his parent’s heads.

Same story in the Jenolan caves, and then twice on the way back up the mountain at night, in thick and surprisingly spooky fog. At times like this it is definitely tempting to ignore the little voice from the back seat, but the car seat was hired and the excess for damage to the car was $3000. No pee is worth that much. This time he sat perched on his potty in the boot of the car, smiling up at us, as if it were all perfectly normal.

All pit stops aside, the biggest and most costly accident that occurred during the week, was not by my toddler, but by my husband instead. We were on the ferry traveling from Circular Quay to Darling Harbour, and had decided to sit outside in the spitting rain, to take some pictures of the Opera House as we went past.

Somehow, and don’t ask me how, the camera leaped out of his pocket, dropped onto the ferry floor and slid 2 foot across to the edge of the boat. As it happened (does it ever happen any other way?), there was a gap in the side of the boat. About, oh lets say, camera sized in width. The only bloody hole, I might add, that there was down our side of the boat.

The camera then proceeded to slide through the hole and sit on the outside rim. I’m sure the camera lenses winked at me. We both looked at it in disbelief – I know I was certainly wondering what the hell is it doing down there. Having a child on my lap I couldn’t move. My husband, who swears it all happened in seconds, apparently has the reaction times of a snail on speed.

PLOP, over it went. All of our photos sank right to the bottom of the harbour. I’m not embarrassed to say I burst into tears. My husband did what any intelligent man in the same situation should do. He kept very quiet and looked at the floor. After several minutes of watching my tears mixing with the rain, my daughter helpfully piped up.

“Now you’ve lost all of my photos.” Followed by. “This wouldn’t have happened if we’d sat inside you know.” I believe she received quite a glare.

We all left the ferry in silence. Even my son knew better than to say he needed a poo. Half an hour later, when we were standing underneath the sharks inside the aquarium, my husband ventured to speak to me. “Well obviously we’ll buy a new camera tomorrow.”

And so we did.

He did feel marginally better when told in the camera shop that he was the 3rd person that week to drop their camera into the water. Had our home contents insurance actually covered us for the camera outside of the house, then he might have redeemed himself a little more. But of course, despite trotting along to the Police Station to report it’s loss (hence the potty stop), it didn’t. Now had he dropped it into a mug of tea at home, we’d be quids in – go figure.

The new camera is shatterproof, waterproof, snow-proof and husband-proof. That of course means it comes with a manual thick enough to sit on at the breakfast bar. By the next holiday I might just have worked out which setting goes with which, and how to use the ‘Beauty Mode’. Till then, it’s safe to say my dearest husband will be remaining on the other side of the lens, and paying for his act of clumsiness through the public humiliation on this blog.

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I’m sniffing, I must have Swine Flu

The whole house is sick at the moment. Or should I say the inhabitants of the house are sick at the moment. The bricks, mortar and roof tiles are doing just fine.

An assortment of coughs, colds, sniffs, sore throats, blocked and dribbling noses are running a riot through the family right now, resulting in a never-ending stream of half used tissues that the dog keeps fishing out of the bin and shredding all over the floor. Horrible sticky spots have also been springing up all over the kitchen counter, where the medicine hasn’t quite made it fast enough from the plastic spoon to it’s unwilling final destination.

Of course all of this sniveling misery can only mean one thing. Winter has come. Aside from the calender telling me so, the arrival of this rather unwelcome season is evident for a number of different reasons.

Firstly the most obvious, it’s cold. Secondly the most expected, I’m cold. And thirdly, all the confirmation I needed, the dog is cold. Well I gauge this from the fact that despite his now thick rug like fur, he is spending more time hunting out a heat source to sleep in front of, and less time skulking around outside, waiting to ambush next doors cat.

So given the indisputable evidence above, I decided that this year I absolutely refuse to suffer the cold for as long as I did last year. I would say suffer in silence, but as my husband would be quick to point out, I never like to keep my suffering to myself. Far to damaging to the Yin and Yang of my well being I think – better out than in, and all that jazz.

So how does one prepare for the long months of shivering that lay ahead? That would be adding to, increasing and stock piling the various heat supplies in our home.  First stop, the log basket. Running dangerously low, with only 2 logs, a few scraps of bark and 4 firelighters left over from last year.  Panic over, another trailer load has now been delivered, and the new logs are stacked all the way up the side of the house. Asking for an invasion of termites of course. These logs, in the eyes of a hungry white ant, equate to a 5 star hotel, with complimentary breakfast, lunch and dinner laid on for a year. Never mind, a risk worth taking.

Next it was time to buy a new heater to go by my desk. Save me getting all scrunched up in my seat as I sit and type away for hours a day, with hunched shoulders and bright blue nail beds. The open grill on the front does mean Charlie is likely to go up like a furry fire ball if he gets to close, but if it’s a choice between my cold bones or his singed fur, sadly he loses.

Now for the bed. Last year, as I mentioned in my previous post, I ended up climbing in with half my wardrobe on, and my hoodie firmly zipped up and over my head. While this is undeniably a brilliant form of contraception, it was far from ideal. So this year, despite my husbands initial protests, I AM going to get an electric blanket. We may well wake up to find the feathers inside the duvet caked together with sweat, but at least my toes won’t need to curl up in shock as they hit the cold sheet.

Yes, I admit I am incredibly soft when it comes to the cold. I don’t deal with it well, and I definitely comment on it far more than is necessary – especially given that it is a yearly event and has been since time began. Well except for the Ice Age. Brrrrr… now that wasn’t a good time to be alive.

What can I say, I am English. It’s programmed into our DNA to hate the cold, talk about the cold and complain about the cold. Particularly, dare I say, those ‘less hardy’ people, like myself, who are born anywhere south of Birmingham.

I admit that I am that person who opens their front door in the middle of a freezing UK winter, wearing nothing but T-shirt and shorts, then proceeds to blast the person clear off the front door step with the scorching gust of central heating that escapes from my beautifully over-heated house.

So this said,  I am obviously not that person who would consider an Ice Hotel as a suitable holiday destination. I don’t care how warm the reindeer skin sheets and elk fur blankets are supposed to be. I am also not the sort of person who has, up until now at least, ventured anywhere near a ski slope. Though to be truthful, this is probably more to do with my incredible inability to balance on anything other than a flat, solid, stable surface. I would be that person who breaks their leg before even making it out of the ski hire shop.

Anyway, I digress somewhat. As I was saying, we’re all sick and sniffy right now. And I thought nothing of it until my daughter brought home a letter from school yesterday. I say a letter, what I mean is a ‘lets induce panic and clear our classrooms so the teachers don’t have to work’ announcement.

According to the WA Health Authorities, children showing any signs or symptoms linked with Swine Flu should not only stay off school, they should also remain tucked up at home until they are completely better.

So lets run through a few of those possible symptoms.

Fever, yes, we’re all slightly warm – Tick. Cough, yes, both kids sound like asthmatic dogs – Tick. Runny nose, well like I said we’re running and blocked – Tick, Tick.

Righty then. Given how long we were all sick for last winter, I’m calculating that according to the Health Authorities, we should all remain in quarantine until around about October time. Seriously, is this for real? We haven’t been, or even know anyone who’s been near Mexico, the US, Canada, Japan or Panama in the last 7 days. We don’t live near the one confirmed case in Western Australia. And neither I, nor any of my family suddenly feel the urge to eat from a pail or start rolling around in mud.

Maybe I’m just numb from the media always trying to fan the flames of panic, just to sell papers and fill headlines. Perhaps, after living through the SARS in Singapore, I am now somewhat unfazed by such a potential ‘threat’ to mankind. Either way, I refuse to get my tissues in a knot, hide away and hyperventilate over the very worst case scenario.

I don’t believe you can live in fear of every runny nose and cough. Swine Flu is just that – a type of flu. Just one of the many types of viruses that spreads around the world in seasonal epidemics, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands annually. It’s been a while since the big 3 influenza pandemics of the 20th century killed tens of millions of people. Medical science has progressed, vaccinations are now available, and according to the doctors I have spoken to, it is no longer the death sentence the media likes to portray. The emergency services here are apparently already under siege with people calling for ambulance with suspected Pig Flu. That’ll really help with those long, long waiting times at the A&E.

Call me completely irresponsible, but my daughter needs to learn and I need to work, so she’s not camping out in front of the TV all winter with a red nose and a box of tissues.  She’s had a flu jab and can wear a face mask if need be. So unless she suddenly grows a curly tail and starts to squeal, she is going to keep going to school.

And finally, before you tell me I’m being flippant, I’m not making light of the situation, merely questioning how the situation is being dealt with in the press. And to prove my point, here are some Swine Flu facts for those who are panicking, coughing or just curious.

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