Wet. Wet. Wet.

Mags is in Sardinia and I just happen to have a long range weather forecast for Sardinia on my Google homepage and, day after day the symbol of a big, round smiley sun seems to mock me and my wellies.
The Band family, it is therefore all too apparently obvious, is not in some far flung Mediterranean island bathing in a temperate turquoise sea. Nor are we lunching on locally caught seafood, a carafe of chilled wine on our table, olives glistening in the oil in which they created, the tomatoes made sweeter and riper by the incessant sunshine. Alas not. Instead we find ourselves once more in Pembrokeshire, abusing the hospitality of friends once again prepared to put us up for free. We have also acquired two extra children to appease our own moody teenagers, friends with whom they can 'hang out'. As we packed the cars last Saturday in the pouring rain though, an unshakeable feeling of foreboding enveloped me.
“So, you're happy with where you're going Alice?” asked Hubby.
“Yup, we've been there often enough”, I answered, aware that with the best will in the world, I could not disguise the sarcastic tone in my voice.
“Oh come on now Alice, don't be a princess. We're going on holiday aren't we? And Wales is better than nothing. Put a brave face on it. Ok love?” The rain water was dripping off the hood of my kagoule and down my nose. I brushed the drips off furiously.
“Fine”, I said, scowling, “Let's get a move on”. We had to travel in convoy because, bus like as it may be to some, a Renault Espace does not accommodate six kids, two adults, several suitcases, two guitars and an amplifier. Hubby as usual did not draw the short straw as all four teenagers clamoured to travel with him and his i-tunes to abandon me to the luggage, the youngest two and Disney tunes. We were just past the Lee Mill turn off on the A38 when the Red-Head asked the first of seemingly infinitesimal, “Are we there yet?”. I groaned.
“Does your groan mean that we are probably not?” asked the six year old.
“Got it in one honey”, I replied, “Just a few more hours to go”.
“How long is a few more hours?”, she asked.
“Well, let's see”, I said, distracted by the fact that my windscreen wipers were going like the clappers and I was trying to overtake a rather large caravan, “Um, count to sixty, sixty times and that'll be one hour”. Children of that age of course, rather dementedly take everything literally and no sooner had I made the suggestion than she started counting, “One, two, three, four...”. Her sister joined her, although at three years of age has yet to master any number past seventeen, which put her sister off, which started the whole counting thing from the beginning. I started to bite the steering wheel.
By the time we reached Bridgewater, we were stationary on the M5, the girls were in tears because it was “So boring” and I was almost in tears because I couldn't stand another minute. Half an hour later having finally crawled up towards Sedgemoor services the Red-Head declared, “I have a poor tummy. I feel sick”. Please God, not now. With one hand on the steering wheel and the other hurriedly emptying a Barbie filled plastic carrier bag, I threw it in the general direction of the back seat. Seconds later I craned my neck around to see how she was, only to find the carrier bag wrapped suicidally over her head.
“Holy shizer”, I yelled, reaching into the back to swipe the bag off, the car swerving onto the hard shoulder to the accompanied chorus of furious, beeping horns. Shaking, I pulled into the services to down a large, restorative, coffee. An hour later found me in an almighty queue at the tolls on the Severn Bridge. Unperturbed as I'd got the correct sum of money, I pulled over to the one where you can just chuck your money into a waiting receptacle. It was only when I applied my handbrake up and about one hundred cars were backed up behind me that I realised that it was only coins that were accepted. My five pound note was not.
“Holy shizer”, I once again muttered, before and much to the impatient annoyance of the other car-drivers, I jumped out of mine and cocked a leg over a couple of barriers where, in torrential rain I pleaded with the toll-booth man for some loose change.
We finally arrived in West Wales seven hours after we set out, only to find Hubby ensconced in an arm chair, watching the Olympics, a cold beer in hand.
I'd like to say that things picked up from there but my previous feelings of foreboding were not without foundation and a litany of disasters followed. For instance, the following morning Hubby went to play basketball with our host and came back with a broken ankle rendering him devoid of family outings. Thus, being the only able bodied driver, I had to squish children into my car like illegal immigrants only to get them to some tourist attraction to find the entrance fee for six kids a prohibitively expensive affair. Consequently we have visited more castles than the conquering Normans and far from sun kissed tomatoes and olives, have lunched on rissoles and corned beef pasties. The Red-Head's brand new Start-Rite sandals have literally bitten the dust, given that she threw them out of the car window as it travelled at speed and then, one very wet morning midweek, when my misery knew no bounds, Dad rang.“I've been in to feed the cats”, he paused, “And I found your sitting room ceiling, well, not on the ceiling any more”. Much like Chicken-Licken, my sky is quite literally falling in.

Oh Johnny...

“Alice? Alice? Wherefore are thou Alice?” trilled the unmistakable voice of Mags from the top of my stairs.
“Down here”, I yelled back, “Stripping beds”. My students, having finally gone, had left me with the onerous task of cleaning up after them.
Mags flew down into the basement, two steps at a time. “Have you seen this?” she asked, brandishing yet another newspaper in my face.
“Don’t tell me. Yet another London dweller has criticized south east Cornwall. What’s the problem this time? No spa facilities? Japanese restaurants?”
“No”, said Mags shaking her head vehemently, “Nothing like that. Look at this”. I unfolded The Evening Herald where the exquisite beauty that is Johnny Depp looked back dreamily into my eyes.
“Holy crappola Mags! He’s coming here!” I couldn’t believe it. Johnny Depp making a movie in Plymouth!
“I know, I know and they’re looking for extras”, gabbled Mags, opening the pages in a fluster to show me, “It says here they are looking for anyone over the age of sixteen, with long, natural coloured hair”.
“Wow! Shame our kids aren’t old enough”, I said, reading.
“For God’s sake Alice. You don’t get it do you?”, demanded Mags.
“No I don’t, what do you mean?”, I said, looking up from the paper into her resolute face, her head cocked to one side, like an expectant spaniel, “You have to be joking? No, no way.” I brushed past her carrying armfuls of dirty linen.
“Aw c’mon Alice! This could be a real laugh. We could be spotted! Imagine, oh God just imagine, we could just meet Johnny bloody Depp.” Her enthusiasm was so infectious that I couldn’t crush her and before you could middle-aged women’s crumpet, I’d agreed to be picked up the next day and join a queue of other hopefuls; some who genuinely wanted to be movie stars and some, who like us, wanted a long held, filthy, fantasy, fulfilled.
Given the lack of facilities for that number of people, I, like the production company had underestimated the number of people who’d turn up, because, not since a Next sale have I queued so long for anything. I’d worn heels as well, not because I need to look any taller but because “a nice heel works wonders for good looking ankle”, said Mags, “Especially when worn with a little black dress”.
Within an hour of standing I was beginning to rue the day I’d ever agreed to such torture especially as neither of us had thought to bring a folding chair, a Thermos, a few sarnies, a couple of boiled eggs and, as it transpired a golfing umbrella. Being British however, a wartime spirit was soon generated, the long queue lending itself to the atmosphere and Mags and I gave thanks that we didn’t have to do this for our daily bread.
The culmination of hours of shuffling, very slowly, ensured more intimacy with those other hopefuls than we’d secured with very old friends. In front of me was a mother of five and her loaded double buggy who had come along with her eldest daughter and her double buggy. Her son was a few hours ahead of us in the queue and very occasionally brought his mother and sister a coffee. Behind me was a young woman, who having received an excellent degree in hospitality, now couldn’t even get a job waitressing and was desperately hoping that this would be her big break. Alas it was not to be as all were eliminated when we met up with the casting director, who was leaning on a wall just outside the Pavilions. A smiling assassin, she either nodded or shook her head depending on what she saw.
“Do you think they’ve come to the wrong audition?” whispered Mags as two platinum blonde girls, whose hair extensions were as false as their nails and boobs and whose t-shirts barely covered the aforementioned breasts, found, much to their dismay, that their image was ineligible for a Victorian, period movie.
“We’ve been in films before”, they protested as they teetered away on their high heels, their shorts, well, indecently short. “I’ll bet. Maybe they think Alice in Wonderland is a porn movie” giggled Mags. All around us stood thwarted teenagers, sobbing and raging that it wasn’t fair.
“Bloody hell Mags”, I said, “It’s like being in the X-Factor. Any minute now and they’ll be calling Simon Cowell a ...” Before I got the words out we were suddenly face to face with the casting director who looked us up and down, scrutinising our every feature. I held my belly in. Her nod was barely perceptible.
Mags and I looked at each other with utter disbelief. A nod? Was that a nod?
“Please join the other queue to have your photographs taken”, said the casting lady as though she’d read my thoughts. Hugging each other, we squealed where the teenagers had wailed.
Two hours later and we were actually within the confines of the New Continental Hotel. It was hot and suddenly I was aware that I’d not eaten a thing since breakfast the previous day. My head was thumping and my left arm had gone numb.
“Dear God Mags, either I’ve had a stroke or I’m about to have a fit. I feel very jittery.” She found me a chair and someone else gave me one of their crisps and a swig of coke. Barely restored, it was time to be measured. The poor woman with the tape measure looked as awful as I felt.
“Busy?”, I asked smiling.
“We only expected 250 people. This is unbelievable”.
“And this is Plymouth. Believe”. Our mug-shots were taken, complete with number and I felt more felon than movie star, or indeed arrested movie star.
Finally, almost twelve hours after we arrived, we left with the parting shot of a sobering, ‘Don’t call us, we’ll call you’ ringing in our ears. But you never know, they may call, they may well just call.

Divine.

Just when you let your guard down, scrub the barbecue and invite friends over, the bloody rain starts again with a vengeance. The children are going stir crazy, well the little ones are at least; the older ones are otherwise engaged. My twelve year old with a handful of new books and my son with his Divine Love. One cannot walk into a room without finding them attached to each other like limpets. Hubby and I are beginning to sound like consumptive Victorians given that we cough fervently every time we walk around a corner. It makes no odds. They do not seem in the slightest bit perturbed that their tongues are playing tennis and their hands are permanently glued together. The six year old is most intrigued by the relationship.
“Mu-um why are the under the duvet?”
“One moment angel”, I said, before hurtling up the stairs two and a time. Coughing loudly, which may have had more to do with climbing the stairs than a poor attempt at discretion, I flung open his bedroom door. Sure enough there they were, cuddled up together under his quilt. Mercifully they were watching a chick-flick and fully dressed, even her shoes were sticking out. Phew.
“You alright mum?” asked my son quizzically, “Only you look a bit puffed.”
“Oh I’m fine love”, I replied, holding on to the door frame for support and fanning myself, “Just give me a minute”.
My son paused his movie and they both waited, until I finally managed to say,
“We need some more burger buns. Be a pair of loves and run down the shop for me please”. Sighing dramatically my son emerged from under the covers without somehow letting go of Divine Love. They followed me downstairs where I gave them a couple of quid, handed them a floral umbrella and ushered them out.
Hubby came in from the garden, his face like thunder, water dripping off his nose.
“Why exactly are we having this barbecue Alice? Most normal people would just have pasta in weather like this.”
“Oh, don’t be a spoil sport love”, I said, “With so many people to feed pasta would be impossible. Besides, I’d already bought all the meat and had no idea the weather was going to turn like this”.
“But there are eighteen of us Alice. Some canteens aren’t lucky enough to have that many punters. Besides does Johnny Foreigner like our sausages? Tesco Value aren’t what they’re used to in the South of France you know”.
“Well actually”, I said, bending down to retrieve some couscous from the farinaceous section of my dry store cupboard (you can tell Hubby is on leave) and lowering my voice, “I splashed out and bought some posh ones in Tideford”. He still heard me.
“Hells-Bells Alice. We have eighteen mouths to feed and you’ve gone and bought some poncy snorkers? No doubt with some pretentious exotic flavours. What’s wrong with a simple banger? Must they be ‘delicately flavoured with a hint of wild porcini and fragrant thyme’?”, he used that very irritating signal with his fingers to indicate inverted commas.
I sighed and carried on regardless as Hubby sulked behind me. Just as I poured boiling water onto my bowl of couscous and chucked in a few pine kernels, my son, Divine Love and Mags, her kids and husband walked through the front door.
“Have you seen this horse manure?” Mags bellowed, waving a Sunday newspaper in my face. “I kept it from the weekend for you; I can’t believe what she’s written”. I hadn’t had five minutes to read any newspaper last weekend and this was not an ideal moment either as dad, my brother, his wife and my niece walked in and my students emerged from the basement simultaneously.
“Alright maid?”, said my brother, “What’s to eat? I’m starving” and before I could say a selection of barbecued meats, couscous, salad and homemade salsa, he continued, “Don’t tell me you’ve got that middle class Moroccan muck?” My brother is not what you’d call a metrosexual, “What’s wrong with a plate of good old fashioned tatties?”
“Concur”, I heard Hubby mumble. Ushering them into my sitting room, I told them to help themselves to a beer or wine whilst I counted out the requisite number of plates and silverware.
“Listen to this”, continued Mags, following me into the kitchen where she went on to read a journalist’s rather disparaging description of one of our favourite hangouts : Cawsand and Kingsand.
“She’s obviously never been there, silly cow. How can she say that there are no shops? There are several! Including, for her information, a very busy little post office. She says it has long since closed down. And what about the pubs and cafes? Hell Alice, what would we do in winter without a cappuccino at Moran’s and a curry at the Cross Keys? And apparently the narrow streets on a Friday night smell of wafting Diptyque candles to get rid of the damp smell in the cottages”.
“Sadly she has a point about the number of wealthy second homes owners though. I saw a lobster being delivered to one recently. You don’t get much of that around here Mags. A couple of Dabs and a bit of sole would be splashing out in Torpoint”. Mags scowled,
“Pollocks!”, she said, “Besides there’s all sorts going on. Yoga, twinning, Gig racing. There’s a real sense of community in Cawsand. Bloody Londoners” and with that she histrionically scrunched the paper into a ball and chucked it in the bin, “That’s what I think of that!”
“Grub’s up!” called Hubby, carrying a tray of meats. A stampede entered my dining room.
The French boy looked very distrustingly at his sausage as he pulled a shrivelled red thing from between his teeth, “Mon dieu! What eeze theese?”
“A sun dried tomato”, I replied breezily, before whispering to Hubby, “Don’t say a word. Not one word”.

Poisoned.

The first day of the school summer holidays and all is as it should be, that is, chaos and disarray with me tearing my hair out and wailing to the gods. Hubby has yet to go on leave, so it has been down to me as ever to maintain a night-time vigil with one of my many children. This time it was the turn of the six year old. She started screaming and clutching her ear at midnight and continued until the doctor saw her very early the following morning. My constant sponging of her in tepid water did little to ease her temperature and the journey to the surgery in her pyjamas did even less for her tummy, given that she spectacularly threw up in the chemist as we waited for the magic medicine. One can only imagine the horrors of pre-antibiotic and Calpol Britain, although even I remember having earache as a child and my mother pouring warm olive oil into my ear, then plugging it with cotton wool. There was never a sweet elixir to swallow in the 60’s, instead we had to drink dissolved junior Disprol instead which left a chalky film on the side of the glass. Nor were there day long cartoons and DVDs to entertain us as we languished on the sofa, but at least our mothers knew that were drugs available to cure us and eventually relieve our pain. Their own mothers and grandmothers were far less fortunate.
Even less fortunate were my foreign students who had woken whilst I had been out and were patiently waiting for their petit dejeuner. The necessity of being in plenty of time for the ferry in the morning has yet to sink in and so I am to be found, minutes before the bus they require is on the ferry, ushering them out of the front door with wild gesticulations, histrionic pointing to my watch and bloody awful Franglais, yelling, “You are late, you are late, vite, vite”, like some Wonderland white rabbit on speed.
As I walked through the front door clutching the six year old, who was wan and pale, they all greeted me with a very cheery “Bonjour Madame Band”. How very far removed from my previous, discourteous lot.
I attempted cheeriness, but to be honest being up all night does little for a cheery countenance and I tried to explain that I was sorry that breakfast was late but that I’d been “to le docteur avec my fille because she has a bad ear”.
“She ‘as bad hair?” asked the boy in wonder. You could see him thinking this must be a peculiarly British thing.
“No, no”, I laughed, “Bad ear” I repeated, tugging at my lobe.
“Ah!” The penny dropped and they too all laughed. I escorted my sick child into the sitting room and onto the sofa and returned to the kitchen and provided my students with the requisite chocolatey cereals that all young people seem to love, along with a basket of toast. On the table were the usual selection of Nutella and jam and peanut butter. I poured them three cups of tea, made sure all was well, then went back to my role of nurse.
As I bent down to feel my daughter’s forehead and almighty ruckus emanated from the dining room.
“Mon dieu, mon dieu. C’est poison!” I ran in only to find the boy spitting and gagging onto his side plate.
“Pardonnez moi Madam, mais J’ai ete empoisonne!”, he coughed.
“You have been poisoned?” I had to get this right; what on earth had I done to him. How could toast and cereal cause such a vehement reaction? His sister exclaimed,
“Oui, oui, ze chocolate eez bad”, and I had to resist the urge to laugh out loud as she brandished an industrial sized jar of Marmite at me. In my sleep deprived stupor I had inadvertently put out the Marmite instead of the Nutella and in my experience, Marmite is a curiously British taste sensation, one that you have to be brought up on to appreciate and enjoy, which is why I have never put it on the table for my foreign visitors to thus avoid the exact situation in which I know found myself.
“Oh I am so sorry”, I said unable to stop myself smiling, “It is not poison and it is not chocolate”. They looked blank.
“Pas chocolate. It is a salty spread”. They now looked even more baffled but then trying to explain Marmite is nigh on impossible. ‘A black, tar like substance. Very sticky, it is made from yeast extract and is very salty but use it sparingly and it is very good. Infants are brought up on it’. It must be a marketing nightmare.
“You eat zis?” asked his sister shaking her head and peering at the ingredients. The Spanish girl had been quiet throughout the drama but suddenly spoke out.
“I have seen it before when I am in Southampton. I know it is not chocolate. But my French is not good. I cannot explain. In Southampton they did not have it so thick zo”. I looked at the boy’s toast which was lavishly smeared in the offending spread and gasped. Poor, poor boy, what a terrible mistake to make. I gave him a little hug and repeated, “Pardon! Pardon! Je suis desole”, repeatedly. By the time this episode had been resolved and the boy had been reassured that he would not drop dead their bus had long since gone. The next one wasn’t for hours and, as it was my fault for all the hullaballoo there was no alternative but to drive them to college. I dragged a protesting 12 year old daughter out of bed and gave her nursing instructions then texted my son who sleeps next to his mobile phone: ‘Lk aftr sisters. The merde has hit da fan’.

El viva Espagna.

I saw the advert in the local evening paper a couple of months ago; a language company looking for host families for its foreign students.
“That’ll be good fun”, I said to Hubby, thrusting the encircled newspaper ad under his nose.
“Don’t you think we have enough kids Alice? Be honest. You are pretty much threaders with them all as it is. Do I really want to come home and find you rocking back and fore with a wild look in your eye, the house in disarray, my dinner as yet undecided?”, he then stroked his chin and added, “Oh wait, that’s how it is now. Yeah, why not. Go ahead. My domestic needs couldn’t be less administered to anyhow”.
And so, after three weeks, three fifteen year old girls have just returned to their home countries leaving me to rush back, change sheets, hoover rooms, scrub the shower and plan another set of menus as I await the arrival of my next three guests.
Where I was nervous before meeting my first lot, this time I am ready for the onslaught of demands that young Spanish girls, let loose in the city of Plymouth, hell bent on a summer of love insist upon. Perhaps I was naive to think that teenage girls on a cultural exchange would want exactly that, so that a few evenings would be spent with us chatting together over dinner and sharing stories. We had big plans to take them out and about. Unfortunately their agenda was less cultural exchange and more saliva exchange given their determination to attend ‘le disco’ every single night, without fail, even in torrential rain, even on a Sunday evening where no bus comes back to Torpoint, even in fact when there is a strike on the Torpoint Ferry and Hubby and I have had to collect them from St German’s railway station just before 11pm.
One of the girls was Finnish and I must not tar her with the same brush as the other two senoritas. The Fin has been a joy – sunny and smiley and happy to be part of the family. She has attended one or two discos but is happier ‘hanging out’ with us. The other two in contrast have demanded the bus timetable, ‘immediately’ even when my hands have been inside rubber gloves inside a sudsy sink and, instead of seeming to appreciate their dinner, it has been an inconvenience to them especially if said dinner was on the table ten minutes later than I’d promised. “We must catch ze bus. You make us late”. They have argued and raged and yelled at me for phoning their course leader when they were still out at 11.30 pm and for being aggrieved when they turn up on a Sunday night at eleven, even though I knew full well their disco finished at 9.30.
“Where were you in the meantime?” I asked. They rolled their eyes before a flurry of Spanish was hurled at me.
I shook my head and said “Enough. I know that you can speak English perfectly well enough to explain where you’ve been.” They could not understand why I was therefore more than a little annoyed that I did not find the fact that sitting up on the Hoe was perfectly acceptable for tiny, Spanish girls late at night.
The last straw for them was finding out about industrial action on the Ferry.
“But we must go to Plymouth. Si, we have to. My leader, she say that school is only 15 miles away”.
“Actually it is about 20. That means 20 miles there and back and again to collect you. It is too much to expect”. Imagine my shock then on finding on my computer that they had Googled backpacking hostels in Plymouth, so determined were they not to spend a night in.
Hubby and I capitulated. He drove them around the Tamar Bridge in the morning and at night I went and collected them from the train. I have tried to comfort myself by repeating ‘It’s a cultural thing. It’s a cultural thing’ but I know in my heart of hearts that even the most primitive tribes have words for please and thank you.
“Remind me why I’m doing this again?” asked Hubby as he bundled the girls into his car, their faces scowling and petulant. “The occasional por favor, wouldn’t go amiss you know”, I heard him say to them but they just giggled and nattered away in Spanish oblivious to the fact that Hubby was doing them an almighty favour and also oblivious to the fact that at breakfast they hadn’t even said good morning to their fellow foreign student, who morning after morning has sat at our dining table looking terribly lonely as the senoritas completely ignored her and excluded her from their conversation.
Luckily my daughter and the Finn have become fast friends and have spent hours together watching movies and giggling over Leonardo Di Caprio’s seemingly myriad merits. Her tears that she didn’t want to leave when it was time to go home reassured me that Hubby and I weren’t severe and austere parents who are completely out of touch with the (even continental) youth of today. Hell, no doubt were I young and gorgeous and sashaying down Las Ramblas of Barcelona free of parental restraint, that I too would be happy snogging the local hombres, but I’m sure that even then I would have said gracias for the privilege.
So, as I await the next lot, two French siblings and a Spanish girl I am prepared: a) I know the ins and outs of buses and discos b) far from preparing food that is spurned in favour of MsDonalds, it will not be d’accord to dine there five nights a week and c) we shall play games en famille.
“Entente cordiale, Jeux Sans Frontières an all that ”, I said to Hubby confidently.
“Careful love, you’re beginning to sound like Stuart Hall”.

Jam.

During a very brief interlude in the incessant rain, Hubby, in a moment of uncharacteristic levity, suggested we go, en famille, strawberry picking.
“Why dear?” was all the enthusiasm I could muster, it after all being a Sunday morning after a filthy wet day.
“Only 8 weekends to go and it’s the autumn”, had been my mantra the previous day and now Hubby’s suggestion meant that I’d have to shake myself out of this unseasonal torpor, and get dressed.
“C’mon Alice. Let’s do it. We can make jam”.
“As in the royal we I suppose?”, I asked with just a hint of sarcasm.
“No, really, we’ll do it together”. So, against my better judgment we packed three of the children into the car, gave strict instructions to the fourth to work on his Jane Eyre essay and drove to the south Hams.
Many years ago, when a child, strawberry picking was great fun. We made a day of it and we children would stuff our faces with the fat, red, juicy bounty as our parents, bent double, would fill the truggs to the brim with what was left over. It was innocent and free, and those strawberry stains were, by all accounts, a nightmare for our mother to remove from our pre-Primark, cheap as chips t-shirts.
It is by far a different story these days. So much so that Jeremy Vine had a phone-in recently on the very subject where an irate strawberry farmer had his five minutes of fame by berating the youth of today and how appalling they are and what a nightmare it is to be a strawberry farmer as his livelihood was being compromised because his customers had the temerity to eat as they pick. Hardly a modern phenomenon.
The South Hams farmer must have been listening to the same Radio show as I because, as we pulled up in the car park, I saw ominous signs that suggested any child found with the tell tale red juice around it’s gills would henceforth be admitted to the nearest Borstal tout suite. I became very nervous and whispered to Hubby, “How the hell can we stop the youngest from trying the occasional one? We can hardly leave them in the car can we?”
“No?”, suggested Hubby.
“No”, I said firmly. And so, consequently our time, which should have been a bucolic reminder of gentler days, was spent with Hubby and I hissing at two young girls, who were thrilled to be out in the fresh air, to not dare put any of the strawberries into their mouths only into their punnets.
After fifteen minutes of punishing self control the Red-Head protested vehemently.
“This is not fair and not fun, I don’t want to do this stupid job”. The six year old, it appeared agreed with her sister,
“You let us eat the ones from Tesco’s and someone else has had to bend down to pick them. We are doing the work here. It is slavery”. She is a precocious six year old.
Hubby sighed, the eldest daughter sighed and once again I tried to point out the fun in picking your own, the methodology of jam making and finally the joy of spreading one’s own confiture onto a warm slice of toast. They were not impressed and instead dumped their punnets before running off to play.
Due perhaps to the weather, few people had been out picking and subsequently there was a glut of fruit, which meant that within half an hour, Hubby, our eldest daughter and I had filled our cardboard truggs and took them back to the farmer to pay for them.
He put them on the scales and quite calmly said, “That’ll be £32 pounds please.”
“Excuse me?” I couldn’t quite believe what he said. Thirty two quid? For strawberries? I’ll never eat that much jam in my lifetime, not even if I bought Tiptree.
“I’m sorry”, said Hubby we didn’t come out with enough cash, “Would you be kind enough to wait while we locate a cashpoint?”.
The farmer sighed before reluctantly putting the truggs behind him. We got in the car.
“What are we going to do now?”, I demanded from Hubby, “No wonder people go to Tesco’s and such. So much for local produce and pick-your-own. And he wouldn’t even let a free one past our lips. What a rip off”.
We found a cafe cum organic shop, who thankfully offered a cash-back facility. I paid nine pounds for a few slices of free range turkey and a bottle of organic rose wine and received twenty five pounds cash-back.
“That’s it”, I said to Hubby, “I’m not prepared to pay more than that”.
We returned home with two and not three truggs, whereupon I set to hull the berries. “I thought we were doing this together?”, I called to Hubby.
“Just a minute. Just sorting my work shirts”. I don’t quite see how sorting a week’s worth of white shirts takes forty five minutes, but evidently it does because by the time Hubby came to join me every strawberry had been hulled.
“Shall we get them on the boil then?”, he proposed.
“Not on a Sunday evening. I’ll make the jam tomorrow morning when everyone is in school. Less mess”.
Hubby shrugged, “Whatever”. I went to bed before him but was woken at 1am with him prodding my shoulder, “Alice”, he whispered, “Disaster. It didn’t set”.
What was he thinking meddling with jam making? Independently.
Of course the following morning I walked into my kitchen and found eight gallons of strawberry soup on my hob. After much consultation with Delia and my old domestic science teacher not to mention the loan of a jam thermometer from the stalwart of the local W.I, I now have enough jars of jam to comfortably provide every cream tea this side of the new millennium. We shan’t be bothering with chutney.

Princess.

Many would argue that I already live an enviable life of luxury but, the older I get the more convinced I am that I was born to enjoy serious, filthy, dripping in diamonds, extravagance. Take last Sunday for instance. Hubby, the children and I were invited to Princess Yachts in Plymouth for their charity day. It was a great day out and the kids enjoyed the usual variety of events that are part of any British fete like experience. Every penny raised was devoted to charity, it was very well organised, there was a good turn out and the rain stayed away.
Hubby and the older two children enjoyed seeing the various stages of boat building and having the opportunity to clamber on board one that was almost finished. These yachts are without any shadow of doubt truly splendid, sumptuous toys made for the truly sumptuous, splendid rich.
The highlight of the day though was the boat ride. We had tickets for two people. Hubby and I had already drawn straws and whilst Hubby had won I questioned his prerogative.
“But it’s not fair”, I sulked, “You get to go to sea every day. Going on a boat is no big deal for you.” He gave in, although not without first mumbling, “So much for democracy” under his breath. My son wasn’t too bothered about the trip having managed to endure a family outing and by late afternoon was happy to go home to his computer. The youngest girls were too young anyway which left my big girl and me to enjoy the experience.
Now, I was under the naive misconception that a Princess yacht is at its best moored in a marina somewhere on the Costa of the Med; that it is a staid if luxurious craft where one can kick off one’s mules, open the bar, pour a G&T and watch the poor people on the board walk as they look up and gawp at one’s hedonism. This belief was further reinforced as we gently pulled out of Millbay Marina. The interior was plush and lavish with leather and suede upholstery, more lavatories than your average four bed-roomed house, a modern state of the art kitchen, bar and sundeck. As I waved to Pete Goss pottering around on his lovely wooden boat and myriad exhausting sails I thought, “Ah yes this is the life”.
After a good look around and fantasising of featuring in a five page spread in Hello! Magazine, my daughter and I climbed the stairs to the outer deck and sat jauntily on the leather banquette, watching the very handsome young skipper take charge. There were only a handful of other punters on board, so it really did feel quite exclusive and as we sailed past Plymouth Hoe, I genuinely felt to the manor born.
“Do you think it’ll go much faster?” asked my daughter.
“I shouldn’t have thought so darling”, I replied knowledgably, “They’re like me, not built for speed. Built just to be looked at and swan from one marina to another.” Why don’t I just keep my trap shut? Actually I don’t think the skipper heard me - only the devil because suddenly we reached the other side of the Breakwater and I’m sure I saw a demonic look in the skipper’s eye as he shouted into the wind, “Shall we see what she can do?”
An unanimous roar went into the air and before you could say, “There she blows”, we were flying along on the crest of a wave. That’s not entirely true. Most of the waves in fact seemed to be cresting on me and within seconds I was soaked. The damp lifejackets we were given should have been an indication of what was to come but I hadn’t given that a second thought.
By God we were going fast, so fast that it was impossible to speak, my jowls were in fact wobbling like James Bond’s in that G-Force scene. Standing up the skipper then turned the boat into the spray as if astride a jet-ski not a 67 foot motor yacht. It was impressive if terrifying and at one point as we turned, the boat seemed at such a slant that I thought we would topple over but the skipper had a reassuring air of confidence. Nonetheless, with one arm I clung to the guard rail for dear life, with the other I gripped my daughter. She however, along with the other passengers was having the time of her life. “Yee-ha!”, they all called out. They say there are no atheists in the trenches. Neither let me tell you are there in a very high powered motor yacht, where the skipper is hell bent on showing off his boat’s impressive seafaring skills. I prayed and prayed that none of us would be catapulted into the sea and my hand and arm ached as my grip was loosened by the salt water on the rail. Eventually he slowed down and made for the Breakwater but it was only a lull in a very fleeting sense of security and no sooner had I thanked God than once again we were hurtling towards France and I was hurtling towards a certain, watery death.
After 40 minutes of action thriller, movie stunts I was amazed to find myself disappointed that we were returning to the marina. My confidence in the boat and my skipper had grown and as we disembarked we all agreed that we were terribly impressed by the stunning youthful performance of something that looked as though it could only cruise, albeit very grandly. As I cast aside my wet lifejacket I felt hard done by. What a job to work for Princess but what job enables you to buy such a fabulous toy and then to maintain it? Why couldn’t I have one? And when is the next Euro Millions Lottery rollover? I’m going to buy at least a fiver’s worth.