Leap.

“Alice?”, whispered Hubby, almost imperceptibly the other night, just as I was drifting off to sleep.
“Mmm”, I replied. What was going on? Hubby rarely comes to bed when I am conscious, let alone start a dialogue with me.
“I’ve been thinking”. Huh?
“You know tomorrow is February 29th? Leap day?”
“Yes”, I yawned. This was most curious. Hubby is not known for his conversation unless it is somehow identified with grey ships - then he can wax lyrical but, to question me on a Leap Year was odd indeed. I couldn’t fathom it at all.
“Well, what I was wondering, it being the woman’s prerogative an all that. Were we not married, well, would you have proposed to me?”, there was a pause before he added, “Given what you know”.
It was late. Logistically it had been a day of killer proportions. I was literally run ragged and now he wanted a deep conversation which quite honestly, was soon going to degenerate into high drama if I didn’t pick my words very carefully indeed. ‘Given what I know’. That was a loaded statement. So I lied.
“Of course I would have darling. It’s been a wonderful seventeen years. We’ve got the most amazing children, a wonderful friendship, passion and respect for one another. Who could ask for anything more?”
He didn’t buy it.
“Don’t be facetious Alice. Aren’t you happy then? Wouldn’t you marry me again?”
It was at a loss for words. I was so tired; this was such a hypothetical conversation.
“Well, we are married, so what are you talking about?” I asked, tapping his thigh, in what I hoped was a comforting, reassuring manner.
“I read an article in a paper yesterday that suggested over 85% of women, if given their time over again, wouldn’t marry their husbands. Are you one of them?”
I lay on my mattress and gazed in the dark up at the ceiling. He was serious. Hubby had genuinely been thinking about all those dissatisfied wives the length and breadth of Britain, desperate for a bit of peace and quiet, wishing they had never signed up for 40 years of heavy domestic and emotional toil with only a week in Lanzarote thrown in now and again for good measure.
I had been facetious earlier. In the parlance of teenagers, it is so easy to ‘diss’ one’s old man, like a post-modern Bernard Manning but was I being fair?
As Hubby lay beside me holding my hand to avoid the irritating thigh tapping as much as anything else, waiting for my reply, I rolled over and fished about in my bedside drawer for a pen and scrap of paper.
“What are you doing now?” Hubby asked, rather impatiently.
“Writing a list of pro’s and con’s if you must know. Hubby exhaled noisily whilst I drew my table. The con’s came thick and fast: Long periods of time living apart, sole parenting, coping on my own, few holidays, frustration, frequent rows.
“Gee great Alice. This marriage really has been laugh a minute for you hasn’t it?” I sensed a slight modicum of sarcasm in his voice.
“Give me a chance”, I replied, “I have yet to write the pro’s”.
“I won’t hold my breath”, Hubby responded huffily. He needn’t have huffed as I couldn’t help but think, as I drew up my list of ‘Pro’s’, that they were a little more profound than the con’s. We are each other’s best friends; we have genuinely got fabulous children. He works so hard and does such a good job that I hold him in very high regard and respect him as a very hands on father, who when here, has an enviable relationship with his children. Ok so, passion had gone out of the window a bit, but then again I bet Angelina and Brad aren’t at it like rabbits all the time either.
The pro’s continued: Hubby has provided me and his children with a lovely roof over our heads, given me the opportunity to return to higher education, provided food and generally speaking, when on special offer, excellent wine. He may have protested regularly about our finances and complained more than is palatable about how money is haemorrhaging from his very arteries but has been generous to a fault at times too. Ultimately I have never questioned his devotion to marital duty or his unwavering love for me. I squeezed his hand, “Yes darling, on reflection, I would ask you to marry me. Over all, you’ve been a good bet”. Just as he was to prove there is no such thing as a free marriage evaluation by letting his hand let go of mine to explore further other areas of my anatomy, our son walked into our room.
“Will you sign my planner please?”, he asked. I turned on my bedside light and Hubby sighed a sigh of defeat.
“Have you made a time plan now for the revision you’ve got to do?”, I asked.
“All done.” he replied. I didn’t really believe him but as he bent down to give me a final kiss goodnight I remembered the glowing words with which his teachers had praised him that afternoon at Parents Evening: ‘Impeccable manners’, ’So polite’, ‘A pleasure to have in class’, ‘Amusing’, ‘A really good lad’.
Given that a friend, who is currently working as a supply teacher, literally walked out on a classroom of teenage hoodlums this week having experienced the foulest language, aggression, disruption and intimidation, I felt that Hubby and I must have done something right. To know that my son is not the reason for his teachers nervous breakdowns is comfort indeed. Buoyed by this thought I turned to Hubby, ready to respond accordingly. He however, worn out by the unchartered territories of late night conversation coupled with his amorous advances was already fast asleep. I turned off the light. Continuing the educational motif: ‘Could try harder' could be added to the ‘con’s side of my list.

Provocative Agents.

“I’m sorry your appointments have been cancelled. I don’t know what else to tell you”. This was all the nurse had to say to a room full of outpatients all having got up at the crack of dawn, all having negotiated miles of traffic and all having depended on other people to facilitate their being there. Hubby, hours before driving up to Cranfield Uni to continue his efforts at higher academia had to stay with the children whilst I got myself up and out of the door to be at the hospital by 9.30 a.m. Mine was supposedly the first appointment. I thought it ominous that another, then another, then another patient arrived and I hadn’t even been seen. One woman was there as an ‘emergency’, although her GP had asked for an appointment back in November. Another in a wheel –chair, her husband armed with newspapers to entertain him during his wait.
“Well”, I said, “The neurologist won’t be up to speed on our ailments. He can’t have read our notes. He hasn’t even arrived yet”.
“Maybe that’s what he’s doing now”, suggested another patient, hopefully.
“Wouldn’t have thought so”, said another, “All our notes are on the table in the corridor”. We all fell silent again, like a room full of strangers does until, buoyed by confidence in a shared experience someone else says something that will get a reaction of agreement.
“This has happened to me before”, said a lady. This of course opened a flood gate of NHS mishaps, disasters and ineptness and we were all getting on like a house on fire, sharing stories of cancellations and near death experiences, still at this point hopeful that we would be seen in the next few minutes, when the nurse stuck her head into the room and told us the bad news. There was a collective groan of disappointment mingled, unfortunately with resignation before we all trooped out of the day room into the corridor where a red faced appointments clerk battled with her computer.
Of course it goes without saying that the next appointment she could give was sometime in March. I reversed my car park out of a car park where I’d just spent £2.30 for the privilege of parking – we could have got our money back apparently from some cash office somewhere in the hospital but, apart from it being a palaver to do so, should every patient visiting the hospital claim when operations and appointments were cancelled then I feel the drain on the NHS would only cause further cuts.
My arrival at home was met, not unusually, with chaos. Hubby, having packed the night before was incandescent with rage as the Red-Head had somehow prised open his suitcase and put a couple of chocolate digestive biscuits on top of his white shirts. Farcically, the suitcase had been left near a radiator, so that when Hubby went to lift his case to put in the car, the case fell open only to disclose chocolate brown, smeared shirts.
The Red-Head’s protestations that she only wanted to give Daddy a “phesant” did nothing to allay his fury.
I put my bag down. “Take it easy love”, I said, “She really did just want to give you a present, unfortunately, you got more than you bargained for”. I removed the shirts and shoved them into the washing machine, went upstairs, opened Hubby’s side of the wardrobe and pulled out two, unsullied white shirts. I brought them downstairs and handed them to him and, somewhat mollified, he kissed my head and placed them in his suitcase. Gathering various briefcases, armfuls of textbook tomes and his laptop, he stooped for one last kiss before leaving.
“Oh, I’m fine, don’t you worry about me”, I called after him sarcastically, “I don’t have to have major spinal surgery”.
Swearing rather profusely he turned on his heels, “Sorry Alice love. I just need to get away and get on with my studies. What did the consultant say?”
“He didn’t turn up”, I replied. Hubby looked askance, “Didn’t turn up?”
I shook my head. “Look I’ll call you later”, Hubby said, “and we’ll talk about it then. Look after yourself and my babies”. Then, kissing me again, he left. Within seconds of me having waved him off, he returned.
“Bugger, I forgot to tell you. Mags is having some crisis and is on her way around”, he put his arms around me, “I really am off now”, he murmured into my hair and with yet another kiss he left.
I’d barely put the kettle on before Mags fell through the front door, heaving a suitcase behind her.
“It’s my turn to leave Alice”, she panted, “I’ve had it up to here with him”. I looked at the clock, it was past midday – a sherry was permissible. I poured us both a glass and took her into my sitting room.
“What’s happened?” I asked gently.
“Well, you know that it was Valentine’s day?” How could I forget? My day had been spent looking after sick kids. Romantic it was not.
“Well”, she continued, “Things haven’t been regular in a certain department if you know what I mean?” Was she kidding? My celibacy is reverential in its devotion.
“Well, anyway, Mum had the kids overnight; I cooked a glorious dinner and had my best, slutty clothes on. Honestly Alice, I couldn’t have spelled it out more clearly, my shirt was see-through and my undergarments positively harlotesque”.
“So what happened?” I asked.
“He ate his dinner. Didn’t allude to the fact that my bra was showing and when we went upstairs and undressed, he just said, ‘Oh you’ve still got your undies on. Are you staying up to read The Kite Runner then?” I shook my head.
“I bought those knickers and stockings from Agent Provocateur as well”.“Listen Mags”, I said sagely, “Wine and underwear are much the same. Unless the man is a connoisseur, then a budget of £4.99 usually does the trick”.

Show me the puppies..

There is more a ying and a yang thing going on my life than anyone else’s of that I am convinced. For instance, when giving blood a few weeks ago I was stopped afterwards for using my mobile phone whilst at a red light. I begged and pleaded with the police officer and showed him my plaster where the needle had been to demonstrate that I wasn’t a careless, thoughtless driver but, if the blood donating television advert would have us believe, a hero. “Please don’t give me any more points. Please. I am trying to do a good thing. I have just given blood but they were running behind time and I was ringing my daughter’s school to let them know that although I was late, I was on my way”. The police officer was very grave. He gave me a good scolding and pointed out the erroneous errors of my ways. He told me of terrible pile ups and made me feel like a mass murderer, but thankfully he did take into account the fact that I had provided life saving blood that ironically would be necessary in one of the aforementioned pile ups and so, my good deed almost balanced out the bad and he eventually let me drive away.
This ying and yang has been prevalent for quite some time now and I am beginning to wonder whether it would be just a safer bet to stay at home. Last year Hubby and I went to Paris for what was to be a romantic weekend: our return flight was cancelled twice, we had to pay for an overnight hotel, the Eurostar, a hire car and then arrived home to find my eldest daughter’s bedroom virtually reduced to a cinder as she had left her hair straighteners on under her duvet and the following morning the youngest child came down with a nasty bout of gastroenteritis.
In October a friend, in return for having stayed here for a few weeks, very kindly paid for Hubby and I to stay in a fabulous hotel in Fowey overnight. As many will remember I was sick and couldn’t eat my Michelin starred dinner. We returned home, our tail between our legs only to find the third child also sick.
In November I attended a sumptuous party near Bath, leaving my youngest child vomiting on the sofa, worryingly left in the sole care of her father.
You’d think therefore that when a thick envelope dropped onto my mat six weeks ago inviting Hubby and myself to a ‘vintage Hollywood’ party that I would have immediately replied, ‘Commander and Mrs Band thank Mr and Mrs Macintosh for their kind invitation to their party but due to the fact that every time they try and enjoy themselves they find themselves severely punished by the gods, and therefore have no alternative but to decline this invitation for fear of Divine reprisals.’ Whether we never learn or are eternal optimists, I couldn’t possibly say but we threw caution to the wind and so, last Saturday, dressed to kill, we attended the best party that South East Cornwall has held for many years. Of course I checked and double checked all the children before we left and when I mean ‘all the children’ then think Waltonesque. In addition to my own four, I also had my two teenage God-children staying for a fortnight, on top of that my twelve year old had her friend sleeping over and two other young children stayed whose parents were attending the same party. They were all hale and hearty and having a merry time.
Hubby looked a million dollars in his mess and dress, every inch a Hollywood matinee idol. I on the other hand, having learnt on the steep learning curve of life called humiliation that basques and glamour and I do not go hand in hand, decided to camp it up a little. With a wig, some gloves, a sticky-up collar, a cigarette holder, a long black dress and some striking make up and even more striking attitude, I assumed the role of Cruella de Vil. A word of advice. For those inclined to play the dominatrix yet who perhaps find the sweaty rubber garb somewhat disagreeable – dress up as Cruella de Vil. Men genuinely quivered in my wake. As one gentleman told me later, “You have been the main topic of conversation tonight. We are terrified. You have sliced through us like butter and I am not ashamed to admit I was the butter”. Result.
We danced until late, until I dragged a rather imbibed Hubby into a waiting taxi. Celestial payback time awaited my return. My son and God-son were up and in a flap, each nursing my youngest girls, who were sobbing. Hubby, to my utter dismay could only fall into bed and with shark eyes i.e glazed, black and open , pretending to be awake, he uttered, “Can you manage love?” before falling, fast asleep. Useless. I eventually settled the 6 year old but the youngest kept wailing. Finally, overcome by fatigue and my own desire for sleep and ibuprofen I carried the Red-Head into our bed where she promptly threw up. Hubby didn’t even flinch. She was sick every half hour throughout the night. On Monday the next sister was sick, on Wednesday the next, on Thursday the God-son and on Friday the youngest came down with chicken-pox. I am up to here with stripping beds and domestic incarceration. The sun has shone every day and I have seen nothing of it save rinsing out buckets in the garden and hanging bedding. I implore all friends. If you genuinely like us and hold us dear then please, do not invite us to parties, dinner, on holiday or weekends away. I won’t feel overlooked, I promise, instead I will feel that you are trying to protect us and for that, I thank you.

P.S For those who know me well, photos of said puppy murderer can be found on Facebook!

Ooh la la.

Hubby, desperate to keep me from leaving him and rendering him wifeless and thus incapable of much, most of all going to work, took me out for dinner last week. It was a naval do and not ‘a deaux’ which, given our recent histrionics was probably a good thing. It meant we did not have to endure polite conversation with each other as we picked at our prawn cocktails. Instead and for the first time in many years, another man flirted with me. It took me back a bit. Suddenly I was no longer dear old Alice, mother of four who stays at home as her grandmother did in a pinny and slippers but just, Alice. Hubby, apart from squeezing my thigh from time to time, was in his element being surrounded by fellow naval personnel and, even though they spend the best part of the working day together, it did not stop them sharing tales of daring-do. You’d think that compared to a fighter pilot’s daring-do that their tales would be limited, alas not. You’d be surprised in fact how rough, tough and hard to bluff the logistics branch of Her Majesty’s Royal Navy are when armed with a clip board and magic markers.
As I sat there fiddling with the stem of my wine glass and wondering when my chips were going to come, one of these gentlemen sitting opposite me, charged my glass, “Je ne comprends pas que ce qu'elles sont énonciation faites-vous ?” he said.
“Excusez-moi?”, I replied in my best school girl French.
“I am so sorry. I sought, as you look Parisian, that you spoke French. I said, I don’t know what they’re saying do you?”
Years ago I might have fallen for the “You look Parisian”, line. These days I am just grateful but still, in spite of myself and the fact that I look about as Parisian as Jethro, I blushed.
“No”, I giggled, “I haven’t a clue”. He sipped his wine without taking his eyes off me.
“This eeze terrible wine n’est ce pas?” and before you could say Beaujolais Nouveau, he’d caught the attention of the waitress and another, far better bottle materialised and was poured into my fresh glass.
“Zere are not so many good restaurants in Plymouth are zere?”
“Um, not really. We have the Tanner brothers of course”, I stammered.
“Mais oui”, he said, nodding.
“And of course Rick Stein is only an hour away”.
“Reek Stein? I do not know of heem. Is ee a chef?”
“Yes, a famous one. He cooks fish”. I sounded ridiculous and stilted but it had been so long since another man had had a one on one conversation with me that I wasn’t quite sure what to say and also, given that he was French I was concerned that he wouldn’t understand what I was saying. At least I hadn’t compensated for this by just talking louder.
“Feesh? I love feesh. It is very difficult to buy here no?”
“Well not really. There is plenty available in the market in Plymouth”. What was I talking about? “But in Torpoint it is more difficult to purchase”. Dear God I sounded like a Linguaphone cassette tape. Be sexy Alice, be sexy.
“What is your favourite fish?”, I asked. At that moment, the waitress put a large bowl of moules marinieres in front of him.
“I sink zeeze are my favourite. Zey are very erotic, like ze genitalia of a woman”. I choked rather unbecomingly on my wine.
“See how they unfold like a...”
“Alright love?”, asked Hubby, suddenly remembering me, “Got your chips yet?”
In a manner of speaking I did, if ‘getting your chips’ could be considered as a French man talking dirty to you.
“Not yet”, I replied, just as the waitress returned with a huge plateful of steak frites.
“You ‘ave a very ‘ealthy appetite”. Drat, drat and double drat, why hadn’t I gone for the bloody salad instead. Far sexier to pick on a piece of rocket than cut through chunks of meat dripping in au poivre sauce.
“Well, I don’t get out much”, I replied rather feebly.
“An ‘ealthy appetite is very sexy on a woman. I like ze flesh of a larger woman. It is more yielding no?”
“No, I mean yes, uh or no”, I was all sixes and sevens. Brazen it out Alice I said to myself, brazen it out, “Well I don’t get any complaints”, I joked.
“Of course not”, he said, very seriously as though a fait accompli, “I couldn’t imageene you would”.
He went back to sucking each mussel out of its shell, never for a moment taking his eyes off me. I was breaking into a sweat and was terribly self conscious of filling my mouth with fried onion rings, peas, steak and bloody chips.
“Are you posted here for long?”, I asked, desperate to get off the disconcerting subject of pleasures of the flesh.
“Until ze summer, zen I return to France, excusez-moi”, he added, getting up from his chair and, using his napkin, wiped from my very impressive décolleté, a blob of pepper sauce.
“Oh gosh I’m so sorry. I didn’t realise” I mumbled, pulling at my ‘slip’. It had done what its name implied and had slipped far down my chest under my gaping bra revealing far more than was necessary.
“Jeeze Alice”, Hubby intervened for a second time, “You flashing your knockers again!”
I playfully slapped him but was dying with a mixture of shame and arousal.
“Your wife has been entertaining me”, said Jean-Claude. “I can believe it JC”, said Hubby, “She’s a star turn. A real hoot.” Not for the first time that evening did I feel a connection with Jethro*.

Jethro - a comedian whose persona is very burly, farmeresque Cornish, provincial idiot.

All men are bastards..

A simple suggestion last Sunday that we go for a family outing to Paignton Zoo sent Hubby into a wild rage which culminated in me packing a bag and attempting to leave. I didn’t get very far for a number of reasons, the main one being the big blue eyes of my four children looking forlornly on and the fact that, being a kept woman, I don’t have any independent means and thus could not by any stretch furnish myself with food, clothes and shelter.
If I’d realised that a day out looking at some wild animals would have elicited such a response I’d have kept my mouth shut and got on with filling the washing machine, but as I’d been up since 7am, done a mountain of ironing and presented the family with a platter full of French toast, bacon and maple syrup and, given that for the first time in a long time the sky was azure blue, I felt justified in making such a suggestion.
Hubby however, perhaps worn out from his new job of getting up every morning at 5a.m and returning late in the evening was not amenable to the idea of a day out. Were he to have just said, “Alice love, it’s a nice idea, but I’m whacked, let’s do something a little more low key”, I could have understood. Instead he fell into a full on tirade of how I was constantly irresponsible regarding our finances, as he oh, so clearly pointed out, “All is do is earn the money and all you do is spend it”. I pointed out that of course I did seeing as it is only I that does the shopping and sees to the children’s more material needs. When I say pointed out we were of course by this point shouting rather loudly at one another, insult after insult, long repressed resentment finding a forum to be exorcised. It was ugly and finally culminated in Hubby roaring, “In all these years Alice you have done nothing to assist me”. I reeled backwards as though shot. Did he just say what I thought he’d just said?
The last twenty years flashed before me and I remembered the months and months of deployments were I brought up various young children on my own. I remembered the phone calls from Antigua were Hubby was just going to a champagne lunch as I swallowed my Prozac, sinking in a pit of post natal depression. I remembered all the Naval dinners and balls I’d attended where I’d behaved impeccably and listened politely to interminable speeches and anecdotes by various naval top bods. I’d bitten my tongue on numerous occasions when political opinion was conflicting with my own and at all times did the best I could to make a good impression for Hubby’s sake. Many is the time, overcome with ennui that I could have sunk another glass of port and slid under the table. I remembered the successful career he has forged because I was always there like some faithful Labrador, all tongues an tails a-wagging. I remembered being whipped off to America, where at the time I had quite a successful career – well, slightly flourishing, only to return with another baby, no mother and most certainly no career. I was mad. M.A.D. Virgil.
‘Nothing to assist him?’ I thought. Well we’ll just see about that. I will remove my assistance and see how he copes unassisted. My first list informing Hubby of which child did what on which day and with whom, was crumpled into a little ball, so I wrote another one and stuck it on the fridge. Then with heaving chest and wracking sobs I ran upstairs to pack a bag. Hubby, perhaps having seen the errors of his ways or more likely worried that he wouldn’t be able to go to work the following day without childcare, wrestled the bag from me. I pulled the handles in one direction, he the other.
Suddenly a “Yoo-hoo” from downstairs brought us to some extent, our senses as Mags called up the stairs, “You two up to some Sunday morning recreation?!” How more removed from the truth could she have been.
I ran down. “I’m leaving him Mags. I can’t stand it any longer”. Mags looked stricken, but as ever in charge, handed me a tissue and delving into her designer handbag pulled out a pair of Gucci sunglasses, “Put these on and let’s go for a coffee”.
There are few places to drink coffee on the Rame Peninsula on a Sunday morning but luckily the lovely Moran’s in Kingsand was open and unbeknownst to them was a refuge that day. Over coffee and a complimentary bit of fudge which was very welcome given that my mother always advised something sweet for shock, I spilt my beans, “There’s nothing I can do though Mags. I can’t really leave. I am a chattel, a kept woman, a captive audience. If he chooses to stop putting money into our joint account, I’ll starve to death”. I’ve never been one for understatement. Mags did a lot of soothing ‘there, there’s’ before we left and she drove me home to face the music.
I arrived to find Hubby making a picnic. “I’ll leave you to it”, said Mags kissing me before she closed the front door.
I was feeling terribly feeble and worn out. My packed bag was nowhere to be seen. “Thought we’d go up onto Dartmoor”, suggested Hubby, “Have a walk around Burrator reservoir”. It was hardly the ape house but it was I could see an attempt at reconciliation. It was a quiet walk, the 12 year old could sense hostility but the younger ones were happy with the simple pleasures of muddy wellies, throwing stones and a strawberry 99. Several days later and we’ve held crisis talks and summit meetings and a matrimonial disaster has once again been avoided although not without a glass of wine being flung in the face of superciliousness.

Let them Eat Cake.

A couple of days ago my third child was six. Like any mother worth her salt, I wanted her birthday to be perfect. She’d requested a chocolate cake covered in strawberries and raspberries. No big deal I thought and so, the day before the big day I curled my feet under me on the sofa, a pen and notebook on one half of my commodious lap, Nigella’s How to be a Domestic Goddess on the other.
Now I can’t make a Victoria sponge to save my life, so something a little more off key is the gateau de jour. On page 172, I found an inspirational Nutella cake. It sounded extremely good, if a little sophisticated, requiring as it did a couple of tablespoons of Frangelico, a hazelnut liqueur. In fairness to Nigella she does stress that it is not imperative to race out and buy the liqueur, but as I have previously drank it and know how truly moreish it is, I thought it would be a marvellous idea to put a little dribble in the cake whilst we grownups could toast the birthday girl with the remainder.
And so began my day of making an atrocious carbon footprint the size of India in an attempt to make a little six year old ecstatic but who, would have been just as happy with a shop bought fudge cake covered in raspberries and sticky sweets.
The day started well, in that a friend who runs a cafe took me for an outing to a ‘cash and carry’* in Plymouth. Well, I’d never seen the likes before and whilst she dashed hither and thither not pausing for breath, I loitered around the detergents in 7th heaven. Humongous 10 kilo boxes of Bold and Daz rubbed shoulders with great, big plastic containers of softener, which in turn were next to industrial amounts of toilet cleaner and bleach. Then, on other shelves and to my intense delight, I found a ten inch tall, plastic tub of mixed dried herbs and a bottle of gravy browning so big that my kids will still be using it when I have departed this earth for good. There were bouillons of all manner, ketchup bottles to last until next year, enough English mustard to set fire to a small town and vast jars of every type of curry sauce this side of Mumbai. I can’t believe we pay through the nose at a regular supermarket for piddly sized amounts when at a cash and carry the items are half the price yet, you get double or triple the amount. It’s really worth opening a shop or cafe just to get membership.
Eventually my friend dragged me away whilst I was still yearning for the Wrigley's chewing gum dispenser and box of Walkers’ Sensations crisps. All I’d bought apart from the herbs and browning was the requisite raspberries and strawberries.
My friend, who was in a hurry to open her cafe for lunch, quickly dropped me off at Aldi’s to buy the Frangelico, which, I’d discovered a few months ago, is four quid cheaper there than at Waitrose. So with liqueur and soft fruits at my disposal I picked up the Red-Head from school and went about making the cake. On referring to my list however, I realised that my shopping was not complete and that I still needed a huge jar of Nutella – the one I’d found in the cupboard was old and full of butter where hapless children has carelessly buttered toast then shoved the knife into the chocolate spread. I also needed 100g of ground hazelnuts. “Oh this won’t do at all”, I groaned.
“We need to go back out aden mummy?” asked the Red-Head.
“Fraid so”, I replied, picking up my bag and car keys, “Let’s go”. In Somerfield and the Co-op they were terribly negative about my acquiring ground hazelnuts, “Never seen them my lover. Not even at Christmas time”. Bother. The only thing for it was to drive out to Trerulefoot roundabout, where in Kernow Mill lurks a Julian Graves – the dried fruit and nut specialist extraordinaire. Much to my dismay even they didn’t have the nuts, at least not in ground form.
“Sorry, we don’t sell them ground. You could of course buy them whole and blitz them in a food processor”. It seemed I had no alternative but I still complained.
“But Nigella says they must be ground, what if the food processor isn’t up to the job?” The saleswoman looked at me blankly as one would when face to face with a madwoman.
“I’m sure it’ll be just grand”, she said guardedly.
I drove home again quite agitated. This whole cake and its ingredients had taken almost a day and several miles to procure and I hadn’t even started cooking the bloody thing yet.
Finally we arrived home and on opening page 172 again read the method, where, much to my embarrassment, Nigella’s advice was thus, ‘I use hazelnuts bought ready-ground, but ones you grind yourself in the processor will provide more nutty moistness’. What a twit I am, an opinion no doubt also held by the staff of Julian Graves.
Twenty minutes later and the cake was in the oven; forty minutes later and it was out and cooling. I went to retrieve the birthday girl from school where on arriving home we made a ganache topping and then decorated the cake with the fruits. She was thrilled. “It’s exactly how I dreamt it mummy. Thankyou”. The Red-Head had been watching us avidly but because her mouth was blissfully wrapped around a chocolate covered spatula I didn’t really give her a second thought. It was only later when I went back to the kitchen that I found her little red chair leaning against the kitchen counter. She, it goes without saying was no-where to be seen, nor, unsurprisingly was the ring of beautifully sliced and arranged strawberries that had once adorned a birthday cake. Boy did I holler that kid’s name.

* - like Costco but without the diamonds, oh and you must own a business to be a member.

Let me entertain you..

Last Monday I was so thrilled to have a bit of time to myself after the Christmas hols that I danced a little jig in the kitchen. This was swiftly followed by a cup of tea and Grazia on the sofa. It was bliss.
One week on and I am bored out of my tiny mind. My mother would have tutted and reminded me of all the housework that needs doing but, since when has loading the washing machine, bleaching the toilets and spraying Mr Sheen around ever been considered fulfilling?
Instead I have wandered around complaining to anyone prepared to listen and to be honest, three year olds couldn’t care less, how thoroughly cheesed off I am. Of course the apocalyptic weather doesn’t help my sombre mood. Day after day of incessant rain and dark skies does little to lift one’s spirits and, as all my friends are out earning a crust and being dynamic, I have been left to find ways in which to entertain myself.
Well, don’t leave me in charge of an entertainments committee as my diverting little jaunts have been a little peculiar. Firstly, I went to Truro for a CT scan of my head. You’d think that appointment clerks would have the most basic of geography within their grasp but apparently not given that I, who lives about four miles away from Derriford hospital was given an appointment in Treliske, over an hour away? Well, I thought it would be just over an hour, but I left here at 7am for an 8.25 appointment and arrived, stressed and heart beating wildly at 9.10. Yes, I confess I did use my mobile phone whilst in the car but, as I was stationary for over forty minutes then hurtling towards certain death I was not. I needed to contact the hospital though to inform them that I was frantically attempting to get to them and would they please keep my appointment for me. I couldn’t imagine anything worse at that moment than, having rearranged everyone else’s schedules so that they could look after my children, to find the whole thing cancelled. Extraordinarily I was not met with the usual bored, haughty voice informing me, “I am sorry Mrs Band, there is nothing I can do. You should have been prepared for traffic and made arrangements accordingly. You will have to go back on the waiting list”. Although who I could have asked to help me with my various kids before 7am I know not. As it was, the lady on the end of the phone could not have been kinder or more reassuring.
“Don’t worry Mrs Band. The traffic in Truro is notoriously bad and you’ve had such a long way to come. Just you drive carefully and I’ll let the CT unit know you will be here soon”. I was so relieved and yet amazed that ‘hospital’ staff should be so kind. Isn’t that a terrible thing? But in the past all I have met is glassy eyed admin staff stuck behind a computer screen, who can barely bring themselves to communicate with anything more verbose than, “Please take a seat until your name is called”, and God forbid that a slight anomaly has occurred, then their repertoire extends to an obdurate, “I am sorry I cannot discuss anything with you. The consultant is not available”, or the ever popular, “We don’t seem to have your notes”.
They positively welcomed me at Treliske. Firstly two elderly volunteers smilingly gave me directions, then the admin staff, who could see how flustered I was, suggested, kindly, that I get myself a coffee before I had my scan. Very soon after, the medical staff called me and were charming. I was a little disarmed by their sense of humour and warmth but if this is how they operate in Cornwall then it really was worth the trip.
A few days later with the beds stripped and the wash on, I was bored rigid again. As I wandered to get the Red-Head from nursery I saw a banner on some railings in the town. ‘Give Blood’ it insisted. I had nothing else to do that afternoon, there’d be other adults there I reasoned and I’ve never been one to resist a free cup of tea and one of those triumvirate packets of custard creams.
So, the Red-Head and I made our way to the Council Chambers. I have donated blood before but not very successfully; for some reason my blood is in no rush to leave my body, now this would be excellent in a road traffic accident but it is rubbish for donation as the Blood service need to have it bagged within so many minutes. So, when they saw me enter you could almost hear a collective sigh. We went through the usual preamble of intimate questions on sexual practices, which I am so very pleased to report that I had nothing to do with. When my great aunt Bessie gave blood did they have to explain to her what these ‘practices’ were, or given her nice hat and Welsh Baptist views did the nurses just assume that she was a straight up and down sorta gal?
Eventually, satisfied that I was not anaemic nor a sexual deviant they lay me down on the bed. This is the best bit, a lie down in the middle of the afternoon. The Red-Head had crayons and I had a needle put in my arm and whilst those around me gushed into a plastic bag, my bloody blood, dripped. It was very frustrating. Once again this could all have been in vain, until a nurse of the old school got hold of my arm, adjusted it and lo and behold, I too gushed with the best of them.It’s an odd way to fill my time, I’ll give you that, but with an appointment with the neurosurgeon, soon to be followed by the skin testing clinic, my diary is filling up fast.