Some loafy disasters this week.

I decided to see last night’s “unmissable” match as an opportunity to zip to the allotment – I occasionally do, once the children are in bed, but rarely without feeling some twangs of conscience at leaving the allotment-widower at home (even though I think he quite likes it). Yesterday, as official football-widow myself, no conscience. (And I’d be there again tonight trying at long last to get those very late potatoes in, were it not raining. Gah. Instead I find myself at home, another “unmissable” match on – this one causing much tension and stress – with a pile of ironing and a casserole to make. The joys.)

Left reasonably simple instructions regarding my lovely homemade bread: take it out when the oven beeps.

(You can see where this is going, can’t you.)

(You are right.)

It cooked for 2 hours and I came home to a blackened charcoaly lump smoking gently in the oven.

Today’s loaf stuck fast to its tin. (I prised it off with a pie-slice; only lost a small layer from the bottom crust.) They come in threes, right – so one more mistake then I can get back into making nice bread again.

On a nice note, I spent yesterday afternoon at the Bluebell cottage garden. Sadly camera-less – I have my hands quite full enough thank you with two small children and they have ponds – we had a lovely time admiring the garden then buying plants while the girls ran amok, then to the wildflower meadow where they really could run free. Mostly buttercups at the moment and absolutely glorious: up to M’s waist (T’s head) and what children are supposed to do!

It’s not that I’ve not been thinking about posting, nor that I haven’t had time: life has just been failing to provide anything much to say. Cameron went to Houston last Monday; Katy (and Megan and Evan) came up for a day, which was nice; she went home, it was Good Friday so we stayed in the house and didn’t see a soul. Cleaned a bit. Saturday, mum and dad arrived but it was really too cold for any of our planned activities. We were busy-ish and it was very pleasant, but not very exciting. They left on Tuesday, I’ve cleaned a bit more, we still haven’t seen any body. Have spent the entire day today waiting in for a parcel that will apparently be here before 5.30 (how hard would it be to ring with at least a morning or afternoon estimate). 5.10 now and counting. It has to arrive else tomorrow’s party bags will be quite empty. I got so bored I used an attachment to hoover behind a radiator. We made the all-important cake.

Cameron is due home tomorrow and really does have to make it: being stuck at Gatwick will not do. Fingers crossed.

I was thrilled to read an article in the health section of yesterday’s Observer all about OAS, oral allergy syndrome. For 15-odd years I have been careful about which fruits and nuts I eat raw but been quite dismissive of my weirdness as I’ve never heard of anyone else having the same sort of reaction and being loathe to claim it as an allergy as it doesn’t actually make me fall down blue or anything. Now, when health professionals ask, I’ll be able to answer properly without shuffling my feet and saying erm well I’m a bit weird with fruit.

Trouble with the Observer of course, they asked these new agey “alternative” people about it (though to be fair a couple of sensible people give their ideas too). The alternative woman claims that “in a trial, an OAS patient treated with vitamin c was symptom-free within a month” (my italics). I am absolutely not deficient in vitamin c, citrus fruits being some of the few I can eat uncooked: and if this was all it was down to, surely my symptoms would fluctuate? Which, apart from disappearing when pregnant, they don’t. The private specialist gives me some hope though, as he claims it can be treated by desentitisation immunotherapy, which will become available in the UK in the next few years. The NHS chap just says to avoid raw fruit, which is what I have done for years. It would be lovely not to have to, though!

And now I have a name, I can google it…

Last summer, for Ann’s birthday, we were all booked to have a lovely spa day until Tamsin got chickenpox* and I had to cancel. It’s taken 8 months to rearrange but finally, this Sunday, we went! It was touch and go as I dosed a very sad Tamsin with calpol* on Saturday night, but by Sunday morning she seemed a little more cheery and frankly I needed some time off, so off I went. A spot of lunch; a float about the pool – more chat than swim – steam room, jacuzzi then off for our “treatments”, a lovely facial and a pedicure. Hoorah! I don’t care what Julie Burchill has to say about it, I think being pampered is rather nice from time to time.

Today, I feel achey and shivery, which I very much hope is a manifestation of lack of sleep because I do not have time for a lurgy. Maggie has been back to the doctor with her cough, which is keeping everybody up for hours every night, as the inhaler did absolutely nothing. We now have antibiotics, which are not expected to do anything “but sometimes you are surprised” (I actually very much like this doctor – coughs are just one of those things, aren’t they). Tamsin has a nasty cold and is like one of those revolting toddlers with a green streaming nose that I dislike so much when they belong to other people; she’s refusing to settle at night for hours on end too, and is very thin post-virus. Tempers are starting to fray.

On the bright side, a sunny (but very cold) day today persuaded me to take the girls to the zoo for a quick run and to see Margaret the new baby giraffe. She’s less than 6 foot tall with big eyes and absolutely gorgeous so I am very glad we did. And the elephants were having fun in the pool.

*Is it only my children who are constantly ill?

I’ve been having a slightly trying time of late: Tamsin started to be sick last Monday night and hasn’t stopped yet. She waits nearly 24 hours between bouts, just long enough to lull me into thinking she’s stopped…then off she goes again. I finally took her to the (lovely trainee) doctor today who diagnosed viral gastroenteritis and was very reassuring. Which is just what I wanted: I expected them to not really do very much but after a week some reassurance was required. We agreed I should steer clear of having her weighed for some time, though our motives were slightly different: I just don’t want to be mithered by bullying health visitors while the doctor was more concerned I would worry. I’m just glad she’s still breastfed as at least she is absorbing some nutrients from something: it is a bit of a pain that she’s reverted to a near-newborn feeding pattern, but she wants to be on my knee all the time anyway.

Anyway, she hasn’t  been sick since teatime yesterday so fingers crossed she’s on the  mend.

In the meantime, Cameron went to a freezing, snowy Istanbul. He spent a day at what sounds like an entirely health-and-safety-free steel mill but did manage to squeeze in the blue mosque &c, and brought home a photograph of himself with an unusually slim and glamorous belly-dancer. It’s not all work work work.

I zipped south armed with kitchen roll, antibacterial spray and spare clothes aplenty to stay with my parents for a couple of days. We braved the cold to visit the new glasshouse at Wisley which, as seems to be the way of these things, was more impressive from the outside (though I liked the root zone and we coincided with an orchid show, which was gorgeous).

Saturday was a bit of a nightmare all round – we were supposed to rendezvous with Cameron in Harrogate around lunchtime, for Mia’s birthday party. He made it around 7.30 pm having spent the day crossly at Frankfurt airport (though on the bright side his bag unexpectedly accompanied him home). We got there after 3, about 10 minutes before the start of the party, having sat in traffic queue after traffic queue on the M1. And Tamsin was sick on her party dress.

Sunday morning Suzanne and I left the daddies in charge of diarrhoea-Tamsin, vomit-and-diarrhoea Callum (Tamsin kindly shared her bug) and the two falling-out big girls, and spent a pleasant and much deserved couple of hours in the Harrogate turkish bath: what a treat! It’s a very old-fashioned Victorian bath house – all patterned tiles and ancient plumbing – with a steam room, an icy plunge pool, and three rooms heated to different temperatures for lounging in. Atmospheric and wonderful (especially after the estimated 4 hours’ sleep I’d had the previous night) with some very scary attendants.

I am very happy with the new furniture: doesn’t my room look larger and lovelier? Something of a saga getting hold of it: we initally ordered some bespoke free-standing stuff last March. Excuse followed excuse (at one point the cabinet maker cut off a finger, which we thought was a good reason for a delay, but the replacement just seemed to spend all his time making expensive kitchens); the chap in the shop never once rang us spontaneously or for weeks after when he promised to, and sometime at the end of last year he sold the business. Eventually, patient people that we are, we just asked for the deposit back (and got it after 6 weeks of hassle).

Then we rang Neville Johnson. I cannot praise them highly enough: if you are in the market for fitted furniture and have plenty of cash* (they were not cheap but it appears you do get what you pay for) then put them high up your list. I suppose it shows what shoddy service one gets used to that I am utterly delighted to have found a company whose employees ring when they say they will (within half an hour when they say they’ll call you back), turn up spot on time, are courteous, clean, and well-presented and completed the entire process from initial contact via design (3 hours at our house), planning and installation in less than 2 months. I am a very satisfied customer.

In other aren’t-people-fab news: Tamsin dropped my purse in Asda today and apparently when I picked it up I left my card behind. Flustered in the queue (T climbing out of the trolley**, M crying because she hurt her finger), I was on the verge of putting back all my shopping when the lovely kind shining-armour lady behind me in the queue paid for my shopping! Gave me her address so I could send a cheque: she deserves some really fantastic karma. (My card had been handed into customer services by somebody else kind so I could get cash out to pay her back on the spot.)

*or are sufficiently fed-up to pay anyway.
**why don’t they have straps?

I know I’ve been a bit awol but frankly all I can do at the moment is whinge and moan, and I can do that just as well elsewhere! Cameron is away again (that is at least 2 usually 3 often 4 solo bath-and-beds every single week this year so far: fantastic) and Tamsin is teething really badly, with accompanying cold, cough, streaming nose and miserable not-eating-not-sleeping. Maggie has a cold. I have loads of work on. Last night, for example, I spent the evening going upstairs every 30 minutes or so either to resettle sad Tamsin or to help Maggie back into bed (she fell out)/find her a tissue/give her a big optimistic dose of Medised – I finally finished work after 11. Tamsin didn’t really settle properly until I got into bed with her (even then we were up every couple of hours through the night) and when I came downstairs this morning I was confronted with last night’s tea things that the fairies hadn’t dealt with overnight. I am Very fed up.

On the bright side, we had a fun weekend at centerparc and Maggie can swim! She’s not yet 4: I am so very proud I feel quite teary. She doesn’t just do it for us, either, she’s done it at her lessons, which means she is going into the next class after half term. Mixed feelings there – I’ll miss going in with her as I do enjoy it (especially when, as I was explaining that I wouldn’t be going in with her any more, she said but I’ll miss you!) – but the relief at having my Tamsin-care issues solved is quite large.

I am most unimpressed with Debenhams. If you’d asked me Friday, I’d have been thrilled with them: I even rang my mum to tell her what great service I had received. There’s a dress I spotted and wanted for Maggie for Christmas, only my local branch didn’t have her size. When my mum told me her local branch didn’t have it either, I checked the website, to find it was sold out there too. But wait! They claim that if you telephone they will check if it is in stock anywhere in the country and get it to you!

Fantastic! I thought. I rang them; they found several dresses around the country, I paid and never expected to hear any more about it – apart from singing the praises of Debenhams to all and sundry.

Until today, when I received a phonecall to explain that actually it was sold out all over the country. Rather than, you know, contacting one of the stores who had it at the time it was supposedly “sold” over the phone, and having it put by, they had waited (until today?) to try and get hold of one – only to find there were none left.

The matching one in Tamsin’s size arrived today – which I can either return or keep, I suppose, having paid nearly £5 to have it sourced and posted (if I had wanted it in just T’s size I could have bought it in the Chester branch for no P&P at all).

I’m unhappy and am going to write and tell them so. I’ll let you know if I get a reply.

Guess what I am doing tonight? Go on, guess.

No! Actually I am not vegging on the sofa in front of QI; neither am I editing any poxy manuscripts. I. Am. Going. Out.

After dark. On my own. Well not entirely on my own because that would just be a tragedy, but without the children (or Cameron) and with friends. We are going to see Bill Bailey, won’t that be fun? C is putting both children to bed on his own: it’s been a year, about time he tried it.

So: Tamsin’s first bedtime without me ever. And on Monday, she will have her second as I am off out again! Unfortunately Cameron is going to Mallorca next week “on business” so we’ve had to get a babysitter: much soul-searching as it is one thing asking somebody to sit and watch your telly and drink your tea while your children sleep upstairs but another thing entirely to ask them to put two hooligans to bed. I am nervous but Sara (godmother to both girls) ‘s mother-in-law is lovely and says she won’t mind at all if Tamsin refuses to go. I’m not actually worried about the girls per se, but about having a super-clingy baby for the next few days afterwards. We’ll see (hopefully she won’t even notice and it will be just fine).

Wish me luck!

No time to think of a title, let alone a witty one, I am aware that I only come on here to complain about being busy, and I apologise. The last few weeks? Months? I can’t actually remember any more I just feel I am constantly playing catch up: my to-do list is as long as the Nile and I am forever trying to get past the Must Dos to the Would Be Nice To Dos, while mainlining dairy milk and coffee. As I type this (fast) I am simultaneously eating lunch, thinking about how to fix my latest website design, which is apparentlyrather less beautiful in widescreen than on my little monitor, considering how to reorder the text of a manuscript so it makes basic sense, and making soup. Also worrying about T who has lost weight: worrying in a primeval mummy sense (it goes I am a terrible mother maybe I need to think more about what and when and how much she is eating perhaps she needs jars maybe I should insist she stop dashing about* and eat a proper meal perhaps she needs to drink formula** maybe I need to bake more cakes maybe if she had proper naps it would be ok) rather than a rational sense as there is clearly absolutely nothing wrong with her. Yesterday***’s health visitor even said – and I quote directly if you will forgive a moment of pride – “they are both doing really well, you are doing a great job”! How nice was that. But today’s HV was all: well I can see she is fine but we will just have to keep an eye on it and you need to bring her back in. Which of course, of the two, is the message that has sunk in.

Ping! Finished my lunch, time to run again.

*Some role model I am
**Ha ha ha. As if.
***Yesterday’s HV came to do her 1-year check but didn’t bring any scales so I thought I’d pop her on to get weighed today. She weighs the same now that she did when she was 8 1/2 months and has dropped down the centiles. But Maggie did exactly the same at this age and caught back up again; she has actually only lost 1 1/2 oz (which is I imagine less than the weight of a dirty nappy!); she’s crawling and cruising; I am really not worried in the least. Apart from that little niggle that is always there going BAD MUMMY.