I've had a few surprises this week or so.
Firstly I never realised what a tight grip over merchandise Disney has, I buy in huge quantities, usually from importers but I've struggled this time, failed in fact.

I found a kitten hiding from daughter no.3 in a mixing bowl in the cupboard (sigh!).
So it was Spring Clean time and more stuff in the dishwasher (I'm sure it's going to go on strike soon). I'm seriously thinking of writing to Norris McWhirter to see if I hold the record for most uses of single dishwasher in one day (full loads every time).

I discovered Darling Husband is capable of booking tables in restaurants. Our wedding anniversary was looking grim when I called my Scottish friend to enquire where we were going and what I should wear.
I was told we were off to the Indian in Abergavenny....I was gutted. Don't get me wrong, I love Indian food, but it was our anniversary and I want to be indulged!!

On the way, Darling Husband suggested we stop for a drink in the Walnut Tree.
I got really excited, way hey! I thought, he's going to surprise me....then I remembered he doesn't do that sort of thing and that I really would be having a curry and should just calm down a bit.
We left our friends fighting over the position of the car in relation to a. the road, b. the other vehicles c. the rain!! and wandered in. Darling Husband announced to the waitress he'd booked a table and I squeaked irritatingly with excitement,it was a lovely!
We had a great evening, but again a surprise, it wasn't as good as our favourite place in Herefordshire. Hmm.
Darling Husband wasn't impressed with a thin steak (never give a beef farmer thin steak) and our friends thought it was pretty average.
I loved the whole night, fab!! Ahh, he can be romantic sometimes....

The Vampire has gone to Greece with the school. She has sent a few messages home moaning about the heat but we did warn her that vampires and sunshine didn't mix. I also suspect that the white clothes I bought her are making her feel vulnerable instead of the black, khohl-eyed Emo that she is inside.
Biggest surprise there, she rang me and said she missed me and her voice wobbled....oh! I admit it gave me a lump in my throat and I wanted to go and get her home again. She's also just emailed to say she misses me loads and loads and that her toy bunny is ok. Bless! See vile teenagers can love their mothers sometimes.

The other two are sleeping in their sisters' bed together, sharing her skull blanket and squabbling because one has long feet!

So apart from a lack of loud music and stamping, it's still pretty wild and wacky here.
The wine rack is looking a bit sad but I'll just rummage in the fridge, ah, anyone fancy a nip of Blue Tongue vaccine?

HELPPP!!!!!

I have a serious problem and I've spent hours and hours running into days searching without any success. The Vampire has been no help whatsoever ("Mum, that's just so not Emo!"), and the other two have never heard of it. Darling Husband has absolutely no interest, "What no John Deeres...at all? What's the point in that?"

So I'm begging does any one of you, look we'll keep it secret, it'll just be between us, do any of you know anything about High School Musical?

I need to put together some High School Musical Party Bags and I just can't get to grips with it.
I really need an importer or volume supplier who can supply me with cases of merchandise, but none of the ones I use are licensed ones..can anyone at least tell me what's out there?
What should go in a bag ?
Please...I'm desperate.
Help me OB1 kinobe, you're my only hope....

I've been tagged by From Dawn till Rusk
to do a rambling apprciation of five Blogs I like. This in itself is tricky because there are so many good ones out there. I have to limit my blogging time otherwise Birthday Parties would be a disaster because I had blogged instead of sending out party bags, ooh, imagine the hostlities!!

So, in no particular order I like this one, by Girl with a Mask which I think most of you have seen.
It just makes me cry laughing. It's the kind of thing I can imagine being muttered under the breath of my husband around his mothers table, just loud enough for us all to hear but inaudible to his mother.
I love Girl with a Mask, very often I don't comment, she leaves me speechless, but she's brilliant.

Next (in no particular order is Millenium Housewife she writes the most brilliant lists.
This one is my favourite, unless you have a young child you just can't appreciate it, so if anyone wants to borrow my youngest daughter, do give me a shout..no, I'm not serious, we'll sell her on Ebay to the highest bidder.

And another wild woman I like is Jo Beaufoix this post is just typical of the nonsense spoken in my home too...erm, I think I have a theme going here that a. we are childish and b. we are childish.

And this Post from my lovely Blog friend (whether she likes it or not) Potty Mummy because she's inspired me to go on a diet too...and boy are we hungry!

And I am a huge Pig fan, so here's the recent post from her a great example of the trials of motherhood and selflessness which we all exhibit from time to time inthe course of our duties as parents......

But, I have to add one extra because I cannot go without the person who inspired me to start blogging. The queen B Dulwich Mum. I can't find the Swarfega one, so I'll settle for this fantastic post by Bea.

So I tag Millennium Housewife, Dulwich Mum, Gone Back South, Valley Girl and Blog That Mama

We seem to live constantly in a rat race!!
Living out in the sticks, this is a constant source of entertainment to anyone who comes here..."We thought it would be so quiet here" is often the reaction.

Yesterday for instance, we all got up and surveyed the immaculate downstairs (my lady that does is just brill).
Everyone was threatened with severe pain if they made any mess, 'my boys' were coming (my Godson and his little brother) with their Dad and Step-Mum. 'Dad' was going to take some product photos for me to put on my website so I cleared the kitchen table and started to make up a wrap-around light box.

Darling Husband was rushing in and out giving orders for the day...it was his first year as Chairman of the Village Show and he was putting in wads of effort.

"Pick me up from the hall"
"Just knock up this poster with the Chicken Race rules"
"Phone Hywel and get him to bring a chicken"
"Who's manning the Crockery Smash?"

The Milkman arrived.
He put the kettle on and said 'mornin'!'
I was horrified..
He made no comment or looked the slightest bit surprised that I had a 5ft lawn mower box on the table and was lining it with white card...are we that weird in our house that nothing shocks the milkman any more?
He got fed up with waiting for our archaic water boiling method and made like Elvis.

I fed my piggies (31 now!!- I do fear I'm becoming a farmer) and unlocked my executive storage facility to get out new stock that needed photographing.
Right on cue, here come my boys, Godson now at eye-level (gulp!) and an aspiring Welsh Rugby player with a deep voice. In came the tripod, two cameras, laptop, cuddly toy and tea-set.

I pretty quickly realised that my multi-tasking skills were fading fast.
Making tea,
answering the phone "Yes I will give you a lift to the show, no it doesn't star for a few hours yet",
cooking pancakes,
setting up photo-shoots,
mopping pancake mix from my jeans and shoes,
delegating the chicken race rules poster to 'Step-Mum',
finding felt flower rings (where are they?)
chasing the cats out,
keeping the dog in,
teaching Godson how to make pancake mix,
putting out pan fires,
smoke extraction without letting the cat in and the dog out,
making coffee for those I forgot in the first round,
proof-reading the poster.. " Erm,I think there's an 'r' in Mallard",
answering the phone..."yes I will be there for the start of the fun run",
"Where does Darling Husband want the Purple sprouting planted? ..In the garden"

My boys and friend and lovely wife left with all their belongings, my children sat in the car.
Eldest daughter (vampire-pirate-fairy)looking all lovely
Youngest daughter looking pleased with herself at having managed to avoid a hairbrush all morning.
Middle daughter seemed to have already gone to the show with Mr Chairman, un-noticed by this caring nurturing mother.

The Village Show went very well.
No fatalities on the Fun run
No fighting over the vegetable competition
The ice-cream van didn't run over any children even though we thought he was making a very concerted effort to do so when he arrived.
No chickens turned up, I for one was very grateful, but Darling Husband was disappointed.
The highlight for me though was the local Mayor, who is blind, having a go on the coconut shy!!
Not content with missing badly, he proceeded to the crockery smash!
Then he had a go at skittles....

We came home exhausted and I was hit by the thought the house had been vandalised. There were broken and burnt pancakes all over the kitchen, wrapped around knife handles, sugar covered the worktops and maple syrup dripped from the bottle on it's side. The living room was no longer how I remembered it that morning, all the cushions were piled on the floor, throws were screwed up under the TV and my lovely feather sofa was as flat as road kill. There were empty cups all over the place...bugger!

I re-adjusted the living room and put all the washing up in the sink (thank goodness it's so big) and flopped onto the sofa with a glass of wine.

The milkman arrived.
He brought with him his lovely wife and daughter.
They also brought with them a huge bunch of gorgeous flowers (for dog-sitting) and a new kettle .. he's so subtle.
My children got out of bed and played badminton in their pyjamas.
We sat and laughed and watched our fab new kettle that changes colour according to the water temperature..awesome!

I'm such a tired little frog.

Pigsty inside and out

Hoorrrayyyyy!! (Don't panic, I'll moan in a couple of paragraphs) More baby piglets!
My lovely Pepper Pig has had thirteen piglets.
Poor thing, she gave birth to them over 7 hours while the boy pig, Ham (short for Hamilton) sat outside the pen, puffing and panting in sympathy.

We have also had an overnight guest, my daughter's best friend. He and she have been in each others' company since she was six weeks old and he was born. They've been to restaurants and barbecues, parties, camping and they are even in the same class at school. It's lovely, they are very close and think the world of each other even though the whole class thinks they are in love..bless! They are only 9!

He and she are very alike, they bring out the creativeness in each other like I have never seen. Within minutes of being home from school yesterday our living room was dismantled and transformed into a world of blankets and giant lawn mower boxes. The den 'fell down' (with the aid of my 4 year old daughter) at least three million times and there was whining of the screechiest quality to be heard for over five hours. The den became a large bed of a strange design, so basically they slept in a box and we had a momentary panic that only two children could be found, the third was found fast asleep snuggled (wedged) between the sofa and a cupboard.

This morning the den had taken on an organic form and life-force of it's own. I fear I will never reach my huge feather sofa again and I've no idea where the TV is.
The lawn mower box has collapsed and there is growing criticism between the friends that each is pretty duff at building dens. The tension is building faster than the den, it's a true test of friendship, and a true test of my nerves...I need a drink but I don't suppose being sloshed at a school summer fair might be terribly good for my company image.

The milkman's' Labradors have been here for a week now. They are city dogs and have thoroughly enjoyed a farm holiday. They collect sticks and pile them up outside the back door like a pair of beavers. Fruitcake is quite friendly towards them, but Jess, the long-wheel-base sheep dog climbs onto the windowsill and shakes with fear.
The cats have taken to the darkest corners of the barn.
At night we put them in a nice straw lined horsebox outside the house, where they bark every four seconds, in turn, with two second intervals, until we let them out in the morning.
These clean sleek city dogs are muddy and have been eating and rolling in things their owners would probably scoop into a bag and throw in a special bin. I hope and pray we will not be blacklisted for it, otherwise we'll never get milk delivered again!

But good news, Shirl left a message on the answerphone saying she'll be visiting tomorrow....
All I need is for her to bring some bloody red wine!
I'm a Frog on the edge!!!!!

I've been ill and v.grumpy lately, so I'll continue the theme with some home truths,

Shirl could easily be confused with Short Term Memory Barbie.

I do not like the cheap red wine my mother (Shirl) brings me.

Phoning me at the exact time I leave the house, every day to take children to school is not the best time to phone me and declare you had something to ask me, but can't remember what it was...while eating something loudly.

Farmers do not (all) get up at the crack of dawn.
Dairy farmers do, of course, have to get up at unearthly hours to do the milking, but it’s not the case for so many others any more. When my father in law was a young man, he had to get up early to feed the horses. The horses would then have some time to digest their food a bit and then go to work. That’s where (I think) this modern myth comes from. Tractors don’t need a rest after filling up, and they can also see in the dark, which the horses couldn’t, and so the farmers work later rather than earlier.

There’s no such thing as a mistletoe tree. Mistletoe is a parasitic dieasey plant type thing.

I do not like the cheap red wine my mother brings me.

Putting your child into private education does not mean you have bucket loads of money, it means you have no money because you are paying for private education.

No does not mean: ‘yes, of course you can, especially as you have moaned and whinged about it for an hour, I really like it when you do that’.

Vauxhall Vectra’s and Mercedes sports can be easily mistaken for one another.
I do not like cheap red wine.

Just because we have stone walls and old beams in our home does not mean we haven’t got round to plastering and painting our beams black, this is how we like it.

Not all members of the WI (Wild Indians) wear false teeth (I have heard of a youthful group in London), but around here, I think we can take it as red..

Farmers do not have hairy calf muscles….wellies make their legs smooth and completely hair free.

The smell of diesel is not attractive.

I do not like the cheap red wine Shirl brings me.

Sheep are not cute fluffy, woolly things that gambol about in the hills. They smell and are extremely stupid. They like getting tangled up in briars, so much so, that if you release them from such a constraint they will endeavour to do the same thing again, immediately if not sooner.

Shirl is not actually related to Sindy.

Why is it that when tidying the house (shudder!) you pick up three million pens, and put them by the phone, yet, two minutes later, when you need a pen there isn’t one there?

Not wearing a hearing aid when you need one is quite frankly, irritating.

If washing something delicate, placed inside a securely tied pillowcase in the washing machine, the knot will always come undone and the items will have come out….yet…if washing items separately, the pillowcase will always have the entire wash stuffed inside it when the load has finished.

I do not like the cheap red wine my mother brings me.

Telling me how well you can hear when you wear your hearing aid is, quite frankly, irritating.

Tired

I'd like to apologise for not visiting anyone this week, I've been very unwell (sniff!) and not feeling very humerous or sociable. In short, I'm rather short tempered and cranky ("nothing new there", I hear someone muttering at the back).
Some of my dearest friends have expressed concern at my total lack of conversation and enthusiasm for anything other than hot tea and very soft tissues.
I'll be back!