An early pre-emptive letter from Santa

I had this letter from Santa this morning.  We have a long and regular correspondence going back some years. You can read previous letters by looking up 'Santa Writes to Me' posts.  Here is today's letter.  I am still feeling hurt by it.


Lapland
August 2010


Dear Fran

You usually write to me with your requirements at the end of August, no matter how many times I have asked you to leave your letter until at least November.  This year, I thought I would anticipate your letter and clear up a few matters which are still hanging over from last year.  May I point out the following?....

1. Elves have limits.  They have to distribute their energies equally in sorting out the hundreds of thousands of requests we receive each year for presents.  This means that we cannot accept lists like yours from last year which run to fourteen pages of A4 paper.  These fourteen pages did not even include the pages from the IKEA catalogue, the NEXT catalogue and the six copies of Homes and Gardens magazine you provided so that we supplied exactly the right items.  (I am sure you had forgotten that there was an article in one of the Homes and Gardens issues in which there were pictures of a Santa and some elves - you had drawn moustaches, glasses and enormous ears on each of the elves, and this caused some upset amongst my workers.)

2. May I remind you that I am a provider of gifts and Christmas cheer, not an agent for film stars.  However many times you request meetings with Johnny Depp or George Clooney or James McEvoy, it is not in my power to arrange this. Enclosing a photograph of yourself in a bikini is going to do no good at all, especially as you even admit that the bikini is one you had at school and is therefore no longer an adequate container for your good self.  If I were ever able to arrange a Clooney or Depp or McEvoy meeting, I would advise ladies of your maturity and ... er ... strong features .... to send a photograph of yourself in as many layers as possible and perhaps an oversized fur hat and sunglasses.  The more blurred the photograph, the better, perhaps.  Maybe this is the time to mention that when I get a request list from any film star, they normally ask for houses in Hollywood and expensive jewels, not rendezvous with middle-aged ladies from England who look as though they have been at the pies.

3. Finally, you always, always request books which I do not have in stock.  I thought I would let you know, before you ask, that I do not now stock, have never stocked, and never will stock the following non-fiction titles:

Keep Fit While Supine


The No-Cal Tuna Mayo Baguette


Wear Striped Winter Pyjamas with Elegance


Eat Cake Hourly Without Guilt


How to Keep your Husband Happy While Shopping


Ironing with a Smile


Cutting your Toenails without Needing your Inhaler

The following autobiographies which you continually request also have never been, and never will be available:

Plump, Middle-aged and Saggy: My Ideal Woman - Johnny Depp


Plump, Middle-aged and Saggy: My Ideal Woman - George Clooney


Plump, Middle-aged and Saggy: My Ideal Woman - James McEvoy

I hope you do not mind my writing to you so early in the year just to clear up these few issues.  It was in fact something advised by my therapist, whom I have been seeing regularly since ... oh, I think ... ever since you first wrote to me.

My best wishes

Santa Claus

Not-a-Mommy-Blogger advice #2

So, because it is a hundred years since I was a young mommy, there I am, at the cafe, on my own, sipping peacefully on my chocomochalotsashockingcalories, snaffling a muffin the size of the Taj Mahal, reading my book, or doing the crossword, and watching five mums, surrounded by all their children, trying to talk to each other while simultaneously trying to amuse all the babies and toddlers.

That's what's called 'an impossible task', perhaps as difficult as this ....




Perhaps even more difficult than this ....

...  but definitely more difficult than persuading a man to ask for directions or pick socks up.


When I had my kids, mums didn't meet in cafes - we met in each other's wattle and daub houses.  We ate each other's failed carrot cake, drank each other's vile coffee, whispered criticisms of each other's home decor to the person next to us, and tried to pretend that we didn't mind each other's children grinding chocolate into our beige carpets and punching the lights out of our newborn babies.

It was really, really fun.

One tip I would like to share, if you are a mommy who meets others in your houses, is that when the icecream van comes round and plays its tune, you have a pact with each other that the first mother who hears it starts up a VERY LOUD RENDITION of 'Five Little Speckled Frogs' with which everyone else will join in.

The other way of saving on icecream is to tell your children that the icecream man only plays his tune when he has run out of icecream.  This may seem cruel.  That's because it is.

I have some advice for cafe mommies, trying to socialise AND keep the children occupied.  Set them some challenges.  Little people love challenges.  First, strap them into their buggies/pushchairs, then ....

Challenge 1.  How long does it take to turn fourteen serviettes into a snowdrift so that my buggy wheels disappear?

Challenge 2. What noises can I make while eating a large piece of toffee?  (During this challenge, any non-verbal communication the child attempts should be ignored until the challenge is over.)

Challenge 3. If I am given a tube of superglue to play with, what are the chances I will get it into the clasps which fasten me into my buggy?

Challenge 4. If, every time I say, 'Mommy, Mommy, Mommy' or yell or scream, Mommy feeds me a spoonful of chilli-flavour double espresso, how long will it take me to learn to cope with boredom?

'Oh YUK. And I thought mashed broccoli was bad!'

More evidence that I can't resist mucking about

What I love about the word 'antonym' is that it means 'opposite' and 'antonym' is the opposite of the word 'synonym' - it's so cool when things turn out like that.

What would have happened had some famous novelists thought, 'Nah!  Stupid idea!  I'll do just the opposite.'  I have had a think about this, and here I offer you some 'Antonymised (?) Book Titles' and the storylines which may have emerged ...

A Room Without a View - A young middle-class woman visits Italy and gets a room with a beautiful view.  Some chaps next door offer to swap it for one which overlooks the hotel boiler room and a yard where the dustbins are kept.  She feels she can't say no and gives in.  This leads to more giving in when someone called Cecil asks her to marry him.  Having settled for a view of a hotel boiler room and dustbin yard, marrying someone called Cecil seems to fit into the general picture of settling for second best.  Just in time, she dumps Cecil and marries George instead.  It's a close-run thing, though, and to be borne in mind by all young women who are taken in by fellow hotel guests.

Gulliver's Dossing About at Home - A chap called Gulliver whose business has failed leafs through a few travel brochures wondering what to do with his spare time.  He drops off to sleep and has a strange dream in which he meets some very tiny people, some very big people, some very clever but silly people, some very old but silly people and some very brainy horses who are served by some more very silly people.  When he wakes up from this dream, he thanks his lucky stars that none of it was real, because if so he would have felt inclined to write it all down, and an unlikely tale that would have proved!  He pours himself a beer and settles back down on the sofa to watch re-runs of old black and white films.

Three Men Outside a Boat - Three friends, all dressed in white suits and wearing ridiculous boater-style hats, decide that it would be ripping fun to sail down the Thames just because there is nothing else to do.  They stand beside the boat, looking at it.  There is a problem.  Inside the boat is the most humungous dog.  Not only is the dog humungous, but it is called Montmerency.  'Well,' says one of the friends, 'I have no objection to squeezing into the boat alongside a canine, but being in a boat with a canine called Montmerency is a situation up with which I will not put.'   (This particular chap was a pedant and would not have dreamed of splitting an infinitive.)  The other two friends try to persuade him that Montmerency isn't a bad name for a dog, but he is impossible to convince and keeps saying, 'We either change it to Rover or Spot, or I am afraid you will have to sail without me', and in the end, they have to abandon the trip and go to work.  No one gets to hear, therefore, about any comic incidents to do with barometers and bagpipes.  Not everyone is upset by this.

Handy hints for young mothers who want to read the paper

Today I am pretending to be a Mommy blogger.  This means that, not only am I pretending to be a young mother blogging about life with kids, but I am also pretending to be American, because Brits don't say 'mommy'.  I think we should.  Firstly, I think it sounds good, and secondly, imagine how irritating it must be, when browsing the Internet, to find advice on breastfeeding when what you really wanted was this ...

Anyhow, I would like to share with you a handy hint on how to keep little children occupied without bankrupting yourself in the toy shop on all that coloured plastic which, whatever way you look at it, isn't going to match your cream leather sofa.  This method worked for me when I was a young mother which is a few years ago now quite a while ago now a long time ago just after the Normans invaded the British Isles.

When our kids were young, they had a high chair with a tray, like this ... *slope off to Google to find pictures of high chairs*

OH MY GIDDY AUNT!  I WAS LOOKING FOR A PICTURE OF A HIGHCHAIR.  WHAT IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT'S DECENT ARE THESE?

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!  

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!  Yeah, that's right.  Put the entertaining bit BEHIND the baby!

Ha ha ha oh my sides are hurting ha ha ha ha hoo hoo ha ha ha!

Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yes. We used to put our kids in a highchair like this .. 


*Google 'Furniture for the Medieval Child' to find picture of chair like we used to have*

At last! A nice, sensible chair with a nice, sensible baby in it. Do you know how long it's taken me to find this?!  Ten minutes, once I'd trawled through chairs-for-babies-to-fall-out-of, chairs-with-bits-you-can't-wash-sick-out-of and chairs-with-trays-with-no-edges-dur-brain!

Right. Here's my tip. My 19 year old daughter was horrified yesterday when I reminded her that this was how I kept her occupied. I may as well have said, 'We used to put you in the middle of the road and tell you to play with the white lines'. But it kept her busy for hours.

Fun with sticky tape

1. Take a roll of the type of sticky tape which is very light on its stick, if you know what I mean, the type that's no good for wrapping parcels and isn't going to deprive your baby of its top epidermal layer.

2. Cut the tape into short pieces (best not let Baby help with this bit) and stick them all around the edge of the highchair tray.

3. Show Baby how to unstick one and stick it onto its forehead, then unstick it, then stick it back on the tray, then unstick it, then stick it onto its head, then unstick another piece, and stick that on its arm ...

4. Once Baby has mastered the general technique, go and read the paper.

Other games our children played while strapped in their highchairs ...

1. How long does it take to get two yoghurt pots off your hands?

2. How long does it take to pick up and eat seventy-five peas, especially when they're stuck to the tray with syrup?

3. If I am dressed in three hats, four pairs of gloves and a fourteen-feet-long scarf, how long will it take me to undress?


It's okay. Don't call the authorities. The last three were jokes.

But not bad ideas if you're desperate .....

A sad tale written to illustrate the fact that, if challenged to a duel by a duvet, you should graciously retire from the contest

This is a tale, a tragic tale, of buses and of duvets

You will not hear its like in any plays or books or movie ... movays
It is the tale of what occurred when I decided I
Would take my duvet on the bus, not Catcher in the Rye.

A book, you see, is more the thing to take when on the bus.
But duvets need a wash sometimes.  (They're full of bits of us -
A million trillion skin cells that slough off in the night -
And form a tasty supper for a zillion dustmite.) 

A duvet looks unthreatening when laid out on the bed.
It's just something to warm you as you rest your weary head.
I thought the same, dear friends, that duvets were not filled with spite,

But mine’s a Big Mike Tyson duvet, spoiling for a fight.

Be warned, be warned.  A duvet, faced with being rolled and shoved
Into a plastic bag thinks it a sign it is not loved.
It's like a screaming toddler who will not in buggy sit
And stiffens up his legs until the mum admits defea - defit.

After the half an hour it took to get it tied up snug

I took my Ventolin and swigged some gin from a half-pint mug

Then dragged the duvet out so we could catch a bus to town.
One came and I thought, ‘Lovely.  Just on time.  I can sit down.’

Hah!   Let's go back to what I said of Catcher in the Rye
And look at all the differences 'tween books and duvii [the plural, I swear]               
A book is well-behaved.  It sits quite passively in laps.
A duvet wants its own seat and then some of yours, perhaps.

A duvet, off the bus, looks like a duvet, and won't faze ya.
When on the bus, it grows - becomes the size of Africa … and Australasia.
It rings the bell by accident.  It trips folk in the aisle.
It waits until its moment and then leaps out at a child.

My duvet strained against its bag.  I thought that it would split.
It terrified me, thinking what might happen next.  Would it
Rise up and come alive - become a kind of Duvet Shrek?
Change from its white/grey-white to Green?  Grab babies by the neck?

Would it stand on a seat and holler, 'BOW DOWN TO KING DUVET?'
Or burst into a jazz song like a groovay duvet Buble?
Or drag the driver from his seat, squeeze out his final breath
Then drive us all to Duvet-Land where we would meet our death?

I dragged my duvet off the bus, making apologies
For bashing everybody's elbows, legs and heads and knees.
I headed for the launderette, for my revenge was near.
Hah!  On the bus, the duvet won.  But I would triumph here.

Oh, with what pleasure did I watch that Thing  go round and round,
As, trapped in the machine, it could do NOTHING as it drowned.
And then, when it was washed and clean, I tortured it with heat
Inside the tumble drier.  Oh, the victory was sweet!

I had two hours of quiet while my duvet washed and dried.

And then I opened the machine. And then I realised.

Pre-wash, it had been big enough to cause me lots of trouble

But post-wash and post-dry it had fluffed up to more than double

My duvet sat there all puffed out and proud and pleased and smug

There was no way I’d get it back into that plastic bug/bag

What’s more, I had no transport other than the G1 bus

It was a busy time of day – would there be room for us?

  

Please don’t ask me to share with you the details of that journey

Except that all the passengers, they thought it very furney

That when at first we boarded, they saw only giant bedding

And that once we two were on the bus, no, no  one else could geddin

I’m thinking now that sheets, and blankets, like my Grenny hed

Look ‘specially attrective on my nice big double bed

The duvet’s going to Oxfam, but I feel no pang of guilt

It was the devil incarnate, masquerading as a quilt.

PS  If you liked this poem, you might like to see other poems here

Evidence that my loyalty to Tenby is a fragile, fragile thing ....

Regular readers will know that Tenby in South Wales played a big, big part in my life earlier in the year, even if its only attractions were A Big Wall and a Library and Enough Icecream to replace all the melted ice at the North Pole and reverse Global Warming.

You can read about Tenby here and and in other 'Me Travelling' posts if you like.

Now, promise me you won't mention this to Tenby, but Whitby, in North Yorkshire, where I've just been for a week, has No Boring Wall, a Bigger Library, and just as much Icecream.  It also, though, has another staple foodstuff.


Here is a picture of Whitby.

Here is a picture of what I did in Whitby.

Here is a picture of what I saw everyone else doing in Whitby.

Here is a picture of Me after a week in Whitby.

As you may have gathered from my subtle hints, fish and chips are not just a staple foodstuff in Whitby, but are so revered and worshipped that, as you walk along the seafront, you can see all the fish just leaping out of the water, desperate to be caught, and singing this little song ...

Take me, take me, and cover me in batter

Fry me, fry me, so I can make you fatter

Eat me, eat me, along with lots of chips

Then hate me, hate me, for what I do to hips.

We spent a week in Whitby, eating fish and chips.  Then we travelled back by train on Saturday evening, got back into the house at 7pm in the evening and just couldn't face cooking, so I persuaded the husband to go and buy a takeaway.  

Here is a picture of our takeaway.

Actually, I lie.  Here is a picture of our takeaway.

Fish and chips are like blogs.  It's just so difficult to drop the habit once you've started ....

Evidence that a month without blogging is like a month without chocolate

Whaddya mean, what are YOU doing here?  I said I'd be back in September, and here I am................

It's not September?

So, what month is it, then?

Oh, really?  August, you say?  Like ... the VERY END of August?

No?

Only the middle?

You mean, like. the latter half of the middle?

No?

Oh.

The 16th, you say?

Yes, I suppose that is more near the middle ...

Although, it IS one day more than the real middle, isn't it?  Because ... doesn't August only have 30 days?

Oh.  

*Sigh*

Well, okay, then.  So it's not QUITE September.  But can I come back anyway?  Please?  Pretty please?  

I mean, I have worked really hard.  I said I would write, and I did.  I wrote a sitcom and found a producer who agreed to read it.  I entered some competitions.  I sent some stories to magazines.  I .... no, that's about it.

But it's more than I would have done .....

Please?

If I promise to be on my best behaviour at least trying to be good?