Life on the other side

Entries from October 2009

Leaking toilets and choclate rasins

Friday, 30th, October 2009 · 3 Comments

Well, I am no having a good day, Grandad fix it has been and attempted to fix our toilet, now of course it would not be a simple task, oh no that would be easy! The problem with the toilet was that it whistled, it the middle of the night, and at just the right pitch to send me into to sleep deprived mania, I would stomp around, because if I was being woken by the bloody toilet them LP should be up too and feel the pain, turn all the taps on in the bath room and it would stop, right until I was just about to drift off to sleep again, and then the whistling would start again….. apparently a valve would fix it!! according to LP and granddad fix it and that’s the kind of thing I am quite happy not to be interested in or know anything about….. so yesterday Granddad fix it arrived with said valve, and after breakfast this morning he fitted it “5 minute job!” apparently.. well about 3 hours, quite a lot of Tupperware, bowls and all the towels later, the toilet doesn’t whistle, but it does leak quite a lot, now Granddad fix it has come to Nottingham to go to a African workshop that he’s involved with (the African connection is something for another post!) so has to go and deliver drums, and leaves me with the leaking, but not whistling toilet…. OK i say I just empty the plastic bowl every so often…. what I don’t realize is the toilet is leaking quite a lot….. and so I am emptying the bowl every 10 minutes… Now I have to go out and get the baby’s formula (from the doctors as she is Lactose intolerant!) and she doesn’t have enough to make it till Monday, and the library books are due back today, oh and we only have about 3 nappies left, I can feel the pressure starting to build… so I think it will be fine, stuff a big towel under it and empty the bowl just before you leave and just do it all really quickly…… So I run to the doctors of course they have lost the repeat prescription and try to look for it in the slowest way possible, then I run avoiding the million old ladies with walkers that seamed to be out just to piss me off, I throw the books into the library as we passed, gave the man at the counter the death stare (my face is also bright red and quite sweaty at this point) because he always trys to get me to sign up to some group or other.. into the chemists back up the hill home, abandon kids in the pushchair, up the stairs 2 at a time, empty the overflowing bowl….breath…. then the I wants start…..before I can even catch my breath to say anything he has requested a banana, juice, raisins, an apple and some milk…. I ignore the request, but there was no ignoring the smell of poo, so upstairs again change of nappy while he is not keeping still at all like I have asked, and now there is poo on the slinky, he throws a strop when I explain he can’t play with it because there is poo on it…. and then the I wants start….. chocolate raisins now….(I thought he had forgotten about them) and there I am pooey slinky in hand 2 year old screaming about chocolate raisins and leaking toilet, oh and the baby’s crying now because she wants her bottle…. and I her my mother say in my head…. well this is what happens if you have sex!

so on my way downstairs I mutter something about fucking chocolate raisins, and Alpha turns to me and says they are not fucking chocolate raisins mummy, just chocolate raisins….

LP calls to see how my day is going, and I have a rant then bust into tears, and he calmly tells me to stop the cistern filling up (how do men know so much about toilets did I miss that day at school?) so I manage to use a hair band to stop it filling up so quickly and he promises to get home ASAP with gin and nappies (what more could I ask for!)

Chocolate raisins have now been flung around the room and are mostly under the sofa covered in fluff, baby has had her bottle and thrown some up on the car mat, slinky has bee depooed and is in a big tangled mess around Alpha’s arm… so all’s back to normal, I am going to make a cup of tea and read this blog, just to remind myself I am not the only one who has days like this…..

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Ena Green

Thursday, 22nd, October 2009 · Leave a Comment

Well I have been building up to this, so I am going to start telling you about it now……(in my sick bed I might add!)

Thursday 12th November is my deadline

I have given myself 3 weeks to finish some of my creations and get them up on a Folksy shop… and start promoting it and see what happens!!! so the next 3 weeks are going to be busy… I’ll try and update you when I can! but I’ll see you all on the 12th November……Wish me luck

Thank you to my friend Tricia for the brilliant Logo
EnaGreen Logo

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Domestic Tips for Men

Tuesday, 20th, October 2009 · 1 Comment

kitchenhoneys

- If you leave a tiny scrap of toilet paper on the roll, this means it is not actually finished therefore you don’t need to change it.

- Soaking the dishes is an important part of the washing up process, and if you leave them in the sink “soaking” for a few days they magically wash themselves up!!

- You never actually need to do laundry, clothes and bedding are self cleaning

- the dustbin is actually a foot higher than it looks so you can pile the rubbish up until it all falls out again.

- If you have a partner you can free up the space in your head that remembers all birthdays.

- Toasted cheese sandwiches count as cooking

- If you take the bin out once a month this is 50% of all the housework that takes place in the house.

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Button Moon Bag

Friday, 16th, October 2009 · 1 Comment

The bag I made for Chandra Moon’s Birthday (my dad’s other half)

Button Moon BagButtonMoon Bag Close up

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The Boyfriend Checklist

Friday, 16th, October 2009 · 3 Comments

I was thinking about an agreement I made with myself after a 4 year relationship ended for me about 8 years ago, and at the time I swore I would use all my past boyfriend mistakes to create a checklist to save me wasting anymore time on useless partners in the future….

so here it is written down for the first time ever… hopefully somebody else will find it useful?

1.
Question- ” Do you like football?” (football can be replaced with any sport or in fact playstaion)

Answers
A- Yes I love it, it dictates my every waking moment, I am grumpy and foul if my team looses, I can’t actually do anything else when it’s on, and even if we go on holiday I will seek out an english bar to watch it and leave you to wounder round on your own.

B- No, but actually that’s a lie, because I think that’s what you want to hear now, but once I think I am pretty safe and in there, I will magically transform into boyfriend A.

C- No I actually don’t know anything about Football, and I don’t get it….. in fact you know more than I do!

2.
Question- “Are you good with Money?”

Answers
A- Money? what’s that?

B- If it came down to rent or beer and fags I know what I would choose, followed by drunken chuckles and smokers cough….

C- Not brilliant, but OK, you need to work hard and don’t spend what you don’t have….. unless you really have to?

3.
Question- ” If I took you on an amazing back to basics trip to Africa how would you cope?”

Answers
A- Not bloody going there…. there’s no TV!

B- OK…??? ( reality is he has a massive panic attack and locks himself in a mud hut for 2 days… and actually is a bit rude to quite a few locals when he surfaces!)

C- Wow what an adventure.. Love it and start counting down till our next adventure…

4
Question- “if you are getting me a gift would you choose”

A- A portable TV is a nice gesture, but not when coupled with the phase “So I can watch what I want on the main TV?”

B- Something I brought for myself then decided I didn’t like?

C- An amazing flash camera because you like taking photos, a sewing machine because your old one was rubbish, a Net book so you can blog!!!? (Note to LP… you are actually the best gift buyer I know!!)

5
Question- “if you don’t agree with me, would you say so?”

A- I would actually disagree with everything you say on purpose just to wind you up?

B- No I would just agree with everything you say and quietly be getting angry inside because you were making all the decisions, and you have asked me again and again what I would like to do, but I always just agree with you?

C- Yes, sometimes and hopefully we could talk about it and sometimes you get your way and sometimes I get mine, but actually we normally want the same thing anyway?

6
Question- “It’s my birthday, I want to go to a world Music festival that is on, do you”

A- Ignore what I want and let my friends organize a party for me with no input from you, they even take me out for the day and buy your present to me because you haven’t got me anything?

B- arrange for me to go on holiday with your family, then dump me just before, when all the tickets to the festival have sold out?

C- Take me, even though we can’t really afford it and there is mud up to our armpits?

7
Question- “My family come to visit do you”

A- Ignore them and watch football?

B- Arrange to be doing something else, even though I often make a real effort with you family?

C- talk to them, show an interest in them and be polite, maybe even have a bit of banter?

8
Question- “I have lots of interests and hobbies, do you”

A- show absolutely no interest in any of them?

B- Start to take up everything that I am interested in until it becomes a little bit creepy that you are copying everything I do?

C- be interested and supportive, but have your own hobbies and interest too?

9
Question- “My mum comes back from traveling for 4 months, do you?”

A- Let me go and see her on my own and generally ignore what going on?

B- Decide to throw a BBQ at your house and tell me my mum isn’t invited, and then throw a strop when I say I am not going, because I am going to see my Mum?

C- Drive me to see my mum and happily sit through 700 photos of her overland adventure to China?

10
Question- ” If I dump you because your getting a little crazy how do you react?”

A- Get together with our slightly crazy flat mate within minutes?

B- Get drunk and cover your self in post it note saying you are useless?

C- I would never dump you because you are practically perfect in every way!

If you answered mainly A’s
Good Luck with that?

if you answered mainly B’s
Whatever!

If you answered mainly C’s
Thank you for being great LP XXXX

I am not bitter honest,I can laugh at all this…. and I am lucky enough to appreciate what I have now…. please don’t make the same mistakes I have.. make them take the quiz!

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Am I a bad mother because………

Tuesday, 13th, October 2009 · 2 Comments

- I quite often don’t know what the 2 year old is talking about, and I just say ” oooh really!” in an interested voice and don’t even try to find out what he’s talking about.

- I don’t see the funny side when I am trying to get the 2 year old ready for an appointment and he thinks it’s funny to run away and hide in our bed giggling.

- I often think… I am finishing this cup of tea that has taken me 2 hours to get time to sit down with, before I deal with the strange poo like smell in one of your nappies.. (even though my eyes might we watering)

- I try and stay in bed as long as possible in the morning even with a child climbing all over me and baby shouting in her cot…. (I don’t normally last very long….)

- I am sometimes a little bit sarcastic to the 2 year old and he doesn’t understand.

- I get a little bit cross when it takes 10 hours to get anywhere because we have to go in every phone box, stand on every manhole cover, climb on every wall, and run our hands along every set of railings on the way.

- I get a little bit cross when I prepare something for tea that was a favorite last week only to be told “I DON’T LIKE………….”

- I get a little bit cross when I discover a half eaten banana under the sofa, and I am not sure how old it is…..

I hope this doesn’t mean I am a bad mother…… I think this is just normal?

those of you who are not yet parents will probably be tutting and thinking when I have children I’ll do this…. and those of you who already have children will hopefully be chuckling and not feeling too bad about some of the things we do to get through the day…..

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Time to enjoy the…….

Sunday, 11th, October 2009 · Leave a Comment

IMG_5027I have had a clear out over the last few days, I have stripped the bedroom and emptied all my little hiding places out (you get quite good at fitting a lot into a small space when you grow up on a boat) I had bits of fabric, and old handbags, and piles and piles of old clothes that I am intending to one day use for patchwork projects… well I turfed it all out, and took it downstairs, and tided the bedroom so it looks perfect, I cleaned and arranged all the ornaments, clean bedlinen… it was such a pleasure to go to bed last night, I also had a whip round the children’s room that needs a bit more work, but i’ll save that for another day…..
anyway back to my mountain of stuff.. I went through all of it, Bag for the charity shop ( well 2 bin liners full actually!), bag for musician friend of LP’s who’s about to have a baby, Bag for the lady next door who is also about to have a baby (she’s having it at home…..the walls are quite thin!!…. not looking forward that.. I think it will bring back memories that I am trying to forget!!! anyway I’ll save the joys of childbirth for another post)

I still seam to have a mountain of fabric… I had better get making!!!

well all the fabric has been sorted, folded and put into my making cupboard ready for operation make stuff to sell…… will start tomorrow and at the moment I am going to stop and enjoy everything in the house being put away where it should be.. it’s tidy… my work is done… well till the children get up?

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Thank you Mum & Dad

Thursday, 8th, October 2009 · 5 Comments

Babyleah
Well I got to thinking about my childhood, and it was good, not normal but what is?

My parents if I do say so myself did a great job, I have very happy memories of my childhood, somethings were hard but they have actually made me the person I am today.

I was born in 1976, my mother was then married to my biological father, who didn’t prove very useful and she left him after a couple of years.. now I don’t know a lot of the details about this time, and therefore can’t really comment…. but luckily for me my mother hooked up with a man called Peter who I call my dad…. He did the job so that’s what I call him.

anyway…. now from when I can remember, we moved around a lot…. I mean a lot, we lived in boats, caravans, houses in my early life, and then when I was about 7 we did our final moved onto a canal boat. Now there is a little community of people that live on canal boats, but more often than not I was the only one in my class at school… now I learnt very quickly that i needed to let the crazy family lifestyle out in bite size chunks to the normals… they needed time to digest the fact we lived on a boat before we got into the fact we went to CND matches, went to the woodcraft folk instead of guides, most of my clothes came from jumble sales, we were all vegetarian… if you laid all this on the table in one go you were stuffed… 7 year old little girls like to compare collections of novelty rubbers or Cindy dolls…..not deal with large political lifestyle choices…. but once they realize you are fairly normal under it all they don’t mind so much that your mum presents them with bean casserole when they come for tea, or when you explain you are not allowed to watch that trashy American TV show that everybody else watches, oh and try not to let mum hear because she might get on an anti American political soap box and your new friend really needs to warm a little more to you before she can cope with that…I also learnt fairly quickly the importance of fashion to children….after my mother chose some very hippy shoes that looked home made with rainbows on…. My class did not share my mothers fashion sense…..

All this is a skill I have developed over my life and it’s actually proved very useful….. I am used to being the new girl and making friends is easy, and I can generally judge who is going to cope when I choose to reveal a bit more about myself…..some people call it astute but it was purely born out of childhood survival…. it has done me well…. So, aside from my time in school my childhood was idyllic, summer holidays camping by the sea, picnics, walks in the countryside, lots of family and friends…… and there were the more unusual things, like me and my brother dressed as a packet of butter and bag of flour to protest against EEC food mountains; nobody else in my class knew what EEC food mountains were, or had ever chanted MAGGIE MAGGIE MAGGIE OUT OUT OUT…. the fact we had not a set of matching china dogs on our mantle piece, but bits of Greenham common fence…. I am glad that I am naturally interesting, none of this down to me… it’s down to my wonderful, unusual, eccentric, passionate, parents…..

Thank you mum & dad X

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Carry on Laughing

Monday, 5th, October 2009 · 1 Comment

I am defiantly feeling trapped and isolated and very very poor and 3 years feels like a lifetime at the moment… I just can’t seam to snap out of feeling blue about all this, but I am sure it’s just a bad patch and it’ll get better. but the worst thing is I feel so guilty for feeling like this. I should be colouring in one hand and cooking healthy nutritious meals with the other while praising Alpha for all the good things he does and reading him stories and not getting mad when he smears bananas into the laptop screen that I have just chipped clean!!!

When the reality is I am screaming like a banshee and cooking beans in the microwave and leaving the Laptop screen until I really can’t see through the grime at all… and even the sluts approach to motherhood is really really hard work! and then I see other mum’s who have managed to brush their hair and even put on clothes that don’t have food or vomit on them!!

I was trying to have a somber moment, fight the tears back as I had several hours to go before they are in bed. I put my hands over my face and feel the burning of depression in my chest, it hard to maintain this feeling sorry for yourself when a 2 year old comes over and puts a bucket on your head.

That’s it… my sense of humor that’s what’s got me this far… the greatest gift my mother ever gave me was her sense of humor… even in the blackest desperate moments when a 2 year old put a bucket on your head you have to laugh, and laugh and laugh some more…. and then it’s not all so bad? it really doesn’t matter if LP come home to a carpet of wet towels because potty training isn’t as easy as they seam to make out in the book.. or that the kitchen is a death trap because Iona is starting to learn to eat and most of the floor has some sort of discarded food on it. if you don’t have a sense of humor being a parent is a killer….

What do you say to a really enthusiastic 2 year old as he drags you into the living room to show you what he has done, only to see your baby with a cardboard tube from the inside of the kitchen roll shoved on each arm, and he then exclaims “look mummy Iona’s a Robot!”

after the initial panic you laugh……

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