Lemon Drizzle

It is the school cake sale again and with it comes the usual baking request. I shudder at the thought, given baking is low down on my skill base. I blame it on my school domestic science teacher who sent me packing from her class for a “shameful” white sauce.

With the baking deadline looming, I turn my attention to the cake. I pass the three-year-old and the baby into the capable hands of Big Cook Little Cook and begin turning to my reliable Lemon Drizzle recipe that requires minimum equipment and effort. I realise I am out of eggs and quickly dash out to the hen house to find Hilda sitting on her nest. “Hurry up,” I say wondering what speeds the egg laying process up. A little later she comes up trumps and produces a very small warm egg but needs must.

The baby is now screaming so I strap him to my front in the faithful papoose. I continue with my baking jiggling up and down to calm him down. Whilst singing Rock-a-Bye-Baby I realise I have added plain rather than self-raising flour. Oh well flour is flour after all. It will still taste good I think to myself. I wait by the Aga knowing full well that with my post-natal memory loss I am bound to forget about the sponge until 5am tomorrow. Then the phone rings. It is a friend who wants to chat through some crucial lift sharing arrangements. Just as my call ends the doorbell rings. A cheery man hands me the Border Terrorist who he spotted taking herself for a walk down the road.

Then I suddenly remember the Lemon Drizzle. I dash to the Aga and pull out my cake tin. Inside is a rather limp slice of dark brown sponge. It certainly lacks its self-raising status and resembles a piece of over cooked toast. With no more egg-laying hens and a screaming baby I decide to sprinkle it with sugar, wrap it in cellophane and slap a label on using my neatest handwriting. I wonder whether I should rename it “Lemon Biscuit Cake.”

At the cake sale I notice my Lemon Drizzle sitting in prime position in the centre of the table. I wonder whether to buy it myself but opt for the very fluffy looking coffee cake beside it. Before I leave I go back to the stall and discover the table empty apart from a few jam tarts and - a lonely Lemon Drizzle. My daughter says loudly, “Mummy, your cake is still there.” I’m ready to head for the door. Thankfully I hear later that the Lemon Drizzle was finally sold – to my faithful friend, Capable Karen who has come to my rescue once again.

A Date at Ikea

“I’ve decided to take a few days off,” says my husband casually. “Perhaps we should spend the day together without the children.” Great idea I think to myself seeing as most of our conversation these days is dominated by sleep deprivation and whose turn it is to take out the rubbish. Thankfully Granny also thinks it is a good idea and nervously agrees to have the children despite it being half term and Grandpa being away on business.

The day before our big break my husband asks if I have booked a nice restaurant and were we going for a gentle walk along the Dorset coastline? “We’re going to Ikea,” I mutter. “WHAT?” he shrieks. “We spend our first day on our own together in years and we’re going to Ikea.” I spend the rest of the day convincing him that an Ikea trip is something you just cannot do with children and I needed some support in deciding upon my toy storage unit. After much convincing he reluctantly agrees to the trip on the condition that he does not have to go near an Allen key.

As we pull into the car park he says, “We need to stay focused in here.” It is clear he does not share my joy of mulling over different storage styles without children and straying off the shopping list. At the entrance we are greeted by the first Ikea-dressed sitting room. My husband’s eyes light up at the size of the plasma television nestled into smart high-tech media shelving. He reclines on the L-shaped leather sofa, puts his feet up on the perfectly parked poof and closes his eyes. I sit down next to him and start chatting about the Christmas holidays. We spend the next few hours walking from room to room in a distinctly unfocused way lying on sofas and generally catching up on the past few months. We even browse through the toy boxes arm in arm.

We witness a number of other couples bickering over the choice of clip frames, however we remain positively calm during our Ikea experience. In fact, in a strange way we affectionately rekindled our relationship amongst the storage boxes and array of tea lights at Ikea. As we pull out of the car park with the car bulging with boxes, my husband says, “That was great. We must come here again soon.”

Paddington Comes to Visit

The three-year-old comes bounding excitedly out of pre-school. He is clutching Paddington Bear and a small brown suitcase. “We’ve got Paddington for the weekend,” he shrieks. His teacher hands me a book explaining that it is Paddington’s Diary and that each child takes it in turns to have him for a few days. “How lovely,” I remark, thinking to myself, “Help, not more responsibility.”

In the car my little boy busily straps Paddington into his car seat. At home he runs upstairs and unpacks his suitcase, which consists of a yellow toothbrush.

When the other children get home, they are equally excited at having a visitor for the weekend. He sits on his own chair at teatime, beside the bath at bath time and then snuggles up beside the three-year-old at bedtime.

Later I turn to the diary sitting on the side. It is full of entries from other families, accompanied by photos of smiling happy faces enjoying beach trips, visits to Father Christmas and other treats. I did not think our weekend would remotely live up to Paddington’s previous visits, particularly given tomorrow was our weekly supermarket shop. The next day, Paddington sits in the trolley being pushed up and down supermarket aisles. I am told that apparently he can only eat Penguins, Wotsits and Jaffa Cakes. My shop budget is blown by his visit.

During the weekend, Paddington joins us for a rugby match on Sunday. He cheers from the touchline alongside the other children. As we leave the pitch I realise he is missing. I am told he went to relieve himself earlier behind a nearby tree. I rummage behind the bushes and discover him staring up at me, still clutching his small brown brolly.

That night, Paddington once more decides to disappear. We launch a full scale Bear Hunt searching high and low for the small brown bear. I begin to hyperventilate at the thought of telling the teacher that Paddington is missing. Suddenly the biddable Labrador prods me with her nose. From the corner of her mouth, I spot something blue. We wrench her jaws open and there is Paddington nestled comfortably beside a large wet tongue. Thank goodness we have found him and all intact. Tomorrow it is back to pre-school and safely into the hands of another family.

Come Sniffing

Our border terrorist is misbehaving again. She has taken advantage of the fact that her owners are nicely distracted by a baby and pigs and has decided to work her way up the pecking order.

Since moving to the new house, she sits at the gate barking at any passersby delighting in her territorial status in the centre of a bustling village. The problem is that in true terrier style, her bark is more of a shrill yap. A few local villagers have remarked on our vocal dog. A polite way of telling us that the petition against the terrorist is being drafted à le Stalbridge Coq.

When we are out walking in the fields, people regularly turn around and scuttle off in the opposite direction when they see us coming. In fact, they are most definitely fearful of our little terrorist so it was time to call in the professionals.

I enrol once more in local dog training classes, as if I have got time on my hands with a new baby and three other starlings to attend to. When I arrive, the dog trainer says she would like a moment to ‘observe’ us. No pressure then. I open the boot slowly. The two dogs come stampeding out barking and jumping up in excitement. Somehow I manage to get leads on to the leaping canines. They ignore my pleas to ‘Sit’ and the Labrador abandons her ‘oh so biddable’ status and chases after the dog trainer’s nearby tabby cat. I was in disgrace.

During the lesson the dog trainer observes the little terrorist and watches her closely with other dogs. At the end, she runs me through her psychological profile. “Your dog needs to be sniffed by as many dogs as possible, she says.” With that she promptly turns the terrorist’s bottom towards the nearest dog and lifts her tail. The terrorist is clearly horrified by this most undignified act.

Since the lesson, I have been scanning the fields for other dogs. When we meet one I leap across to the owner and say, “Morning. Could your dog sniff my dog please?” Clearly they think that we are a little odd to say the least, but to my amazement it is working and her terrorism is improving. So to all my local village dog walkers, please don’t turn the other way when you see us coming. Just come and have a sniff.

Sausages

“Tonight we are having roast chicken with all the trimmings,” I announce to the children. Cheers ring out from the two eldest followed by a loud shriek and subsequent sobbing from the three-year-old. “I don’t like chicken,” he cries. “I only like sausages,” he says.

The problem is that his diet is limited to just that – the great British sausage. He is happy to try a variety of different sausages, his favourite being a chipolota from the local butcher and he is quite partial to the odd frankfurter. His sausages regularly sit alone on his plate, refusing to be joined by any sort of potato, pasta and spare the thought of a vegetable unless it is a baked bean.

Over the past three years we have tried various methods to try and expand his diet. We have encouraged him with star charts, stickers and even the odd chocolate button in return for him just popping a pea into his mouth. We have also tried the more firm approach of placing bowls of lasagne and shepherds pie in front of him, leaving him there shrieking. We talk about food, he helps prepare meals and we have even got children’s books out from the library to try and whet his appetite for new things. None of these methods have worked and he will quite happily go without supper or any other meal until his beloved sausage appears once more on his plate.

Last week, he came back from pre-school claiming he had tried a carrot stick. I doubted whether this was the case and checked with his teacher. She told me that he had indeed tried a carrot and seemed to quite like it. The next day I filled his lunchbox with carrots. My enthusiasm backfired and he has not touched one since. A few days later he told me he had tried a “potato circle” at a friend’s house. Once more I went into overdrive on potato gratin, so much so that he has decided it is definitely now off the menu.

My last resort is to go with the sausage but modify it myself. This morning I have bought his beloved banger, opened the end of its skin and stuffed a few small peas and carrot pieces down it. It looks a bit bulky and a little discoloured but I am hoping that this might be my cunning solution to the sausage-loving toddler.

Pigs

“We can’t live on a farm without pigs,” my husband says in his usual enthusiastic way, having spent weeks reading books on pig rearing. I am a little less enthusiastic about the prospect of yet more mouths to feed and more pens to clear out particularly given he is away much of the time. However, with the sty currently lying dormant and the children pestering me daily I finally submit and agree to two weaners joining our merry brood.

We begin preparing the five star luxury accommodation for our new arrivals in the pigsty beside the henhouse. “At least they’ve got the hens to talk to at night,” says the three year old. We decide that we would buy one of the pigs and a friend known as ‘Capable Karen’ would buy the other. Capable Karen rears lambs, owns ponies and confidently picks up chickens by their feet, un-phased by flapping feathers. In summary she is efficient on the farm and totally in tune with rural living. Most importantly she knows about pigs. We arrive at a nearby farm with my daughter wearing a pair of pink ballet pumps that are shortly immersed in farmyard mud. The friendly farmer asks us which ones we would like. We agree to whichever girls he can catch. This was no easy task. Unfortunately, I am manning the gate during this whole squealing episode and as a group of pigs come running towards me, I step back allowing the gate to swing open and a couple of them to escape. They scatter across the farmyard in all directions.

We sprint after them trying to herd them back to the pen. But the little Babes are having none of it and begin trotting off down the lane towards the road. Capable Karen, her daughter and the farmer efficiently herd. Meanwhile my daughter, her pink pumps and I make feeble attempts to catch them, knowing full well that if they come anywhere near us, we would be making a mad dash for the road instead.

Finally, we get our two weaners safely into the back of the horsebox and the farmer enthusiastically waves us off delighted to see the back of us. We return home exhausted and I feel distinctly nervous about what we have let ourselves in for. That evening my husband arrives home and excitedly runs out to the pigsty. Staring at the two small pigs with a broad smile across his face, he says, “Now we’re complete.”

Getting Back in Shape

It is almost five months since The Baby arrived and time to reach into the back of the cupboard for my favourite pair of jeans. It soon becomes obvious that they are not going to slide on easily. I lie on the floor, hold my tummy in and edge the zip up. The three-year-old walks in and stares at me wrestling with the pair of denims on the floor. “What are you doing Mummy? Have you got a tummy ache?” he asks. “Not yet,” I reply.

Ten minutes later and the jeans are ‘uncomfortably’ on. I congratulate my postnatal tummy. Then I discover that my once faithful jeans will not allow me to sit down. I cast my mind back to the regular grazing I have been relishing in over the past few months and the hoovering up of children’s leftover pasta and half eaten Petit Filous. I then recall a friend telling me about a weekly Boxercise class she runs in the village school hall. She raved about the benefits of boxing telling me that it burns calories at an impressive rate. This was what I needed – a quick fix to combat the jeans.

That evening I squeeze into my joggers and find the baggiest most shapeless t-shirt I can lay my hands on. The Boys are thrilled at the thought of their mother going to a boxing class and offer me their Light Sabre as extra back-up against my boxing opponent.

I arrive to find the hall full of jolly ladies of all different ages who certainly look far from aggressive. I am warmly welcomed but feel nervous about what is in store for me. I must be on my guard and anxiously await the first left hook from my opponent. To my surprise I enjoy every minute of it. I am soon exerting all the stresses of the day’s school runs and packed lunches in flying kicks and punches. I leave the class thrilled and exhilarated. The battle of the jeans has begun. Ninja Mum here we come.