Cabin Fever

Our house is becoming like The Shining. School was cancelled again, although perhaps more to do with, “ah, let them go sledge,” than the worry of three-foot icicles landing on / in their heads. It is lovely in theory to have the little ones at home for a few extra days, but of course the practice can be a little different at times.
In the days before we swapped our television for a sofa, child care was easy – “Hey, kids, CBEEBIES is on this channel: I’ll call you when lunch is ready.” Now it requires a little more effort.
When the baby sleeps, it is time for me to take the two girls out. We spend the first hour finding gloves and getting into waterproofs and then it’s time to find the sledge which has been buried under the snow again. By the time we’ve found it, we’ve lost another glove and Maude has a welly full of snow. We head off round the village calling in at the shop for essential supplies. It’s a quick whip round the rest of the loop and, again, it’s just that little too far as both have cold hands and I have done my back in.
So, Home Time.
They do colouring. We wrap presents. We play Jenga. We do fuzzy felt. They make the baby a den. Every time it goes a bit wrong, I get drafted back into the game. When they are playing along nicely, I sneak off and do a few interesting adult things like washing-up and pairing socks. Must be nearly bed time, I think: it’s 11.30 a.m.
By the time baby goes for another sleep, tension has risen and things have nearly popped and so I do my, “RIGHT, OUTSIDE!” cry. Luckily we find some good icicles and I remember to not tell them that an icicle is a perfect murder weapon in case one wants revenge on the other for nicking their best fuzzy felt piece.
Every now and then I take heart when I think that for thousands of years parents have been getting nothing done in the quest to occupy their kids and all over the world, parents are shouting, “RIGHT, OUTSIDE!” when people have been found to be cheating at Jenga.
It’s at times like this that I look at the sofa and think, is it really as useful as a tv? But then I see that they are playing their “Leap off the sofa and land on each other” game, I think that, yes, perhaps it is…

Panic Buying

I always think that I am quite an organised person, but actually I'm not. I still think back to that one golden Christmas when I had bought or made everyone I cared about beautiful, thoughtful gifts and had wrapped them by the end of October. If it ever did happen, I must have been single with an awful lot of time on my hands. This year, I'm a shambles. Not only had I not bought much, I hadn't thought about what to buy either.

So this morning, that moment of panic kicked in. I had bad thoughts about my children tumbling down the stairs on Christmas morning to flacid stockings with a tangerine and a bag of crisps at the bottom. Huw was packing his bags as I hadn't bought him his annual Chocolate Orange and Toblerone and I was feeling that I should have tried a little harder.

We set off to town to do some food shopping a bit later than planned, as I had spent an hour clearing the snow from around the car but in doing so, had compacted it into a sheet of ice. The High Street was lethal with great banks of snow at the side of the road where the snow plough had been through and piled it up against feeble little cars that now haven't a hope of getting out before the new year.

I sent Huw and the girls into a cafe and told them to eat toast whilst I ran around as it was lethal. On the way into the door a big blob of snow fell from a hanging basket and shot straight down the Maude's back, which made Charlotte's day. I said I'd be ten minutes as there'd bound to be a queue in the butchers and I set off at a pace. "QUICK!" I'd shout as I burst into a shop, "I'm panic buying!" They all understood and I had shop assistants running everywhere grabbing things and slinging them onto the counter.
“NO,” I would shout, “too expensive.” “NO! 32 inch waist? Have you seen him lately?” “NO! They have to both be the same colour, otherwise it’ll be carnage.”

Within fifteen minutes, I had done the lot and was running up the high street with bags clanking round my knees – and even better, hardly any of the presents were from the butchers this year. I have hidden them all in that special place that only mums go (inside the wardrobe, rather than piled on the chair beside it) and my hope is that when I go to wrap them all on Christmas eve, that I a) remember who I bought what for and b) am still relatively pleased that I chose it / was sold it.

Next year, it of course will all be different…

The Village Children's Christmas Party - Santa was Rumbled...

Hello !
Yesterday was the village children's Christmas party. We arrived with full waterproofs and wellies after having hacked there through the snow. It took us a full ten minutes to get all our kit off, by which time there was a massive puddle of melted snow on the floor and a jumble sale of coats. All around the hall there were similar piles with meltwater oozing from them.

As is the way at such events, the kids disappeared, ignoring the tables where you could decorate a biscuit or make a Christmas card and instead went skidding on the shiny floor instead. The side of the hall with tables of activities had a lone adult sitting at each table, one making a Christmas card, another stringing beads, but the empty half of the hall had children skidding all over it, grabbing each other as they went and piling onto the floor.

Someone's gazebo had been put in the corner and one by one the children sneaked a peep into it - the older ones eyeing up the bags of presents and the younger ones so excited they couldn't help grabbing a friend and crashing them to the floor in their wonder.

There was the sound of a car skidding into another one outside and the door opened for Father Christmas! The children all suddenly started being good.

The youngest children were to see him first and I stood in the queue with our middle child, Maude, 3. She was a bit nervous, but went and stood in front of him and stared. He started making small talk about being good and such, but Maude pulled me to one side and hissed, "Mum, it's not Santa..."
"Of course it is, darling!" I cried, "come on, do you want to sit on his lap and have a photo?"
"Mum - it's NOT Santa - it's Joe the builder, I can tell by his voice..."

And she was right - it was Joe the builder. The photo is a classic - Joe the builder with his weather-beaten cheeks and crushed fingernails smiling behind this little girl who is frowning and trying to work out what was going on. Mind, she took the present...

People's Book Prize!

Hello!
Now it's getting a bit serious folks - unless someone with good technical skills is playing a terrible joke, I am through to the shortlist of the People's Book Prize! I had an email from Honno to tell me that I had got through and I thought, "Yippee! Got through to what?". Then I looked on the website and there is my book, nestling alongside Andrea Levy and 13 times New York Times bestseller list, Tami Hoag. Then I went a bit pale...
What now happens is that because it is the "People's" Book Prize, the people have to decide it - basically through voting! This allows me to become the John Seargeant / Anne Widdicombe of the written word...

I would like to ask that everyone who reads this blog votes for me and my latest novel, Cold Enough to Freeze Cows. Not only do I ask that you folks please vote, but also your partner(s), your family, your colleagues, the plumber who mended your burst pipes, the bloke who's dog craps on your front lawn - everyone.

The link is http://www.peoplesbookprize.com/section.php?id=6 - you are allowed to vote for three books, but I would rather you voted for just mine as it would be a terrible shame if you all voted for another one too, and that one turned out to be the winner instead...

I thank you in advance, and in the meantime, I shall open myself a few thousand email accounts and get busy with those...