February Roundup
My birthday seems a long time ago, but it was an excellent day, full of all my favourite things. We ate well, drank lots, played games (including an Escape Room at home), and watched a movie, The Dig, which I enjoyed very much. There was even a temporary ceasefire in hostilities, although it only lasted for the one day. The Valentine's Disco was another triumph, with the best music, and the whole dance floor to myself for most of the night. Pancake day, also excellent. A new discovery, biscoff spread (or the Aldi equivalent). If you haven't tried it yet, then take my advice and don't. I think about it constantly. The best pancakes I have ever eaten were on pancake day this year, filled with biscoff spread, raspberries and squirty cream. In fact they were so good, I had them again on my birthday. They are so indulgent that they should only be eaten on special occasions. On the whole, February was a marvellous month, despite the continuing lockdown.
The trouble with dogs
Paddy the white poochon or bichpoo depending on whether you go from left to right or the other way round, has been troubling us a little. He is nine and a half, and a very important member of our household. He has become increasingly grumpy over the last year or two, and can be unpredictable when approached by other dogs. In the house and around humans, he is the best; slow to warm admittedly, but when he loves you, he loves you big. He is not needy or skittish like Polly, our black cockapoo. He does not suffer fools, and steers clear of anyone too noisy or outlandish. He is warm and affectionate, playful and energetic and also sleepy and peaceful, flopping in his bed like a sack of sawdust. His fur is soft and silky. His nose looks like a black olive, and his paws smell of popcorn (according to L, who always described him thus, until she was about 10). Just recently, his noises have changed. He has started to snore loudly, and when he is surprised or very excited (because of a squirrel on the back fence, or the doorbell ringing), his previously deep toned bark tends towards a high pitched shriek. I had a quick google and realised that we needed to take him to see the vet. Only one of us was allowed to take him, but H offered to come with us in the car, because I am a massive wuss and might cry.
When we arrived, we had to wait outside, and stood in line behind two girls in their early twenties with their dog. When it was their turn, one of the girls had to carry their dog in, while the other waited outside and called someone on her phone. I heard her say that the dog didn’t seem able to stand up, but it was perhaps because he was weak, because he hadn’t eaten since the weekend. I wished I hadn’t read up on serious dog illnesses the night before, and hoped that this was not going to go the way I thought it was, and I was reminded of this weasel card. The second girl waited anxiously, and when her sister came out without the dog, and they hurried into their car, H said ‘that looks bad’. I couldn’t look but he told me that they were both crying.
Filled with morbid thoughts, I took Paddy in when our turn came, and he behaved like a dream. He sat on the scales without a fuss, and was happy to stay on the counter whilst the vet examined him. He couldn’t find anything alarming, and said that it is most likely age related. I told him that Paddy makes the same noises when he is asleep as my husband, and the vet said ‘I think it is just because he is old!’ I asked whether he meant the dog or Mr C, and when his eyes twinkled, I nodded and said ‘ah, both.’
Paddy seemed fine for a few days, and then started to complain when his head was stroked, and then a couple of days later began to shake his head from side to side. We returned to the vets once more, and I was reminded again of those two girls. This time it is a nasty ear infection, which might also account for his noisy breathing, and now, a few days later and with some very expensive medicine inside him, he seems almost back to his old self. We are all hugely relieved, but I can't help thinking about those poor girls, and their sorrows.
Covid News
Planning ahead, for a time when it may be possible for friends and family to visit us at home, even if they just stand on the doorstep and chat, I have taken action to give them a nicer welcome. I must admit to my actions also being prompted by the lady who delivers the daily packages from Asos and BooHoo, who I found the other day with her nose up to the mottled glass of my front door, peering in at the visually abhorrent sight of an explosion of shoes and bags and coats. So, I have painted the walls and the doors, hung bunting and flamingoes and a few china parakeets, and now, it no longer feels like a bomb site. So far, it is working very well. There is nowhere for shoes or coats, so everyone has to keep them in their bedrooms, which is all very well during Lockdown when they rarely step outside the house. I am aware that it may prove to be a bit more of a challenge once they are allowed out.
I visited the Gov.uk website recently to check likely dates when we will be allowed visitors, and came across information of which I was previously unaware. Sharing it now in case there are others who are similarly unaware. I don't think it has been widely publicised, or maybe I have just missed it. Families with kids of primary and secondary age can get lateral flow tests either from a local test site (in our case, car park 2 of UON), or by post. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/rapid-lateral-flow-testing-for-households-and-bubbles-of-school-pupils-and-staff I picked up a supply for us to use and we will start testing twice weekly once my youngest daughter is back in school. She has just finished her first set of GCSE assessments and is due to go back next week, after a fortnight of study leave. Her school is insisting that students must take a test before they return. We did the first one today, and I sat beside her and read out the instructions trying to encourage her to listen to what she had to do, where and how many times, but she was too distracted by the free standing mirror I had placed in front of her.
‘I only have one tonsil,’ she proclaimed, examining the inside of her mouth at close range, but I shushed her, ignoring her protestations as I read aloud that people without tonsils (and presumably those with only one), should instead take a swab from the area where tonsils would usually be found. She repeated over and over that she had only one tonsil, throughout the process, and it was only later, when I started paying a little more attention, as she recounted the hilarious tale of her first attempt at taking a covid test to her brother and sister, that I realised she had been looking in the wrong place, and had mistaken her clacker for a tonsil. No wonder she gagged so much. It all turned out well in the end, the result was negative, and so she can return to school on Monday. I am also happy to report that I had my first vaccination last Saturday, so things here are looking up. Mr C was done several weeks ago and is waiting for his second jab.
Censorship
My youngest daughter has said I’m not to write about her any more; she does not give consent, which is pretty gutting considering that most of my best material comes from her. I have decided to give her a new name, in the hope that this might solve the problem. She is now called Marigold. She doesn't read the blog, and only hears about it secondhand from my older daughter (known hereafter as Pansy, what subterfuge!) Pansy scans the blog but only reads the sections which are about her. It might just work....
This week, Marigold has been sitting online teacher set assessments, which will help to inform the grading decisions made by her teachers for her GCSEs. She is finding it hard to focus, and much to my dismay, has gone from being the most organised, motivated child, to the least. They have all been through so much. They are so isolated, and fed up without their friends around them. Online lessons, despite the best intentions of brilliant teachers who are flogging their guts out, are no compensation for the real thing. I have offered many solutions; she could sit at the little desk in my writing den and we could work back to back. She could sit at the island or the kitchen table, or I could hang onto her phone to stop her from being distracted by it. These are all the crazy suggestions of a madwoman, and why would she want to do any of them. I am struggling to find a positive here. I have tried taking herbal tea to wake her up in the mornings (GET OUT), buying her chocolate waffles for breakfast (GET OUT OF MY ROOM) and even peeling kiwi fruit for her to snack on, even though I am a little allergic to it and the juice makes my skin itchy and blotchy (YOU ARE THE MOST ANNOYING WOMAN EVER). I just have a horrible feeling that one day in the future she will ask me why I didn’t lock her in a cupboard without a phone or a mirror and force her to work or listen or revise.
When I was a teenager, I was quite similar to Marigold; I spent most of my time out with friends, or in my bedroom, avoiding conversations around exams and homework. My parents in their infinite wisdom, anticipated that pushing would have very little impact on outcomes. Parents were very different then, not nearly as pushy, and certainly less open than many are now. I would have died if my mum had tried to talk to me about sex or intimacy. That’s what friends were for. Or Cathy and Clare. My daughters however, are a different species altogether. They may be hoping to catch me out, or embarrass me, I’m really not sure which, but they often try to engage me in conversations about sex. They ask me if I have heard of this or that, and I just act cool and say I'm not playing. And then they try to explain what the words mean, when I actually do not want to know. They repeatedly ask me how old I was when I first had sex and how many men I have slept with, and I have told them that I will take those secrets with me to the grave. I talk to them about discretion and dignity and self pride, but that apparently just proves that I am a dinosaur. I sent L away the other day because she was harassing me, and she said ‘you are just dismissing me because you are insecure about your body count.’ For the record, this is at the very bottom of a very long list of things about which I am insecure!
I seriously worry about those girls. I can recall sex being a big topic of conversation at school, and those who were less experienced would crowd around those who were more, to hear ‘all the gory details’. But none of it would ever have been shared within earshot of the parents, and most definitely not in front of them. I remember my mum saying ‘oh you and your social worker ways’, because I was talking about my emotions, and how I was feeling. I couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t want to talk about that stuff, but now I appear to have come full circle.
They know too much, and yet they know nothing.. Sex has become less intimate, not more, with too much exposure. There is excessive pressure, to look a certain way, to behave in a certain way, and to arrive all kitted up, with your own toolbox. The most natural of acts is in danger of becoming a circus performance in the hands of our offspring. The secrets and tricks all uncovered and exposed, everything has been seen before, and there are unattainably high expectations to be met. Programmes like Naked Attraction really don’t help, although at least there are usually a few contestants who haven't been pimped and waxed and pneumatically enhanced. They really are of all shapes and sizes, but it is all about looks and preferences for body parts and piercings; none of it is about personality or chemistry or respect.
I prefer the good old days when it was all a bit mysterious, with mood lighting and secrecy and suggestion. I am fighting a losing battle though, as they roll their eyes and finish my sentences, when I advocate the importance and loveliness of sex in a longterm loving respectful relationship. Perhaps I really am the last of the dinosaurs?
