Regrets? Bloody loads.

You know that thing, when it's the last day of your holiday and you get up and walk around the house, or the hotel, or the camp site, or wherever you happen to be, thinking to yourself: this is the last day of my holiday, I am so sad to be going home, I must drink in all the sights and sounds and sensations, I must appreciate the feel of this hot, hot sun on my skin, I must drink in the roar of the cicadas in my ears and the distant chime of the church bell in the village? Yes? Well I have that really bad today.

It's a tricky one, do I want to stay here in the Ardeche, in this comfortable house on the top of a hill with a breath-taking view, or do I want to go back to a building site in Tooting, to shortly send my dear, sweet, loving, adorable Youngest off to a secondary school he is clearly not ready to move on to and where he will be eaten alive for breakfast? 

Answers on a postcard to: Really Don't Want This Holiday To Ever End, In The Sunny Ardeche, Where I Have Been Holed Up With My Family For Two Wonderful Weeks.

The best bit? Well, apart from the kayaking down the local river, the trip down the caves, meeting Llamas, swimming in the cold, clear rivers bordered by stunning gorges, huge rocks, still pools and pretty waterfalls, the constant eating and drinking in lovely cafes and restaurants and here at our comfortable house...

it's the just being together. It's having Eldest say: lets play Chronology again! Or, which movie shall we all watch together tonight? It was that walk Youngest and I took to the village up in the hills on the opposite valley together, when we stopped all the time to look at the different butterflies and the wild flowers and the fossils we found strewn on the path and the cat in the pot. 

It's watching Middle One play his guitar and read his book and be so constantly loving and kind to his little brother. These are the memories I will cherish the most because I am a soppy, middle-aged mother of three rapidly growing boys and I am clinging to every precious minute.

With love, from France,

E x

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A picture is worth thousand words. I hope.

You know how they say a picture is worth a thousand words? Well I'm hoping it will be because I haven't had a moment to write and this is why...

and this...

and this...

and this...

and this...

and this...

and also this...

while also researching some of this...

and now doing lots of this...

in order to go on this...

Hoping to blog from there but not making any promises. 

Will definitely be back in September. 

Thanks for hanging on in there! 

Love E x

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Chicken stock.

A big mess in the garden. The view from my office.

Two days before the builders arrive Husband decides to make chicken stock from a leftover carcass from dinner. I'm out with friends so I don't know this until I discover the litre of greasy liquid on the hob next morning. The same morning I need to pack everything up - all the crockery and glass - and haul it down to the cellar. By myself.

Next day, Friday morning 8 am, and here they are: four Polish builders at the front door. "Good morning Elizabeth!" says the good-looking one, the builder we chose to run the project for us (well, I chose to be honest, I wonder why?). He has a twinkle in his eye and a spring in his step and so I let them in. 

Coffee? I think, but then months of endless coffee making for four burly builders flashes across my inward eye and I decide not. In any case these guys mean business, no time for coffee, they immediately start clearing the kitchen of all the larger items I was unable to remove by myself. 

Wicker sofa? 
Er... upstairs, our bedroom. 

Big tiled mirror? 
Er... cellar. 

Pine cabinet on wall? 
Er... cellar again. 

Apparently if I don't tell them where to put things they will assume I want to trash it and throw it on the skip, so it's a bit stressful.

I start to grab breakfast things to take to the four boys upstairs (we had an extra one for a sleepover) but keep being interrupted. They need to turn off electricity for a while/where is the gas point?/where do I want things in the temporary kitchen?/where is the key for the patio door? Then they start to pull the old cabinets off the walls and smash them to bits. 

I'm just grabbing the Coco Pops when I realise they are moving the fridge. I haven't emptied it. It didn't occur to me and now it is full of chicken stock, in glass jars... 

They've already taken some of the jars out and put them down on the half-destroyed worktop, which is covered in wood dust and shavings, and a few of them must have been a bit wet because the wood dust and shavings has stuck to them. 

Yum.

They carry the fridge through to the living room, which will serve as our temporary kitchen for the foreseeable future, as a nasty stream of milk-coloured liquid follows behind. 

Double yum. 

That's cream, I think, from that opened carton in there, and possibly milk as well, mixed with chicken stock of course.

Just then the phone rings. It's work. "Is this a good time to talk?" says the woman at the other end, "About doing some filming for us?"

"Sure!" I say, grabbing a cloth and some Jiff and following the trail of cream/milk/stock.

"We were just wondering if you can make a video about rapping?" she says. "Two videos actually, for use in schools, for Year 5s, we need two children and a teacher. It's for the beginning of September."

For the beginning of September.

"No problem!" I say. Although I'm thinking it might be quite a big problem since I have no childcare, I'm about to go to Center Parcs for a week on Monday, then will be back for barely ten days and will go to France for two weeks and then will get back just in the nick of time to sort Youngest out for secondary school (the new uniform, the hair cut, the shoes, the bag, the nerves... his as well as mine). But this is work, you know, WORK!

Anyway, I clear up the mess. I get the boys breakfast. The temporary kitchen gets sorted and looks great (see below). We go to Center Parcs for a week. I spend a goodly portion of the time emailing rappers in Brixton but despite this have a wonderful time and upon our return, yesterday, we find that the builders have inadvertently turned off part of the electricity downstairs so that everything in the fridge has gone off and we have to throw it all away. Including all the chicken stock. 

So now I'm going to phone some rappers...

Here is the temporary kitchen in the back of the living room.

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Everything you need to know about primary school.

Youngest dancing at the Year 6 Leavers' party last night

Here we are limping to the end of the school term like walking wounded. Totally exhausted and strung out by school/work/home/family/social life.

But it's not just the end of the school year for us, it's the end of primary school forever, the end of 13 long - "Here's your book bag and your P.E. kit, not forgetting the packed lunch and oh my God why have lost your swimming kit again!" filled years. 

All this has been well documented in this blog already, so here instead are my top tips to parents who are ABOUT to embark on the primary school years...

1.) When you arrive it's like freshers at uni. Don't rush into friendships you may later regret, bide your time, watch the lie of the land. Don't be tempted to talk to that extrovert mother with that crowd around her, she'll be the fruitcake (there's always one) or the sociopath. Or both. You will make lots of mum-friends in due course and they will be the very best ones you ever have.

2.) Don't be the one at the front of the queue in the morning always telling teacher little Johnny has a cold and might need some extra TLC. The other mums will hate you. And so will the teacher.

3.) Keep well clear of the PTA. Even if you only plan to volunteer for the first few years and then slip quietly back to work - or a life - they now have your email and your mobile phone number so you can NEVER ESCAPE.

4.) Make friends with the head teacher. If he is a man flirt like hell, flatter his ego, laugh at his jokes, buy him coffee, dance with him at the PTA disco. Up close. Those Golden Awards don't come out of thin air you know. 

5.) School trips. Pick wisely. Some are all day long and involve taking public transport. They will give you five boys under six to supervise, two with behavioural difficulties, and one will pull the emergency cord on the Tube. When you finally get home you will be so traumatised you have to lie in a darkened room for the rest of the evening as your offspring jump up and down on top of you demanding fish fingers. 

Some, however, are only for half a day, involve an air conditioned coach to whisk you there and back, you get to sit next to an adult (or even your own child!) and upon arrival you picnic on the lawn at the Dulwich Picture Gallery. Pick that one. And don't ever say, "Oh excuse me, I don't think you saw when my son had his hand up to answer that question."

6.) School projects. Do them yourself. I've experimented with both approaches over the years. Leave it all to him and he will fail - no accolade, no called-in-to-see-the-Head-for-a-sticker and no show in assembly. Do it yourself, stay up all night, slog your guts out and the stickers/accolades/shows in assembly will rain down upon him. The Head will say, "Wow you really worked hard on this one, Johnny," when both he and you and everyone else in the room knows full well Johnny was sound asleep last night while you were up slaving over a gold spray paint can, getting high on the fumes.

7.) Never complain. Your child isn't in the swimming team? The athletics team? The debating team? On the school website? Showing in assembly? The school play? Ever. Tough. Bury your bitterness and smile. No one likes a whinger and some teachers can be vindictive. You'll never get the Golden Award that way (did I say 'you'? Freudian slip there.)

8.) Book bags. Look in them. A lot. There is ALWAYS a crumpled letter at the bottom telling you that tomorrow is an inset day, or that your child should come dressed in pyjamas, or wearing a red nose, or walking on his hands (last one is a joke, others are not).

9.) Packed lunches. Try and avoid making them at all costs. School lunch might be slop but someone else does it and it doesn't sweat itself to death in a plastic container all day. 

10.) Last but not least buy the teachers presents. Lots of them. God knows they can be a miserable lot at times, sending home endless missives and instructions at the drop of a hat so that you want to kill them, but really, it's a tough job for paltry pay and would you want to do it? 

Would you heck.

P.S. The very best thing about primary school is the friends for life that you make there. Here's me with one in the playground.

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Driving around south London with a bit of the Sistine Chapel.

All this week I've been driving around with a piece of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel in the back of my car. Adam, to be precise. A large framed print, you understand, not the actual fella off the ceiling. I've nearly been decapitated by him on more than one occasion when braking suddenly at lights.

When I collected three boys from the school playground on Tuesday after play rehearsals and before taking them to tennis, I had to remove Adam, with his teeny willy on show to all and sundry, and prop him up against our knackered old Vauxhall Zafira in order to rearrange the rest of the contents back there so I could squeeze in the boys. 

The contents included (and at time of writing still include, because I haven't got round to taking them to a charity shop yet): a rusty Gaggia coffee machine, a tiny portable non-digital TV and a bag of lacy old bras (now too small for me, ha!). 

This is not how I saw my life panning out, I thought, as I tried to reach into the back of the car and cover the bras with an old Ikea car blanket, while strategically placing my leg in front of poor Adam's privates, or maybe I should call them his 'gentleman's ends'? as a small child famously once described them in front of us in the queue for the bungee jump at Legoland (he was worried about what the harness was going to do to his bits). 

By now I should be driving brand new red soft top mini round south London, or even Wiltshire, having just sold novel, or even second novel, about to buy villa in Italy, or even second villa, where I will overwinter in order to write newly snapped-up-by-Hollywood screenplay...

I didn't envisage driving around south London in knackered old Zafira with unsold remnants of mildly successful car boot sale in the back (it was in Battersea, Sunday afternoon, we forgot the Wimbledon mens' single finals would be on when we booked it).

On the upside we're not so broke that we have to buy all our clothes - and our children's clothes - from a car boot sale in a car park in Battersea, as many of those poor sods we were selling to apparently did. 

They really were walking away from a pair of jolly nice only-slightly-out-of-fashion-trousers because they were 50p over budget, and didn't come back when we called out we were willing to haggle. (Come to think of it, maybe that large man with the acne didn't really like my discarded purple GAP bootlegs in the first place, and was only feigning interest out of politeness?) 

Mind you, he/they could have got the whole bally lot for free if they'd just hung about in our street for a day or so longer. When I got back from delivering the boys to tennis, I failed to realise all the back windows were down - and left them like that all night.

Strangely, not a single hard-up person, strolling down our street over the next 24 hours (and believe me there are many) was minded to reach in and relieve me of Michelangelo's Adam... or a rusty Gaggia machine... or a battered TV set... or even some sexy old bras. And they didn't want to relieve us of the knackered old Zafira either. Funny that. 

And quite a big shame.

Here's all the tat we were trying to sell in preparation for kitchen clear out. Builder coming a week on Monday! Yikes.

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I think I'll try internet dating, or maybe sexting...

Husband and I are watching TV when an advert for the internet dating site eharmony comes on. 

"I'd like to go on a date with a man," I say. 

I look round at Husband who is sitting on the chair behind me. 

He looks up from his paper. 

"I'd like to have a man sit across from me at a dinner table and ask me about myself...." I add. 

Husband looks at me. He is smiling. Which is good. 

"How would you describe yourself on a dating site?" I say. 

Husband continues to look at me... he is waiting for the sting in the tail... which is coming... 

"You know, apart from saying that you're 6 foot tall, of course." 

There it was. 

You see, Husband famously told me he was 6 foot tall when I first met him (I had a rule about this) and I remember thinking he was the shortest 6-footer I'd ever met.

Husband picks up his phone. 

"Are you just going to ignore me and text someone?" I ask.

"No," Husband says, "I'm texting you."

Ten minutes later I get a text. I wonder who that is from? I think. (I have a very short memory.) 

It says - "6 ft, fitter than he looks, professional, ruggedly handsome but somewhat moody, solvent for the time being chap, seeks busty blonde MILF for fun and good time. Discretion assured."

So I send one back. 

It says - "Slim, looks younger than she is, looks bustier than she is, professionally frustrated, totally broke, blonde, can't promise much fun and good times, more like drudgery and lots of argy-bargey but cooks a nice dinner and keen for chats and affection. Discretion not necessary."

I think we might be incompatible.

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Beware PMT (men - you might want to look away now).

If you are a man and particularly if you are a man related to me in some way, either by blood or marriage, you might want to look away now because today I'm going to talk about women's things. In particular I'm going to talk about PMT. I know! This is how to spot the signs...

You know you have PMT when the mother in front of you, innocently dawdling into the playground in the morning, walks just a little too slowly for your liking causing you to think - WHY THE HELL CAN'T YOU HURRY UP, YOU STUPID BAG!

You know you have PMT when you realise you have forgotten something at the till in Waitrose (I make no apologies) and you politely turn to the man behind to say - "I'm so sorry, I've forgotten something, I won't be a 
tick," and he turns his head away from you to indicate that he is annoyed and this makes you want to SLAP HIM IN THE FACE.

You know when you have PMT when your youngest child says: "Are you sad, Mummy, that I'm leaving primary school and you won't see your friends any more?" and you want to BURST INTO TEARS. 

You know you have PMT when you come back from taking same child to a club/tutor/playdate and it's your tenth trip in the car somewhere that day and you left the kitchen immaculately tidy (it took you hours) and someone has made a sandwich and in the process scattered breadcrumbs and ham and lettuce and God-knows-what all over the kitchen work top and the floor and so you scream at the top of your voice - WHO DID THIS! And then you make the two eldest children clean up while actually timing them with the cooker timer: "You have four minutes! I'm going to sit here and drink my tea," and the eldest one shouts - "Do you have PMT or something!"

You know when you have PMT when UNICEF call you on your mobile in the middle of timed clearing-up session and the conversation goes: "We're just calling to tell you about our work in Syria..."

"That's great. I fully support your work in Syria, which is why I texted so you could buy warm blankets for freezing children, but I don't think you should then use my number to call me in the middle of the day."

"Oh I'm sorry would you prefer me to phone in the evening?"

"Not really, I would prefer you not to phone me at all. I would like to decide when and how I donate. I don't agree with cold calling."

"This isn't cold calling, we're just ringing to tell you..."

"...and I don't think you should argue with me when I say I don't want to talk to you."

"Well, madam, I think you should just relax." 

And you think - RELAX! YOU WANT ME TO RELAX! HOW CAN I RELAX! MY KITCHEN FLOOR IS COVERED WITH CRAP! but you can't say this because the person has hung up on you and consequently you would like to KILL THAT PERSON, if only you knew who that person was, or had any idea how to ring them back.

And then, finally, you really know you have PMT when your new phone app, called Pink Pad by the way, which tracks your menstrual cycle and is jolly useful, sends you a message that says: "Aunty Flow is coming" and you think...

Oh!

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