Lost in translation.

The bank holiday, and our French friend comes to stay. Remember him? He of the woolly jumpers dyed in socialism?

“Will you be in later?” I ask Middle One, “because Pierre-Marie is coming to stay.”

That’s his name: Pierre-Marie. He was once married to Marie-Pierre. I kid you not. She was much younger than him. Actually she had been one of his pupils at school. Honest to God. They had a very tempestuous marriage. If you got caught in the verbal crossfire, which we sometimes did, it was awkward. He's not married to her anymore. He's married to someone else.

“I like Pierre-Marie,” says Middle One.

“I know,” I say. “Moi aussi. Be here for dinner then, à sept heures."

On the way to the house Pierre-Marie calls in for a drink at the pub opposite the tube, with Husband. It’s a pub that for years we dared not frequent for fear of being caught in actual crossfire. Now it’s all leather sofas, mismatched lamp shades, and micro-brewed IPA. 

Dishing out presents and compliments left right and centre - but mostly left - he then arrives at the house like a whirlwind, bringing me a framed photograph of his home town, which is lovely. Actually it’s really lovely…

"I can see you are a victim of gentrification,” he says, giving me a French kiss, (that is, one on either cheek, then all over again). 

“Yes!” I say. “What is gentrification en francais?”

“Same,” he says.

He’s right, the area has changed. When we first moved here there was one coffee shop on the High Road. Not that I ever went in it because it had a large notice on the door, saying: ‘NO BUGGIES' and I had a buggy, with a baby in it. Soon after I had a double buggy, with two babies in it. I guess this gave them double the reason to refuse me, not that I ever put this to the test. By the time I had a third baby Café Nero had arrived, heralding a coffee house révolution. After that cafes popped up, gauche, droite et centre, sometimes overnight like, well... like pop-ups. Now the area is saturated with cafes and buggies and babies. 

During dinner Pierre-Marie talks to Middle One about politics and history. In English. The French government is a farce, he says, and too right-wing. He doesn't know who to vote for anymore. When I ask about Marine Le Pen he says she's not that bad but the niece is dangerous. Husband says, yes, but she's also very attractive. In French.

“Why don’t you speak French?” Pierre-Marie suddenly asks Middle One.

“He did German,” I say.

“Why not French?” Pierre-Marie says.

“He chose German in Year 7,” I say. “Then they offered French as a twilight class in Year 8. In the lunch hour. Hardly anyone did it. Probably because it was the lunch hour.”

“Your mother understands French perfectly well,” Pierre-Marie says. In French. “But she never speaks it.”

“I have no idea what he just said,” Middle One says.

"Moi non plus," I say. In English.

The breakfast club.

Half-term, Thursday afternoon. I decide it’s time for Youngest to get off the PC.

“Hey you,” I say. “Time to get off that computer. We are going out. The two of us. A day trip.”

“Oh, mate,” he says, “Really? Where are we going?”

“Don't call me mate,” I say. “It'll be good. Definitely. Trust me.”

I figure there are two things Youngest is interested in: computer games and eating breakfast cereal. I can’t bond with him over the former, but I have plan with regard to the breakfast cereal.

We catch a train from Balham to Crystal Palace, and then from Crystal Palace to Shoreditch High Street. We come out of the station and walk the wrong way for a bit. If Pierre-Marie thinks Tooting is gentrified, I think, he should see the good people of Shoreditch. 

Close to the station there are lots of tiny shops selling either vinyl, or jumble sale clothes they are calling vintage. I soon realise we're going in the wrong direction and we retrace our steps back to Brick Lane, where I finally find what I'm looking for: the Cereal Killer Café. We queue inside behind a giggling school party from... La France. Toujours les froggies, I think.

A girl in front takes ages to decide which cereal with which flavoured milk she'd like to sample. Enfin it’s our turn. Youngest orders a double rainbow (really), but I'm not sure. I don't much like cereal. I wonder if it's too early for beer. Probably. And they don't sell beer anyway.

A double rainbow with strawberry milk.

"Um... hot chocolate, please," I say to the girl at the till.

“What would you like with the hot chocolate?” says the girl at the till.

“Nothing, thank you.” I say.

“Sprinkles?” she says.

“No, thanks,” I say.

"Marshmallows?" she says.

"No, thanks," I say.

“Flake?” she says.

“No, thanks,” I say.

“Just cream, then?” she says.

“Not even cream,” I say, and I feel like I’m in The Simpson’s Movie. “Just the one bowl of cereal and a small hot chocolate. Thank you."

She looks at me as if I’m crazy.

“Of course,” she says. “That’ll be just £8.50 then. Please."

Love E x

@DOESNOTDOIT

P.S. It was a hit, by the way. "I want to go back there with my friends," Youngest said on the way home, "definitely."  

Bof.

Earth.

Earth.

I’ve lost my office. Youngest is always in there with his headphones on, fighting zombies through burnt-out streets. Since his birthday last week it’s been bad. Now he has a PC on the other desk and the war games have cranked up a notch. To stop going out of my mind I've got a brand new laptop and taken to combing the house for decent WiFi. When I find it I camp there like a gypsy. Sometimes it’s in Eldest’s bedroom up top, sometimes it’s in the kitchen, last week it was in the garden. Working in the garden is problematic, however, because I can’t take my eyes from the laptop in case I notice it needs doing. On Thursday afternoon after visiting the Chelsea Flower Show I give in and do it.

It’s a beautiful day: warm, sunny, a light breeze. I rip off my cardigan and my shoes and socks because when planting I like to feel soil between my toes, and get stuck in (to the garden). My father tells me we should get our hands in there too, without gardening gloves, skin deep in earth, au naturel. There’s something in soil that’s good for us, it's an antidepressant (he reads the New Scientist). It’s not just mowing, weeding and pruning that’s beneficial, but planting as well. I try this and by the end of the day I'm feeling strangely high, but I guess it could be from the weed, rather than from the dirt.

Unfortunately, next day when I wake up I’m so tired I can't move. Despite the pilates and constant manic swimming I’ve used muscles I didn't know I had, and this is the day I’m taking six fourteen-year-old boys to Nando's.

“Come with me,” I say to Middle One. “I need help.”

“No way,” says Middle One. “I’m not going to Nando's with my mother and six fourteen-year-old boys.”

Weirdly, it proves to be the easiest kids' birthday party I’ve ever presided over (and I’ve presided over about fifty). When they arrive back from school I hardly know they’re in the house. When I drive them into Balham they’re good as gold. In Nando's eating a sharing platter they’re quiet as mice, or so Wycliffe tells me later (he's the manager) because I bugger off to sit in Waitrose and drink my free coffee. While in Waitrose I get a text from Middle One.

“Please get me some Nando's,” it says.

Funny, coz I didn't know Nando's was a thing.

“I'm busy," I text back. "I’m not getting you fucking Nando's. You wouldn’t come and help.”

“Don’t fucking swear at me,” he replies.

Later at the house - cutting the cake - the six boys don’t say boo to a goose. When I sit up the garden with my new laptop to work again, and enjoy the fruits of my labour, Middle One comes out.

“Tell me when it’s eight o’clock,” I say, “so I can tell those boys to go home.”

“They’ve already gone,” says Middle One.

“Really?” I say. “Wow. That birthday was a piece of cake.”

“Yeah,” says Middle One. “And thanks for the Nando's."

“You're fucking welcome,” I say.

Why worry?

I’m a worrier. Mostly I worry about my children. When they were babies I worried they would die of cot death or get meningitis because these seemed the most likely bad things that could happen to babies. Now they're teens I worry they'll get run over or beaten up because these seem like the most likely bad things that could happen to teenage boys living in south London. Since Eldest went to university near the the sea I worry he'll go swimming or surfing and drown, because people drown all the time (especially in York), it’s much more common than you might think.

But all this worry is put into perspective on Saturday morning sitting in bed reading the paper, as usual, when I stumble across a photograph of a group of Chinese children with terrified expressions on their faces, climbing an 800 metre bamboo ladder up a rock face to get to school. As the startled news photographer who came across the scene and took the photograph was quoted saying, “You have to be 100% careful. If you have any kind of accident you will fall into the abyss." Eight villagers have recently fallen to their deaths in exactly this way.

I know it’s a bit like when you’re a kid and you feel ill and you’re in bed and your mum comes upstairs and asks how you’re feeling and you say not great and she says well at least you have all your limbs - in that it’s not very likely that my children, or yours, will ever have to scale an Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom bamboo ladder to get to school - but still, some children somewhere in the world have to do that. By comparison there’s really nothing to worry about, which is worth bearing in mind.

Love E x

@DOESNOTDOIT

P.S. Nevertheless, I keep on worrying. (And Indiana Jones is pretty much my perfect man, by the way.)

Beautiful Campanula.
A weed is just a plant growing where it shouldn't, says my dad.