House arrest

Titus, having sneaked off to ride in the tractor cab one time too many, was grounded over the weekend.  It is disconcerting not to be able to find our son when we need him, and then to see the ancient tractor juddering past our kitchen window, assorted children (including Titus) clinging on for dear life inside.  As it appears to be the local attraction I don't wish to forbid it, but disappearing without telling us is a no-go.  On Saturday morning, he spied his friends - and the farmer - on the field and asked if he could go outside.  Why not, I said.  Oh no Mummy - I can't, said Titus.  I'm grounded, remember?  How kind of him to remind me.  I cleared my throat, regaining the ascendancy.  Well of course you are.  I was just checking.  For a while Titus enjoyed his temporary status as house prisoner.  He mooned around, gazing out of windows with longing akin to that of the Count of Montecristo, sighing and saying how he wished he were free.  Clearly the punishment had backfired, but on Sunday afternoon it struck him that it was actually really annoying to be playing Old Maid with us while his friends were out hitting mice on the head with spades under the direction of the tractor driver. (Yes, really!  They flood the holes with water, lie in wait for the fleeing mice,  then do the dreadful deed.)  His 'friends' didn't help by shouting and waving at him the whole time.  In the end we relented and let him spend the last half hour of daylight frolicking - I prefer to think of it that way - having assured us that he would never disappear again.  Until next time.

Fine dining and other snippets

You know when you watch a scene unfolding, and it doesn't seem real, until you realise it is and you spring into action - let's say, because your cat is eating from your daughter's plate.  As happened today.  Mad Max was in his customary place under the table, where, unless we remember to put him out first, he likes to lie in wait for scraps to fall and for small legs to dangle, just waiting for him to claw at, which he duly does, completely unperturbed by the shrieks and squawks that ensue.  So there was he, and there was Hedda eating fish fingers and mashed potato, and I had to go outside for a second.  Then I saw, from the garden, that Hedda had gone and in her place sat Max, like a fine diner, front paws on the table and the rest of him neatly arranged on her chair.  I banged on the window and he looked round, face smeared with mayonnaise, paused his chewing for a second to check I was no imminent threat, and continued.  Hedda comes back into the room.  Screams.  I think about making her eat it anyway, but don't want to get into trouble with Social Services.  Give the rest to Max.  One nil to cat.

Next snippet for today.  Last night saw the first of many parents' evenings.  Luckily CG was around, as we had two at the same time.   We drew lots for who should attend the less dull.  I lost.  Two hours and umpteen digressions, boring anecdotes and petty squabbles later, we - that is to say, the teacher and the parents who could still be bothered to talk - were discussing the first grade timetable.  The woman next me was trying to ascertain which religious education class her child should attend.  (From the wide range of Catholic and Protestant.)  Easy, says Teacher.  Whichever one you like!!  Ah, says woman.  We are Muslims.  All the Catholic mothers then piped up, choose ours - it's much more similar to Islam!  If I hadn't been so desperate to get home I might have ventured a comment.  Can anybody please tell me why Catholicism is more similar to Islam than the Protestant Church?  Surely the major role played by the Virgin Mary renders Catholicism further removed, not nearer to Islam? Or am I missing something?

Last snippet, quite literally.  I took my newly acquired Bavarian outfit to the dour dressmaker today.  She was a bit sniffy about it, as I knew she would be.  My pointing out it was a bargain didn't move her one bit.  If you're going to live here, then might as well have one, she grudgingly said.  But real ones should have ... and then she launched into a list of dirndl attributes, all the while sticking pins into my midriff.  I left the dress with her, privately wondering when I would see it again.  There's no rush, is there, she said.  It's not as if you'll be wearing it to the Oktoberfest.  I am still wondering why she said that.

Two more weeks of thirty-something

... indeed.  In a fortnight I shall be forty years old, which, although I am trying not to care, does bother me immensely.  Not so much that I mind being forty (although I haven't tried it yet) - more that it marks the passing of time.  I remember, as a child, trying to imagine October 2011; it always seemed so comfortably long away.  And now it's nearly upon us.  CG, never one to over-emotionalise a situation, or even emotionalise it, blithely pointed out this morning that after his next birthday (44) both of us will be the same age as our shoe size.  A reassuring if somewhat irrelevant thought.

But let's get back to the daily grind of the sawmill in Bovinia; the whine of the chain saw, the chorus of lawn mowers, and the swallows gathering on electricity lines wondering if it's cold enough to head back South yet.  We have now been here for an entire year, and the whole cycle, duly noted in this very blog-book, is about to start again.  Except it won't be as strange this time.  I won't nearly fall off my bike when I see a fat man in leather shorts, and I'll know to turn my head away from potential early morning skinny-dippers at the local lake.  I'll stop feeling sorry for the cows, as they really don't look too unhappy with their lot.  I shall pretend to look forward to the snow coming, and I will not, most definitely not, go to the wine festival at the fire station this year.  However much they plead.  In fact, festivals of any kind are best avoided, unless you are part of the band or the mayor.  I have bought myself a dirndl - admittedly a bargain second-hand one, but I just couldn't resist - and one day, I may even wear it.  I've been wanting to dress up like Heidi ever since I was six, when my cousin got the alpine maid fancy dress costume while I got the nurse.  And here, at nearly forty, is my chance.  First though, it's back to the dressmaker down the road for some essential alterations (in case you were wondering, she did eventually return the other items).

I shall try to write more soon.  A fun-packed week awaits, with three parents' evenings and two and a half days at the unfriendly company where I am now employed.  Turns out that certain people there had been wanting someone else to get the position, which would explain, but not justify, their icy treatment of me.  Shame, because irrational behaviour like that cannot be reasoned with.  I just might keep reading those situations vacant.   The coffin-bearer job is seeming quite attractive right now.

Moove over darling

As so often happens when I am already late, I got stuck behind a herd of cows this morning on the way to work.  I didn't allow this to get me down, however, telling myself that more haste was less speed, and hummed along to a Beach Boys song on the radio.  The cows took their time and one in particular seemed reluctant to move along.  She then planted herself in front of my car and mooed - presumably loudly; my music was so loud I couldn't really tell - until the irate farmer stomped over and gestured to me that I should open the window.  Unwillingly I obeyed, knowing I wouldn't understand a word he said.  Sure enough, he was completely unintelligible, so I had to ask him to repeat himself, the silly cow mooing the whole time making things even worse.  I felt myself breaking out in a nervous sweat when I suddenly clicked - he wanted me to turn the volume down!  The Beach Boys (Sloop John B, if you must know) were perturbing Brunhilde.   I complied with the farmer's wishes, simultaneously wondering what the world is coming to when you can't listen to the radio in your own car without curdling the local milk.  Sure enough, Brunhilde shut up immediately and gallumphed off after her friends.  I swear she had a spring in her step. The farmer got back on his rickety bike, waving his stick, and he and his accomplice saw me on my way with evil stares.  I shuddered despite the warmth of the morning, but at least this meant I was glad to get to work, where the people seemed quite friendly, comparatively speaking.

Temper temper

Despite his being nearly seven, Titus' Rumpelstiltskin tantrum attacks are showing no signs of abating.  Last week we had the boat scene.  And at the weekend he decided to throw a wobbler on a precarious mountain path, on each side of which was a thousand metre drop.  Just to give you an idea - "I'M GOING TO JUMP OFF THE MOUNTAIN, AND THEN I'M GOING TO PUSH YOU OFF TOO!!!!!" (I thought of pointing out the flaw in this plan, but decided against it.)  He scampers off furiously, elbowing innocent bystanders aside, who can only wonder at this small demonic figure and his hapless parents.  Said parents exchange glances and ask themselves where on earth they went wrong.  But within minutes it's all over.  A chastened Titus waits for me behind a stunted pine tree and puts a sweaty paw in mine.  Would you like to have my crisps Mummy, he says, the ones I really really like but I want to give to you now?  I decline - I never have liked barbecue flavour, otherwise I might have been tempted - and forgive him, as usual, for isn't that what mothers do.  And I know that giving up his crisps would have been a huge sacrifice.

Luckily, good humour was soon restored, and we progressed happily along to the cable car, which I would like to say was waiting to transport us smoothly to the valley, but actually we had to stand in line for at least half an hour.  No matter.  The sun shone and people ignored the no smoking signs and I watched other badly-behaved children being annoying, pleased that mine were, at that moment, being models of good behaviour.

So it's back to work today.  I wonder what delights will be lying in store?  Gosh, I can hardly contain myself.  Maybe somebody might - just might - be friendly? Better not get my hopes up though.