Close to home…

Tags

America, England, guns, Journalism, Life, News, Poetry, Violence

This is something I wasn’t going to post as it’s a bit ‘outside my wheelhouse’ so to speak, as well as being somewhat political. However I’m tired of all the handwringing that goes on in my old country (England) for other countries – mainly by people on Facebook and other social media platforms – when we/they have more than enough problems of their own to deal with.

This is not to say I am in anyway wanting to diminish from some of the atrocities, the slaughter that goes on in other countries, not at all. However when you see/read about some of the things that are ongoing in England, with nary a word being spoken or very little in the way of effective action being taken, things like this just grate.

 

Why do we cast our net so wide

when death and bloodshed are right outside

We look across the oceans deep

While down the road the children weep

For deaths in America our tears they pour

But rape and murder is on our shore

Why try to take guns out of foreign hands

While troubles multiply in our homelands

The guns still fire, the deaths still mount

The girls in England are raped, do they not count?

The young in London are killed on a daily basis

And yet here we are, worrying about distant places

So before ranting about lives that guns have marred

Maybe look first at the problems in your own back yard

I Blame Me, And I’m Not Alone…

Tags

Family, fun, funny, Humor, kids, Life, Nineties, singing

‘I’m a Barbie girl, in a Barbie world’ sings my daughter as we walk down the road. ‘Come on Barbie!’ my son tunelessly adds next to her ‘Let’s go party’. Their warbles bounce off the walls off the (mercifully deserted) street. My partner squeezes my hand a little too tightly and glares at me. Yes, I am responsible for this.

I’m on a serious nineties music kick at the moment. It’s probable all down to that period being tied up with my years of going out ‘dancing’ and drinking. I added quote marks to dancing as if you ever saw me ‘dancing’ you would probably tell me that if at any time in the future I wrote about my ‘dancing’ I would need to use quote marks to differentiate between what most people class as dancing and what I do.

Demon-possessed person being flung around probably covers it best.

It was these tunes that were the background to my youth, or early-to-mid twenties anyway. And so it’s with wistful nostalgia that I’ve been hitting that repository of everything that is YouTube, in order to get my vintage fix. It pains me to type ‘vintage fix’ when referring to the nineties I’m not going to type ‘retro’.

One of the tunes that I wouldn’t normally listen to though is Aqua’s Barbie Girl. That’s because Barbie Girl is, by any definition, a bloody awful song. It’s even worse when you watch the music video of it, then it’s as if someone has vomited skittles into your ears AND your eyes.

It would never be made these days – with its lyrics objectifying women and giving men all the power.

That plus it’s bloody, bloody awful.

I did feel that my daughter would like it though, as she’s very much a girlie girl, and loves all things pink. And all things Barbie. I also thought it might be nice for her to view it with her brother, as a kind of history lesson, and insight into what we used to send to number one in the music charts back in ‘the day’. Sigh.

So yes, I made the mistake of letting them watch it on my tablet, one wet boring Sunday (It’s April so basically pick any Sunday). Oh dear. Whatever possessed me (Not the dance demon at least, his days are done)?

I made the further mistake of leaving my daughter alone with my tablet while I helped my son with some of his crafts. She watched it on a loop, again, and again, and again…

So now I’m in the envious position of being unable to escape the lyrics of the Danish-Norwegian dance-pop. It follows me around, like the worst backing soundtrack you could ever imagine.  To be fair to them both they aren’t causing anywhere near the amount of aural damage that the original song was responsible for.

What’s possibly worse, even worse than the way my partner now looks at me when they start singing it, is the fact that I now hum it to myself. I also correct them if they sing the lyrics incorrectly. So when my daughter sang ‘Come on Barbie let’s go Barbie’ I told her that instead of the second Barbie she should actually sing ‘Let’s go party’.

What’s wrong with me?

I’m going to let them listen to STEPS next.

Tragedy? Yes, yes it is.

We Would Have Gotten Away With It Too, If It Wasn’t For You Pesky kids…

Tags

children, games, Humor, Humour, kids, Life, Parenting, Relationships

 

 

What would we have gotten away with? A pleasant Christmas break,  a pleasant half-term holiday, an enjoyable trip to the swimming pool, an incident-free trip to the park, a shout-free bath time routine, ten seconds of peace, the ability to blink without something going wrong…

Yes, our children are at that wonderful age where they are a complete nightmare.

When they are together.

They are like some kind of horrendous combining Transformer (a Decepticon, to be clear). Mildly threatening when on their own, and a menace to society when they join to create the fearsome Maxi-Whine, or Moanzee – or maybe Greyhair-Makor. I don’t know, I’m not fixed on a name for the monstrosity they become when they ‘play’ together yet.

Play. Ha. Ha ha ha. Sigh.

Scream.

I remember back in the good old days (last year) when we could leave them together and the worst that could happen would perhaps be something got knocked over, or the TV would be turned off, or they would build a fort. Now everything is violence and pain.

I suppose it comes with the increase in body mass = the bigger the kid, the bigger the problem.

And it’s never their fault, always the fault of the other one.

So when you reenter the room you will get some cock-and-bull story from my daughter about how no, it was actually her brother who took off his own glasses and snapped the arm off on one side. Or it was actually my daughter that punched and then kicked herself in the head.

I’m exaggerating a bit, but you get what I mean.

Individually, as a rule, they are quite easy going and manageable. But together, these days, you can mentally set a clock in your head from the time you exit the room to the time it takes them to start fighting/break something/open a door/activate a nuclear weapon silo.

Sometimes I don’t even get out of the room before mayhem is ensuing.

This means that, at the moment, all holidays are a constant battle of maintaining order via separation, and the constant search for newer, better, and pain-free options of how to regain/maintain control. Oh and by pain-free, I mean for us, not them – the only damage they receive is from each other. Can’t say the same for us – especially if we get caught in the midst of the chaos.

I often used to see parents in the park during the day smelling of alcohol – grandparents too – and I mentally despaired that someone could be in that state at such an hour.

I don’t despair so much these days. I empathise. But don’t worry, I won’t be reaching for any alcohol.

Yet.

Because it’s just a phase, isn’t it? That’s what I keep telling myself. It’s just a phase.

Isn’t it?

It’s Just Like Having A Newborn Baby Again…

Tags

Family, funny, Humor, Humour, kids, Life

I know what you are thinking: ‘Why’s he talking about babies and then going and sticking a picture of a water heater above this sentence, instead of a picture of a baby?‘. Well unfortunately* it’s because I am not actually a parent again, it just feels like I am. This is due to the water heater deciding to give up the ghost, doing it at everyone’s favourite time of year too – just after Christmas, the period that is synonymous with people having loads of money to throw around, especially on large, expensive items.

It’s not completely dead though – it’s just slowly, slowly dying. And this is where the newborn baby part comes in. Take a look at the following photo, a fascinating glimpse at the underneath of my beautiful water heater:

That big blue box (from here on in I will refer to big blue box as BBX, just to be lazy) is essential – without it I would not be typing this as I would be swimming around in the downstairs of my flooded home. You see the water heater is dripping – this is how we know it’s dying. Well, that and the fact that the boiler man turned up, took one look at it and said ‘It is dead’ and then told us we would have to pay just under a thousand euros to have a new one fitted. No resurrection for the old one, no band aid to apply, she’s dying and that’s that.

Unfortunately her death rattles consist of a constant drip, drip, drip, which means I have to get up and see to her every few hours, to get rid of the water that has collected in BBX.  No matter the hour, day or night, up I get, bleary-eyed and sleepy and do my duty. It’s this that makes it feel like having a new born baby.

It’s just a little bit wetter, and a lot less smelly.

As for the equipment I have to use to sort this out have a look:

Remember Die Hard With A Vengeance? The scene with the two jugs of water? Exactly like that, except I’m not in the glorious sunshine in New York, I’m squatting down in my bathroom using the measuring jug to empty the water from BBX, and then pouring it into the medium-sized bucket, and then emptying that into the bath. Also Samuel L Jackson lives next-door to me and he comes round and helps me.

OK, part of that is a complete fabrication, but you see what I mean.

This may be one of the most mundane blogs I’ve ever written, but such is my rock and roll life.

I will say one thing though – I’ll take a leaking water heater over an actual new born baby any day of the week.

 

*Unfortunately? Why the hell did I type unfortunately? I’ve seen people with three kids, I’ve heard their screams, their moans of despair, I don’t want that life.

Childcare – It’s Cheap As Chips Here…

Tags

Childcare, England, Family, France, French, kids

Why I love France – reason number 1,028: childcare costs.

The following photographs show the disparity in childcare costs between my new home, France, vs my old home, the UK. The costs in France for a day’s childcare – including meal – are 7 Euros. In the UK you can take that figure and multiply it by a factor of nearly 10. I am not joking about this.

In the UK if you have one child and you pay X amount, and then have another child in the same nursery, you pay X again. Here they adjust the price, so as not to hurt the family wallet too much. So you are already paying a (relative) pittance, and then they add in reduced costs for more children.

This is one of  the reasons why this blog even exists, I had to give up my job in the UK because, when child number two arrived, I was essentially working for nothing. Can you imagine that? Doing a job that does not fulfil you in any way, only to see all your earnings be swallowed up, just so you can pay someone else to look after your kids, because you can’t look after them due to being too busy working to pay them to look after your kids…

It sounds like absolute madness, doesn’t it? But this is the reality that faces many parents in the UK. This is a stark contrast to France, over here they embrace the family and encourage people to have children and enjoy their lives with them. In the UK it sometimes felt like you were being punished for that greatest of all sins: wanting to have more than one child.

I’m conflicted about my own personal situation, having to quit the ‘rat race’, because on the one hand NOBODY should have to stop working because they cannot afford childcare, but on the other hand it gifted me some incredible times with my children. Times that I may never have experienced otherwise, and these memories will last forever.

Some people are lucky, and so have parents/family that can ‘pick up the slack’ and help out with the kids, and thus ease the burden of childcare costs. We didn’t have that, we didn’t have that ‘support network’, as they call it in the UK. And this is another one of the reasons why we decided to move to France.

This kind of thing is something that parents who are contemplating moving over here really have to factor in to their decision-making, as it is a huge, huge plus. This isn’t even considering the lower costs for other things such as school trips, extra-curricular activities, university etc.

They even adjust the scale in pre-school nurseries to reflect your income, so someone on a lower wage pays a lower rate than that of someone on a higher one.

Yes there are other costs incurred from moving over here but this took a great weight off our family’s financial shoulders and I’d imagine, for many other parents, it would be the same.

How Many Pieces of Lego Have You Hoovered Up?

Tags

annoyances, cleaning, Family, funny, Humour, kids, stay-at-home Dad, toys

I believe I broke through the £300 barrier today – that’s the approximate value of Lego I have hoovered up.

In days gone by I would bend down and pick them up, but then I discovered that ‘accidentally’ hoovering them up was easier. I also realised I was fighting a losing battle, as for every 1 piece I picked up my kids would drop 6 more.

I draw the line at figures (complete figures only, heads still go up the tube) and pieces in excess of 10cm, but everything else is fair game.

They get everywhere. I guarantee that if you look under any parent’s sofa it will look like a Lego-battleground; heads, wheels, arms, blocks, lights, tools, legs, those pointy corner bits – they’re all under there. I recommend the narrow attachment for this. Another tip – if you can’t quite reach them all under there, and you have a rug – drop it at one side of the sofa and the resulting breeze will blow the parts towards you – as well as all the dust-bunnies.

The kids might not be happy, but at least when I go for a pee at 4 a.m I don’t wake the house up with my cries of anguish after stepping on Lisa Simpson’s Lego-head.

Cost-effective? No.

Easier life? Oh yes.

French Bureaucracy: The Board Game!

Tags

Bureacracy, France, French, funny, games, Humor

 

I’m going to make a board game based on French bureaucracy. You can choose from exciting categories such as ‘Driving licence’ ‘Bank account application’ ‘Change of address’ and (the choice for extreme players) ‘CPAM application’.

The game will annoy you even before you start to play it. This is because the game’s box will come wrapped in 6 layers of that plastic stuff that they put headphones/cables/Micro SD cards in,  you know that stuff that’s responsible for 30% of all visits to A+E due to self-inflicted knife-injuries.

The only instructions provided will be in Japanese and ancient Mayan. They will also dissolve on contact with oxygen.

All playing pieces will be identical so that nobody knows whereabouts they actually are in the game. Even if they try and remember the board will come with a ‘shake’ feature that rearranges all pieces, at random points during the game.

The game will come with a free six foot by four foot section of brick wall for the participants to punch. And every time you hit it a French voice will say “‘Désolé mais vous avez oublié de signer le bas du formulaire'”

Every third roll of the dice will result in you starting again and having to resend all your original documentation.

There will be a battery-operated phone provided that, when you roll a six twice, you have to use to contact customer services. Nobody ever answers.

In a bid to reflect the way French life runs the board will shut down for two hours every day at 12pm prompt (or 11.48 sometimes). It will then stay closed for two hours and reopen at 2pm prompt (or 2.35 sometimes). It will close quickly but open glacially slowly and making a deep sighing noise as it opens, and then tut at you for ten minutes while you try to remember what you were doing before it closed.

Some people that I have shared my idea with have likened it to Monopoly. I disagreed with them however, as Monopoly only takes 8 months to complete, whereas this game will only end when all participants have died.

It’s going to be a bit like Jumanji but with less rhinos and monkeys and more paper and screaming at walls and pleas of ‘WHY GOD WHY? WHY CAN’T THEY COMMUNICATE WITH EACH OTHER? WHYYYYYYYYY???’. 

There will be no arguments after the game because nobody ever wins. Nobody ever wins because the game can never be finished.

A Very Poor Reception – But On The Bright Side My French Is Getting Better…

Tags

France, French, funny, holidays, Hotels, Humor, languages, Learning, Tourism, Travel

 

There’s nothing worse than rolling up at your holiday location for the week only to find that A) there’s nobody home and B) the number you have for them doesn’t work. These were the unfortunate circumstances we found ourselves in at the start of our recent holiday, and so headed over the road to a lovely hotel/restaurant with commanding views of the local lake, to seek help.

Upon entering I looked around and saw a couple sat down enjoying their late dinner (it was around 2pm). I assumed they were guests and bid them a cheery ‘bonjour!’. They responded, in a slightly nonplussed way, and got up to see what I wanted, frowns creasing their faces.

They weren’t guests. They were the owners.

After digging and probing them for a few minutes they begrudgingly offered up the fact that the owners of the gite we wanted access to lived at the rear of the property, and we should head there.

‘I told you we should have closed that door’ said the manageress to her husband as they stalked back to their dinner. I exited the building – walking past the sign that read ‘Bienvenue, ouvert midi et soir’ – and returned to relay the information to my partner.

Following our successful entry, and much warmer welcome by the couple who ran the gite, we decided to put the earlier experience down as a ‘one off’ and headed back over the road to the hotel. We tried their take-out menu, however we hedged our bets and just bought three portions of chips – nothing fancy, just something to keep us going.

It turned out the chef was also the manager. I discovered this fact because as I waited for the chips to cook I took a stroll around the building and – through the windows –  saw him walking around in the kitchen, gesticulating wildly and swearing to himself loudly in French.

I was glad I’d only ordered three bags of chips, and not the roast chicken too as I was tempted to do. Who knows what his reaction would have been.

After paying for the chips (‘Haven’t you got any change?’ the manageress said to me, after querying my paying of the 4 Euro 50 bill with a ten Euro note) we headed back over and scoffed them down (My partner dismissing my suggestion that ‘We should use a blacklight to check for bodily fluids’ as an overreaction).

Following a suitable rest we headed out to try the pool, something the kids had been harping on about since we arrived. We were shortly joined by the gite owners, who explained that they went for a refreshing swim every day with their guests, as it allowed them to have a chat and get to know them.

I swam down to the far end of the pool, which gave you a view of the hotel across the road and was probably about 15 feet away from it. As I paddled there the topic of conversation amongst us swung around to the owners across the road. I said that it was a shame that such a lovely building was run by a couple who were incredibly unwelcoming, and made you feel like you were an inconvenience to them when you went in. I did wonder if it was just us though, or maybe – more to the point – just me?

The gite owners both shook their heads and told us that it wasn’t just us and went on to inform us of many occasions when guests had been refused service, had been shouted at by the owners and how they had a low occupancy rate (despite the mayor of the village investing 800k Euros in upgrading the hotel in a bid to make it a ‘tourist trap’) solely due to the owners’ attitudes.

‘If they don’t want to run it’ I said ‘Why don’t they just sell it to people that would be happy with it and make it successful? You can tell they hate being there’. The gite owners agreed with me, then towelled themselves dry and headed back inside.

As I paddled back to the rear of the pool and my partner frolicked with the kids I heard a loud chirping noise, and looked over the rear edge of the pool to see the manageress of the hotel glaring up at me from the road.

‘I heard your commentary’ she screeched, before heading off back inside the hotel and slamming the door.

‘Hey’ I said to my partner, a smile spreading across my face ‘She heard my comments, that means she understood me, I guess my French IS getting better’.

I Hate Queuing In Supermarkets…

Tags

annoyances, Culture, funny, Groceries, Humor, Life, People, shopping, stay-at-home Dad

 

I bet the first thing you thought when you read that title was ‘Big deal, NOBODY likes queuing in supermarkets, but you don’t see me writing a blog about it, do you?’. And you’d be right, but I’m going to write one anyway because writing about it is cathartic and also because I’ve got a bit of time to kill before I go out for my run.

Plus because I REALLY hate queuing in supermarkets, I bet more than you.

I’m at stay-at-home-dad and as such I’m frequently at the supermarket. Because If I didn’t go my kids would use my t-shirts to wipe their bums, and would have to fight the cat for food….actually that might be quite entertaining.

Not the t-shirt thing, the cat thing.

I’m using bullet points, because I want to highlight each and every bloody annoying thing about queuing, but this will probably be impossible because NOBODY can fully encapsulate all there is to hate about this horrible thing we all have to endure….

You will notice all the annoying things are in fact people, because as a famous person once wrote somewhere, ‘Hell is other people‘. I would amend that to ‘Hell is other people…in a supermarket queue‘.

All the following have happened to me at one time or another…

 

• DON’T STAND SO CLOSE TO ME: You know the person, the personal-space invader who doesn’t respect boundaries and stands just a bit too close. As in so close they are literally touching you. Why are they trying to climb in my back pocket? Why do they keep touching my elbow? Do they think I want to smell their breath and thereby know what they had for breakfast? Do they like me, is that it? Well why don’t they ask me out instead of molesting me with their trolley? If they aren’t going to propose we go for a candle-lit meal for two then they can BACK OFF!

 

• I’VE ONLY BOUGHT A CUCUMBER:These ones look at you full of hope and despair and their face seems to say: ‘Look at my big sad eyes, I’ve only got this cucumber, and you’ve got that big trolley full of food. Look at my eyes, couldn’t you just let me nip in front of you? Please, I promise I’ve got exact change. Pleeeeeeeassseee!’

 

• I’VE ONLY BOUGHT A CUCUMBER AND I’M GOING TO MAKE SURE YOU KNOW IT: ‘I’m not like big eyes, I’m going to stand here and huff, and look at your trolley, and make sighing noises, and keep looking at my cucumber. and then at your trolley, and look at my watch, and sigh, and huff, and……’

 

• I’M GOING TO TALK LOUDLY ON MY MOBILE PHONE RIGHT NEXT TO YOUR EAR: ‘YES!!! YES I KNOW, I SOUND LIKE A CLICHE, BUT EVEN IN 2018 PEOPLE LIKE ME STILL DO THIS! ISN’T THAT WILD!!! DON’T YOU THINK EVERYBODY WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT HOW WELL THE OPERATION ON MY PILES WENT? NO? WELL HOW ABOUT HOW I’M SLIGHTLY RACIST AND WILL MAKE THIS ABUNDANTLY CLEAR WITH SOME OF THE THINGS I SAY ABOUT MY NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOUR AND THE THINGS HE EATS. DON’T WORRY THOUGH, I HATE MYSELF MORE THAN YOU HATE ME‘

 

• I’VE GOT ONE TROLLEY FULL OF FOOD BUT IT’S DIVIDED UP INTO 32 SUBSECTIONS: Well, Clive at number 16 can’t get out so well anymore, and my brother David asked me to just get a few bits, and Sarah at the hairdressers is all out of cleaning stuff, and Louise and Alma’s car is in for an M.O.T and Dave at the pub needs some crisps getting in and yes, I’m shopping for them and I’M GOING TO PAY FOR THEIR ITEMS INDIVIDUALLY.

 

• CAN I SEE YOUR PIN NUMBER PLEASE? ‘Oh you’re paying for your items? Great! Oh you remember me don’t you? I’m the one who has been touching you for the last five minutes in a manner that may well put me on the sex-offender’s register in any other context. Well I’m still here now and have moved into a position (at your elbow) that gives me a perfect view of your PIN number as you input it. Aren’t I nice?’.

 

• I’M NOT GOING TO PUT THE BATON DOWN YOU PUT THE BATON DOWN: ‘I don’t care that the person in front of me put the baton down to separate their items from mine on the conveyor belt. This display of standard good manners will not extend to the person behind me, no. I will simply put my food down and then expect them to place a baton down for me. I’m that bloody lazy that extending my arm a foot is just too much effort. Oh what the hell? He’s shoved all his food close to my food and has put a baton down after his food but not mine! Right well I’ll take his baton and put it between my food and his. Squawk! He’s taken it back and told me in perfect French that that baton is his and I should get my own! Some people are so rude!’

 

• I’M PAYING WITH A CHEQUE: ‘What year is this? 2018 you say? Oh well, that chip and PIN business still doesn’t sit right with me. No, I’ll stick with my cheque. How much? £1.27? OK, let me just put my glasses on. How is your daughter by the way? Oh, that’s nice. Now where’s my chequebook. Ah, here it is. Now where’s my pen…no, no, I need my pen. Now how much was it again? Contactless payments you say? Ooh no, I’ll have no truck with that. No. £1.27 did you say? Oooh there are a lot of people in this queue now aren’t there, and to think it was only me twenty minutes ago….’

 

• I KNOW THE CASHIER PERSONALLY AND NEED TO TALK TO THEM IN-DEPTH DESPITE THE FACT THAT THEY LIVE NEXT-DOOR TO ME AND I SEE THEM EVERY DAY: ‘…so yes, Deirdre was taking him to the cinema, you know for their anniversary, because she said it would be great for them tO get out, you know? And so they were going to see that new dinosaur film and – no love I’m paying with a cheque, I don’t trust cards – and so they got there and it was full, can you believe it? And so they decided to watch that other film with her out of those vampire films, you know the ones? It’s those ones with her from that thing with the guy from Harry Potter. Harry Potter. Yes the films with all the wizards and that nice lass from Beauty And The Beast. Oh she does have such lovely hair. It was the the third one I think, The Goblet Of Secrets. Anyway…..’

 

• I WILL QUIBBLE EVERY PRICE: ‘It’s how much? No, no. That’s not what it said on the shelf-edge label, is it Mary? No, check it please. And the tomatoes too. And also these are on offer, buy one get one free. Yes they are. It said it on the poster. The yellow one in the window. Yes they are. Could you check it please? Also I’ve got 58 coupons to use on each item’.

Really Dodgy And Inappropriate Advertising On Kids’ Go Karts In France…

Tags

Advertising, Cigarettes, Driving, France, French, funny, Humor

We came across the following go-karts on a day out to see one of the many lighthouses on the il d’Oleron during our holiday. They were on one of those unmanned tracks where they just leave the karts and it’s up to you to insert the required 2 Euros for upwards of two minutes of mild amusement for the kids.

The first one, as you can see, is littered with lots of almost-but-not-quite official sponsors, see if you can spot them all:

I particularly liked ‘Tec Tyc’ because when I think of racing, I think of Tic Tacs.

That was really amusing though, but I found the next one not so funny:

There’s no dodgy, knock-off attempts made here. If you put your 2 Euros in this baby, your child will soon be riding round the track advertising one of the world’s most popular brands of cigarettes, with no ambiguity whatsoever.

What’s the message here? Start them young?

France eh? You’ve got to love it.