Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
Ecological, Ecology, Environment, France, French, fun, funny, Humour
This is a photo of one of the Highland Scottish cows that we have grazing in the fields of my town.
We use them as ecological ‘lawnmowers’ and Scottish cows were specifically chosen to honour the fact that we are twinned with Haddington in Scotland.
Here we can see Hamish McLazybastard (not actual name) enjoying a relaxed Wednesday morning.
Posted in annoyances, out and about
Tags
Accidents, Bruises, Bumps, fun, funny, holidays, Humour, kids, Parenting, Safety, Scooters, Skateboarding, stay-at-home Dad
Now that’s a (hopefully) funny headline, and obviously I’m joking because vampires don’t really exist – right, right? – but this is something of a cautionary tale, and an example of very, very poor parenting on my part.
The kids are currently into having fun on wheels – my son is in love with his skateboard that he picked up at a brocante (a second hand market/car boot sale/fleamarket for readers not familiar with that term) for a mere four euros. He tries to skate everywhere on it, even inside the house, much to my annoyance. Whereas my daughter is all wrapped up in her scooter, a metal-framed pink thing on two wheels that may have princesses on it. Or pink fluffy dogs.
Or unicorns. I forget which.
Anyway, so they are in love with these wheeled-wonders and they task me, each time we venture out, of finding them what they call ‘ramps’. These ramps must be gently sloping tarmacced areas, can go on for any distance but crucially must be smooth and downhill. If they aren’t smooth then my son generally approaches me, skateboard stuck under one arm, and explains to me, in detail and at length, what the problem is. Generally if there are holes in the road/ramp with a diameter in excess of 1mm, he will not be happy. Likewise is there is too much in the way of old, dead branches he will request that I ‘Make myself useful and clear it away’.
My daughter, on the other hand, does not care about holes, branches, people, dogs, tanks, or aliens. She just gets on her scooter and off she goes. She’s the same in swimming pools – while you are patiently trying to explain the best way to enter the water, she’s already jumped in from one of the diving boards, screaming ‘Banzaiiii!!!’ as she does so and almost giving the ladies in the water-trampolining club a group coronary in the process.
She’s seven by the way.
So this week, as it’s the holidays, I’ve been doing my best to find them great ramps. I found one, a great one, a super smooth one.
I wished I’d never found it.
You see I forgot the first rule of parenting when it comes to doing anything with kids involving wheels – always use a helmet. I didn’t bring them with me, as I thought, naively, that it would be OK, nothing would go wrong. But it wasn’t OK, and it did go wrong…
The kids had been up and down this ‘mega-ramp’ quite a few times, with no problems whatsoever. In fact we’d just decided that we’d had enough and would go and look for another, even better one. the kids just wanted one more go, and looked at me with that look – you know the one – and so I relented and off they went, for one last blast.
My daughter came hurtling down – sans helmet of course – then made a kind of ‘Whoah’ sound and wobbled to the left. Then she slid, and fell completely off her scooter, just sliding along the floor on her front, and then immediately sat up. I thought she was OK at first. Until she started screaming, then looked at me and I was forced to watch in horror as her forehead turned green. I’ve never seen anything like it before, and I never want to see anything like it again. It was like some bizarre special effect, only it was real and it was on my daughter’s head.
I quickly bundled her into the car and we raced off to the hospital, stopping to pick her mum up from work on the way, and getting her checked out by the on-site medical professional while we were there, who thought she was fine but ‘You never know….’. My daughter had regained some of her composure by this point, even with what appeared to be a small planet stuck to the front of her head, and was able to count all fingers held up in front of her and let us know that she was hungry.
We were seen relatively quickly at the hospital, they checked her over, admonished me for neglecting the head-protection, and then let us go after a brief period of monitoring, advising us to watch her for the next 24 hours and return if anything was ‘off’. Happily she’s recovered well, only feels pain if she touches her bump and is very happy with the bottle of perfume that Daddy bought her to assuage his guilt (it didn’t work 100%).
However as the swelling has progressed it’s made her face take on a distinctly disturbing aspect, changing the way her eyes appear, and making her look, well, a bit creepy. A bit like one of the vampires from Buffy The Vampire Slayer, truth be told. It’s gotten so unnerving that we’ve even mentioned using garlic, crucifixes and holy water on her if she answers back, or doesn’t eat all her food.
I also asked her if she wanted me to take the mirror out of her room as ‘It’s useless for you now’. She even plays into the ‘part’ and will happily chase you around the house, hissing and baring her teeth. She even faux-chomped my neck last night, which was quite the most bizarre sensation I’ve ever experienced, and not something I want to repeat, ever.
She’s been a very, very good sport about it, and I’m surprised at how little it bothers her, as she can be very self conscious at times (she pointblank refuses to have any form of physical contact with myself or her mother outside the school gates). The swelling will go down, very soon, hopefully.
And in future I will make sure that where there are wheels, there’s always helmets too.
And soon, very soon, I’m sure I’ll be able to stop sleeping with a wooden stake under my pillow…
Posted in out and about, school
I said something today that I never thought I ever would. Something that you may have read in books, or heard characters say in films and TV shows. It’s such a tricky sentence to say, because the context has to be just right, or you might just find yourself in trouble.
Well I managed to say it.
I even managed to say it in French too.
I work at a local school and – due to Covid 19 – we’ve had a lot of people that work in local government departments and businesses working with us, due to their workplaces being closed down for health reasons.
I recognised one of these ‘redeployees’ today while I was in the playground. She was stood off to one side watching the kids play, all wrapped up against the cold in her thick coat and scarf (and obligatory mask). Her name’s Stephanie, a lovely lady in her fifties who works locally and who myself and my kids have got to know quite well as we see her frequently – under normal circumstances anyway.
I headed over to her, weaving through masses of running kids as I did so, nodded my head at her and said: ‘Hello Stephanie, I didn’t recognise you with your clothes on’.
Stephanie – a lifeguard at our local swimming pool – saw the funny side and, thankfully, laughed at this.
I say thankfully because Stephanie also teaches self-defence and judo.
Posted in kids
I make my daughter her ‘quatre heure’ – or after-school snack – each day. This involves fruit, a drink and two small slices of toast, one with butter one with organic chocolate spread. I got bored one day and, with the aid of a pair of scissors, cut the pieces into heart shapes for her. She liked that. She liked that so much that she then refused to eat it unless I cut it into heart shapes for her each time.
Then I got bored of cutting heart shapes and tried my hand at other ‘designs’. They won’t win any art prizes, but she likes them and it’s quite fun for both of us. These are all first time efforts as I’m still ‘honing my craft’ but I will upload more photos one day when I think they are worth sharing. So here we have: Heart and the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben and the Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile, Pacman chasing a ghost (I realise for accuracy the ghost should really be blue, but I try not to feed my daughter blue things) and Jaws chasing a school of fish.
Tags
Australia, Culture, English, France, French, fun, funny, Humor, Learning, Outback, school, Teaching
Today with the aid of a cartoon I tried to explain what The Outback was to the French kids in my English class.
Me (In English and French): ‘So all the people mostly live around the edges of Australia’
Them: ‘D’accord’
Me (In English and French): ‘They live around the edges because the centre – The Outback – is very, very hot’
Them: ‘D’accord’
Me (In English and French):’ As you can see on the cartoon, Velma, Daphne and Fred are wearing jumpers and thick clothing, that’s not realistic, you couldn’t do that in real life there as it’s too hot’
Them: ‘D’accord’
Me (in English and French): ‘You’re just saying ‘d’accord’ so I’ll stop talking to you and let you finish watching the film, aren’t you?’
Them: ‘D’accord’
20 Friday Mar 2020
Posted in in the news
It’s important to try to reach out and remain social in these dark times. With that in mind let me introduce my new friends from next-door: Lucy, Lucy, Lucy, Lucy, Lucy, Lucy, Lucy, Lucy, Lucy, Lucy, Lucy, Lucy, Lucy, Lucy, Lucy and Dave.
This is actually Dave 2. Dave 1 was much smaller, black and full of beans. Despite his diminutive stature he would eyeball me and puff out his chest every time our paths crossed. However since Dave 2 arrived Dave 1 has vanished.
As we have the time I also took the opportunity to repaint our little ‘balcony’ and protective guardrail, in a nice shade of white.
This is a yearly ritual, and my agreement with the family of sparrows that lives in the nest above it is that they leave it alone for a minimum of 15 seconds before they defecate on it. Perhaps sensing that there was something going on at the moment, they very graciously left it clean for a whopping 25 seconds.
I don’t mind, they are very neat…pooers? and they were here first. Plus I love the noise they make.
11 Wednesday Mar 2020
Posted in kids
Tags
Burning, Environment, Family, Fire, fun, funny, Humor, kids, Relationships
This is actually what out fire-pit looks like, albeit a tad rustier now.
I like to burn stuff. There. I’ve said it. And now that I’ve said it I’d probably better explain myself lest you think you are reading True Confessions Of A Pyromaniac, and not some blog by some bloke in France with a couple of kids.
I like to burn household waste when it builds up. And garden waste. And wood. And just stuff that burns. But not buildings or people. See? I’m normal, just like you.
We buy a lot of items for our house as we have only been in it a couple of years and so are still making it ‘ours’. This leads to a build-up of boxes in our outdoor dependences (outbuildings we store all our garden stuff in). We do generally take this to our local decheterie (that’s French for ‘tip’) so they can recycle it. However sometimes I don’t want to do that and instead want to tear it up into little bits and burn it in our fire-pit.
I know, I know. This is not necessarily ‘Option A’ when it comes to caring for the environment, and I doubt Greta Thunberg would approve, but I don’t like her so I don’t care. Put it down to my primal nature and giving into the instincts handed down to me from my ancestors, who would huddle in caves and stay warm by their fires, with one eye on the entrance, fearful of predators.
That plus it’s a drag going to the decheterrie all the time. The French DO NOT do organisation so you’re looking at an hour of ‘fun’ sat in your car while they work out how to get their rubbish out of their cars and into a large metal box.
Anyway, onto the thrust of this blog: I’m not alone in my gleeful burning, my daughter loves it too. Every time I mention that the cardboard pile is getting a bit high her eyes light up, as if she senses what will have to happen. And if I say I’m going to take it all to the tip, she kind of makes a deflated ‘Hooooaauuawwwwww‘ noise and then follows this up with words like ‘Nul‘ (which is French for ‘boring‘) and ‘Boring‘ (which is English for ‘Nul‘).
But If I say I’m going to burn it all she’s right by my side ‘Can I help you?’ she offers sweetly, rubbing her hands in anticipation, knowing I won’t say no. Of course I accept her offer and off we go, breaking the boxes down and – carefully – inserting them into the fire-pit. She is always under my watchful eye, and she is always respectful of the dangers of the fire. There’s no flies on this one.
It’s a lovely little habit we have, and there’s nothing quite like sitting in the garden on a cold evening, leaning back on the bench holding hands and looking up at the stars while the fire gently crackles away. It’s these little moments, these little habits that you have to treasure and hold on to.
11 Wednesday Mar 2020
Posted in entertainment
Tags
Celebrity, Chef, Cooking, entertainment, Family, food, fun, funny, Humor, Restaurant, Restaurant Impossible, TV
We have a new addiction, a family-wide addiction. It may come as no surprise to you that the title of said addiction is watching Restaurant Impossible. That’s because it’s right there in the title of this blog. And there’s even a picture with it directly above this paragraph for those of you that are slow on the uptake. I was going to title it ‘Guilty Family Viewing Pleasure’ but then I realised that I hate saying anything is a ‘Guilty Pleasure’. Why should you feel guilty about something that brings you pleasure just because you think others will deem your taste somehow inferior? Taste is subjective after all, no one person’s taste is any better than anybody else’s in my opinion.
This addiction came about because i was looking for something to fill the void left by Gordon Ramsay, another proponent of this type of show. However we got turned off from him due to the heavily scripted nature of his shows. So I was drawn towards Restaurant Impossible, another heavily scripted show, with another English chef, but at least the host, Robert Irvine, actually appears to care about the people he’s helping.
The show’s USP is that chef Robert will fix the restaurant’s food problems, repair splintered relationships, give the owner a new backbone, and get it back looking ship-shape on the design front, all in two days and for ‘ten thousand dollars’ (I’m putting the price in inverted commas as it’s just impossible (HA!) to do what he does to these places for that amount, if you factor all the man hours and equipment-hiring into it. But hey, I’m not here to pick holes.)
As a family we love it (my son has gone off it a tad though, and now prefers to read or colour) and it has become something of a ritual. Cook our meals, get everybody settled in front of the television and off we go. We all question the title of it though. Even my daughter, after a mere two season’s worth of viewing, pointed out that it should be called ‘Restaurant Possible’.
We especially like it when Robert smashes things with a sledgehammer, which he does A LOT. He does this a lot because he looks like the Incredible Hulk decided to stop being angry and went to cooking school. He’s all bulging muscles in a tight black polo top (always tight, always black) and what better way to show off said muscles than by smashing things up?
We also love how he helps these financially struggling restaurants by making them prepare nearly everything on the menu for him, only to then spit it all out and throw it on the floor. Still, as long as he’s paying for it, eh?
We are on season six now (Robert’s hair is grey, as opposed to the jet black he started with, although I suspect he does occasionally dye it) and he is beginning to exhibit signs of the overt focus on emotional drama that turned us off Ramsay’s shows. The nadir of Gordon’s series for us was when he took a family into a church and used the confessional booths to get to the bottom of their issues, placing himself in the role of the priest. Robert hasn’t sunk that low yet, and I’m hoping he never does. Otherwise it will be a swift turn off and I will be back hunting for the next thing for us all to watch together.
For the moment though, Robert and his bulging muscles are keeping us all entertained, even though his Restaurant Impossible ‘missions’ never seem to fail.
That’s only on the show though, in real life, following the broadcast of the episode, the majority of these restaurants do actually show that they are fallible as the majority of them have closed within months (many, bizarrely, after having been hit by a truck, like there is some sort of serial-restaurant-killing truck driver out there). In fact we have a ritual where we all vote on whether or not we think the restaurant is still viable. We take a vote and then I toddle off and dig up the answer.
It’s usually closed, which is why we all generally vote ‘closed’.
Hey, he’s only a man at the end of the day. Nobody can work miracles with two days and ten grand, and as long as Robert keeps understanding that he’s not a miracle worker, I think we’ll all keep watching*
(*even though one of his oft repeated mantras is ‘This place needs a miracle’)
07 Saturday Dec 2019
Posted in annoyances
I’m hosting a birthday party for my son.
First parent rolls up and deposits a kid.
We chit chat.
Then he looks at me, eyebrow raised quizzically à la Roger Moore – the universal parent’s sign for ‘What time shall I pick my kid back up?’.
‘Dix-sept heure’ I say.
‘Cinq heure?’ he replies.
I nod my head, mentally correcting my French lingo.
Parent two rolls up and deposits a kid.
We chit chat.
Then she looks at me, eyebrow raised quizzically à la Roger Moore – the universal parent’s sign for ‘What time shall I pick my kid back up?’.
‘Cinq heure’ I say
‘Dix-sept heure?’ she replies.
I nod my head, mentally screaming at the French lingo.
Parent three rolls up and deposits a kid.
We chit chat.
Then he looks at me, eyebrow raised quizzically à la Roger Moore – the universal parent’s sign for ‘What time shall I pick my kid back up?’.
I hold my hand up with five fingers splayed out, point at it and nod my head smiling.
Tune in next week to hear me moan as I try to work out when to say ‘des fois’ and when to say ‘parfois’
28 Tuesday May 2019
Posted in games
Tags
entertainment, Family, fun, funny, games, Humor, Humour, kids, Life, Relationships, stay-at-home Dad
There are loads of games you can play with your kids aren’t there? Hide n’ Seek, tag, musical statues, sleeping lions etc. I however have become a pioneer in this field and have decided to do what no other parent has ever done: I have invented my own kids’ games.
Wow! I mean, I bet your mind is blown right now, isn’t it?*
So without further ado here is my current selection of games. I say current because the games change as they grow older, and what they love today they may not necessarily love next week. Or tomorrow for that matter.
To The Moon
For: both kids
Necessary props? A swing set
This game involves me having one or more of my kids on the swings. I then ‘check their tickets’, these tickets being purely imaginary. All details on the tickets have to correspond with each child, and they must agree with each and every detail. So for instance if I say that their name is Lord Poopy Pants the Third, and that their favourite hobby is eating rotten squids with snails, then they have to agree.
I also say all this in an South African accent. I do not know why I do this.
Once they have agreed to all details on the tickets then they may ‘go to the moon’. This simply involves me counting down from 1,000,000 or sometimes just 100 in a very haphazard manner e.g: 999, 12, 6, 57, ZERO! And I then launch them as hard as I safely can on the swings.
I am then obliged to relaunch them multiple times, verifying new details on new tickets each time, and must also keep their momentum up by pushing them several times – even though they both now know how to do it themselves.
Plants VS Zombies
For: both kids
Necessary props? just us
This is a variation on the popular mobile video game. Except played in real life of course. Now before you start thinking I am one of those amazing parents who designs plant costumes for his kids, and wears authentic zombie make-up to chase them around the garden let me reassure you: I could honestly not be bothered to do any of that, so it’s just me in my coat (depending on the weather) slowly chasing my kids around the garden and moaning and shambling like a zombie.
I am always the zombie. They let me be a plant once, oh what a happy day that was.
I also get hit now and again as the kids have to ‘defeat’ me, and they are both at that age where they are somewhat dangerous. My son because he is eight and can throw things with some force, and my daughter because she is five and is at the same level as my testicles.
Poo Lamps
For: my daughter
Necessary props? lights and a dark night (is nighttime a prop?)
This game is one which we generally play at night before bedtime. This is because it involves us looking out of our upstairs bedroom window and counting how many poo lamps we can see.
Now for the uninitiated – by which I mean everyone – poo lamps are poos that have been laid by cats in our garden that glow in the night.
In reality they are actually my many, many solar lights and any other neighbourhood lights that may be lit at that time. So three solar lights, two lights in the neighbour’s house = five poo lamps that night.
Sometimes my daughter improvises and counts the moon and the stars too. On nights like that the game can go on a while.
As it’s not dark now until after she goes to bed she has taken to counting the next-door neighbour’s chickens – around ten of them in total – and she still classifies them as poo lamps…
Pizza Delivery Foot Phone Call
For: my daughter
Necessary props? one of my daughter’s sweaty little feet
This game involves me using one of my daughter’s feet as a mock telephone. I place one of these damp little things – left or right, we have no set preference – next to my ear and pretend to phone a pizza shop. My daughter is the ‘chef’ and answers the call. I then place an order and verify each item, however I must always, always pretend to get annoyed with her if she does not have what I ask, or if she has something that I think she shouldn’t. Here’s a brief example:
Me: Can I order a pizza please?
Her: Yes of course, what would you like on it?
Me: Can I have mushrooms?
Her: Yes.
Me: And do you sell Anchovies?
Her: Yes.
Me: Why would you sell Anchovies? they are disgusting and taste awful, you should be shut down for serving those things they smell like poo and make my eyes water! You know each time you eat an Anchovie a demon is born in hell? What are you thinking?
Her: (laughing) OK! OK! We won’t sell Anchovies any more
And so on…
I Can’t Talk Properly Because My Son Is Crushing My Chest With His Powerful Muscles And Making My Voice Go All Funny
For: my son (surprise, surprise!)
Necessary props? Just me and my son
My son is at that age where he thinks he is very strong and likes to display this power by occasionally pushing over his five-year-old sister and squashing my chest. So this game involves me lying in bed next to him and just having a casual chat with him about day-to-day life. While I am talking however he will start pushing himself – using his bedside cabinet as leverage – into my side and so making my chest constrict and causing my voice to alter.
Of course as my son weighs about the same as a bag of sugar this means I have to pretend that he is very strong and he is doing this, when in fact I am just modulating my voice, much to his amusement. My son is however made out of elbows. Hard, bony elbows, approximately 67 I would guess, and these things can really dig into you. The result is that the next day you generally end up with a new bruise that you didn’t have before.
But at least he doesn’t bite like his sister.
So that’s the current crop of games that I have invented for my kids, your read it here first, you don’t need to be constrained by the world’s selection, you can make your own!
All it takes is a bit of imagination and a desire to make your kids shut their bloody mouths for more than five minutes.
*Tune in next time when I will be showing you how you can teach your kids to go the wrong way UP A SLIDE! OMG! Rule breaker right here!!!
Mr Mum: The 'joy' of a stay-at-home dad 
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