Not a Bunny Boiler

I think rabbits are sweet, although I was a bit annoyed when the courgettes my daughter was growing were eaten by the pesky varmints. My solution to the problem was to cuss them up a bit while I erected a fence. (I may not, in truth have erected the fence myself, I may have persuaded a man to do it, fence building being mens’ work.) The fence meant that the courgettes were safe and I when I opened my curtains in the morning I could still see thumpers in the garden hopping around and doing that cute thing to their faces with their wittle paws.

If my ten year old son happens to be with me when I open the curtains, his reaction to the sight of early morning rabbits is somewhat different to mine. He might do any of the following: a) tap on the window repeatedly, gesticulating at them to get off the garden, b) take our ancient dog outside to be humiliated by them, c) hurl the window up and yell impotently into the gale at them or d) begin the process of attrition with which he will finally persuade his father to take him out in the evening to shoot them.

When he first became interested in killing things at the age of about 5, I knew it was fruitless to try to persuade a small boy that all life is sacred so instead I set about teaching him that if he killed something, it mustn’t die in vain and the best way to ensure that it didn’t was to eat it. He took that lesson very much to heart. Being an up-for-it kind of cook and pretty non-squeamish I didn’t think to drum into his impressionable young head that his kill also should be given to the kitchen oven-ready. In those early days he might have presented me with one Daddy-shot pheasant a month. Now that he is actually nailing animals himself, not merely watching his father, (who can take animal murder or leave it) the lolling head count in the kitchen has increased hugely. Its not that I mind doing it every once in a while but there are things I could more profitably be doing than gutting and plucking or skinning several animals a week. Claws and fur add greatly to cooking times.

On Thursday my son shot a rabbit which he brought to me triumphantly and said he wanted to have stuffed for his Christmas present. Fantastic. All I had to do was shove it - whole and hairy - into a plastic bag and into the freezer. And phone the taxidermist. But instead of calling it a night, his father allowed him to shoot two more. These two were for the pot.

Rabbits need to be gutted as soon as they are shot or all kinds of disgusting things start happening like the contents of their intestines being reabsorbed into their flesh. I told my son that I was just putting dinner on the table but if he wanted to gut them I would keep his warm. The smell of shepherd’s pie wasn’t enough to tempt him away from the rabbits for the short time it would take them to start absorbing the contents of their alimentary canals therefore rendering themselves useless for human consumption, dammit. He wanted to gut them. Which he did, leaving the entrails by the doorstep of the rented house we are living in for the owner to step over when he let his dog out last thing at night. The rabbits were brought in dripping a little and still furry.

“Could you skin them, darling please?” I asked.

His response was along the lines of no. He had selflessly hunter-gathered something delicious (both killed cleanly with the first shot) for the family pot and the least I could do was skin them myself. I began to point out that he is the only person in the family who likes rabbit, but it occurred to me that I was raining on his parade so I shut up.

Eating rabbit would be very credit crunch, but the only thing about it that appeals to me is its essential zeitgeistyness. The results do not justify the immense effort required. Its now Monday and Thursday’s rabbits remain in the fridge, approaching, surely, their use-by date and still furry. But if we don’t eat them my well-trained son will be appalled at the wasted lives.

Meanwhile I’m snacking on six quid a tub granola which is crunchy, but definitely not credit crunchy.

All aboard

Had my children been on holiday and my family enjoying our half term visit to London this week, we would definitely have gone to see the victory parade for the Olympic medal winners today. We devoured the Olympics and to say that the games saved August for us would not be an exaggeration. My son and I regularly did six hour stints in front of the television watching any sport (except sailing – there were limits) and we watched at all hours. The closest either of us got to participating in any sport during that fortnight was driving to the nearby field where my horse was recuperating from an injury and throwing some food and pain killers in his general direction. (While the three day event was happening we told him how the Brits were doing while he ate before jumping back into the car and hurrying back to the sofa.) I wept at medal ceremonies, marvelled at the skill and commitment of the competitors and dived under cushions which I chewed while London’s contribution to the closing ceremony was being broadcast. I watched the whole closing ceremony. That is how much I loved the Olympics.

I can’t say I watched a single second of the Paralympics, although I did catch a fascinating programme before the games about a paralympic dressage rider and his preparation for his event. The achievements of the paralympians are in many cases greater than those of the able bodied Olympians but they are personal triumphs, sources of great interest and pride to the family and friends of the competitors and of no more than passing interest to anyone else. I don’t know anyone who watched the Paralympics. Not even my most sport-obsessed male friends who will watch football matches between Burundi and Ulan-Bator, DVDs of rugby matches played last century, in fact anything that involves running around wearing a number, even shinty. And yet despite the fact that there must be few people in the UK who were not directly involved with the paralympics who could name a single athlete, the paralympic medallists paraded today alongside the Olympians. Their achievements are impressive but in no way comparable to those of the athletes who triumphed over thousands of others worldwide to qualify for and win their events. The numbers of disabled athletes competing worldwide in each event are tiny in comparison. Having them on the open-topped bus alongside Chris Hoy was awkwardly inclusive at best, head-pattingly patronising at worst.

Girl Heaven

Another Friday afternoon, another birthday party for my seven year-old daughter and her classmates. Same venue as the last one, almost indistinguishable format. Like their parents they love reassuringly familiar social rituals. The form is for all the girls in the class to disappear into the loos at school when the bell goes at 3.30 and spend till 4pm getting changed into party dresses. The slutty ones wear stud earrings and heels too. They all want to wear stud earrings and heels. Once in their outfits they prance across the playground feigning indifference but thrilled by the exhibitionist novelty of not being in their grey tunics. They are then whisked to the party, sometimes via an unnecessary ice-cream or the swing park if the hosts have been inconsiderate enough to have an inconvenient hour and a half between school and party. And when they arrive at the party they launch into the compulsory sausage rolls, Mika singalongs, sweets, over-sexualised dancing, pass the parcel and more recently, the application of fake tattoos. Tiger face paint doesn’t cut it any more.

At four o’clock my car load still hadn’t emerged from their changing room so I went in to chase them. Apparently immune to the airless reek of a day’s worth of centrally heated poo and commercial soap they were lingering over the task in hand. My daughter had deviated from the party dress norm on this occasion and was arranging a layered look with flat pink tasselled boots a denim skirt and a fur gilet. She looked fantastic. One of the heels and earrings had her attention momentarily diverted from her study of her own appearance by the gilet. She looked my daughter up and down. “You look weird,” she lisped. And you look like a child prostitute, I thought murderously. My daughter gave her an almost indiscernible look of pity and carried on doing her hair. I was so proud.

I had to hang around at the party as I couldn’t get anywhere I would want to go and back again before the party finished so I took my laptop and a few good intentions. The party venue of the moment is a community centre so there was a table to sit at with internet access and a drinks machine. (No Viognier in it, sadly.) I cracked my laptop just as the karaoke struck up. Abba. Fantastic. Dancing Queen. Aware of the teen Goths using the internet at the side of the room I managed not to sway along to the intro and I sang only into myself. The little girlies couldn’t be expected to know the words of the first verse - some of them have only seen Mama Mia three times – but I was disappointed when they got to the chorus and were still neh, neh, neh-ing. I suppose I was glad my daughter wasn’t belting out ‘gimme, gimme gimme a man after midnight’. I’m sure I wasn’t the only over-30 there itching to take the mike. Maybe the words of Abba songs is something we can work on at half term along with lace tying, tie tying and the 3,4,6,7,8,9 and 12 times tables.

I managed not to disgrace myself with the present this time. No, I did better than that - not only did I get a present and wrapping paper, I remembered that it was a joint party and got two presents and two cards. Unfortunately I let myself down by playing a game of pool with a boy of whom my daughter disapproves who had fled the dancing. I thought he was a very nice boy, my daughter disagreed. Probably not the last time that will happen.

Moved

We are finally out of the house. Lock, stock and barrel apart from the pine wardrobe which my mother wants because she is artistic enough to make it look less yellow and industrious enough to put nice new handles on it. And minus the Aga which is still in the former kitchen waiting to be collected by its new owner. I am trying not to think that it is looking reproachful, that it is remembering all the great meals we have cooked together, all the Christmas turkeys, all the times I have snuggled up to it as the only source of warmth in the house. Of course it can’t be aware that my daughter baked her first tray of biscuits in one of its capacious ovens or tell our shameful secret that she called them cookies because she had watched too much American television. And it isn’t reminding me of the uncountable mornings when thanks to it alone everyone had dry clothes to wear.
A farmer and his wife came on Monday and agreed to buy it as soon as they set eyes on its cheery redness and shiny lids. They are as nice as the Hoggetts in Dick King-Smith’s Babe and they are going to put it into the house they are building for their retirement. It is a good home.

Clearing the house was a horrible slog. For days and days as the container and the skip and the local charity shops and the recycling bins filled up, the house didn’t seem to be getting any emptier. But after a final push on Monday night of wantonly skipping what remained (I rescued the video camera the next morning) and indiscriminately ramming bags with jumbled miscellany, the endless job was done. The house is now naked. There are no carpets and already the plaster has been removed from the walls. With all the stone showing it feels like walking round a ruin, cool and calm. It is such a relief.

We all had things we were particularly pleased to dispose of. I jumped on the mug tree repeatedly before putting it on the skip and would have reversed over it several times in my car if it hadn’t succumbed to my welly. Peeling the damp stripey yellow wallpaper from the sitting room walls was a treat too. I am going to ask the builders if I can take a crow bar to the useless noisy pump which grumbled at all hours about inadequately draining our smelly shower for eleven years.

For most of these eleven years I have vastly preferred being in other people’s houses to being in my own. Now that we have moved into our temporary accommodation in a holiday cottage at the other end of the village I am actually living in somebody else’s house full time and I love it. Having rationalised so much of our junk I feel that I am living a well-ordered life for the first time ever. And I am no longer overwhelmed by the laundry mountain because I had to do it all before we moved out. I only emptied the festering contents of the bottom ten inches of the laundry basket into the skip. There has been a tidy person inside me trying to get out for years. Now she has come out. When we move back into our new improved old house nothing will be the same. It will feel like someone else’s house too. The trick will be to keep it feeling that way.

Our new bedroom will be in what was the kitchen. I’m hoping it won’t be haunted by the banging of oven doors or unexplained cooking smells.