We had a sing-song in the car on the way to school today as we often do. The format this morning was everybody doing an individual turn rather than the mass choral effort that we only manage when everybody is in extremely good spirits. We had a couple of numbers from the school Christmas play, (of which we parents are expecting great things as the children have done little else but rehearse it since half term) we had the slightly tiresome old favourite The Wheels on the Bus and then it was my seven year-old daughter’s turn. She chose to perform a verse from Nickelback’s Rockstar.
“Well we all just wanna be big rock stars,” she started strongly.
“And live in hilltop houses drivin’ fifteen cars,” (Well you have a hillside house and three cars darling, I thought to myself, knowing that it would only have been something to say out loud had we been alone.)
“The girls come easy and the drugs come cheap,” I gripped the steering wheel.
“We’ll all stay skinny cause we just won’t eat.”
I try not to let my mouth fall open or to make value judgement faces but I failed on this occasion. My ten year-old son, who was sitting next to me noticed my expression. He chuckled conspiratorially. He enjoys his privileged position in the front of the car.
I wouldn’t say anything about houses and cars in public but should I allow casual references to cheap drugs and extreme dieting from a seven year-old? At eight thirty in the morning? With an impressionable six year-old girl in the car next to her?
My son shook his golden head.
“I know Mummy.”
He gave me a sympathetic look.
“She sounds like a total lezzer singing about girls coming easy.”
Friday, 28 November 2008
Tuesday, 25 November 2008
Bucking and Diving
I seem to have unwittingly become a horse dealer which is better, morally than being a crack dealer but not much. It’s probably worse than being a car dealer. Horse dealers make the Arthur Daleys and Frank Butchers of the world’s forecourts look positively benign and angelic.
My grey pony has to go. Two years ago when I bought him he was my children’s grey pony but they don’t want to know him any more so he has become mine. He is a companion for my overgrown pony and looks picturesque enough grazing in the field. He will allow small children to walk about safely near his hind legs and groom him. He is good with the blacksmith and the vet. He has huge black eyes and at this time of year, a coat like a polar bear. He has a fine life and is in rude health, his every need tended to daily by me. But I can’t be in the business of keeping ornamental ponies. Not even one.
Being a horse dealer now, you will have noticed that I didn’t mention in my description of him that he can be tricky to catch and he is a challenging ride. In fact he is a little bucker. He has bucked my son off several times, bucked me off and most embarrassingly bucked off my mother’s oldest friend’s granddaughter. He has galloped victoriously through the village, reins and stirrups flying after dumping children, he has ruined riding lessons and has put both my children off riding for life. (Something for which I am aware I should maybe thank him, but we don't have that kind of relationship.) I did consider giving him a career putting other people’s children off riding – hiring him out a week at a time to frighten and disillusion pony mad children into a sensible, cheap sport. But where to advertise that kind of service?
So I advertised him for sale on a horsey website. I was a bit vague in the advertisement but resolved to be honest with anyone who got in touch about him. I didn’t want anyone else’s child’s dream of Olympic glory or true pony love being trampled beneath Grey Pony’s hard little hooves. I couldn’t have that on my conscience.
I was truthful with the first person who got me to call her back and then hung up on me. The second person said she didn’t mind buying a pony that needed work. I seized on this unguarded revelation and worked at it like a garrulous tinker at Appleby Fair. She wasn’t convinced. I may have told the third person that both my children have hacked him out alone but then I cracked and had to mention the few wee bucks he sometimes puts in. Conscience is not useful for horse dealers. The phone went quiet for weeks.
And then a friend said he had a friend in the horse business who might be interested. When I say in the horse business, she actually, er, runs a riding school. So lots of people’s children would be riding him. I think my friend told her the story of Grey Pony but I didn’t check meticulously. On Friday I loaded him up into the trailer and drove him over to be inspected by the riding school lady. (It wasn’t actually quite as simple as that. He ran away from me after I caught him and had to be apprehended by The Horse Whisperer, and then I loaded him up; hard little hooves, hard little heart, the whole lot.)
Riding school lady looked him over in the trailer and liked him. I was encouraged, so much so that when describing his time with us I’m not sure that I used the exact word ‘buck’. I unloaded him and walked him up. She made a few positive noises. I spoke eloquently about his time in the pony club with his previous owners. She scratched his nose and asked him if he would like to come and live with her. I maintained my impassive expression while my heart leapt at the prospect of possibly selling him before we go on holiday at Christmas. She asked if she could have him on trial for a bit. I managed to look regretful as I left him in her stable.
He has now been there for four days and I haven’t heard anything. Could no news be good news? I have told myself that if she thinks he is a suitable pony for a riding school with all her experience, then who am I to argue? We horse dealers can be so plausible.
My grey pony has to go. Two years ago when I bought him he was my children’s grey pony but they don’t want to know him any more so he has become mine. He is a companion for my overgrown pony and looks picturesque enough grazing in the field. He will allow small children to walk about safely near his hind legs and groom him. He is good with the blacksmith and the vet. He has huge black eyes and at this time of year, a coat like a polar bear. He has a fine life and is in rude health, his every need tended to daily by me. But I can’t be in the business of keeping ornamental ponies. Not even one.
Being a horse dealer now, you will have noticed that I didn’t mention in my description of him that he can be tricky to catch and he is a challenging ride. In fact he is a little bucker. He has bucked my son off several times, bucked me off and most embarrassingly bucked off my mother’s oldest friend’s granddaughter. He has galloped victoriously through the village, reins and stirrups flying after dumping children, he has ruined riding lessons and has put both my children off riding for life. (Something for which I am aware I should maybe thank him, but we don't have that kind of relationship.) I did consider giving him a career putting other people’s children off riding – hiring him out a week at a time to frighten and disillusion pony mad children into a sensible, cheap sport. But where to advertise that kind of service?
So I advertised him for sale on a horsey website. I was a bit vague in the advertisement but resolved to be honest with anyone who got in touch about him. I didn’t want anyone else’s child’s dream of Olympic glory or true pony love being trampled beneath Grey Pony’s hard little hooves. I couldn’t have that on my conscience.
I was truthful with the first person who got me to call her back and then hung up on me. The second person said she didn’t mind buying a pony that needed work. I seized on this unguarded revelation and worked at it like a garrulous tinker at Appleby Fair. She wasn’t convinced. I may have told the third person that both my children have hacked him out alone but then I cracked and had to mention the few wee bucks he sometimes puts in. Conscience is not useful for horse dealers. The phone went quiet for weeks.
And then a friend said he had a friend in the horse business who might be interested. When I say in the horse business, she actually, er, runs a riding school. So lots of people’s children would be riding him. I think my friend told her the story of Grey Pony but I didn’t check meticulously. On Friday I loaded him up into the trailer and drove him over to be inspected by the riding school lady. (It wasn’t actually quite as simple as that. He ran away from me after I caught him and had to be apprehended by The Horse Whisperer, and then I loaded him up; hard little hooves, hard little heart, the whole lot.)
Riding school lady looked him over in the trailer and liked him. I was encouraged, so much so that when describing his time with us I’m not sure that I used the exact word ‘buck’. I unloaded him and walked him up. She made a few positive noises. I spoke eloquently about his time in the pony club with his previous owners. She scratched his nose and asked him if he would like to come and live with her. I maintained my impassive expression while my heart leapt at the prospect of possibly selling him before we go on holiday at Christmas. She asked if she could have him on trial for a bit. I managed to look regretful as I left him in her stable.
He has now been there for four days and I haven’t heard anything. Could no news be good news? I have told myself that if she thinks he is a suitable pony for a riding school with all her experience, then who am I to argue? We horse dealers can be so plausible.
Thursday, 20 November 2008
Put It Away
I turned 39 on Friday and went for a night out in Edinburgh on Saturday. The two events were unrelated – I was almost as uninterested in this bridesmaid of a birthday as the people I live with were. Not quite – I did remember about it. My brother, my father and I all forgot my mother's birthday once so I put it down to a motherhood milestone. There will be no chance of any of them forgetting about it next year.
The night out started badly. The dress I had brought to wear had shrunk in the wash and was borderline for a 39 year-old to be wearing in public, The Wee Craicer called off and the taxi had £5 on the meter when we got into it outside my parents’ house where we were staying. The £5 was my fault for agonising into extra time about the shrunken dress. While the taxi rattled in the street outside, my daughter suggested that I wear the slip only, without the chiffon dress on top, my son was unequivocal about how bad it looked and my mother thought it was fine. My Dad thought it looked great, as did my very long ago former boyfriend, The Director, when we finally got to the packed bar we were meeting in. The Director had come dressed to carry out a burglary so I wasn’t the only one looking a little bit niche. We might both have looked quite zeitgeisty in NoLita or Hoxton, I in outgrown rags, he in streetwear that suggested malicious intent. But we were in Edinburgh where despite the temperature outside, lots of bare flesh was on show; some expanses firmer than others. The wobblier the flesh, the louder they were shouting. And the drinks were eight pounds each.
Only half the people we had originally designed to be on this rare and precious night out shoved their way through the bar to our table in the restaurant. The others were snugly at home with their sick children, workloads and music at an acceptible level. My husband was wearing the locked-in look that means he can’t hear anything and is wondering whether to drink white or red while he observes the evening. I felt sorry for him. As I sat eating and catching up with the The Perfect Couple and The Director I became aware that it would have been nicer to have been in one of our houses. (Not our rental or our building site actually, but either of their's.)
But what was I thinking? If we had been in one of their houses there wouldn’t have been a club to look forward to. And a club was where we were headed. At someone’s house there would have been no anticipation of that completely abandoned singalong dancing that you can really lose yourself in with old friends and not care who sees you. No glitter ball or hand waving or hair shaking or lights. No being gripped in a sweaty headlock by a drunk friend and told you are loved. After dinner things would liven up.
That was what we were all looking forward to as we descended from the blustery pavement into the breathy fug of the club. But it was rammed too. My husband took up smoking again just to get outside. The most expensive two cigarettes ever - bought from a machine for over three quid each. I mounted a halting expedition to the dance floor but it was listless hands by your sides dancing only and the music was so emptily wetly lame and generic that the urge to put my hands up (for Detroit or anywhere else) was gone. It was the final two fingers up to that night out and possibly all nights out for us. Even the music would have been better in any of our kitchens. Staying in looks like it really is the new going out. And if buying into that isn’t an appropriate way to mark your 39th birthday, (whether you mean to or not) I don’t know what is.
The night out started badly. The dress I had brought to wear had shrunk in the wash and was borderline for a 39 year-old to be wearing in public, The Wee Craicer called off and the taxi had £5 on the meter when we got into it outside my parents’ house where we were staying. The £5 was my fault for agonising into extra time about the shrunken dress. While the taxi rattled in the street outside, my daughter suggested that I wear the slip only, without the chiffon dress on top, my son was unequivocal about how bad it looked and my mother thought it was fine. My Dad thought it looked great, as did my very long ago former boyfriend, The Director, when we finally got to the packed bar we were meeting in. The Director had come dressed to carry out a burglary so I wasn’t the only one looking a little bit niche. We might both have looked quite zeitgeisty in NoLita or Hoxton, I in outgrown rags, he in streetwear that suggested malicious intent. But we were in Edinburgh where despite the temperature outside, lots of bare flesh was on show; some expanses firmer than others. The wobblier the flesh, the louder they were shouting. And the drinks were eight pounds each.
Only half the people we had originally designed to be on this rare and precious night out shoved their way through the bar to our table in the restaurant. The others were snugly at home with their sick children, workloads and music at an acceptible level. My husband was wearing the locked-in look that means he can’t hear anything and is wondering whether to drink white or red while he observes the evening. I felt sorry for him. As I sat eating and catching up with the The Perfect Couple and The Director I became aware that it would have been nicer to have been in one of our houses. (Not our rental or our building site actually, but either of their's.)
But what was I thinking? If we had been in one of their houses there wouldn’t have been a club to look forward to. And a club was where we were headed. At someone’s house there would have been no anticipation of that completely abandoned singalong dancing that you can really lose yourself in with old friends and not care who sees you. No glitter ball or hand waving or hair shaking or lights. No being gripped in a sweaty headlock by a drunk friend and told you are loved. After dinner things would liven up.
That was what we were all looking forward to as we descended from the blustery pavement into the breathy fug of the club. But it was rammed too. My husband took up smoking again just to get outside. The most expensive two cigarettes ever - bought from a machine for over three quid each. I mounted a halting expedition to the dance floor but it was listless hands by your sides dancing only and the music was so emptily wetly lame and generic that the urge to put my hands up (for Detroit or anywhere else) was gone. It was the final two fingers up to that night out and possibly all nights out for us. Even the music would have been better in any of our kitchens. Staying in looks like it really is the new going out. And if buying into that isn’t an appropriate way to mark your 39th birthday, (whether you mean to or not) I don’t know what is.
Tuesday, 11 November 2008
Wanted: Dead or Alive
A friend gave my son a ferret for his tenth birthday in August. They say ferrets bite. They are right. This one, named disrespectfully after my husband, did little else apart from eating and pooping. It bit my son more than anyone. It also bit his friends, my friends, babysitters, someone who works for my husband and the blacksmith’s apprentice who is a ferret expert and managed to handle it for longer than anyone else before being bitten. About 20 seconds. The blacksmith’s apprentice is tough and accustomed to wrestling huge horses but he was no match for the ferret.
We don’t seem to have much luck with animals smaller than Labradors. My two ponies are very happy, our Labrador is one of the oldest and contentedly smelliest in the county. But our hamsters have all escaped, the guinea pig was dropped resulting in a fatal concussion and one rabbit froze to death while another ran away. (There was a period when rabbits were pets before they became prey.) I should have known the ferret would be a disaster. I probably did, but my better judgement was swayed by the idea that perhaps having a ferret would mean that my son could go and kill rabbits in the garden without a firearm or a resentful adult being involved.
We tried everything suggested by books, the internet, the person who gave it to my son and the blacksmith’s apprentice. Everything short of buying it a friend. Nothing worked. It hated us, we hated it and the rule that if my son had a ferret he had to look after it was eventually being flouted every day. I became quite ingenious at feeding it without touching it and filling its water with a hose over the door of the stable that had become its home. Cleaning it out was more of a challenge.
Anyway, whadya know? One day a couple of weeks ago it escaped. We went happily back to a ferret free existence. Free from anxiety about being savaged by it, free from guilt about whether it needed a friend, free from having to make special expeditions to a particularly dreary industrial estate in the third-rate local town to buy ferret nuggets and free from the smell of ferret. But you know what they (the same lot who say that ferrets bite) say about bad smells? (And ferret is a very bad smell.) Instead of taking itself off to the moor to live off voles and ticks or allowing itself to be lifted away by the scruff of its ungrateful neck by a hungry buzzard, it decided to hang around our house. In fact it moved in. Every morning last week, when the builders arrived it would be there before them, curled up in some of our lovely new insulation or beadily eyeing one of the bunches of expensive new cables which seem to be everywhere and smacking its curled lips.
There is now a price on the ferret's head. It is slightly less than the cost of replacing one bunch of newly installed data cables, but is still a significant sum.
We don’t seem to have much luck with animals smaller than Labradors. My two ponies are very happy, our Labrador is one of the oldest and contentedly smelliest in the county. But our hamsters have all escaped, the guinea pig was dropped resulting in a fatal concussion and one rabbit froze to death while another ran away. (There was a period when rabbits were pets before they became prey.) I should have known the ferret would be a disaster. I probably did, but my better judgement was swayed by the idea that perhaps having a ferret would mean that my son could go and kill rabbits in the garden without a firearm or a resentful adult being involved.
We tried everything suggested by books, the internet, the person who gave it to my son and the blacksmith’s apprentice. Everything short of buying it a friend. Nothing worked. It hated us, we hated it and the rule that if my son had a ferret he had to look after it was eventually being flouted every day. I became quite ingenious at feeding it without touching it and filling its water with a hose over the door of the stable that had become its home. Cleaning it out was more of a challenge.
Anyway, whadya know? One day a couple of weeks ago it escaped. We went happily back to a ferret free existence. Free from anxiety about being savaged by it, free from guilt about whether it needed a friend, free from having to make special expeditions to a particularly dreary industrial estate in the third-rate local town to buy ferret nuggets and free from the smell of ferret. But you know what they (the same lot who say that ferrets bite) say about bad smells? (And ferret is a very bad smell.) Instead of taking itself off to the moor to live off voles and ticks or allowing itself to be lifted away by the scruff of its ungrateful neck by a hungry buzzard, it decided to hang around our house. In fact it moved in. Every morning last week, when the builders arrived it would be there before them, curled up in some of our lovely new insulation or beadily eyeing one of the bunches of expensive new cables which seem to be everywhere and smacking its curled lips.
There is now a price on the ferret's head. It is slightly less than the cost of replacing one bunch of newly installed data cables, but is still a significant sum.
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