Sex and the Doctor

All right, all right. This is just another excuse to print a picture of David Tennant again.

There. Isn't he lovely?

Although, actually I did have something else to say.

Elsewhere in blogland there exist others as obsessed as I about the good Doctor, and they are having conversations here

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/dave_hill/2007/04/no_sex_please_were_time_lords.html

and here:

http://strugglingauthor.blogspot.com.

I decided that Dave and Marie had both made me think about it so much that I had too much to say and they'd get bored of me posting on their blogs, so I would just go and post on mine...

I have to confess when they first brought Dr Who back I was really nervous. I mean. Russell T Davies. He wrote Queer as Folk and The Second Coming for god's sake. And brilliant and all as that was, I couldn't quite see him toning it down for a Saturday teatime audience. But then I saw Mine all Mine, and thought, ok, maybe I got that one wrong then...

To my delight as a lifelong saddie Dr Who obsessed fan, Russell T more then delivered. I thought Rose was a huge improvement from the wet assistants of my day (even Sarah Jane who keeps being heralded as a really strong cookie. I thought she was a girly wuss... Russell hugely improved her when he brought her back).

I was a tad disconcerted by the burgeoning relationship between the Doctor and Rose - partly because Christopher Eccleston seemed way too old for Billie Piper, and partly because, well. it didn't seem like Dr Who, did it? I mean since when has the Doctor gone about fancying his companions? (Although I do remember Jon Pertwee being quite affected by Jo going off to get married...)

However, I have to confess, the very last episode of the first series, The Parting of the Ways, changed my mind.

I just LOVED the very tender kiss the Doctor planted on Rose to get the Vortex out of her head, and then the way he said as he regenerated, Oh Rose, I was going to show you such things... It was beautiful and haunting and well, romantic... For me that pressed all the right buttons. Moving, but not schmalzy, tender but not too sexy for a kid's programme.

And then of course the last series was a great long tease between Billie and David, who were much better suited to one another, and spent the whole of it getting separated as if to herald that final separation: Sarah Jane showed Rose her future without the Doctor, Madame de Pompadour his without her, she got trapped by the wire, he got trapped in a picture...

You have to hand it to Russell T, he does like to flag things up for us.

But...

It ended. The Doctor lost Rose and until he met Martha he was on his own again.

And, I really don't want the whole shebang to start again. If he falls for Martha the way he fell for Rose he's going to end up looking like some kind of lothario, and personally I'm with Dave Hill, I kind of like him being slightly asexual, and OUT of all that sort of thing. I do love all the depth of emotion that David Tennant portrays with the whole being the last of his line thing, and that he cannot be like other people. But if he keeps hopping from assistant to assistant he's just going to look like your average jack the lad down the pub. And that will never do...

And apart from anything else, without sounding too prudish about it, this is a kid's show. My lot are deeply embarrassed by any hint of what they call the kissy kissy stuff. They prefer straightforward daleks being blasted into smithereens kind of episodes. And despite the laughably ridiculous pig slaves of the last two weeks (though they did hark back to the idiotic kind of monsters from my childhood, so in that sense they were following a well worn tradition), the children thought they were great.

On a slightly wider point, I do think this constant obsession with sex in everything is also an indication of something that has gone slightly awry in our society. Given that I have girls, I am constantly cross when I come to buy them clothes and find it damn nigh impossible to find them anything that doesn't make them look like little tarts. It's not just having images like the inexcrable Bratz dolls thrown at them (mind you, what we think is just tarty, they think is pretty and on the upside, the kids do play fantastically imaginative - and no not what you're thinking - games with them, so they're not all bad), or the fact that even magazines for eight year olds are full of pictures of skinny popstars, there seems to have been a change in society which assumes that we shouldn't hold back. Kids should know about this stuff. It's the way the world works.

Now granted, when I was growing up, we were shielded alot from That Kind of Thing, and it wasn't always helpful, but I hear horror stories (I have no idea yet as to how apocraphyl) about sex education lessons at secondary school including discussions about bestiality and s&m behaviour and think, aren't we taking honesty and openness a bit far? Last year no 1 came home from a talk about puberty with a leaflet about periods which earnestly explained that you can still have sex when you are having a period. Why on earth did she need to know that?

And from where I'm sitting, all this sex education appears to be having no effect whatsoever, given that we have the highest teen pregnancy count in Europe. Now there's a statistic to be proud of. Because there seems to be an assumption that as everyone is at it, it is having safe sex that counts, instead of an assumption that it is probably in the main better to wait till you're old enough, and for most of us the whole thing works a lot better when the relationship involved is a reasonably important one.

Which brings me back to Dr Who. Without making too much of a mountain out of it (ok, I probably am), what sort of subliminal message are kids going to get from seeing Martha jumping into the Tardis with an alien she's only just met, and then moaning that he isn't interested in sleeping with her (see episode two about Shakespeare, in every other respect, totally brilliant)? And if the doctor does get it on with her, it kind of implies that commitment is an out of sight out of mind kind of thing.

I had an interesting if rather oblique discussion with no 1 about this the other week. We were watching Mansfield Park and she came to the (correct) conclusion that Henry Crawford wasn't the One for Fanny. I explained as unscarily as I could that no 1 in time might meet the odd Henry Crawford, but really it was Edmund Bertram she should bother with. Jane Austen. Sexual politics in a nutshell.

I kind of hope therefore that the Doctor doesn't turn in to Henry Crawford (they can have Captain Jack for that), but remains if not Edmund Bertram (ok he is a bit wet), Mr Darcy or Mr Knightly through and through...

Either that or he regenerate as a woman...

Binge Drinking

So parents are to banned from shoving alcohol down the throats of their five year old children.

Well, if Alcohol Concern have anything to do with it they will. Not only that, the dissolutes involved will be prosecuted for their wicked and wanton behaviour.

In one fell swoop this will solve the problem of binge drinking among teens apparently.

Apart from the rather surreal image this conjures up of parents up and down the land appearing like characters from the Rake's Progress forcefeeding their children gin, it did make me wonder what planet the people in Alcohol Concern live on.

I don't think I know a single person who gives their five year olds alcohol. We have a five year old. We drink alcohol. But so far she seems unsullied. Indeed, she's never even wanted to try it. The two older ones on occasion have had a sip of their dad's beer, and now they've made their first Holy Communion they get to taste the communion wine (hmm, will churches up and down the land get prosecuted?). And get this. They don't actually like it. So us letting them have a sample isn't so far leading them into the path of dissolution.

The whole notion that the State should yet again have the power to interfere in people's homes in this way should be completely abhorrent in a free society. Yes, there are feckless irresponsible parents out there, who for all I know are freely plying their offspring with drink on a regular basis, but it isn't up to the State to go marching into their homes to prevent such behaviour, nasty and all as it might be. I am getting rather tired of do gooders telling me how I should behave. It's as if no one trusts us anymore to make up our own minds about how we bring up our children, and how we act in our own homes.


Rather then encouraging teenagers to be heavy drinkers, I think having some alcohol around in the house and being introduced by your parents to it in a responsible way, is a much more rational approach. From the age of 13 or so, I was allowed a small glass of wine with my Sunday lunch. I didn't then go haring down to the local park with my mates to finish the bottle. When I was a bit older I had my first taste of drinking/getting drunk in my late teens. My parents probably knew I'd had a drink (though laughably Mad Twin and I used to walk up and down the house several times eating mints in a frantic attempt to sober up), but they didn't make a big deal of it, so consequently we weren't driven to do it more in order to shock them. The people I came across who drank to excess the most at university, tended to be the ones who'd been kept on a very tight rein at home. Once let off the leash they went mad.

I'm not claiming virtue here. I did my fair share of drinking in my youth, and am still probably far too partial to red wine, but....

Prosecuting me for giving drink to my children under fifteen is going to make no difference to binge drinking in this country.

The rise of binge drinking as far as I can tell has been as a result firstly of the dratted alcopops, which look all shiny and nice and fun - just like lemonade but with a bit of a kick. As teenagers everyone I knew used to drink cider because we naively thought it wasn't that strong. Now I know we'd all be drinking alcopops because they look so pretty, and we'd be kidding ourselves that they were just like fruit juice.

Secondly, although I agreed with the change in the licensing laws, given that our cousins on the Continent seem to manage drinking all night without the scenes of debauchery that now regularly occur on Saturday nights across the nation, I think now it has been a mistake. The fact that it has been coupled with a rise in the number of licensed premises being opened, and the double whammy of the drinks industry insisting we have to drink much larger measures has been disastrous. Whether or not teenagers drink at home is irrelevant, if once they get out in the big bad world, they can go out to bars, where they can drink for hours on end, and with three glasses of wine consume the best part of a bottle. Beer is stronger now and so is wine. No wonder we're turning into a nation of pissheads.

Thankfully, it does seem the government seem to at least have the sense to realise that Alcohol Concern's proposal isn't the way forward, so it looks like Spouse and I won't be going to prison in the near future for corrupting our young.

But, jeez. Wouldn't it for once be nice to read in the paper that the majority of parents are doing a pretty decent job bringing up their kids (against increasingly difficult odds), and that actually, we're quite capable of making responsible decisions about our childrens' welfare?

Despite the best efforts of the Daily Mail to persuade us otherwise, I think in the main it's true.

Shame the powers that be don't think so....

And then there were three.

No 2 is away on a school trip. It's only two days, and as most of the time covered she'd be at school in bed, her absence is really only notable for four hours each day.

But it's a weird thing.

You'd think having four children, I wouldn't notice one missing. I've got plenty to go round, and one little person being out of the house won't make much difference surely?

And yet, it does. Somehow.

There is a great big, no 2 sized gap that follows me about. The place seems too big without her. It's too quiet. Last night, I actually had time to watch Coronation Street for the first time in - ooh years.

How can one person make so much difference?

The others don't seem all that bothered.

No 1 casually said, why would I miss her? when asked. Mind you, she got a treat last night - thinking (how foolish am I?) that she might be missing her sister, I let her sit up with a chinese takeaway watching Mansfield Park which I videoed a few weeks back. She probably doesn't want no 2 to come home. It's much more fun when she's away.

Yesterday morning (see how pathetic I am? She only went yesterday and she's back tomorrow)
I said goodbye in the playground, and took the little ones round to their school. When we got there I suddenly realised no 3 had run ahead, did you say goodbye to your sister? I asked, worried she might be upset about missing her. I said goodbye in the car, was the nonchalant response. She didn't appear too bothered at all, while no 4 who adores her older sister and normally follows her round like a little lapdog ran off without a care in the world, completely oblivious (apparently) to the fact she wasn't going to see her for a couple of days.

Last night they didn't even mention her, nor this morning. At tennis this evening there was nary a sign from any of them that they missed their sister AT ALL. Am I the only wimp in the family, consciously aware of that big gap and eager for it to be filled up again?

I thought so till bedtime tonight, when no 3 suddenly said, I can't wait for tomorrow?

Oh, why? says naive mum, thinking, oh great, I'm about to get roped into going to assembly again.

No 2's back of course, she said crossly. Honestly, how could you forget about her?

How indeed...

The Party is up and running

Over at my other blog: http://RunningonEmptyLaunchParty.blogspot.com

You can read some inspiring running stories, join in my competition, play the drinking game I shamelessly stole from the Ladies Lounge - Bec if you're reading this I hope you don't mind, I did email you and ask!, and even if you feel inclined buy the book.

Please please do pass the word on though!


Hope to see you in the smoothie bar soon....

More Blatant Self Promotion

I am in the process of organising an online party both to promote my book and celebrate Flora London Marathon which is run next Sunday (good luck to anyone out there taking part).

I'll be doing it over on my other blog:

http://RunningonEmptyLaunchParty.blogspot.com

and will post more details here shortly.

Spread the word, why don't you!

You Know It's Weird Out There in Cyberspace....

I'd hazard a guess that most grown ups of a certain age have been glued to the silver screen watching Messrs Simm and Glenister in action. What I am now supposed to do with Tuesday evenings is beyond me, but hey, at least I have the new series to pine for...

If, you like me, were a bit baffled by the outcome - gloriously gripping though it was, you might have been as sad as I am and gone searching in cyberspace for some answers. Courtesy of wikepedia I followed some links and found them. Which was rather a disappointment really. I think I'd have preferred the engima.

If I can get these sodding links right, you can find out to by going here...
http://blogs.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/ianwylie/2007/04/life_on_mars_the_answers.html

There. That doesn't give anything away unless you want to go looking, does it.

It being the holidays and any serious chance of doing proper work being seriously out of the window I have ended up getting slightly obsessed with following links from wikipedia about my favourite programmes.

My little foray into You Tube took me to this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGoNQLeaSwI

which is how I now know what John Simm did next...

And then sadder then ever I went back to wikipedia again and found this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Saxon#Mr._Saxon

which is when I realised that I am actually not sad at all. Indeedy, I am only a tiny teensy bit obsessed with tv programmes I like compared with some of the things I found.

(I did however do a whole mad look at Green Wing too, so I now know all about Guy-ball and why it's called Green Wing - but that I can justify, as I am rewatching the entire series so I can follow Mac and Caroline's very fabulous romance to get tips on how to keep sexual tension going in my next book).

But what I've discovered is this. I may be a tiny teensy bit obsesssed, but there are whole Hordes and Hordes of people out there in cyberspace who seem to do nothing else but collect bits of trivia about their favourite tv shows and feed it into wikipedia for people like me to read about and marvel that anyone even has the time to do it.

And you wouldn't believe the number of You Tube videos I've found on the subject of Rose and the Doctor getting separated. I loved that last episode, and everytime we've watched it brings a lump to my throat, but sheesh! Making You Tube videos of it???


Now that's what I call really sad.

And I'm not quite that obsessed...

yet.

Though I wouldn't say no to David Tennant any time of the week...

Or John Simm for that matter...

You Tube

I had so much fun posting my previous effort on You Tube, I've just posted another ad there too...

You can find it at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i3nrqibExg

Tadpole Heaven

We've had a busy weekend. In a moment of madness after Christmas when I was feeling fed up as my side of the family hadn't managed a get together, I decided that we should invite everyone over at Easter instead.

Now in normal families this is probably an immensely obvious and practical thing to do. But my family isn't your average sized family. In fact it is rather large. And between us we all have rather a lot of children. So planning a family meet is rather like a military operation.

However given that I am in the very fortunate position of getting on with everyone of my siblings AND their partners, and all the children adore their cousins, military operation notswithstanding meeting up is always a joyous pleasure (if a rather madly frantic one).

Luckily, Spouse and I have many years of experience of hosting large numbers as we have been putting on parties for his side of the family ever since we moved here.

Simplicity, I find is key.

We had to feed 12 grown ups and 15 children (there was a baby too but his parents provided for him), who were all arriving at different times. So we did a buffet lunch. Spouse decided he had to make waldorf salad which we've never done before, but that was the only complication. We ended up making far too much, so we'll be eating it all week...

For the evening I decided to do a roast for the grown ups. The children had been communicating via email and decided that they wanted a film evening with snacks. So no 1 promised she'd take charge of that and organised an incredibly healthy menu of pizza, hot dogs, beefburgers and popcorn. She did the popcorn, and half the pizza base but playing with her cousins was irresistible, so we, er did the rest...

Puddings I had (in best Blue Peter tradition) made earlier: raspberry fool, redcurrant cheesecake and apple tart. All I'm pleased to say made with fruit from the garden.

There was a lot of running about, and I didn't sit down all that much, but it was well worth it to spend a sunny afternoon sitting in the garden with my siblings.

And the children had a ball...

Most of the afternoon was spent picking out the tadpoles from the pond in buckets and counting them. We have 125 apparently. Well I use the word "have" advisedly. We probably had 125, but I'm not quite sure how many of them have survived their little holiday to the bottom of the garden in the wheelbarrow. And if they thought they were tadpoles, apparently, they were mistaken. Because in actual fact they were zoyburgs (I have no idea if I've spelt that right, or even what zoyburgs are, but no 1 assures me they're something to do with Futurama).

I have visions of these poor little tadpoles up in tadpole heaven saying to one another, Cor that was a big tsunami that got us, or how did you cop it? I fell off the edge of the earth, me...

The ones that are left are probably suffering from post traumatic stress disorder and will probably now start the savage process of eating one another (ain't Mother Nature a peach?) which is infinitely preferable to death by a thousand handlings.

Once the tadpoles had been mauled to death, as it was a sunny day the next thing to do (obviously) was to have a water fight. Everyone ended up completely soaked before deciding enough was enough and they went back to tadpole tormenting again. Apart from no 2 and her favourite (and spookily doppleganger like) cousin who set up a Down With School Campaign and went marching about with placards tied to barbie dolls' legs, which I found the next day planted in with my pansies. Which was clearly the right place for them...

The feeding of the five thousand took place (thankfully) in the garden, and I have never seen hotdogs disappear so fast. By now they were all whacked out enough to sit quietly through a film while the grown ups managed a civilized dinner.

The younger contingent didn't even put too much of a fight up when it came to bed...

Not everyone stayed the night, but we did put up five grown ups and ten extra children, somehow. I feel as though my home has just mutated into the tardis....

And we survived.

But somehow, I don't rate the tadpoles chances very high...


For my fabulous family. Thanks for a smashing day. Oh... and sorry about blogging about you...

Ok Folks... It's Shameless Plug Time

It's nearly that time of year again.

The London Marathon is upon us, so it's time I started shamelessly plugging my book again.

So anyone out there reading this blog who hasn't yet bought it...

If so, why not????

It's time to make amends.

So go forth to Amazon, or Waterstones or wherever and get your copy now.

And find out all about how a serial non runner turned herself into a marathon mum...

Failing that you can at least enter my competition to tell me (if you're a runner) the strangest thing you've seen out running, and if you're not the strangest thing you've experienced when exercising. And if you don't exercise at all you can write me an essay on why reading my book: Running on Empty: Diary of a Marathon Mum has at least inspired you to think about it...

For the record strange things that have happened to me include: tripping over my toes in front of our local hospital and nearly getting run over by a nurse, getting lost on a mountain in Spain with a dog, getting lost on a hillside in England without a dog, and my favourite, getting locked out of Waterloo station in just my running gear five minutes before I was supposed to be somewhere else.

To enter the competition email me at: jules@marathonmum.com before 22 April (marathon day) and I'll send the winner a signed copy of the book plus FLM fleece.

Go on, you know it makes sense....

Three and a half hours to go till...

Denanana, Denanana, Denanana,

Oeeoooo... oooo,

Dadada, dada, daddaaaaa......



Well you get the gist. John Barrowmore did it much better on Celebrity Weakest Link last night.





But....





Huzzah, my hero is back tonight fighting aliens...

And isn't he gorgeous???

Hopefully his return will help no 3 get over her distress at Rose leaving.

I'm off to prepare for my dinner party so I have time to watch instead of cook...


But I might just have to stare at lovely David Tennant for a bit longer....


PS h&b have you any idea what I'm talking about? Do you get Dr Who in Oz?

Post Dr Who and Dinner Party Script....

And he was lovely. And didn't disappoint. Neither did Martha. No 3 spent the whole thing on my lap with a cushion over her head, but hey, that's what Dr Who's all about. As Madame Pompadour put it you don't get the doctor without the monsters... Spouse thought rhino aliens as police were a bit naff, but I with all due respect as a scientist, he is not very hot on the suspension of disbelief stuff that we English grads take for granted, so it didn't bother me none. A triumphant return I'd say...

Oh and the dinner went well too...

Mushrooms and stilton wrapped in pancietta (yes, it was stolen from the Sainsbury's ad, via some writing friends... my version was a bit burn, but what the hell)

chicken and herb parcels (thank you lovely butcher who sold them to me yesterday at great, but worth it, expense), with lemon/garlic/rosemary spuds a le Hugh Fearningly Whittingswotsit, mashed sweet potatoe and swede, roast parsnips and carrots.

Cheesecake (Hugh FW again) and Chocolate mousse courtesy of the child genius Sam Stern. In my excitement about David Tennant, I did cock it up as I chucked the whites of the eggs in first,THEN read, mix in yolks first, whip whites into peaks and fold them in. I did a bit of frantic whipping of whites and chocolate, but I don't think it was enough. It tasted ok, but it was chocolate runny mousse.

Well you can't win them all.

And I'd take David Tennant any day...

Being enigmatic...

... Is NOT what I do best.

But Nic, the deadline is now one day and counting...

Can YOU really not guess what it is?

Perhaps you should ask your pupils...

A Word on NHS Dentists....

As no doubt you all know, getting an NHS dentist is as easy as pulling hen's teeth, or whatever the expression is.

Apart from, if like me, you are married to one of the rarest of breeds.

I am not going to talk about this issue at length, because Spouse doesn't like me too, but I will just say this to Rosie Winterton who I heard pontificating ad nauseam yesterday on the Jeremy Vine show...

MOST NHS dentists don't choose to become private (if anything the bureacracy and form filling is even more scary when you don't have the NHS behind you) but have been forced into it by successive government policies. And Tony Blair's promise of NHS dentistry for all is sounding increasingly hollow. But hey, what does he care? He's out of here, soon and I doubt Gordy cares too much about NHS dentistry...

Many years ago under the Tories, NHS dentists were set targets to improve patient care. If you bring x number of patients in they were told you will get y amount of money. Being a hardworking and dutiful bunch, they did as they were told, only for the government to turn round and say, Oh shit, we didn't expect you to actually achieve that target, what we really meant is for you to bring in z number of patients. That was in 1991, and as a result of this constant shifting of goal posts loads of NHS dentists decamped and went private.

Scroll forward to now and we are just about to celebrate the anniversary of the new contract between dentists and the NHS, imposed on them from above, it is a contract that the majority of dentists didn't want. In theory the contract is supposed to take them off the treadmill of the NHS. Now instead of being paid per item of treatment, they get paid depending on how many units of dental activity they have achieved. No problem, you might say until you realise that we are not measuring like with like here.

For example, this time last year if you came in with a bog standard filling, you would have paid, say fifteen pounds, half of which went to the dentist, the other half of which went to cover the running costs of the practice. If you came in needing two bog standard fillings, plus several big fillings in your back teeth, you would have paid individually for each of them, paying more for the more difficult ones.

Not anymore you don't. The powers that be decree that if you come in in need of fillings, how ever many you need, that counts as one unit of dental activity. So now if you come in with a bog standard filling it costs more for you, and you lose out, but if you come in needing loads of fillings, you pay less, but the dentist loses out because he does all that work but gets paid the same as if he had done one filling.

I should also add here, that this is not about dentists feeling badly treated in terms of their pay (though without a doubt they are going to see it reduced over the next few years), but about them feeling they cannot provide the sort of service they want to under the new system. Most of the dentists I know (Spouse included) are highly professional, ethical and have a strong sense of wanting to do the very best for their patients. A system which allows benign neglect (as a patient you now only have to see a dentist once a year), and doesn't pay enough for dentists to spend the necessary time/use the best quality materials is always going to be one that lets the patients down. And that is where we're at, folks.

And far from being taken off the treadmill, the sense of being a rat in a run has increased a hundredfold, as twinkling away in the corner of the computer screen are numbers assessing how close to your target no of UDAs you are. At the beginning of this year Spouse was 13% behind -with the threat that if he didn't make it up, he would have not got paid for March.

They really now how to motivate people in Rosie Winterton's department...

Luckily, he has done it, but it has been a hell of a stressful ride.

Is it any wonder NHS dentists are deserting the sinking ship in droves? Or that the ones we have are mainly Polish?

Next week Spouse gets set a new target, and the whole rigmarole will start again.

I can't wait for this time next year...


PS Two days to go and counting...

Ambitions for six and ten year olds.

Fortunately they don't appear to have ambitions...


PS Three days to go...

And counting...

An ambition for an eight year old

When I'm seventy five said no 2 to us recently, I shall miss you.

Oh that's nice, I said. You do realise we will be dead by then.


Of course, you'll be dead. No 2 looked at me witheringly, which is why I am going to dig you and Daddy up and have your bodies stuffed.

Oh. I said. That's not quite so nice...

Well, she said. I wouldn't have anyone to hug. So when I'm feeling lonely I'll sit on your lap and cuddle you.

Hmm, I might be a bit boney, but I suppose it's a nice thought.

And, I'll hook up a special device that I can sit on Daddy's shoulders and he can give me carries.

Right, I said. What happens if we're cremated?

Oh, in that case, said no 2, when I feel lonely I shall go and sit on your grave and do handstands on Daddy's.

So there you have it.

One transexual.

One necrophiliac.

Oh dear...

An ambition for a five year old

I want to be a boy, announced no 4 to us recently.

Oh, I said, and how will you go about doing that? I asked, slightly bemused.

Well. she said. I'll hang around with boys, and I'll get their voice and they'll get mine. Then Daddy will cut my hair and buy me boys toys and I'll give my girls toys to no 3.

So there you have it.

How to be a transexual according to a five year old...

And Another Thing

Blasted across our local paper tonight is the happy news that our local hospital (where all four of the children were born) is likely to be closed down. Our local MP, Chris Grayling (and to be fair ALL the local politicians have done their bit whatever their party) has fought an heroic campaign to keep it open.

To cut a long story short at some point who knows when, the power that be decided to yoke our local hospital, Epsom, which supports not just the town, but outlying towns as far away as Cobham together with St Helier, five miles away. St Helier serves the communities of Sutton, Merton and beyond up to St George's in Tooting. I don't recall any public consultation about this, but one day, suddenly we were part of Epsom and St Helier Trust.

Some time back Epsom and St HelierTrust decided they were going to build a Super Hospital in Sutton, and downgrade both St Helier and Epsom. This wasn't a plan favoured by either community- although the distance between them may seem slight, in heavy traffic it can take forty minutes or more to get from one to the other. (Transport to and from St Helier is particularly bad - we've had personal experience of getting there every day for three months when fil was ill). Besides, both communities deserve and need their hospitals.

But the PCT decided that we all needed a brand new shiny hospital in Sutton at god knows what cost. Unsurprisingly, this decison was not met with favour from either community, and quite rightly, there were protests from both sides. Then Patricia Hewitt had her ear bent by the MP in Merton (funnily enough a Labour MP, Chris Grayling is a Tory) and lo and behold when the decision was taken as to where to build the Super Hospital (Chris Grayling had come up with a plan to upgrade Epsom at far less expense), overnight the decision was made to resite it in St Helier. I can't remember her exact words, but they were along the lines that the posh people in Surrey could afford to do without a hospital because presumably we all have private health care (let me let you into a secret Patricia, no we, don't. Just as most of us can't afford private education either).

It then turned out that St Helier wasn't a suitable site to build a Super Hospital on. The shameful bunch who were running the PCT and mooted the Super Hospital in the first place have all lost their jobs (and HOW much money have they spent I wonder?), and now the company bought into bail everyone out of the mess has dumped the idea of a Super Hospital and instead St Helier and Epsom are both being downgraded.

There is a tiny glimmer of hope in that the High Sheriff of Surrey, a philanthropic sounding chap has come up with a proposal for buying Epsom hospital and running it as a hospital which provides a mix of NHS, private and charity funded healthcare, and next week Chris Grayling and Mole Valley's MP, Paul Beresford are off to meet Patricia Hewitt to discuss the scheme. But I doubt from past form she will bite.

So it looks like we will no longer have a maternity unit (at a time when building in the town is at an all time high - erm scuse me for stating the obvious, but if you build lots of new homes, you might just end up with lots more families), no acute care, very little provision for the elderly (and a growing elderly population), and should my children break their arms and require operations (as happened to no 2), or have an asthma attack and have to stay in hospital for several days (as happened to no 2 and no4) we will probably end up at St George's nearly ten miles away.

I know of at least two children who suffer from diabetes, whose parents rely heavily on the diabetes clinic attached to the hospital.

Many of the mums in the school playground work there as nurses, midwives and physios.

Morale at the hospital is at an all time low. And from what I gather from friends up and down the country, Epsom isn't an isolated case.

Gordon and Tony, where has all the money gone? It certainly hasn't come this way....


There is a petition to sign on the no 10 website (I have a feeling that very soon one of my few pleasures in life is going to be wasting the time of people at no 1o!), which you can access on:
petitions.pm.gov.uk/epsomhos

and a wonderful retired paramedic by the name of Ken Callanan has collected 76 000 signatures for the Surrey petition to save Surrey hospital services. He's aiming for 100 000 and is planning to hand it in to Downing Street at the end of April. If you want to help him, and live/or work in Surrey he can be emailed at: kencallanan@btinternet.com


And on a personal note, can I just say thanks to all the staff at Epsom and St Helier hospitals for the care they have given me and my family over the years.

So the role call of thanks goes to:

The amazingly kind nurse who looked after me years ago when Spouse unexpectedly had to to have an operation.

All the staff who helped me when I had to have a minor op.

The wonderful Dr Jay who delivered no 1 and all the wonderful midwives who looked after us.

The equally wonderful Shirley Tong who delivered nos 2 &3, who saved my sanity, particularly with no 3.

Miss Ellis who listened to my concerns about having no 4 and ensured with the help of some amazing midwives (whose names unfortunately I forget) that I had a brilliant experience for my last labour.

All the doctors and nurses in Casey Ward who over the years have:

dealt with no 2's trips to hospital with asthma

no 2's broken arm. Particualrly the lovely consultant who was so kind when I got ever so slightly stressed by the thought of her needing an operation

dealt with no 3's three trips to hospital with asthma.

And particular thanks go to lovely Dr Wadey who kept an eye on no 4 for two years after her admissions and also took my concerns about no 3 seriously.

They are heroes everyone and deserve to keep their jobs and go on doing the vital work they do in keeping my community going.

It makes my blood boil

I give you due warning. This is going to be a very bad tempered post.

I am in fact furious.

The reason?

The news I read over the weekend that in a spectacular piece of social engineering, universities are going to be required to ask applicants if their parents are graduates, in order, apparently, to redress the balance that means poorer children don't get to university.

Don't get me wrong. I am all in favour of poorer families getting to university. I am in favour of people with disadvantaged backgrounds having help to improve their circumstances. But I don't think this is the way to do it.

Surely, the most obvious way of improving our social mix at university is to improve our basic schooling. For far too many children in this country their only options of being educated are at best mediocre and at worst appalling. For a bright child born into a family whose only choice of school is the local sink, their opportunities to escape are limited. Unless they have very determined and pushy parents (which the chances are they won't), they will spend the fourteen years they are at school learning very little and come away with no more chance of getting to university then flying to the moon.

From that point of view, I can see the seductiveness of opening up unversity places by weighting the odds in their favour when they come to apply. But apart from the very obvious fact that their complete lack of education so far will mean they are unable to cope when they get there, two wrongs don't make a right. Favouring the people who have come from poorer backgrounds means those with the advantages of two parents who have been to university, will lose out, which is equally unfair. Added to which surely we want our unversities full of the best and brightest students, irrespective of background. Suppose a really clever kid who has the misfortune to have parents who are graduates gets rejected and a poorer kid gets the place, who isn't all that bright. Is that right? What is wrong with people gaining places on merit? Or saying that some people are cleverer then others? It's a fact of life. They are. And giving disadvantaged children a leg up in this way won't change that.

And this is why I am so angry.

If this goes ahead, in seven years time no 1 may not win a place at university, though she is likely to be fully qualified to do so, because Spouse and I have scuppered her chances by going to university ourselves.

What makes me mad as hell about this, is that though we both come from middle class families (as I have mentioned before I am sick to death for being beaten over the head for being middle class. Without the bleedin' middle classes much of this country would fall apart), we are also first generation graduates. Fil was keen to be a vet, but the war came along and he ended up being an insurance clerk. He and mil made huge financial sacrifices so that their sons could have a decent education and get to university.

My father wanted to go into law, but ended up a teacher. He did eventually take a degree, part time, as a father of six, while working full time. He was hardly privileged. Born in Liverpool to a pair of teachers, his early life was very difficult as my grandfather died when he was five and my grandmother couldn't get work. They only escaped by coming down south, but his young life was very tough.

My mother also lost her father young, and her older sisters and brother had to put any thoughts of higher education out of their minds as they needed to support the family. My mother was lucky enough to pursue her dream of nursing, but she would never have been able to go to university.

Watching the sacrifices my parents made to allow me to go to university has always made me hugely sensible to the privilege of going there. In another time I wouldn't have had that chance. And in fact, my grandmother (whose name I blog under) was offered a place at Liverpool University to read English, but wasn't allowed to go because her father didn't believe women should be educated. I was unaware of this when I blithely packed my bags and headed up north to Liverpool in 1984, but once I found out, I was aware more then ever of how lucky I am.

And now because I had the good fortune to have parents who appreciated the importance of education, and who made great sacrifices so that I and the rest of my siblings could have an advantage they never had, my children are going to suffer.

It is criminal. It is unfair. And it is plain wrong.

And I doubt very very much if it will help the people it is intended to. Because all that will happen is that the middle classes will get even better at fiddling the system then they always do, (It gives me such joy to think that the only way my children are likely to get on in life is to become a bunch of skiving, cheating bastards) the kids from the disadvantaged backgrounds may well get to university and drop out unable to cope (because you can bet your bottom dollar no one is actually going to give them the tools they need to survive), thereby ending up with a huge sense of failure, and if there any middle class kids out there who do have principles, they certainly won't be making the grade.

I think I'll enroll my lot as plumbers right now.

At least they'll be rich....

PS. As I am so cross about this, I decided I may as well try and do something about it. So I have just put in an epetition on the subject to no 10. (There is something spectacularly nice about being able to do this. Even if it comes to nothing, I have just I hope wasted someone's time enough for them to get cross too...) It takes five days to get a yay or nay, so if they let me do it, I shall post details here, and anyone as cross as me, go tell everyone you know to see how many signatures we can get...

For Mothers Everywhere...

As you may have noticed, if you a) have a mother or b) are one, yesterday was Mother's Day.

Now while I am firmly of the camp that MD is a trick foisted on us by the card/flower industries to make us spend vast sums of money we don't have on treating our mums (my mother holds this view too, but I feel sure if I DIDN'T send her flowers I'd know all about it), on the other hand, now that the kids are getting bigger, I do quite like the idea that they might start pampering me...

The pampering didn't get off to the best starts as a) no 1 had lost the card she'd made me at guide camp b) No 2 had lost the card Spouse had bought for me (she blamed no 1), c)no3 had made a card but as she wasn't at school on Friday she couldn't give it to me d) no 4 had made a card and given me a buzy lizzie on Friday, but we both forgot about it, so the card stayed in her book bag till I found it this morning.

No 2 had managed to make me a card at Brownies, and Spouse had bought me a fantastic book called Mother Tells You, which is from the Girl magazine dating from the fifties/sixties. It is full of advice such as how to clean a lace collar (something Every Girl clearly needs to know) and unintentionally hilarious.

On the positive side, we have now moved to the dizzy heights of breakfast in bed and cups of tea on state occasions. So yesterday it was my turn to get given breakfast, though we were both given a cup of tea.

Tea production in our house hasn't yet moved beyond faintly grey and lukewarm, but it's a start. The porridge I was provided with was rather lumpy. But at least they tried. Spouse ate the bread as I felt distinctly unhungry after the porridge had formed rock like in my stomach. I was also a tad hungover, as we had been out to the pub the night before. I had made the mistake of not eating as we had been rushing around all day, and then spent the afternoon in the garden (my recreation of choice above all others), I'd leapt in the bath afterwards and food sort of got sidelined. This coupled with my decision to drink rather more red wine then was good for me, resulted in a) loss of all functioning ability and b) inability to move in the morning.

On Sundays Spouse normally heads off to the gym with bil and sil, and I usually get to look after the children (funny that), but as mil had been babysitting, I had decided the previous day that I would go to. That was before, I had a hangover...

I managed to do twenty minutes on the running machine without throwing up (which was an achievement I feel) , and scared myself silly with the readings I was getting from my swanky new sports watch complete with heart monitor. My heart rate was either at 170+, or right down to 41. So either I'm really ill or I was conned...

Gym over we got back home and the two big ones declared their intention to cook lunch. Great, I said, and oversaw their efforts to make pizza. At the same time I decided to initiate them into the art of cooking a Sunday roast, which we were having later. Their first lesson was to peel potatoes. How come, said no 1 after ten minutes frantic scraping, you've peeled five potatoes and I haven't peeled one? She then abandoned the project to answer an urgent phone call from a school friend (she is getting to the stage that she is probably on the phone more then we are, and she's just discovered MSN. Oh dear, oh dear...) No 2 took up the mantle and managed to scrape one carrot and her finger in the time it took me to do the rest. They then both decided the garden was much more interesting, so although the spirit was willing, the flesh wasn't very...

After lunch, which no one helped me clear away, Spouse and I got down the important business of crop planting. I absolutely love this time of year, with the its promise of new beginnings. The daffs are now in full bloom in the garden, and I spent last week filling my pots with pansies and primroses. Thanks to the drought last year I haven't had anything in for nearly a year now and it brightens my heart to see some colour on the patio once more.


Two hours of scrabbling in the mud led to two rows of peas, three of carrots and one each of parsnips. We currently have lettuce, tomatoes, leeks, courgettes and brocoli growing in our conservatory, and though we ran out of time this weekend, I don't think we're too late to get our spuds in.

To counterbalance the threat of drought (we nearly divorced last year with the stress of keeping everything going once the hosepipe ban was in force), Spouse has turned two old water tanks that came from his mum's flat into extra water butts. So no we have six of the things. Which we can only hope will be enough....

It wasn't exactly a lazy way of spending Mother's Day, but I do find pottering in the garden immensely therapeutic, and get such a buzz from growing things from seed.

No 1 had shown enough interest in the cooking to come and help make the Yorkshires (thanks to the wonderful Sam Stern she did them all herself), but really my Mother's Day Dinner was down to me.

As was the clearing up.

Still, I did get to watch Mansfield Park.

And at bedtime no 1 came downstairs, saying...

Look what I just found.

It was the card they'd written that morning.

They've all signed it. Nos 1&2 gave me loads of hearts, and nos 3 &4 lots of kisses.

That's all I need really...

Shaggy Blog Stories for Comic Relief

Well the amazing Mike at troubled-diva.com has done it and produced a book in a week. Which believe me takes some doing. So hats off to him. Sadly I'm not in it, but lots of people I know are.
So well done to all of them, and well done to Mike for doing such a brilliant thing for Comic Relief. I promised I'd publicise it for him, so here's the press release from his website, so go tell all your friends and get a copy right now!

Bloggers publish book for Comic Relief.100 bloggers have published a book to raise funds of the BBC's Comic Relief appeal on Friday 16th March.'Shaggy Blog Stories' features hilarious contributions from Richard Herring of 'Fist of Fun' fame, BBC 6Music presenter Andrew Collins, comedian Emma Kennedy, and James Henry, scriptwriter from Channel Four's 'The Green Wing'.Authors Abby Lee, David Belbin, Catherine Sanderson and The Guardian's Anna Pickard have also contributed pieces to the book.The vast majority of contributions, however, are the work of many of the lesser known and unfamiliar heroes of British blogging; going under pen names such as Diamond Geezer, Scaryduck, Pandemian and Unreliable Witness.Also contributing to 'Shaggy Blog Stories', and hoping to raise funds for the Comic Relief Appeal is local writer INSERT YOUR NAME, LOCALITY AND BLOG DETAILS HERE.The book is the idea of blogger Mike Atkinson who writes the 'Troubled Diva' weblog. 'Shaggy Blog Stories' features comic writing from not only the cream of British blogging, but also the best up-and-coming and undiscovered writers publishing their work on their own websites.Giving himself a "ridiculously short" seven days from idea to finished product, Atkinson admitted that he was overwhelmed with the response, which gleaned over 300 submissions for publication.With a pool of talented writers, and the latest publishing-on-demand technology, Shaggy Blog Stories bypasses the usual snail-paced publishing industry, and offers a mail order service to customers who will receive their finished copy within days of placing their order, and only a couple of weeks after the original idea."Blogging creates complex, worldwide networks of friendship and contacts on the internet", says journalist Alistair Coleman, one of Shaggy Blog Stories' contributors. "By creating a buzz about this book, we can reach out to hundreds, thousands of readers who'd be willing to part with a few quid for this very good cause. Mike's got some excellent writers on board here whose work deserves a wider audience. Everybody wins."For details of how to order the book, visit www.shaggyblogstories.co.uk.For the background story on the creation of Shaggy Blog Stories, take a look at www.troubled-diva.com.

Slipping through my fingers...

Can I go to the park before my tennis lesson today? No 1 greeted me with this request as soon as I came downstairs yesterday.

Normally she comes to tennis straight from cross country, but wasn't on yesterday, the sun has shone all week long, I took them to the park after school the other day, so I've put the idea in her head.

I said no of course, because I didn't want her hanging about on her own, besides her time keeping is lousy, so she'd never make it back to tennis on time.

This didn't go down at all well, as you can imagine, because No 1 is ten going on eighteen, and keen to assert her independence. She is soooo desperate to wash her hands of her embarrassing parents, that when we're out now she tends to walk twenty paces ahead like a muslim husband. It's a wonder she doesn't have me in a burkha...

I am not totally anti the idea of her being more independent, in fact I'm pleased that I'm not going to have to shove her out of the nest when the time comes for her to spread her wings (the rate she's going, she'll have flown off long before I'm ready - mind you will I ever be ready?), but...

She's only ten, and already it feels like I'm losing her.

As I've mentioned before ad nauseam, I often use music to inspire emotion in my writing, and one of the songs for the current wip is Slipping Through My Fingers by Abba. I chose it for my hero's daughter, but oh, how it speaks to me about my own.

In another seven years, no 1 will be thinking about uni (that is if she's still allowed to go, considering her parents have been, we've probably skewed her chances), and leaving me for good. In another nine, it will be no 2's turn...

Shit. I've got to go through this process four times.

Watching them grow.

Then watching them go...

I know I moan alot about the insanity of my life, but as Nic wisely pointed out on my post about the show, when I DON'T have mad weekends to keep me going I shall probably miss them like crazy.

And every time I hear that Abba song it makes me cry.

Better try to remember that next time I'm shouting in the morning...