My brother bought a killer tennis table top

Christmas Day went relatively well. Had mum and Dad round for Christmas lunner (like brunch but later .. lunch /dinner) and the siblings turned up for dessert and exchanging of presents. Some good ones this year deserve mention. We got Dejenari her favourite Bollywood idol so she could cozy up to him in bed and got Dad a nestbox with colour camera so next time the bluetits decide to nest, he can peek in on them without disturbing them. Zoo now has more toys than ever, so much so that I have put a ban on him receiving anymore. Clothes, shoes or money will be gratefully received instead!

I think Dad may have wished for the same as he spent the evening telling us that he was going to return all our expensive gifts. Goliath bought him a huge table tennis tabletop that took up most of the front room and that wouldn't fit in his car. He asked whether we could hold it temporarily so we pushed it to one side and continued with our festivities until Dad shouted out and we turned to watch Zoo trying to climb up the blasted thing only to pull it over onto himself. I had visions of us spending the rest of Christmas Day in A&E. He was saved by both parents rushing to his rescue and a well placed highchair. Nonetheless we checked him over for any broken bones or bruises ... He was a bit spooked but otherwise not a single scratch!

Once the panic was over, everyone laughed at the fact that we were getting left with the killer table tennis table. Suffice to say I insisted that it was placed outside in the garden shed just in case it decided, vampire motorcycle style, to kill us in our sleep!

Storm Chasers

After commenting on how wonderfully mild the weather has been and the fact that our winter is nowhere in sight as the trees still have their autumn colours, I was surprised that the weather took a turn for the worse. Torrential rain and gales are currently the norm. The cats hate it ... they dash out first thing in the morning, dig around, do the neccessaries and dash back in as fast as they can, spending the rest of the day looking mournfully out the window.

Last Saturday night the gusts managed to blow off part of the roof and most of the garden fence too. The sky was blood red whilst driving to work on Monday morning and I wondered whether the "Red sky in the morning, shepherds warning; red sky at night, shepherds delight" phrase would prove correct. Tuesday started off as usual, cats dash out, cats dash in, watch the rain batter the windows. The weather seemed to lighten up with hints of sunshine about half past ten. I opened the door to let the cats out, but they were obviously not going to be conned by a mere ray of sunlight.

Cream shoud have heeded their warning, animal instincts are notoriously accurate. However he decided to brave it and make a journey to the shops. Within two minutes of his leaving the rain started again. Another two minutes and black clouds gathered and the heavens opened. Then I heard an almight crash of thunder, the house shook, the cats raan under the bed and Zoo woke up from his morning nap screaming.

Cream returned to the house drenched but not quite drowned. He should consider himself lucky though as just three miles down the road a tornado had landed!!

One Year On

Can't believe it's been a year!! To celebrate decided to take Zoo and Mujnu down to Topsy Turvey at Brent Cross (an indoor soft play area). It was great fun, the grandparents came too and watched the kids playing together and the place was so big that the adults could go into the ball pits and clamber through tunnels too. The only restriction was in relation to the slides but after watching three adults come sliding down them, Cream and I decided to go for it too! We were both sweating within minutes ... it was cheaper and better than going to the gym. My only concern was at one point when Mujnu decided to climb up a zig-zagging staircase and I was sure that I would get stuck half way. To my relief I must have lost a stone running around and manged to squeeze through.

Should have gone to Specsavers?

I am the only one who woke, bleary eyed, turned on the TV and was shocked that Jerry Springer was now the Executive Chairman of ITV??

Please don't feed the animals Part II

Well I have finally returned to work after a year of maternity leave and part of me is glad to be back ... adult conversations, time to myself, lunch breaks!! I am lucky that mum and dad are happy to look after the little one and my boss (female) understands and supports the work / life balance.

Cream very kindly decided to take time off work for my first week back so I wouldn't have the additional stress of rushing around in the morning trying to dress, feed and drop him off to the grandparents. Had a great first day, couldn't get on the computer (apparently they had deleted me!) so spent my time catching up with work gossip. Even better, on my return home, I was greeted at the door with a huge kiss and a cuddle and after I managed to wrestle myself away from Cream (who now appreciates just how much work is involved in "sitting at home with the kid") I got a big smile, kiss and cuddle from Zoo too.

Since then, the grandparents have settled into their routine of babysitting. They vehemently deny it, but there are numerous signs of overfeeding ... not eating his supper, chubbier cheeks, more frequent poo nappies! When this was casually mentioned to them, Dad promptly blamed Vertigo for feeding him extra bananas. (Suffice to say Vertigo denies all knowledge.) I suppose I should be concerned about food flinging itself into Zoo's mouth ... however it does go to prove my assertion that when I open Dad's fridge, the chocolate bars have a tendency to unwrap themselves and force themselves down my throat!

Dinosaur Dialupious now extinct!

My status as a dialup loser has finally been lost. Have finally moved up to broadband. Yippee!

Veils for the Valiant?

Just a thought ... with all this discussion about the use of full face veils, you know, the ones where you can only see the eyes. What would Spiderman and his fellow superheros do if confronted by Jack Straw asking them to remove their masks?

A quiet birthday?

Am pleasantly surprised that besides myself the site does actually have visitors! Ok .. so it's no way competing with Disneyworld or Dollywood (I think that's what Dolly Partons theme park is called) but nonetheless there are those out there who are reading my tiny little thoughts and perhaps smiling.

I was definitely smiling tonight ... Mujnu, my nephew, is the grand old age of two tomorrow and he had his birthday party at the grandparents home today .. Vertigo and I had been discussing what we were buying the kid and mention had been made of various loud and annoying gifts such as musical instruments but we thought better of it.

Suffice to say that Mujnu and his parents were happy with all the quiet gifts Mujnu received. Goliath explained that the Phonics Alphabet toy that I had bought for Mujnu's Eid present was doing his head in. Apparently Mujnu loves playing with it during the day but it also has a tendency to turn itself on in the middle of the night if a moth fluttered by within a mile radius! We explained the concept of batteries to Goliath and how to remove them and Visa told him to be thankful that we hadn't bought the kid a drumkit.

Anyhow everyone was having a great time, eating plenty of food and watching the kids fight it out over all the toys when we got a late visitor bearing gifts. All the kids run to tear off the wrapping paper (kids don't care whose birthday it is, they're not missing out!) and a huge roar of laughter and cheers erupt from all the adults, except Mujnu's parents who are holding their heads in their hands. The latecomer looked around bemused ... "Did someone else buy a drumkit too??!!"

Is anyone out there?

Have decided to install a visitor counter to see if anyone out there is actually reading this. This could prove embarrassing ...

Moon landing

Well it's one small step for Zoo, one giant leap for his parents. Zoo has taken his first stumbling steps from one set of arms to another. He has been tottering for a week but except for myself and Cream, no independant unbiased person was able to verify this as he refused to "do the trick" whilst anyone else was around.

However today his aunt managed to witness his feat. Perhaps he was expressing a sense of solidarity ... she has been known to fall after three or four steps herself, she's not called Vertigo for nothing!!

Answer to a philosophical question

There has always been some questions that needed answering .. the one that popped to mind today was "whether a tree makes a noise if it falls in the woods and there is no-one around to hear". I have discovered the answer ... yes.

Zoo was tottering around the house, everything possibly dangerous has been nailed down, firmly secured or moved out of reach, whilst we were doing our own things and we heard an almighty scream. He had fallen on his bottom, not hurt himself at all, but because there was no-one around to check him over, he decided to make a noise!

Next question I will be working on is Shrodinger's cat in a box ... Watch out cats, here I come!

Please don't feed the animals

Not sure what's up with mum these days ... to put things politely ... she's a large woman and normally nibbles when we go round to eat. I've never worried too much about it as I have witnessed her "checking" her cooking for seasoning and it normally involves eating a small portion of each dish of which there are many. Add this to her regular cups of tea and the lack of any weight loss and you can tell she's fine.

However it's Ramadan and we are all fasting from about 5.30am until 6.30pm and my mother has it would seem stopped eating altogether! She came round to mine twice to open her fast and ate all the starters and then moved her main course around on the plate but never ate it. I just assumed she didn't like my cooking. But having gone round to the parents for iftari, I noticed her doing the same to her own cooking.

As we all tucked into our large portions of food, I questioned her on how little she was eating and she commented "I'm only human!". We all looked at each other and then in a chorus cried "And what are we then ... animals?"

Four months of blog

Well that didn't work well at all ... after securing everything down and leaving him to his own devices he just got frustrated that there was no-one to play with. I suppose I should be glad that he's a sociable little thing .. but I never realised how exhausting entertaining a kid is! He is now having his morning nap in his cot so bugger the ironing ... time to blog.

Dr John Reid amazed me by asking all muslim parents to be on the look out for possible terrorist tendencies in their children. The signs are hanging around with pious religious types, learning more about their religion and culture, taking an interest in international issues, possibly even attending protest marches. Now most parents of any religion would be ecstatic if their children took more of an interest! But it would seem they are wrong to. If your child is out of the house until 3am, comes home reeking of alcohol and obviously drugged up, spends their time locked in their bedroom listening to loud music and ignoring everything you say whilst still living under your roof ...then you're ok. See it's always the quiet ones you need to keep an eye out for.

Mrs Campbell would have done well to heed Reid's advice. Her daughter, Misbah, who she chose to rename "Molly" was showing classic signs of being radicalised! Taking an interest in her religion, refusing to drink alcohol, wanting to spend more time with a menacingly large bearded muslim. She should have sat her down and had words! Instead she let her be and Misbah managed to get kidnapped by her father to be forced into an arranged marriage with an old man in Pakistan.

The media soaked up every last drop of this ... evil Pakistani father, kidnapped child, forced marriage, tearful news conferences ... until they realised that they had the completely wrong end of the stick ... they had the candy floss on the other end and once they placed it into their mouth it melted away and just left them with sticky fingers! In the words of Misbah's brother it turned out to be "total bullshit". Some showed signs of remorse but to this day they still infuriatingly refer to her as "Molly".

Zoo does his own thing ..

Blimey .. haven't been able to spend a sufficient amount of time at the computer for me to be able to blog ... but am being brave today and letting Zoo "do his own thing." This invariably means he crawls and cruises around the house and I go running when he starts screaming (which normally means he is getting frustrated that he can't get hold of/into something) or alternatively when he is uncharacteristically quiet (which means he's managed to get hold of/into something that he's not meant to!) Oh dear .. I hear screaming ..

Lawnmower Man needs a haircut.

We decided that while the weather was good we would tackle the garden ... it has been seriously neglected since I fell pregnant ... and Cream felt unable to tend to it .. to be fair he was tending to me a lot and has admitted that he wouldn't know the difference between the weeds and flowers.

So after almost a year of neglect we decided that the lawn would be the easiest thing to tackle and we took turns with the mower and in entertaining Zoo. Cream finished the main lawn and I suggested that the wild area near the shed needed sorting out. Cream clambered in ... whilst I shouted to him that perhaps it just needed a trim round the outside, he waded in with mower blaring. At one point I lost sight of him but I could still see the mower's cable twisting in all directions until I heard a loud pop ... "It's ok .. just found our tennis ball" he yelled as he threw out a green mangled object. "Cream ... why don't you ..." My voice is drowned out by the noise of the mower and Cream dived straight back in again. A couple of seconds pass and there was another loud pop .. all went quiet.

"You've run over the cable haven't you?" "No, no, no ... there is just so much stuff in here." "Ok ... well use the strimmer then." A lot of muttering and swearing is heard and he finally concedes. Five minutes later he decides to give it a final combover with the mower and is surprised that it won't work. Sure enough he had cut the cable clean in two and had been prancing around a live wire!!

The garden was not the only thing in need of a restyling ... Cream has been growing his hair and his head is a bundle of beautiful curls .. not that you would know as he has it hidden under a woolly hat because he doesn't like it! Finally managed to convince him to leave the woolly at home to attend Visa and Vertigo's BBQ and no-one recognised him!! Dejanari did comment that he looked like a cherub! Managed to buy him a summer hat to replace the woollies so you may see more of the amazing curls this summer.

He should consider himself lucky .. if he had managed to electrocute himself his hair would have been even curlier!!!

Poetry in motion?

I am almost 35 years old .. blimey time flies. Vertigo has already asked me what I wanted and a small unambitious wishlist has been provided (no self assembly BBQ's this year appear on the list!)

All the reminiscing reminded me of the poetry I used to writealmost twenty years ago now, usually at three in the morning when I was unable to sleep. A variety of subjects but one that seems pertinent today ... Goliath has not been heard of for a while so it may well be that this poetry reflects the torment he is currently going through!??


PRESENT PICKING

That time of year is coming near
When the dreaded task is always asked
Presents must be bought
Cards must be selected
Nothing worse than to be caught
Empty-handed and left dejected
But what to buy
I hear you cry
Flowers, jewellery or ornamental trees
Something original which will definitely please
A tiger cub or a bedroom suite
Just make sure it's not something to eat
Oh my friend I'm going through hell
Anything will do I hear you yell
But what could I buy
That could possibly satisfy
The exquisite taste
With which I am faced?
No my dear I'm sorry to say
But the present will have to wait for another day!

May just have to torment you all with further clippings from my blue period!

It's March?? Where did February go??

Just to confirm that I am still here .. for those of you who need proof .. take a look at the latest satellite pictures from space. The two large spherical objects that have appeared recently in NW London ... that will be my bosom! Zoo does seem to be rather attached to me at present and whilst we are trying desperately to get him to sleep in his own cot for any period of time ... he seems to have taken advice from the cats and refuses point blank to sleep in his own bed and insists on sharing ours.

New Year Resolutions 2006

Zoo has confirmed his resolutions for 2006 ...

1. To keep nappy eternally full.
2. To piss on mother everytime she tries to change a nappy.
3. To ensure mother is aware that a nappy has been filled within 60 seconds of being changed with the use of facial expresions and loud spluttering noises.
4. To sleep when mother is wide-awake and then wake and demand instant feeding the moment she begins to drop off.
5. To be adorable.