If only ....

Emotions are strange things ... Strange how you can become attached to what amounts to a pile of metal. I feel especially silly now after having spent the evening with my cousin who just lost her mother. My anguish at losing the car, a feeling of loss of memories, ownership, having to let go of the past, is ridiculous in comparison.

Her sorrow at losing her mother is plain to see and hard to console. Even harder as her mother although known to be ill, was not thought to be at the point where it was life threatening. But perhaps the pain emanates from the same emotions and denials. Not wanting to admit that the person has gone as has the relationship you held with them, not wanting to acknowledge that all that is left is memories of a person, not wanting to admit that we all one day will die.

What we believe happens after that stage differs from religion to religion or from person to person... but very few of us believe that we live forever in the same form as we do now. So why do we continue to allow oursleves to attach to others, when the pain caused at the time of loss is so unbearable. When we know that inevitably we will all die and the pain will be felt by those who we leave behind.

If only ... she kept repeating ... If only she had been with her instead of here in the UK ... if only she had know she was iller than she let on, if only she had spoken to her yesterday ... If only she had told her ...

Life is full of if only's. If only we knew what tomorrow was to bring we might deal with our todays in a better manner.

The Old Girl is put to pasture

Ok .. I have no shame in admitting that I cried as I passed the keys of my beloved Peugeot 306 over. After 11 years of lovingly carting me around the country ... (at least five trips to Newcastle & Edinburgh) I said goodbye to the old girl.

Strangely enough her last drive home was quiet .. not just because the radio still wasn't working but also because the rattling in the engine and the softly squealing brakes decided to take a breather. She drove beautifully ... well as beautifully as she had driven for a while. She's trying to make me feel guilty for trading her in, I thought.

It was obvious to the dealer that I was going to burst into tears as he told me that it was going to take him a while to set up his Sat Nav and I didn't need to wave him or the car off. (I realised how silly it seemed and I wondered if this was the same ploy used by nursery teachers who know that the parent is having more trouble letting go than the kid!)

He started up the engine and she groaned rather loudly in protest, or perhaps excitement, who knows. And I peered out from behind the net curtains as she was whisked away round the corner for pastures new.

Wishlist gets smaller

Well I am making good progress on my wishlist ...

An extension to the house ... well not quite there but have an appointment with the architects to measure up the house on Thursday.

Bag for work ... yeah well ... I'd only end up filling it with junk so perhaps my purse sized bag is best.

Battery replacement for Timberland wristwatch ... actually if I fix it, I'll need to buy a bloody watch box too ... nah I'll just leave it in the cookie jar!

More Sleep ... yeah right ... fat chance of that. At what stage did I start staying in bed all hours until forced to get out ny my parents? I'm sure that was about 18 ... in which case I have another 16 years before I'll get any of this!!

Nokia N95 ... If 3 weren't such tight arses I'd have this already, but I'll be buggered if I'm going to pay £100 for the phone on top of the line rental!

Re-mortgage ... keep meaning to get round to this I could probably save myself thousands in the long run.

Toyota Corolla Verso ... Paid a deposit and likely to be going round on Wednesday to drop off the Peugeot 306. Feel kind of sad really. My very first car has done me proud for the last 11 years and 98k miles. It's likely that the dealership will just auction it off and who's going to buy my car in the state she's in. No Peugeot logo, a dent in the side, a bit of the engine missing, cigarette burn in the back seat, stains on the seats (non-biological!), one dodgy tyre, one dodgy window, radio code unknown and a strange noise coming from the engine! The salesman did ask me what state it was in and I did tell him the truth .. it's a very well used family car and has a couple of dents in the side. It still drives though!!

Someone will pick it up for parts I suspect. Sad to think it will be torn apart after all the years we've had together. Cream, who wasn't as upset at the thought of relinquishing the old car (obviously isn't as connected with the pile of junk as I am) had other thoughts. "But look at it this way ... it's like she's an organ donor ... She's not going to die ... her parts will be spread out across the country helping others keep their decrepit cars just a bit longer." Nice thought!

What came first? The duck or the egg??

Mujnu decided to pop round to visit his cousin again ... with the gramps in tow of course. Although they brought an assortment of lunch with them I decided to go down the route of cooking my speciality scrambled omelette. A concoction I created on a day when my previously non-stick frying pan decided it really should have been born an obnoxious burn and stick to everything pan instead.

Anyhow ... I approach the dining table with a plate of my scrambled ommelette in one hand and a plate of warmed pitta bread in the other and Cream looks over and says "You're asking for it .. you expect them to make their own sarnies ... You'll have a mess on your hands."

Mum and Dad giggle in the background. But I nonchalantly totter over to the mischievous two now sitting eagerly at the table. I help Mujnu make his first one and even let him have a squig of ketchup with it. As I am helping Zoo make his, I hear a "mmmmm" from the other side of the table. "Pooopeee did you make it? ... It's nice ... mmmmm!"

I couldn't have been more pleased if Gordon Ramsey had suggested that I cook for him! So we sat and ate our food and Mujnu even picked out the five different types of veg in his plate.

Pepper, mushroom, broccolli, red onion, and tomato. "Do you know what else is in there?" He looks at his plate pondering ... "No, Pooppeee? What???"

"Eggs ..." and as I mutter this word, Mujnu's world seems to collapse around him .... Dad yells over ..."Now you've done it ... he won't eat eggs!"

"What's wrong with eggs??" I ask. "He's been watching Cbeebies and they have this trailer where a cute duck pops out of an egg."

"Pooopppeee ... duck's eggs?!?!? He is now staring at the half eaten sandwich in his hand in disgust and then looks up at me as though I have told him that I have just fed him Nemo fingers.

So here it is .... do I explain to a three year old that we humans use animals for labour and meat? That this is the way of the world and that we are no different to many other creatures here on God's earth. An endless system of recycling of sorts where we are fortunate enough to be the top of the food chain. I take a deep breath and do what any responsible parent faced with the potential of having a vegetarian child on their hands ....

"No!" I say laughing, "I didn't cook duck's eggs!!! I cooked .... different eggs!! The thought crossed my mind that perhaps I should mention the chicken that was involved somewhere along the line .. but Mujnu was sufficiently pleased with this answer to proceed to munch down his sandwich and then start filling up his second pitta bread too.

An explosion between the legs?

Dad has always been a man that was afraid of nothing .. when we went delving into the depths of the shed, he never flinched as I ran screaming from spiders, woodlice and wasps. During my childhood Dad was always there to put his hand down a stinky waste water pipe and pull out lengths of toilet paper or God only knows what else. I thought he was fearless ... until today. Today I realised that there is one thing that petrifies my father ... and it wa sonly today that I relaised the true scale of the phobia.

NAPPIES ... normal unused ones, he is fine with, but any encounter with a filled one fills him with ... well ... fear .. or to put it a little less politely .. he shits himself!

Now I have always assumed that when Dad spoke of never changing a nappy, it was due to a chauvinistic "I'm not doing that, it's a woman's job" attitude. On arriving back from work today however, I found Dad carefully placing Zoo on his changing mat and very gently sliding his trousers down ...

"HE'S DONE SOMETHING!" Dad yells to Mum in a panic ... Mum yells over that she is coming (she is stuck at the door with someone else) and I dash across, yelling over at Cream to watch this momentous occasion. Cream fumbles in his coat pocket, trying to get his camera out to record the moment for posterity and Dad realising that he has an audience, puts a brave face on.

"So are you going to change that, Dad?" I ask as we both peer at the nappy, spilling over with the days excess food. Dad has managed to take off Zoo's trousers by this point, but besides a couple of nervous giggles in my direction has not yet said a word. Zoo has done a particularly spectacular job and there are hints of what is within with an enticing whiff and a slight discolouration to his undergarments.

Dad peers at the bodysuit for a minute and manages to find a tiny area he is prepared to touch. He closes the tip of one finger and thumb around a press stud button and tugs ... and tugs .. and tugs. The bodysuit is not giving up without a fight and Zoo who normally is fidgeting all over the place is motionless ... probably in shock that Dad is actually so close to his filled nappy. Dad refuses to adjust the positioning of his finger and thumb, the thought of an extra mm closer to the nappy obviously uppermost in his mind and he tugs again. The stud button finally gives way and Dad gets a full unobstructed view of the nappy ... and then the funniest thing happens.

With a look of real fear on his face, he stares at the nappy. And then without taking his eyes off it, he slowly backs away shaking his head slowly as though it were a ticking time bomb.

Drinking Buddies

Mujnu had me giggling today. The Gramps weren't so happy but it was easy to see who was in charge there. Mujnu had insisted that the Gramps take him to visit his cousin as he hadn't seen him for a whole two days. I get the impression he has been making the same demands of his own father as Goliath has rung me twice this week, asking whether I was bringing Zoo round to the Gramps. Mujnu's persistence paid off and the Gramps dutifully strapped him into his child seat and drove the three miles necessary.

Once here Mujnu and Zoo spent their time running after each other, making hand prints and playing with playdough. Mujnu even decided to stay for a bite of lunch with ice-cream for desert, though unbeknownst to him there was more banana than ice-cream in his desert. As I was setting up the table for them both and they settled themselves into their spaghetti, I asked whether Mujnu wanted orange juice or apple juice with his lunch. Without any hesitation he replied "I want orange juice and Zoo wants apple juice." Cream and I had quickly established that the apple juice vanished far quicker than the orange juice, but I was amazed that Mujnu had taken the time to notice too.

After a rather messy lunch, came the even messier "how to get Mujnu back to the Gramps" game.

"NO!!!" Mujnu yelled, "Want to stay at Zoo's house!" After five minutes of cajoling, I managed to explain to him that he would definitely see Zoo tomorrow at the Gramps just like every Friday and they could play to their hearts content. Mujnu didn't seem very pleased with this solution, but we managed to get him to the car without the neighbours reporting any acts of child abuse to the Police.

You can't complain really, when you're a toddler tomorrow is an eternity away.

It's taken a little longer than expected ...

Well my body has finally figured out the truth. It's a bit like telling a child that Father Christmas doesn't exist. The kid looks at you for a while blankly, then starts snivelling in denial and then this develops into a teardrop or two and then a full torrent of tears.

Without going into too much detail, after three weeks my body started the little teardrop stage, then yesterday reality hit and the torrent began. Unfortunately it began at work so after spending ten minutes in the ladies, I managed to make my way to the boss who promptly sent me home. Unfortunately it took me another half an hour to get out of the building with another visit to the ladies on the way. Anyhow I managed to get home just in time for the next torrent and then spent the next five hours changing pads. Cream spent most of his time checking I was okay and insisting that as I had already changed pads six times in two hours, not counting the 10 x 5 minute visits to the toilet, that perhaps I should go to A&E (the hospital had indicated two changes in an hour was enough to admit me to hospital). I didn't relish the idea of going into hospital, especially as I hadn't bothered to shave my legs and just asked him to look out for signs of shock, at which point he had my permission to call an ambulance. Thankfully this was not required and around 9pm I was finally able to settle and watch a whole half hour of TV uninterrupted by a visit to the bathroom.

Thank God I had prior notice that this was going to happen because if it had happened out of the blue, I would have been seriously traumatised I can tell you. It's an awful feeling especially when you know what is happening and have no control over it. The one conciliation is that all being well, my body has dealt with it naturally without any external intervention and the myriad of possible complications that any intervention poses.

The hospital appointment on Friday still stands so they can let me know whether they still need to "redecorate" or not.

Update on the Invisible Baby

Body still hasn't figured out that it's new occupant teleported out some time ago, so have booked in for a D&C next Friday. When I tried to explain this to mum, she replied ... "Will they take a brush and clean it up!"

I couldn't help retorting "Yes ... and while they are in there, I've asked them to redecorate too!"

The Pakistani Apprentice

Although I was disappointed by her Pakistan adventure, I was strangely drawn towards the programme, like a moth to the flame. I managed to join it half way through the first episode and called Cream over so he could see the land of my ancestors and what he managed to glean was that the country was full of transvestites and a strange sect of headbanging Muslims.

I know I have only been to Pakistan once myself, but was Saira for real? She seemed to be amazed at absolutely everything. She waltzed into a Sufi festival and looked for all intents and purposes as though she had been locked in a cupboard for her entire life. Yes, there are Muslims that practice Islam in a way that does not involve driving a flaming car into an airport. She seemed genuinely surprised, but would you be surprised if you went into one of those evangelical churches where the preacher hits you over the head and cured you of cancer, if all you had ever seen was Songs of Praise. Perhaps her ignorance/innocence was reflected in her comment that she had never set foot in a mosque in England.

I actually got to the point of being really annoyed by her and have to admit that I was deeply embarrassed as she visibly gasped in shock when she realised that a group of jewellery traders on cycles could speak English. "Wow. Where did you learn English? School? You went to school? Wow!!" These guys were astute enough to make sure she bought a months worth of goods and laughed all the way home no doubt.

Later she also pulled into a small village and wondered why all the men were looking at her. Was it because she was not covered form head to foot? Was this a reflection of their view of women? Or was it simply that she had stopped for a cup of tea in the middle of what to all purposes was a truckers stop with a minibus of camera men, sound men, the director and God knows who else. If you saw a woman walking down the road with a camera crew in pursuit would you perhaps stop, look over and wonder what they were filming?

She eventually got to the scenic Kashmir and marvelled that Pakistan had such a beautiful side. But if you went to London, you wouldn't compare it with the Lake District would you!! She met fashion students and asked whether any Pakistani women would realistically wear any of the clothes they had designed. Would you expect a normal woman in England to be wearing Vivien Westwood latest creation if you saw it on a runway?

Despite everything I enjoyed the shots of Pakistan, marvelled at the fact that she never questioned the numerous shots of men holding hands openly in the street, and yet was aghast at every woman who had sensibly covered themselves up in the searing heat.

Not sure that I learnt except that there must be more British citizens, whether they be of Pakistani origin or not, that have no idea about what the rest of the world is really like.