Christmas ramblings

In just a couple of months we will be celebrating Callum's first Christmas - fingers crossed it'll be as good as it should be, but with some serious health problems hanging over his Grandparents (my parents) at the moment, nothing can be guaranteed - except perhaps, that he will thankfully be oblivious to most of the nastiness.

I've started doing a little bit of Christmas shopping for him, but he's only 8 months old so aside from "that thing that you've just hidden from me" (usually the TV remote), he doesn't actually WANT anything.

I've bought some books that a friend recommended, and some bath toys but beyond that I'm a bit stumped. I am however quite clear on the format Christmas should take... eventually at least.

Every family has traditions around Christmas time, and ours is no different. Some of those traditions have been put on hold over the years as the various children have grown into adults, but they can (and will!) be reinstated now we have another wee person in the family.

Christmas has always been a huge family affair in our house (some years we've numbered 18 people for Christmas dinner), and Christmas Eve is a time that just crackles with excitement. There's thick, hand carved ham with chips and my mums home-made pickled onions for supper, lots of booze and giggles for the adults and last minute wrapping of gifts... hiding away from the recipient of said gifts in dark corners, gossiping.

The children lay out their stockings and Santa drops off some early 'bed-time appropriate' gifts in the hope that this will encourage them to go to bed at sometime before midnight! We've gotten quite creative about this over the years, and though Callum is still too young for it to mean anything to him, I look forward to reviving this tradition in the future.

Typically, Santa drops off some new pyjamas and a book for the children to go to bed with. Obviously he's a busy guy at Christmas time so he can't hang around and is never seen... he just drops them onto the doorstep, rings the bell and is gone. It has to be Santa that's delivered them because there's snow all over the step.

An observant child might have noticed that the 'snow' looked remarkably like ice that has be scraped off the sides of the freezer, or that my father is gasping for breath (almost as if he'd dropped the snow covered gifts on the front step and then sprinted around the outside of the house, sneaking back in unseen around the back).

Fortunately for my father we've never had an observant child in our house!

Christmas morning is always a chaotic affair - tearing open presents as quickly as they're passed over to you (I still find it hard to savour the moment and usually rush to open everything at the same time), and although the gifts will be under my sisters immaculately and tastefully dressed tree (we spend Christmas Eve and day with her as she has the most room), our own Christmas tree will be as chaotic as Christmas morning itself - looking suspiciously like there's been an explosion in a tinsel factory.

Mmmm... I love Christmas and all it entails.


(er... and did I mention the drunken and rather inept stirring of the Christmas gravy? Who knew you could make that much mess...?!)



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Listening to: Blondie - One Way Or Another
via FoxyTunes

A small whinge and a plea..

We've all cooked things that needed a 'touch' more of this or a' tad' less of the other, so how the heck can anyone cook anything precisely using a measurement system based on volume and ratios? It just doesn't compute for me, but it seems to work for a great number of Americans.

This rather odd thought occurs because the shop where I get my American pancake mix (God bless Aunt Jemima), no longer imports the stuff and I've been forced to search Google for a recipe instead. Bizarrely, all recipes for American pancakes use the US measurement system of cups.

Go figure.

Regardless... my desire - or more specifically my NEED for yummy American-ness far outweighs my slightly uptight British obsession with precision so I find myself still hunting for THE definitive recipe for American pancakes.

If anyone can help me out I will happily donate some of my favourite recipes in return... maybe my traditional Scottish shortcake (seriously delish' and guaranteed to fur-up your arteries at 100 paces), chocolate orange cake, or perhaps my coconut and lime cake...



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Listening to: The Proclaimers - Letter From America
via FoxyTunes

Out of office

I don't know about you, but I find this simply hilarious:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7702913.stm

Dontcha just love it?

Mother and baby are doing well...

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I’ll keep this brief - partly because I’m in a bit of discomfort at the moment, and partly because I don’t know how long I’ve got before the baby () wakes up for his next feed...

Mummy and daddy are pleased to announce the arrival of baby Callum - born on 6 March (some 10 days later than he was expected). Weighing in at a whopping 8lb 11oz, Callum was delivered after 15 hours or so - unfortunately his shoulders were too wide for me to manage by myself, so we had to have an assisted delivery (forceps).

BTW: ’Epidural’ is a wonderful word.

Lost a lot more blood than was good for me - I’m told that they worry if your iron count is lower than 12... mine is currently 7.7. I turned down the option of a blood transfusion, so I’m going to be a little under the weather for the next 6 weeks or so until I’ve managed to get the iron levels up a bit.

All worth it though!

Callum (meaning ’little dove’) is a beautiful boy and (so far at least) has been as good as gold. I’ve only been home from the hospital for two days, so it’ll be a little while before we get ourselves into some kind of routine. When this happens I’ll post a better blog alongside some pictures for you all to see...

...all I’m saying is "check out the size of his fists and feet". My beautiful boy is going to be a rugby player one day!

Still playing catch-up...

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I meant to post a blog about my wonderful honeymoon AGES ago... never mind, better late than never (as they say)...

(By the way, I wrote this ages ago before I found out I was pregnant - I now weigh considerably more than my stated 9 stone!!!!)




Wow - there are honeymoons and there are HONEYMOONS, we had a HONEYMOON. It was a bit delayed since we had to wait for the right season, but it was well worth the wait. We headed out to Mexico (a 12 hour flight that nearly killed me), and combined two different holidays. The first week was the undoubtedly the most memorable, and involved heading up into the mountains to see the Monarch butterfly reserves - believe me, there's no way that I can describe this adequately. There is something deeply spiritual about standing in the forest listening to a million butterfly wings beating (you really can hear them), and seeing these beautiful things everywhere (and I mean EVERYWHERE you look) - quite amazing. The trip that we went on was with a company called NatureTreck - they're based in the US, so it was no surprise to find that we were the only Brit's on the trip.

Without exception, our fellow travellers were all lovely people, however as with many Americans, they were just so insular - we were constantly referred to as the 'English couple' despite my protestations that I am not (and would never claim to be!) English. I explained that I was Welsh, but despite my explanation of the countries that make up the UK, one chap just couldn't handle it...

"Gee, I thought it was all England" (I should point out that this was said with a certain amount of suspicion on his point!) I can't tell you how many times I explained the whole 'different languages', 'different countries', 'different form of governance' thing. The only person who understood this was our Mexican guide - of course this is fairly understandable when you take into account the fact that his own Grandfather was Scottish (which also explains why a Mexican would end up with a name like Juan Carlos Robinson!!).

Mind you, one of our fellow travellers also asked us why we'd decided to come to The States for our honeymoon... errrr.... to my knowledge I've never been to 'The States' - Mexico yes, the States, no. And yes... I do know that Mexico has states, but I'm reasonably sure that this isn't what he was referring to!

It could have been worse I guess - when I was last in Rome an American tourist actually asked me (I swear this is the truth) if a 1 Euro coin had a one on it and a 2 Euro coin had a two on it... (looking back, I really wish I'd shrugged and said something about adding 8 to whatever's on the coin - "...It's a European thing you see...")

Anyway... rather than pick on those with poor geography knowledge, I should tell you more about our time in Mexico...


We started off, travelling independently and visited the pre-Columbian city of Teotihuacan (which is supposed to be the largest of it's kind in the Americas).

Oh my God... what a place.

If you've been lucky enough to go there then you'll know that it's pretty much impossible to describe how awe inspiring it is - the size is just immense. The Pyramid of the Sun is the third biggest pyramid in the world, and climbing it (and it's slightly smaller neighbour 'the Pyramid of the Moon') was a time consuming, puff-inducing and sometimes nerve wracking experience (although, obviously coming down is more frightening than going up... that's just plain exhausting!!)

The main pyramids are located at the end of an enormous avenue called 'The Avenue of the Dead', which is lined with lots of ceremonial platforms (human sacrifices were big in 150 BC!) and temples. The avenue is a couple of miles long and around 125 ft wide - although if you speak to an archeologist they'll tell you that the avenue is actually about 5 miles long (it's just that only 2 miles of it have been excavated/restored). Apparently the earliest building on the site is dated around 200 BC (I challenge you to take a look at the buildings and not be awe struck by early engineering and mathematical know-how!).

Following Teotihuacan we travelled to Mexico city where we stayed in the Camino Real (very, very nice hotel - it featured in the Pierce Brosnan move 'The Matador'), where we met up with tour fellow NatureTreck travellers. After a night of luxury, we were driven 5 hours away to where the butterfly reserves are, staying in a tiny village and eating cactus and tortilla soup (Mexican food is nothing like the British version of it by the way!). We stayed there for 4 days and travelled up to the reserves each morning.


So... the butterfly reserves?


Loved being there, hated getting there.


The problem was that there were horses involved in the whole 'getting there' process. Actually, the poor things were actually little more than flea-bitten nags with less fat on them than is in your average bottle of semi-skimmed. They were owned by the locals, who were themselves desperately poor - I guess that when you live in a mountain lean-to made out of bits of old wood and corrugated iron, your horse is hardly likely to be a well fed thoroughbred!

Anyhoo... I felt a bit guilty sitting on the poor things. I'm not heavy (9st), but I swear I saw my horses knees start to buckle at one point.


Now I don't ride. I had one riding lesson when I was about 12, but I hardly think that counts for much. The fact that I don't ride didn't bother me too much since I didn't have any reins either. Instead, the majority of the 'riders' had a local guide (basically the bloke who owned the horse) who walked us up and down the mountainside. That was another thing to feel guilty about (those mountains are Huuuuuuuge, and you're sat on someone's horse whilst they walk).

I was a bit jittery on the way up to the reserve because my horse seemed to have another agenda - whilst other peoples horses were generally getting on with things, mine seemed to want to stop and eat at every opportunity. I lost my stirrups several times and (due to his dropping head) was permanently terrified about going flying over his head (did I mention that none of us had hard hats?) Anyway... I got there, saw the butterflies, took a million photos, oohed and ahhed with the best of them and then got on my horse to return back down the mountainside.

This is where the REAL problems started.

Some how or other my guide had found a horse of his own to ride on the way back. That meant that there was no one leading my horse. Also, remember that I don't ride and didn't have any reins anyway - so for me it was just a case of hanging onto the saddle and hoping that the horse did what he was supposed to...

...except he didn't...

We'd been 'riding' for about an hour and I had started to relax a bit and to trust the horse (BIG mistake. HUGE.), when I suddenly realised that my horse hadn't kept up with the lead horses on the trail (indeed the horse behind me was out of sight as well. It seemed that my horse realised this at about the same time that I did, and (we were going up hill at this point), suddenly broke into a trot which rapidly became a canter as he started to run up the hill in order to find his friends.

Me?

I was hanging onto the saddle for dear life (TERRIFIED!) My sun hat flew off and was left somewhere on the trail behind me and the people on the horses in front of me (when they finally came into view) looked over their shoulder to see this hysterical woman cantering towards them shouting 'Heeeeeeeeeelp meeeeee'...

...eventually the guide (who was behind me, riding along side Stuart) realised what had happened and galloped up the trail to catch my horse.


He thought it was hysterically funny... as did all the other guides...


...me? Not fond of horses these days.




One of the other reserves that we visited also required a horse trek to get there - I was so close to staying in the bus you wouldn't believe it. I got on the horse and was almost in tears as I did it. On one hand I remember thinking that it is a terrible thing to let fear rule your life... of course I also remember thinking that fear is there for a reason!!

Fortunately, my second horse ride was less eventful than the first one, but onece again the butterflies were everywhere we looked - so as it turned out, it was well worth the horse ride (although I declined the offer of a horse on the way back and walked down the mountain instead - my bravery has it's limits!!)

Anyway... butterfly reserves visited, life and limb duly risked, Stuart and I travelled back to the Camino Real in Mexico City where we spent a couple of days visiting Xochimilco (floating gardens) where we took a Trajinera (kind of a large, colourful, papier mache decorated punt) through the canals - a really atmospheric thing to do because whilst you're floating you get to listen to loads of mariachi (also on Trajineras) whilst fending off a wide variety of vendors that see you as a business opportunity (and if you're so inclined, this is a good place to hone your bartering skills)!.

... I'm rubbish at bartering by the way... (I once bought a small dish in Kenya for about 3 times the going price... and when I unwrapped it back at the hotel I saw that it'd been broken in about 3 pieces and glued back together!)



We went a few other places too (Mexico City University, the Archeological museum etc), but those are really the main highlights from the first week.

Busy, busy, busy!





Week two and three of the honeymoon saw us catch an internal flight to Cancun for the relaxing/sunbathing/cocktail drinking part of the holiday. We stayed in an all inclusive resort in the middle of the sub tropical forest - it was a really amazing place designed to fit in with (not obliterate) the flora and fauna of the tropics, and we saw all kinds of creatures whilst we were there.

One of the creatures that we saw was the holidaying American (sorry to any American's reading this - actually the Canadians were just as bad). Pretty much, every single one of them had insulated tankards with them (which they'd brought from home), and they'd take it to the bar and get it filled with a litre of margarita at a time. Now don't get me wrong... I drank my own weight in margaritas whilst we were there, but at least I punctuated my drinking by getting up off my arse and walking to the bar (which was at times, oooh... 20 or 25 steps away from where I was lazing). But maybe I'm just inefficient, and should have saved the strain on my poor feet by getting my very own tankard?

In between bouts of drinking and sunbathing, we also did a few other touristy things - went to Xel Ha (I'd recommend it to anyone), Chichen Itza (which was a bit of a let down after Teotihuacán (they won't let you climb the pyramid because someone fell off it and died a couple of years back - also it's really tiny compared to the ones at Teotihuacán) and Tulum.

I'd seriously recommend Mexico to anyone - it's a wonderful place and the people are friendlier than just about anywhere else I've been. I don't speak Spanish (other than to ask for another Margarita), but I actually felt as though my stumbling attempts to converse in a language other than my own were appreciated - whereas if you go to Mallorca or other Spanish speaking islands, my stumbling attempts are rather looked down upon!

A little Wednesday weirdness

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Ok... can't claim credit for this one (it comes straight from the BBC website), but it made me laugh so I thought I'd share it...



In a recent survey, the UK's top 10 most ridiculous British laws were voted as follows:


1. It is illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament (27%)

2. It is an act of treason to place a postage stamp bearing the British king or queen's image upside-down (7%)

3. It is illegal for a woman to be topless in Liverpool except as a clerk in a tropical fish store (6%)

4. Eating mince pies on Christmas Day is banned (5%)

5. If someone knocks on your door in Scotland and requires the use of your toilet, you are required to let them enter (4%)

6. In the UK a pregnant woman can legally relieve herself anywhere she wants, including in a policeman's helmet (4%)

7. The head of any dead whale found on the British coast automatically becomes the property of the King, and the tail of the Queen (3.5%)

8. It is illegal not to tell the tax man anything you do not want him to know, but legal not to tell him information you do not mind him knowing (3%)

9. It is illegal to enter the Houses of Parliament wearing a suit of armour (3%)

10. It is legal to murder a Scotsman within the ancient city walls of York, but only if he is carrying a bow and arrow (2%)



Bizarre foreign laws voted by those polled included:


1. In Ohio, it is illegal to get a fish drunk (9%)

2. In Indonesia, the penalty for masturbation is decapitation (8%)

3. A male doctor in Bahrain can only examine the genitals of a woman in the reflection of a mirror (7%)

4. In Switzerland, a man may not relieve himself standing up after 10pm (6%)

5. It is illegal to be blindfolded while driving a vehicle in Alabama (6%)

6. In Florida, unmarried women who parachute on a Sunday could be jailed (6%)

7. Women in Vermont must obtain written permission from their husbands to wear false teeth (6%)

8. In Milan, it is a legal requirement to smile at all times, except during funerals or hospital visits (5%)

9. In France, it is illegal to name a pig Napoleon (4%)

Embarrassing confessions

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One of my online friends - there are about two of them (it shouldn't take you long to work out which one!) has just posted a link to a fantastic song that I had long forgotten about... Mansun, Wide Open Space. It got me to thinking about some of those other lost gems that crop up every now and again... you know the ones that you hear occasionally on the radio that make you stop what you're doing to declare how it's always been your favourite (only to forget about it again seconds after it finishes)...

...and that got me to thinking about some of the bands that I used to listen to (one or two of them a little obscure, most of them long gone... generally a good thing, but there are a couple in there that I wish were still around).

So here it is... my embarassing musical history (starting about aged 7)!


So there were the early days... My first foray into the world of music:

ABBA
I was about 7 at the time, and had the whole back catalogue (taped from friends and family). I also had a Noddy LP - some story about Noddy and Big Ears in Toyland... there was one song on there I loved 'Prettiest Dolly' I think it was called... Hmmm, I wonder if I can find it on the Internet....?

And then there were the teenage years...
I was SO trendy then (or at least I thought I was at the time)!

Bros
I was an aspiring Brosette and saw them in concert. I was convinced I was in love with Matt Goss - REAL love mind you, it wasn't just a slightly creepy obsession. I didn't have the long perm (mother wouldn't let me), but I DID have the ripped jeans (to her deep embarrassment) the Doc. Martins and the Grolsch bottle tops... (except -ironically - I didn't have enough 'bottle' to wear them on my shoes like I was supposed to... I believe I actually carried mine to the concert...)

a-ha
I'm sorry - any girl who watched the Take on Me video was bound to be hooked from the off. Scrub that... any girl who saw Morten was going to be hooked (Damn... at the age of 35 (28 if anyone asks) I'm still salivating at the thought).

Nik Kershaw
Ah... Nik was my discovery. I'd heard and bought 'I wont let the sun go down on me' when it was first released and loved it. Actually, mum bought if for me (I was about 12 so didn't have the cash) for Christmas - I believe she hummed it to the guy on the record counter because she couldn't remember what it was called. One of the main appeals that Nik held was the fact that no-one else knew who he was - which made me trendier than them.

Sadly, after initially disappearing from sight Nik re-released the single and achieved great success... I lost interest. (Although, I did revel in the fact all my (now Nik obsessed) friends coveted the single that I owned - the first release had better cover art than the second and owning it proved you were cool).

Wham
Ah yes... Wham (*sighs wistfully*).

Do you realise that even after watching the 'Wake me up before you go go' video I still argued with my sister that he was straight... go figure...

At the time, you were either a Wham-ie or a Duran-ie. I was in the former category, but being the fickle creature that I was at the time, couldn't actually bring myself to openly spurn Duran Duran totally. Oooh... there were a couple of other categories too (now that I'm thinking of it)... you had the followers of Wet Wet Wet (say no more) and also there were a few (small group this one) Spandau's. Most of us fell into one of these groups except the really strange girls... one such girl openly admitted that she was even into The Jam!!!! (Yes, I know she has less to be embarrassed about NOW, but at the time it was just plain weird!!)

Then there were the slightly older teenage years (think 6th form - age 16/17)
Ha! I really WAS trendy now... I was older for a start - which is important when you're a teenager! I even worked in a record store on Saturdays (so could try out and buy the latest and greatest music before anyone else)...

Um... yes, I did have a dark period which involved buying the Bros Christmas Picture disc for £9.99 before anyone else did - convinced it was going to be a sell out success (only to discover the thing went into the bargain bucked for 99p after Christmas)... but other than that... I WAS COOOOOOOL.

So what did I listen to? (actually I'm not too embarrassed about these ones)...

Then Jerico
Ooooh... a (little) bit political, with a brainy bad boy at the helm. It helped I'm sure that the brainy bad boy had a set of cheekbones that you could slice cheese on, but this wasn't my sole motivation... they made what I considered to be PROPER music. I saw them in concert a couple of times, and after they'd split up (when I was in Uni) I went to see the ex-lead singer (Mark Shaw) play live. Sadly I couldn't find anyone to go with me, so in desperation I answered a dating add in the back of a magazine and dragged my poor victim along instead (probably the last time he ever placed a personals add!)

Mark Shaw...Yum, yum, yum... (salivating again...)

Skin Games
Ah... I was getting trendy again - this was another obscure band that no-one had ever heard off. They supported Then Jerico on tour and were fantastic... and they were Welsh (which made them even better in my eyes because unlike today, there weren't many Welsh bands out there - at least, none that I was aware off anyway). Sadly, after one album (currently in the garage because I don't have a record player anymore) they disappeared from view.

Diesel Park West
I used to do my homework in the dining room whilst listening to the chart show on radio 1. When the chart show would finish the next DJ (Annie Nightingale I think) would start her show off with something slightly obscure (at least it was obscure to me)... enter Diesel Park West (again, now gathering dust in the garage).

The Mission
My really trendy phase (you know you're high on the trend-ometer when everyone pulls a face when you tell them what you're listening to). If you recall them, they were a bit on the mournful side... I remember singing along to them at one point...

Me: "I'm falling into the arms of Nemesis"
Me: "I'm falling into the arms of Nemesis"
Me: "I'm falling into the arms of Nemesis"

(I don't think I knew the rest of the words)

Mother: "For Gods sake, would you just fall and get it over with... I can't take any more of this"


****Mothers are SO un cool.****



Then there were the Uni years
Sadly there are few excuses for these particular artistic choices!

James
Inspiral Carpets
They Might be Giants
The Wonder Stuff (actually, I CAN justify this one!)

Then, at the tail end of Uni - extending until just after my PGCE
I fell in lust for the first time (big style), and most of these were introduced to me by the man in question... (man was an arse as it turned out... who knew...)

Louise Goffin
Lauren Christy
Tori Amos

This was the start of my 'female' phase - in so much as pretty much everything I listened to from this point onwards was sung by women and had major piano accompaniment. No reason, just worked out that way.



And FINALLY, I grew too old and grumpy to care what my taste in music said about me (i.e. now!)

Take That
Well, why the hell not! They're actually quite good and "they're such nice lads". To my husband I say: "Who cares if they don't play their own instruments!" (he doesn't count Gary for some reason...)

Lauren Christy
Amy Studt
Shelly Poole

Pretty much any 80's throw back
Interestingly enough though, not the junk I was listening to at the time - instead, I like the stuff that the slightly older (and therefore trendier) kids were into.

Other, assorted odds and ends
I'm not above a bit of Jazz (Frank is clearly the king) or classical (I saw the 3 tenors perform once - admittedly, I was stood on tip-toes, looking around the corner of a porta-loo from outside of the grounds that they were performing in) - didn't matter that the view was obscured... the important thing was I was there and heard them perform live!

So there you go... a warts 'n' all breakdown of my varying musical obsessions through the years...

...brave enough to admit yours? C'mon, 'fess-up...