No Business Like Snow Business

Liking the weather are we? Enjoying the deep and crisp and even?

I have to admit, I'm a dithering wreck in this weather. Despite the fact that I have walking boots which can take me up vertical frozen rock faces (not that I've ever asked them to, but still), my legs turn to petrified tree-trunks the minute I put one foot in front of the other on even a lightly snow-kissed pavement. A pig on stilts is more graceful. I'm not alone in my fear of going arse over tit - all my female colleagues feel the same, whatever their age and/or fitness level. We are, to a woman, scared to death of slipping in the snow.

Walking from the car to the office (a good twenty yards at least), bundled up like people trying to avoid the excess baggage charge on Ryanair by wearing every item of clothing they possess, we clutch each other's arms and scream like banshees if there's even the tiniest possibility that our feet will go from under us. Even indoors we are trussed up as if this is the coldest place on earth, despite the fact that we work in a building kept at tropical temperatures day and night. We take it in turns to be on "Snow Watch" and by 3.00 p.m. each day, should a few flakes of snow begin to fall, we down tools saying that we've got to get home before the weather closes in, and abandon the office. We have a developed siege mentality, filling our freezers with bread just in case we can't get out tomorrow, despite the fact that most of us live within slithering distance of Sainsbury's. Being "snowed in" has become the excuse du jour for being very, very late and going home very, very early.

With all this extra time at home, I've taken to making soups, venison sausage casseroles, even baked apples with proper home-made rice pudding - comfort food usually unheard of at my house during the working week. To increase the snuggle factor we've added another quilt to our bed and I've bought some sheepskin slippers. I am well prepared for more snow and, to be honest, I've secretly started to enjoy myself.

As long as I don't have to go out in it of course.

Hope everything is OK where you are.

Ding-Dongs Merrily On High

Hi, long time no write. Here's one I wrote earlier and didn't post, for whatever weird reason I can't remember now.


Good Christmas? Happy New Year?

In Casa Swearing Mother Christmas and New Year went predictably, which is both a good and a bad thing. On the positive side, we were all together, had enough (more than enough, in fact) to eat; a warm, clean and cosy home in which to enjoy the holidays and on the whole, we did. On the negative side, it's always difficult to keep the peace between people who rarely spend more than a couple of days together and, although devoted to each other as much as humanly possible, have the capacity to get up each other's noses without very much effort at all, season of goodwill or not.

In our family, we are argumentative. We are very rarely bored or boring. Everyone has something to say and fights to say it, usually in a good humoured way but sometimes it can get a bit out of hand. We can argue about anything and everything, from leaving the bathroom light on to the state of third world economics, and back again via "who the fuck moved my keys?" I'm not sure quite why it happens or how the niggling starts but I think it's something to do with kids returning to the fold and regressing back to patterns of childhood despite the fact they are now grown up, and we as parents forgetting to back off and let them be the capable adults that they actually are. That's theory number one anyway. And then there's the other problem; we olds think we know best because we always used to, way back when our kids took any notice of us, but now our grown-up children are filled with knowledge far greater than ours about a variety of subjects I don't necessarily give a toss about, which can and does breed a certain amount of intolerance at times. Yes, I am concerned about global warming but not enough to worry about it when I'm trying to cook Christmas dinner and chopping carrots in the dark because someone switched the frigging lights off in an effort to save the planet.

I admit to being very small town in my attitudes. When my son says he's got something serious to discuss with us, my heart leaps into my mouth and I think "oh shit, what's up with him?", when actually he's worried about the Palestinian Israeli crisis. Phew. I feel guilty at my relief - so that's all, I think, thank goodness for that. I realise my margins are set way too narrow and that I must appear infuriating and insular, but first and foremost I am relieved that he is OK. I really do care about those who suffer but my sphere of influence is small and my own family is at the epi-centre of it. The rest of the world has to get in line behind them for my total devotion and compassion, and I make no apologies for it. Yes I do care about the starving millions, global warming, the homeless, the victims of violence, the fight for democracy and so on. And so on. But there are those about whom I care more, heated discussions or no.

So, although it would be an exaggeration to claim that the home front was a bit of a war zone this Christmas, let's just say there were times I wished someone with a harmonica would start playing "Silent Night" and instigate a kick-about conversation in the comparitive safety of the neutral no-man's-land of small talk. Or that predictable conversational landmines could be skirted around instead of being deliberately triggered with both feet (husband) just for the sport of it, or some hapless idiot (me) would refrain from unintentionally lighting the blue touchpaper. And, in fairness, maybe it would help if the junior snipers didn't have such touchy trigger fingers when it comes to other people's opinions.

After reading a few articles in various papers and magazines about family rows at Christmas, it makes me wonder why sometimes families find it so much of a challenge to be together over the festive season, more than any other time of year. It's especially sad when so much effort has been put in to make it perfect, but maybe that is the problem - do we invest so much time, money and effort into a few short and precious days together that if it doesn't work out exactly as we'd like, trouble ensues? I wish I knew.

Generally speaking though, we had a happy Christmas and New Year and now we've gone our separate ways once more until the next time we all get together and wind each other up again. It was good to have a houseful and, looking on the bright side, mercifully we didn't actually throttle each other.

But it was close.


Happy New Year everyone and peace be with you (especially you, Gaza).


It seems such a long time ago now, but if you can still remember Christmas and New Year, how was yours?


.

Mistletoe and Whine

Well hello, nice to see you, to see you........ I really must stop watching Brucie on that Strictly Come Dancing thingy, I think it may be getting to me. Anyway, how are you? Ready for Christmas?

Of course, the correct answer to this if you are any friend of mine, is absolutely, definitely "NO WAY". Please don't tell me you've already wrapped all your presents, iced your cake, cleaned out your freezer and filled it with home-made goodies. I just couldn't stand it. And if you are one of these hideously organised people who have made their own cards from sticky backed plastic and glitter way back in November, please speak to the hand 'cos the face ain't listening.

No, I prefer the haphazard chaos theory of Christmas preparations - ignore it for as long as possible, throw up my hands in horror that it is in fact NEXT WEEK, tear around like a maniac buying all manner of unsuitable gifts, open the Harveys Bristol cream and fling decorations on the tree whilst steadily getting festively merry.

Catering-wise I've decided to take the easy road this year with ready-stuffed turkey, pre-prepared veg, M and S gravy and Mamma Mia DVD for afters. Hopefully having produced this gourmet feast I'll be wearing a new pair of those furry slippers that look like Ugg boots, my feet up on the sofa, a tin of Quality Street on my lap, waiting for one of my doting family to bring me a cup of tea after they've washed up and tidied the kitchen.

In my fantasy world all presents will have been received with enthusiasm, Christmas dinner will have passed without anyone having an argument, I will remain sober until tea-time and no one will notice we've lost half the Scrabble tiles since last year. It will all have been absolutely perfect, worth all the effort and everyone will be happy.

In reality I have only two words to say to that. One is "fat" and the other is "chance".

But really, what is a "perfect" Christmas? For me, it's having my family around me, my kids under my roof once more, sitting at a table with everyone I love around it.

So this coming week when we're all struggling with bags of shopping in the pouring rain (unless you've pre-booked your Sainsbury's delivery slot, in which case you can stay at home and be smug), or standing in a queue at M and S listening to everyone around us moaning about the amount of stuff other people are buying ("it's only two days after all, I don't know what all the fuss is about"), let's hold on to what's really important to us this year. Whatever you wish for yourselves, I hope you get it. Within reason, of course.

Happy Christmas everyone, try not to throttle each other, and enjoy.

Black Dog Blues

Some days it's hard to be a woman. Or a man. Or a goddam dog, come to think of it. I'm having a blue period at the moment, frankly an extended jag of feeling down in the dumps, a black mood tinged with a bit of grey laced with a few great gobbets of purple. I am fed up. Don't know why, that's just the way life is.

Counting my blessings works, but only up to a point.

I need something fantastic to bring back the spring in my step. Something to restore the old sense of humour, to bring back my faith in humanity, to give me a bit of a warm glow. Preferably not related to alcohol and chocolate, if at all possible.

So what've you got for me?

Over A Barrel At The Bank

We got our mortgage statement recently. We thought they'd made a mistake. It showed we only owed a relatively smallish amount of money, in comparison to the relatively huge-ish amount we used to owe. How time flies when you've got a mill-stone around your neck. We looked at each other and said "Blimey, shall we pay it off and be done with it? We could save ourselves a fortune in interest". This would however involve raiding the piggy bank, big-time, living on curried dust and wearing our children's cast-offs but we'd both read in the financial papers that the best way to survive the current hideous financial turmoil is to pay off as much debt as possible, spend as little as possible and avoid paying anyone any interest if at all possible. It seemed like maybe this was a Good Plan.

"Hello, we'd like to talk about paying off our mortgage" we told the advisor at the bank. We waited for a fanfare, fireworks or a twenty-one gun salute. We'd even have settled for a round of applause. I thought they'd be thrilled to get some money back in their coffers in view of the current financial climate, but no, nothing. In fact, if anything, she looked very unimpressed. "In one go, completely, totally finished" I added, just in case she hadn't understood. She sighed.

"Yes, you could do that" she said, "but it'll cost you about £400 in penalty fees for ending your mortgage early and £50 for us to send you your deeds." Fifty pounds to send us a few papers?? I wondered where on earth they were getting their stamps.

"Oh, that seems a bit mean doesn't it" I attempted a bit of light-hearted humour, "the bank charging us to give them their money back to them? What about if we just let the mortgage run on, and continue to overpay, how much interest would we be charged until the end of the term?"

There was frantic jabbing at the calculator. "About £400 give or take a few pounds. And of course £50 to send back your deeds."

Of course.

"So, let's get this straight. If we give you back several thousand pounds of the bank's money, they'll charge us £400 for doing it. If we don't give it back all in one go, and continue monthly payments, you'll charge us £400 in interest for doing that."

"Yes," she said "that's correct."

Undaunted, we tried a different approach.

"Could we change to a different mortgage then, with a lower interest rate?"

She nodded. "You could, but there is an arrangement fee for changing to a different mortgage product."

We were ahead of her here. "And how much is that fee?"

Yes, you guessed, it was £400.

So in summary, if you pay the bank back, it costs you money. If you keep the loan going, it costs you money. If you try and overpay to finish it off a little bit early, it costs you money. And if you try to save yourself a bit of interest by switching to a lower rate "mortgage product", it'll still cost you money. And don't forget, when they've finally wrung out all of the money you think they're going to get from you, the first edition Penny Black stamp they buy from Sotheby's to post your deeds to you will cost you the rip-off sum of £50.

Banks, eh? Just institutions whose mission in life is to find as many different positions as possible from which to screw you, whilst at the same time pleading poverty because they've all paid themselves too much in bonuses for pissing your money down the drain.

No wonder we're all over a barrel.

Credit Where It's Due

I feel I must start by thanking you most sincerely if you are still with me after the endless moaning rant I've been indulging in about the holiday. Sorry. It's been a marathon drone even by my standards. I like to think that getting it out in the open has helped me deal with the sheer bloody annoyance of wasting a huge amount of dosh and annual leave on an experience I wouldn't have wanted if they'd paid me to go. But still. Enough already. We did have some nice times too, but what's the fun in telling you about those? So I've decided that from now on I can let the whole sorry episode wash over me, learn from it and move on.

Or so I thought until the post came this morning.

Got the credit card bill today. There it was in black and white (soon to be red I fear), the whole sorry catalogue of disaster documented in pounds and euros from start to finish. The Travel Agent's rip-off con trick. The hire car which somehow magically appears to have cost many, many more Euros than we were quoted. That first night meal which had me puking for England, literally, (didn't tell you about that, too much detail). Even the eighteen quid bottle of bog cleaner masquerading as white wine, it was all there as evidence of a bad time had by all.

And there was the bill for the umbrella, purchased in a "raindrops keep falling on my head" moment in an attempt to make things more bearable with a bit of retail therapy, that was there too. Sheltering underneath it in the pouring rain, dodging heaps of Day-glo dog-poo, we dashed through the city streets looking for shelter and warmth.

"Let's start again," suggests husband, "let's try and make the most of it, even though it's not really our scene" he says as we wait to cross the road.

"OK," I say, "it hasn't all been bad, we're having some nice times too I suppose. Looking on the bright side, at least I've gone a trendy new umbrella."

"Let's treat it like a bit of a watershed then" he says, laughing.

He can be such a witty bugger at times, thank goodness.

Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda.

We've never had a proper holiday flop before, so really we should have counted ourselves lucky, but instead as the days went by we tormented the life out of each other with thoughts of what we would rather have spent the money on had we not sleep-walked (or should that be slept-walked?) into this situation.

We could have gone to Paris on Eurostar, always a favourite of ours, stayed somewhere swanky and hit the shops big-time. True, someone had set fire to the Chunnel the day before, so that was a bit off-putting, but still. Or maybe we would have been better going to Barcelona for a few days, got a bit of Ramblas shopping under our (designer) belts and a little culture to boot. Right at the start I should of course have insisted on a destination from my recommended list, but no, here we were, disenchanted and disgruntled, unable to find the light at the end of the tunnel which wasn't in fact an on-coming train.

The morning after our arrival we woke up with two matching hangovers, the result of drinking far too much on way too empty stomachs. Husband had refused to be thwarted re the lack of red wine and had charmed the hotel receptionist into producing a bottle of white from the back of a cupboard somewhere. Actually, I guess it might have been from under the sink. It was disgusting, tasted of pencil sharpenings and ear-wax (I imagine) but did the job of numbing the pain until dinner time when we re-emerged, slightly pissed but re-energised, re-fettled and ready to party. We had gone on foot in search of the village and spent a good time searching for it before we realised that the dingey parade of shops reached by four flights of un-lit, slippery concrete steps, was in fact, it.

In my dreams the village would have had little waterside restaurants with candle-lit tables, smiling waiters and gorgeous food. In reality we were greeted at the local Pizzeria with a scowl, made to sit outside because the staff hadn't yet finished their supper, and only allowed back in when they'd done. It was bloody cold out there. The food took hours to arrive and when it did it was average, so we did the only sensible thing under the circumstances and kept on drinking. We left a huge tip in the hopes that if we had to eat there again during the week, this time they would like us more and maybe give us a smile, or be a little more friendly. It didn't work. This was obviously a local pizzeria for local people. Later that night I regretted both the tip and the tortellini I'd eaten there as my stomach lining and I violently attempted to part company.

Consequently, the following morning, things were dire. We went down to breakfast and again, not a soul in sight. I began to fantasise about the reason for it and finally decided that the whole hotel, which was pristine, white and hushed, reminded me of the euthenasia clinic as featured in the BBC1 TV series Holby City a while back. No one was coming in or going out, although I suppose it would have been a lot more worrying if loads of people had been coming in and no one going out. Whatever. It made me a bit suspicious of the breakfast juice, I can tell you.

And still it rained.

We went into town by taxi, bought an umbrella, hired a car and had a row. I ruined my best flat shoes and my hair went frizzy. Husband trod in dog-mess (unavoidable, the whole place was covered in it - what DO those dogs eat??) and got it on his jeans. Day one was not going well.

We looked across the grey sea towards Elba, shrouded in mist.

"Napolean died there you know, some say he was poisoned" said husband, trying to distract me from my misery with interesting facts, but failing totally.

"Not bloody surprised, probably ate at that fucking pizza parlour."

I shouldn't have said that. It was not helping, I know that now. I really needed to get a grip of myself, cheer up and tone down the smart-aleck remarks.

But all I could think about was that it was still six more days until I could go home.