Apparently swimming is on The National Curriculum......??????!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Guess what I did today?

I put on a swimming costume - oh yes - and I got into a swimming pool - I really did - and....... I actually quite enjoyed myself. A bit.

Obviously after lots and lots of swearing about how much I hated Tonbridge and its stupid little roads that- no.......... I shall not burden your sensitive eyes with my foulness.

And maybe there were lots and lots of Marge Simpson noises trying to shepherd two Punch and Judy-esque small boys in and out of changing rooms, toilets and (god!) - SHOWERS - under which it appeared they didn't dissolve.

But I did it. And I hardly got my hair wet. Bonus. Or lost my glasses. Double Bonus. And my ladybumps didn't slump out sideways. Or under. Or anywhere. Triple Bonus.

I did, however, spend most of the time making sure that nothing slumped out - from my 3-piece-chin-to-mid-calf-practically-an-evening-gown-of-a-cossie. Or rode up. Or flopped about. Or fell off. Or even ruckled. Time well spent. And even managed to flip out a few discreet leg swishes in the 2 foot deep water. That's lady exercise that is. In between fish-wife screeching to STOP RUNNING STOP JUMPING DON'T SPLASH WHERE'S THAT BABY? STOP-oh you're not mine........carry on then sweetie..... GET BACK HERE D O N ' T R U U U U N !!!!!!!!!!!!!...........

It was all going soooo welllllllll. It was really. Happy (and now clean) little faces. Seal Boy (having passed for 10 in pulled-down baseball cap) swooshing off into the depths of the Big Pool unfettered and wild; little Thuglet wetly cute in his Goo-Goos (goggles to humankind) on the crocodile slide and with Big Sis being all nice and sing-song bobby-up-and-downy. Even little Rock Godling being sociable and giggly without needing to show anyone his willy (well - not IN the pool anyway - and it was only to Big Bruv when he yelled outside the changing cubicles trying to get lock-on coordinates for us - that's fine - only cost me £3 to buy his silence). You see? All going (pardon me but....) swimmingly.

And then we had to get dressed again.

I can't even begin to dredge back up to the front of my poor damaged mind the horror - the HORROR......

I have consigned it to the place where I discard 96% of my child-rearing experiences:

The Fathomless Pit of Apocalyptic Lament

The Eternal Abyss of Tearing Anguish

The Sunless Chasm of Damnable Despondency

The Sheer Perpetual Gorge of Unimaginable Howling Despairs

The Bomb-Hole of Sad

The Toilet of Trying

The Chocolate Starfish of Ex-Thought

Void

And THEN there was the cafe.................

************************************************************ (Deleted for reasons of taste and decency)

They did not get ice-cream.

But worse was still to come. I had a voucher. From my dear mother. For Xmas. To spend in ............... Marks and Spencers.

This should be joyous surely? No. It is Marks and Spencers. It is big. It is full of ladies' things. I have 3 boys with me. It is the Gateway to Hell. No. It IS hell. IT IS H E L L!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I spend eternity trying to find something to spend my voucher on - determined not to just buy lots and lots of those funny shaped crisps that make your lips sting. I was going to buy something to wear. SOMETHING TO WEAR? Yes! I have a voucher for gods' sake for a shop wot sells ladies' clothes. And I am a lady. I WILL find something to wear goddammit! From Marks and Spencers. ? But I am not 85! I am not dead! I will not just buy a big bag. I have big bags. Under my bulging red eyes. And their biggest bags are still not big enough to stuff boys in and do up the zip. So I am going to strangle boys. If I can find them. I can HEAR them. EVERYBODY can HEAR them.

I buy lots of knickers. Black. And a vest and knickers. Black, mostly. And a drapey over-a-swimsuit kind of dress thing. Black. And flip flops. Black - with sequins - black.

'Over a swim-suit'?

On what flapping planet?

Another Feeble Attempt? THIS time baby.......!

Just a quick one - there's a lead in to something naughty.

But it's naughtiness I'm bothered with at the moment. I kind of want to be a grown-up.........sort of.

Not like other grown-ups - ie BORING and stressed and lacking imagination etc. I mean I would like to be able to respond to any given situation without my current over-use of the axe-wielding Anglo-Saxon 'shit - fuck - tit - wank - bollocks - bloody - arse - cunt' rap.

I know I've made this resolution before. And it lasted about 4 minutes. But I want to sound cleverer than I am - and at the moment I'm coming across as teenage sub-mammal scum.

I think I should like to compile a list of really good non-sweary swear words - I don't mean useless unsatisfying lame utterances like 'botheration' and 'I say!' - I mean really good HARD short face-slapping gutteral stabs of venom that get the aggression out all right but don't leave you feeling embarrassed you've just spat out vile contamination in front of someone else's traumatised child or mother-in-law. I NEED HELP with this - my 'wow' or 'oops' vocabulary is all too barbaric - too obvious - and too boysie.

I do remember a very funny game I once played with a small gang of not-quite-the-ticket-types at some artist chap's opening of his Art Mill up in Bradford - terrible memory again - oh Nicholas Treadwell it was - way back in the mists of lager and curry days. My friend had some studio space there and a couple of us went up to join in with the organic wine and vegetarian nibbles ceremony to mark it's grand birth. And of course it was populated by lovely dangly-earringed posh arty types. Despite being a dangly-earringed vegetarian arty type myself, I despised this scenario - and yet delighted in despising it. Attracted to the usual retrobate company (ie my friend and her friends) we were happily playing childish games like substituting a word in a film title for 'penis' (free organic wine abuse made this much funnier at the time) and the even more creative 'find a swear word that isn't a swear word for every letter of the alphabet'. We'd just got to 'f' and found ourselves frowning and wordless for seemingly aeons when the glass tapping and sshhhing for the speeches stilled all murmurs and the whole place was s i l e n t . A couple of minutes into the excruciating welcomes, thank yous and hopeful manifestoes, lapped up by smiling posh arties, one of our gang suddenly yelled out 'FLAPS!'

It echoed.

But that's the kind of creativity I need now. Good strong feel-good full-fat words.

Oh yeah - and I kind of want to stop blabbering on about myself and my lack of social graces and get back to sharing wholesome tales of non-academic home educating achievement. Like ....... um ............. oh yes! At the local museum on Monday - all about rocks and stuff - my Minx was coming out with actual factuals about flint and stone-age practices and the Easter Island heads and I was smirking away in the background thinking 'when did she pick up all that stuff?' So, you see, they do pick up all that stuff somewhere down the line even if you don't realise it. However, my face of proud awe soon twitched into folds of How Do I Get Out Of Here whenever Rock Godling opened his mouth. I can't even remember what he said exactly (still swirling above my struggling-to-understand conciousness waiting to land) but each surreal statement was delivered with wonderful confidence..... and projection. Thankfully other HE mums just smile happily - blessing your bewildering child for making theirs seem 'normal' for a little while.

But a big ol framed photograph of our 'gang' is even hanging in the current display in the gallery of the museum - and labelled - so there Baroness Screech! Here we flapping well are!

Sorry Darling

Mr Golf Pants has left the building. Read last blog.

Now he won't show me his swing in his pants anymore. (Here we go again - when wearing his pants, he now won't show me his swing).

Tracky bottoms. TRACKY BOTTOMS!

Mr Golf Tracky Bottoms is just..............pants!

He's gone all sensitive and stuff. If I'd have wanted a 'new man' (remember them? No I don't either because they DIDN'T BLOODY EXIST) I'd have......................not started that sentence.

I want my Mr Alpha Male Golf Pants Man back! I did buy you some Midget Gems today....... and you can have little Rock Godling in your bed instead of me........ and ..... um - no you're right - I am in big trouble. Guilty as.

I hereby promise to only refer to you as a demi-god. Adonis-like. Full god. Golf God. Quiche hater. And to never mention your tank-top again. (BTW did I say it is pink?) Ooops - from NOW on anyway.

Whether in pants, plus-fours, a pinny or transparent PVC leiderhosen you will always be my God of the Real Man.

Swing that club baby.

Does anyone know where you can get transparent PVC leiderhosen?

Yes, it STILL gets mentioned

Golf golf golf .............. Still it keeps him out of trouble. That man used to cook up a whole heap of trouble in his day. That's why I shagged him actually. He was my Rock & Roll friend. The naughty one. The one you have lots of fun with.

Just look at us now. He's always in the kitchen just in his pants (I think I mean he's always just in his pants in the kitchen - he doesn't have another kitchen in his pants. At least I don't think so) - swinging his club. Practice practice practice. And I am forever being demonstrated to. That sounded wrong too didn't it? He's always demonstrating his 'new' golf swing to me. In his pants. In the kitchen. There - that sounds normal now. Doesn't it? Well it's normal here. And so is little Rock Godling running in silently and pulling down his pants and high-tailing it screeching with laughter. Now that's not clear either. WHOSE pants? DADDY's pants. But he is actually quite obsessed with pulling down his own pants in public places too. What point am I trying to make? I've completely forgotten. Something to do with golf........

'In the hole!' That's what Americans shout on telly at golf tournaments as soon as a ball is struck. It's very annoying. And hasn't helped my memory at all.

Well .... (winging it.....).... Blah blah exchanging leather trousers for Rupert trousers, biker jackets for diamond-patterned tank-tops, shaft/sink/screw talk for dirty sexy talk - hang on a minute.......... maybe that's stayed the same? .......... 'In the hole!' - Nah - doesn't do it for me. What has become of my naughty bad dirty boy?

But what has become of me? .....white lines for washing lines of whites? Gold lame hot-pants for nice comfy leggings? Fishbone gigs for chicken lectures! Fuck-me shoes for Fuck-you boots........ Wh'appened?

Actually I was never very good at being totally bad. Was always more of a Guinness girl than a hard-core pharmacueticalist. But I did like my fun.

And, very recently, I do seem to have got my MoJo back. After years of either being a pregnant or lactating sow I have now reclaimed all my lady bits for my own amusement. All I need now is a willing Dirty Boy to play with. A couple of weeks ago we had a 3-night run of actually going to bed TOGETHER - IN THE SAME BED! But I went and spoiled it for myself by being too scary and demanding and ........ sort of ...... husbandy. 'Haven't you got a blog you can write or something?' He really said that. Sort of squeaked it really. It's amazing how Mr Golfpants is suddenly very sympathetic to little R. Godling and his latest phase of nightmares - 'Of course you can sleep in our bed! Mummy can go in with Thuglet won't you Mummy?' I think it's less fatherly devotion and more using R G as a human shield.

Should just go back to my good book, thinking up nice quilting designs and planning my next eager Home Educative experiments with stream-lining. That's what I should do. In fact I did receive rather lovely Mother's Day presents today - including 2 very gorgeous books on quilts from the V & A which I flicked through in bed this morning with Minx and my breakfast in bed, which she ate. And I did sit on my bum all day at my in-laws watching the Bahrain Grand Prix - so that's the stream-lining research started then.

Hmmmm - a thoroughly lazy day today - eating M & S delights (that's another exchange right there - S & M for M & S) - and home-made fairy cakes, flicking through magazines and occasionally leaning forward to peer through the window at fleeting shapes of wild children up to no good with Grandad and cousins. They played football, fed the chickens, ran around the field with the dogs, let out the pigeons, said hello to the horse, rode bikes, clambered for hours over a haystack and Grandad took them 'up the bomb-hole' for more wild larks. (This alone made me snigger ALL day.)

Grandad (by the way I know it's supposed to have 2 'd's in it but it looks silly to me so I always drop one for aesthetic reasons) showed us the picture he has in his wallet - not of Nanny, or his children or grandchildren no. It's a well-loved picture of 'Nigger' his little black dog of his youth - I know!!!!!!!!! And !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! right?

Much sniggering.

And then the Remember Whens started. Sparked by a rude joke text he'd received - from one of his grandchildren - which had a rude word in it. Nanny thought it was funny ('Cheeky!') too. 'You'd not know that word though would you?' I'm asked. Here we go.........

But teasing me is no way near as fun as teasing their own dear son - and my dear Mr Gpants. Families are fab aren't they?

'Remember the bomb?'

Mass sniggering.

Poor Daddy. He's a bit of a mother hen at the best of times (unless the golf is on) but finding a bomb leaning up against the house one lovely early morning made him flip.

We'd not been living here in our rustic idyll very long but he'd managed to convince his dad to bring down his big digger thing and bury that huge dead tree trunk and all the other dangerous things from the garden in a big hole. What fun for small boys and an indulgent Grandad. And how exciting to find a big old bomb in the hole as he was digging! Can we keep it?

Daddy was late back that evening but still first up the next day. Decided to take an early pad around the estate (ok - garden). Gulping that delicious country fresh air, listening to the birds uninterrupted by the sounds of cars starting and mothers screaming, gazing out across the fields at the hazy summer morning and WHATTHEFUCKSTHAT?

'Everybody upstairs!' (We are upstairs. We are still bloody asleep.) 'There's a bomb! There's a bomb in the garden! Did you know there's a bomb in the garden? Where's the phone? I'm calling the police! They'll have to get the army in! Bomb Disposal Unit! Did you KNOW there's a bomb in the garden??!!!'

'Oh yeah that. Your dad dug it up yesterday.'

'WHAT? He dug up a bomb? With the digger? Where were the children?'

'Um....sitting on it I think.'

'Are you MENTAL?'

'Well I did wonder but I reckoned your dad would know if it was dodgy or not'

'WHAT THE FUCK DOES MY FUCKING DAD KNOW ABOUT FUCKING BOMBS???!!!!!!'

'Well......he was a kid in the war-'

'YOU STUPID FUCKING WOMAN!!!! YOU DON'T WANT TO LISTEN TO MY FUCKING DAD!!!!! HE'S FUCKING MENTAL!!!!!!!!'

So we had the police, and the Bomb Disposal Unit round. While we told him about yesterday's games of Catch the Bomb and Bomb Badminton and Drill the Bomb etc...... Bless him.

Just an empty shell as it turned out. I knew that. He has a way of making you doubt your own mind by drowning out your thoughts with his own panic. I've kind of got used to it now - (still hideous to get on an aeroplane with. Terrible if anyone coughs. Murder in an adventure playground. Children eating fish - god!)

Trouble was he kept asking where things were after the Bomb Day. 'Have you seen the barbeque grill?' 'Do you know where my lawn-mower went?' 'What happened to my old golf trolley?'

'Um...............in the hole!'

Why? Stop Asking Questions? ...........why?

What would you (you out there) have LIKED to have learned at school?

What useful stuff do you remember from school?

How do you find stuff out now?

Do you think if someone had told you this stuff when you were a kid you would have been interested?

Are you still interested in any of the same stuff now that you were back then?

If your school was just a building full of resources and friendly interested/interesting people to help you find out what you might want to know, would you have learned stuff or just taken the piss and not bothered talking to any of them?

If there was such a place now, would you leap at the chance to have a peep, or think there's now point now?

Is youth truly wasted on the young?

Is 'education' wasted on the young?

Do you only talk to people of your own age?

Do you think children are aliens?

Do you think old people are aliens?

Do you read for pleasure?

Do you watch documentaries about stuff you don't know much about, or only about stuff you already know everything about?

Do you use logarithms (excuse the spelling - I haven't a clue and don't care) in your day-to-day world?

Do you play netball?

Do you sing hymns in the morning?

Do you wear exactly the same clothes every day?

Do you speak when you're spoken to or whenever the spirit pokes you?

Do you ask permission to go to the toilet?

Can you work out your change before the digital cash register does it for you?

Could you write a letter to The House of Lords if required?

Can you cook an ommelette, or make a skirt, or work out why the car rattles?

Can you think of something to do when there's 'nothing' to do?

Can you empty your head and just be?

Can you drop everything come out for tea and cake?

Can you make a cake?

Can you make a scene?

Can you make the voices stop?

Can you see the point in being a grown-up?

Can your children?

Does it matter?

Seriously - I want to know. Anything!

I Scream for Ice Queen

Woooo Woooooo Wooooooo Woooooooo !!!!!!! I used to be able to do perfectly acceptable Woooo Woooooos in my youth. I sound more like a 2CV engine on the first day of winter now but still I persist. That's my little girl out there and I'm going to Woooo Woooooo for all I'm worth.

I think Woooo Woooooing is a bit like dancing. Skills instantly replaced after childbirth by the ability to balance cotton-reel snakes, shin-pads, speeding tickets, vase of dead flowers, scissors, 7 odd gloves, half a pizza and a full potty on the edge of the fridge for weeks at a time.

But now and then one forgets that one is not in the full bloom of pre-childness and one embarks on reckless Woooo Woooooing in public in front of one's children and is forever marked down as mutton dressed as Blue Peter Presenter.

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! would have been more appropriate.

But there I was. Chief Cheerleader - due to The Cough. Dog Boy and His Cough. Whenever he gets a cold, he gets The Cough. Which then lasts for a further 3 weeks. And we're still less than a week in. Bark Bark Bark Bark Bark Bark Bark Bark - you get the picture. Bark Bark Bark Bark ............... Poor little sod.

So the weekend's plans changed (as they always bloody do) and instead of 2 happy boys staying and Nanny and Grandad's on Sunday/Monday, and Minx having Mummy AND Daddy (+ Thuglet but hey.... ) whisking her away to a hotel Sunday and watching her ice skating competition TOGETHER on the Monday - Nah! - Daddy gets to spend a sleepless night with one perpetual barker and one perpetual wriggler all on the same settee and Mummy gets a doe-eyed 'Is Daddy coming?' little Minxie-pops with regular 'When's Daddy going to get here?' ..... 'Is he coming in the morning?' ..... 'Couldn't he just leave them behind?' ..... 'WHY DID YOU MAKE ME HAVE BROTHERS ???' etc All after a multi-award winning bare-knuckle drive to the hotel. (And the Award for Most Innappropriate Language spat at a Sat Nav Device goes to........)

But we did get to the ice rink with a whole hour before it shut on the Sunday for a familiarizing 'go' - but they wouldn't let us in. 'It's too full and we're cashing up.'

In my head I grabbed her by her eyeballs and smashed her face against the screen.

In reality I walked away - not daring to speak actual words until I was away from the temptation of actual violence.

Cutting to the chase: Monday morning. Forgetting the agonies, the U-turns, the pleading phone-calls, the disappointments, Mummy's tantrums, the 'mare that is a 3 year old boy shut in a hotel room for 11 hours with access to squirty soap and spiralling toilet rolls ............ We are HERE! Minx looks gorgeous in her shocking pink and black sequinned dress - all made-up and hair-sprayed and glittered and buzzing. Music is blaring. Flowers are flying. The atmosphere is jolly. And we are counting down....... Minx's coach decides to add more eye-liner, more foundation, more blusher .... 'You look like an Oompa-Loompa here but on the ice it'll be fantastic!'

I love Minx's coach. She is the only person in the world who can boss Minx about and get an 'OK!'

She's finally on the ice for the warm-up. Last minute coaching - 'Change the Upright for a Parallel they're giving higher marks for them! Show me your Parallel! OK stick with the Upright!'

And we're on. Her music starts. I can't breathe. She looks so beautiful. She's so obviously the best skater in the whole wide world and ........

- ssshhhhhhkkkfffffflllmmmmmmmpppppphhhhhhhh!!!!!

My angel! Flat on her beautiful face. Hands to face gasping all round.

But she got straight up and got the BIGGEST applause and cheering from everyone and then did a great jump and carried on. My nerves just can't take this.

But I am SO proud of her. And she was surprisingly cool about it all. She's such a star my Minx.

I told her it's much better to be really good at something and do something mental and get the gasps than just be a bit .... 'this one's not very good is she? So I said to him I did.....' And it was quite spectacular.

And just think of all those Olympic skaters who had trained all their lives for this moment, flown across the world, carried their nation's flag - and still fell flat on their arses.

It's bloody slippy out there.

And next time Daddy WILL be there. Golf or no golf, sick boys or no sick boys, Cheryl Cole on the phone or no........

And next time I will remember to throw the flowers and the bunny.