musingsponderingsandrants

Parenting, profundities and humour

Category: fun

It’s Lonely Out Here in Glitter Land… — December 6, 2015

It’s Lonely Out Here in Glitter Land…

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I think these were from 2012

My children and I have this tradition. Well we have many and at this time of year, at the very beginning of Advent, we have a huge amount. Christingle, decorating the house so it looks like a cheap grotto,  Advent calendars without chocolate, making reindeer food etc. But the particular tradition I am meaning here is the making of cards for teachers and close relatives.

Every year I convince myself that what every Primary teacher really, really wants is a card lovingly handmade by their pupil. Maybe with a thoughtful handwritten message, complete with poor spelling and illegible writing. And not a bottle of wine.

I am probably wrong. It is probably me that would really like a handmade card complete with a poorly spelt but loving message. And in a master stroke of psychology I am persuaded that others would like this too. Preferably with glitter.

Nothing says  to me ‘I appreciate you’ more than effort. And time. And so that is what we try to do for those important people in my children’s lives. Take time and make effort.

Every year I come up with an age appropriate card making activity. I have to confess that this is not a totally altruistic act on my part. I am quite crafty. In a glue, paper cutting, glittery way. Life does not contain enough opportunities to undertake such activities. And so this one is very welcome.

When my three were little it was hard to manage their enthusiasm. It was safe to say that the finished products certainly looked home made. I was often a wreck of stress uttering  phrases like ‘No its your brothers turn!’ and ‘Please don’t use the glitter whilst your brother is spraying me with gold paint!’ and ‘Try to keep the glue on the card and not on the carpet/ table/ your hair’ and such like.

We had to form queues for each to ‘have their go’. There was a scramble to make those odd cards for godparents.

Then last year the reluctance set in.  Well certainly amongst Eldest and Middlest. Instead of making one card each for every relative they made only  one to send signed by all three of them. And even then Youngest made the lion’s share.

This year I have come up with an activity that most people would find hard to resist. I wanted something that would attract even Eldest. Therefore it needed to be messy. And quick. Some of those card recipients will be reading this so I am not going to elaborate further. Well, OK, it involves paint…and a toothbrush…and glitter….

I have cut out templates and cards and had a dry (well wet and messy but you know what I mean) run. And Youngest has come down and made one card. The others cannot be persuaded away from Minecraft.

So there it is. Is there a sadder sight than a mother sat at her newspaper covered table surrounded by bits of card and paint. But completely lacking in children.

I miss those enthusiastic years. A lot.

The teachers will probably be pleased with the Pinot Grigo though….

I made those….in case you thought my 8 year old was a genius with the scissors…

Your Starter for Ten… — September 22, 2015

Your Starter for Ten…

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  quiz shows

Here is a little secret. I like watching TV quiz shows.

My current favourites are Pointless and Only Connect. But quite honestly I will watch almost any quiz show. Except celebrity Family Fortunes. Even the comedy ‘Uh-ah’ klaxon cannot make up for the cringey host (whose name I forget) and the awful relatives of those who are vaguely famous.

In my view there are several ingredients for a successful quiz show. Firstly a great host or hosts. Here is where Pointless has it for me. The combo of Alexander and Richard, the comedian and the nerd made famous, is killer.

But I also like stern hosts, like Jesser Paxman, avuncular hosts, such as him off Countdown and t’other one from Mastermind, funny hosts (see Pointless above), genial hosts, good old Dale, he of the orange fake tan (I know he is a plastic surgery car crash but I have fond student memories of watching Supermarket Sweep) and finally hosts who are easy on the eye.

Mmmmm, Nick Knowles, my secret, slightly worrying crush. I like to see him turned out in a suit on that Lottery list show (lists are soooo yummy). It makes a refreshing and slightly erotic change from his builder gear in DIY SOS. I often think Sky should have a ‘personality record’ function to run alongside its series record function. Then I would never miss anything with Nick Knowles in….Lists and Nick Knowles….life doesn’t really get much better.

Sorry I slipped off into a bit of a reverie there. Back on track now.

Back to quizzes (slightly reluctantly). There needs to be a good format. Recently there seems to have been a proliferation of really quite clever games shows. Back to Pointless again. To my mind the idea is simply, well simple, but ingenious.

In case you are one of a very few people left in the Western World who is not familiar with my favourite game show the general idea is to think of correct yet obscure answers to a wide range of different questions. Beforehand the show has asked 100 members of the public to answer the same questions. The idea is to try to get a pointless answer. That is a correct answer that none of those 100 people responded with.

So for instance imagine a question such as ‘Provide the name of any Muppet’. Kermit would be right but score highly. Swedish Chef less so. Etc. I would urge you to watch the show if you are still unsure. Or maybe you like being in a very small club…

Anything that involves asking members of the public anything is always a winner. It never ceases to amaze me that if you ask 100 members of the great British public a question such as ‘Name a famous French landmark’ the answer Eiffel Tower will not glean a score of 100. It would probably get 89. I always wonder what those 11 other people were thinking. Or if they were thinking at all. Scary.

There are other clever quiz shows out there. I like Tipping Point and Only Connect. Both new (well to me) and quite interesting.

One involves a giant shove tuppenny amusement arcade machine. With ridiculously easy and almost incidental questions. The fun is in whether the tokens will ‘ride’ and how many will fall off the edge. Many more than in all the seaside arcades I have ever been in.

The other is quite high brow with teams of physics graduates finding obscure connections whilst looking like they have strayed from the set of The IT Crowd. The hostess is buxom which probably appeals to those perpetual student types. Tonight I did appallingly on ‘Novels by Thomas Pynchon’ but much better on ‘BBC shows that have run for more than 25 years’. Probably signifying my level, intelligence wise, but also demonstrating the show’s wide appeal.

And so it helps a programme’s appeal if the questions are do-able, at least in part, at home. So really I shouldn’t like University Challenge (personal record 7 right answers in an episode….yep an episode) but I do in a kind of jaw dropping, awe inspired way. And anyway I love the scorn of Paxman. And get my fix of it there without having to sit through Question Time.

Similarly the first half of Mastermind is a dull view unless one of the contestants’ specialist subjects is something one knows anything about. The general knowledge round however sparks my interest (personal best 10 per round….per round). And a certain amount of competition between husband and I. I just cough loudly if any chemistry questions come up. My degree in the subject was a very, very long time ago.

And that brings me to celebrity versions of such shows. Well it doesn’t bring me to there really but hey I want to talk about them.

The producers would deny it but I am sure they dumb down the questions for those who are famous.  Certainly I get more questions right on such shows. I do have trouble recognising most of the ‘celebrities’ though. Not always however. Geoffrey from Rainbow was on the other night. He was instantly recognisable even without Zippy and George. He had to sit down between rounds. Bless. Proper kids’ TV royalty though.

My favourite ever celebrity version of a show was one where Keith Harris and Orville formed a team on Pointless. The kids could not understand why they were at a massive disadvantage to the other couples taking part. They thought I was being ‘duckist’. I think as a team they got as far as the Head to Head round. Again incredibly funny.

So there you have it. I like quiz shows. What a lot of nonsense.

NK3 nickknowles-2 nickknowles suit

Sorry felt I had to put in some photos….

Balls…. — September 3, 2015

Balls….

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I am writing this whilst Middlest and Youngest run amok in our local soft play centre. Of all the wondrous and exciting things I offered to take them to today whilst Eldest is at school and a friend’s house this is what they wanted to do.

In the foyer there is a hippo bearing the slogan ‘You must be smaller than me to play in here’.

It is not an actual hippo, you understand, but a wooden effigy of a hippo. It is obviously not real as it stands on its back legs about five foot high. Which I guess is the point. Damn it why didn’t I take a picture? Anyway. I digress. Again.

During my many, many trips here over the duration of my parenthood I have paid that hippo scant regard. Eldest has naturally outgrown the soft play experience. But today Middlest just scraped in. Luckily he already had his shoes off. Within minutes they had returned to our encampment in the café to let me know that the place is apparently ‘smaller’ than they remembered.

And so our time as a family in such places is coming to a close. There are more ‘grown up’ versions of soft play. High rope courses, trampoline centres, indoor surfing, climbing walls, death slides. But, still, I have an affection for this shed full of ball pits and slides and cargo nets.

My first experience was when my NCT antenatal group celebrated our eldest children’s first birthday here. There were no other kids in our lives. We spent the afternoon helping our crawling first borns climb up small sets of padded steps and slide safely down, well, small slides. We hovered and protected them from the ‘big’ kids, who had reached walking stage and were perhaps 3. The dads came too. It was a milestone moment. It celebrated not only their birthdays but also all of us surviving a whole year in the new uncharted territory of parenthood. And all against the backdrop of that hippo.

When my eldest two were little we came here a fair bit in school term time for the morning on wet days before rushing home for the afternoon nap. It was cheap and convenient and always quiet.  Because it was so quiet I used to take my, by then, toddling boys on the ‘main frame’, venturing out from the safe harbour of the Under 4’s area. Onto the large slides and big gym balls.

Of course this neccesitated me going on too. To push them by their nappied bottoms up the more difficult inclines. And to be honest I quite enjoyed it. Except once when I was heavily pregnant with Youngest and I got wedged in a pair of rollers. A mass of two year olds prevented an exit in reverse and anyway my two precious charges had forged on ahead into the gloom of the ‘dark pyramid’ area where large and steep unmarked tube slides awaited. I had to squeeze. And hope. She was born a few weeks later apparently unharmed.

My first ever foray into organising birthday parties for friends took place here. Eldest’s fourth. With his pre school buddies. I was over anxious and over thought everything as usual. The party was a great success and it was then I realised that hosting parties at a venue used to dealing with such events was ‘the way forward’. I believe all my children have had at least one of their parties here since.

I have had long conversations with friends in the cafe whilst periodically forcing squash into sweaty off spring and purchasing chips.

I have sat on my own reading with a cuppa grabbing a bit of ‘quiet’ and me time.

And today I am writing this. After I discovered that there has been the surprise addition of free Wifi since I last visited.

I am going now to partake before it gets too busy and parents are banned, excepting those rescuing ‘stuck’ children. It may be the last time I can. The lure of one last go in the ball pit is strong. As long as one doesn’t  think too hard about the possibility of unsavoury contents I find it quite liberating.

So, so long soft play centre. I might have the occasional pang. Onwards and upwards. Probably in harnesses.

Footnote I am not sure how Youngest managed to dress herself to provide exact camouflage in the giant gym ball area…but it was a tad un-nerving.