‘ Nothing comes of nothing' well, that’s for sure.
Day 2423 in the Big Bother House and I need to order an Ocado shop.
I take Maisie to school.
The day is soft and clear.
March is doing that thing again, lulling me into a false sense of security, I take my scarf off on the way home and breath deeply, spring is here, for a bit.
Last night I threw Zac’s mattress out of his bedroom window. I was changing his sheets and realised that his mattress had developed a personality and a micro-climate. I think it may be responsible for that piece of ice ‘the size of the Isle of Man’ shearing off from the Wilkins ice shelf in the Antarctic. It’s odd, actually, normally things are the ‘ size of Wales ‘, I wonder which is bigger the Isle of Man or Principality of Wales ? Anyway, apart from global disaster, the upshot of spontaneous mattress chucking was this.
Zac : ‘ Where am I going to sleep ? It’s ridiculous, you can’t just chuck people’s mattresses out of their bedroom windows.’
Me : ‘ I’m sorry but frankly that mattress was beyond toleration, that mattress was alive, that mattress..’
Zac : ‘ Was my bed, actually.’
I explained to Zac that I have ordered another mattress from John Lewis, it’s coming on Tuesday and that he can sleep in the playroom until then which will be nice for him as he can shoot aliens until the small hours without interruption.
Zac : ‘ Can Otto come over ?’
On the way back from taking Maisie to school I met a Perfect Doctor and the man from down the road who runs Jolly Computers Dot Com.
Jolly Computers had a parking ticket because he’d forgotten to renew his permit, Perfect Doctor got one for leaving one wheel over the white line of his bay. Bella saw us chatting and came out of her house to say she had one for no reason at all.
Bella invited me in for coffee.
Bella’s eldest has a place at Chelsea to do a foundation course which is nice.
Her cleaner has a nasty upstairs neighbour who keeps flooding her flat - you get that sort of thing in Islington - Bella’s cleaner says she might do a swap and move back over this way. She said she told her floody neighbour that she’d be choosing the new tenant and they’d better watch out because she might get some Asians in, who’d stink the place out with curry the whole time and leave catering sized bags of rice in the hall that would attract the mice.
‘Is that what Asians do ?’ I asked.
“Yes.’ she said ‘And I can tell you, they’re being a bit more considerate now, that’s for sure.
Friday 28th March 2008.
Ukelele teacher
Stress
Rachel comes over with Daisy. Rachel is very high powered and has a baby. She is training to be a doctor and she is very stressed because Daisy’s ukelele teacher has a ‘ball frying’ ex wife and he has had to cancel Daisy’s ukelele lesson for the third time while he trys to find some legal aid. Rachel is upset because if Daisy doesn’t achieve at ukelele she may not get into Edgeware where they set great store by musical achievement.
Daisy stays the night.
Ellis comes for chip night. Ellis is very stressed because his floorboards have begun to crack.
Ellis orders two sausages at the Chinese chip shop to combat any sibling rivalry.
I make Ellis and me an enormous salad and I cook Tilapia because I think it’s one of the very few fish that one is allowed to eat without destroying the planet, but I might be wrong.
Ellis and me don’t eat chips because we are hench.
Ellis goes home early because he has to take Hannah for an interview in Wales for a sixth form place at an International School where you may end up in Canada or Italy and where you will certainly become Eurotrash and learn to sail.
Ellis’s youngest will stay with me while they go.
Hetty is staying with Delia Smith’s food photographer’s ex-wife who is a very high powered architect and barely has time to turn round and spit.
Later, I get a phone call from Bangalore. The man on the other end pretends to be called Peter and says he is calling from South Africa. I say,
‘If you were South African you would says “Yis” not “Yah.” It’s Ok to be Indian, you know. My grandmother ran the Raj in India for years.’
The man in Bangalore seems rather nonplussed, just as I had planned.
‘ Admit you are in India.’ I say ‘ Are you, or are you not in Bangalore ?’
The man from Bangalore hangs up.
It’s a shame because I had been going to tell him that he was being exploited by a large multi-national and that with his obvious skills he should try to get a Visa and come to England where call centres pay an absolute fortune to out of work actors and Poles and are crying out for Indians.
John comes home very late. there is no news so he has been busy making some up.
He opens his post and finds he has been sent a signed photo of himself and Dolly Parton. It’s very funny and I will have to take it to Steve to get it framed.
John tells me his editor has asked him to find out what sort of music Boris Johnson likes and to take him out to a gig.
That is so unfair.
I want to take Boris to a gig.
Sunday 30th March 2008
March is nearly over. Hurray !
Zac.
Zoo.
Zac has gone to Wiltshire with the Vowels in a very privileged way. He has packed all his clothes because quad biking gets you very muddy. He took a train from Paddington to Chippenham and it cost £42 which is extortionate.
Before Zac went to Wiltshire, he spent some time in the bathroom and asked me to get him some spot cream.
‘Why ?’ I said ‘Are there going to be girls in Wiltshire?’
‘God, Mum.’ said Abigail, who was standing by the cooker eating mange tout with balsamic vinegar, ‘Why do you always ask that ? Will there be girls there ? Will there be boys there ? He’s 16 you know, so what if there are girls there?’
‘Well, I said ‘ A boy can be very vulnerable to girls of that age. Some of them are very predatory actually. My brother was jumped on by a girl when he was 15 and lost his virginity by accident. Maybe Zac should have some condoms with him.’
‘OK,’ said Zac ‘ Can we stop this conversation right now please ?’
‘Yeah.’ said Abigail ‘Don’t be ridiculous. It’s not the 70s you know, when everyone went around having unprotected sex and listening to David Bowie on vinyl.’
‘ OK’ I said ‘ Zac, what’s the fat one called ?’
‘ The fat what ? ‘ asked Zac.
‘The fat girl ?’ I said ‘ And what’s the pretty blonde one called ?’
‘ Melanie... How do you know who’s going ? How do you know there’s a pretty blonde one and a fat one ?’ asked Zac.
Abigail rolled her eyes.
‘ There is always a pretty one and a fat one in all groups of girls.’ I said. ‘The most dangerous girl will be Melanie’s slightly less blonde best friend. Watch her like a hawk.’
Zac rolled his eyes and went to Wiltshire.
I take Maisie and Ellis’s youngest to the zoo. It is a lovely day because March has nearly done with us. The trees are frosted with palest green and the sky is a clear, washed blue.
At the Zoo we agree that the Golden Headed Tamarind is just like Abigail. ‘It even pulls the same face when it’s cross.’ says Maisie. We think Ellis’s youngest is probably a Meerkat and that Maisie is a Slender Loris. I think I am a Camel.
April 2nd 2008
Zac
Ellis
Gillian Mckeith
I am worried about Abigail. Yesterday she ate nothing at all. Today we had this conversation :
‘Abigail I am worried about how little you are eating. If you insist on continuing on your present course you will be ill.
You will have a horrible summer locked up in a loony bin being fed by giant, fat psychiatric nurses with moustaches.
You ate nothing at all yesterday. I insist that you eat something and I insist that it not broccoli or peas.’ I said , authoritatively.
‘God, you’re so making such a meal of this.’ Abigail replied ‘I’m 18. I told you I have a bug. It makes me feel sick. I feel ill, that’s why I’m not eating. It’s got nothing to do with the other stuff.’
‘OK,’ I said ‘In that case, when you are over your ‘bug’ which, oddly, no one else in the house has caught, I want you to eat a bowl of cereal. You need to eat a wider variety of food and you need to reintroduce some protein into your diet.’
‘ This is ridiculous. It’s like living with Gillian McKeith. You’ll be rifling through my pooh next. ‘ said Abigail.
I think that was quite rude, I have no intention of rifling through her pooh in the manner of Gillian McKeith who is a tiny Scottish woman with a hunched up back which I, demonstrably, am not.
Later on, Abigail ate some cereal.
Zac came back from Wiltshire. He spent most of the weekend on a quadbike shooting people with something called a BB gun.
It was terrific fun.
He spent the rest of the weekend in the indoor swimming pool and now he is worried.
‘How do you get muscles ?’ he said. ‘Look at my back, it’s got a lump.’ he said. ‘I’m deformed. Look, it’s terrible. What shall I do ?’ he said.
I looked at his back and his front. Zac is very skinny. Zac doesn’t stand up straight. ‘Stand up straight.’ I said.
‘If you want muscles you have to use weights and you have to do sit ups... I think.’ I said.
‘Otto had muscles and he doesn’t do weights. It’s not fair.’ said Zac ‘And I’ve definitely got a hump, I can’t stand up straight with a hump.’
Zac has got a hump. What shall I do? Why are my two older children such physical messes ? This is bound to be my fault.
‘Did those girls in Wiltshire give you a hard time?’ I ask.
“No’, said Zac ‘The fat one didn’t like me much. What shall I do about the hump?’
I am going to get Zac a personal trainer. It will cost a lot of money, but I can’t have a son with a hump and not try to get him some ‘core strength’ or similar to combat it.
Much later Ellis came back from Wales.
Ellis is exhausted.
I make fish pie.
Ellis’s youngest is ecstatic to see him.
Ellis says. ‘It was a nightmare. The car broke down as soon as we arrived home, and I had to go straight to work. Hannah will be so disappointed if she doesn’t get into that school. It’s like a castle by the sea and the gardens are full of beautiful people reading poetry under trees’
It sounds amazing.
‘I had to go to The Unit in a taxi when I got back. I had to section someone who kept taking all her clothes off and running about on Hampstead Heath whilst threatning suicide.’ went on Ellis ‘And I had my eyebrowes threaded while I was in Wales. Do you like them ?’
He looks like Mr Spock.
Imagine being sectioned by Mr Spock.
‘Then I had to go back to The Unit in another taxi because I forgot to put the girl’s name on the paperwork.’ said Ellis. ‘ There was a police car and an ambulance hanging around waiting for me for hours’. ‘It was so embarrassing. Hannah really loved that school. Have you opened that wine yet ?’ said Ellis
I am glad I am not a psychiatrist.
3am. Insomnia..... how boring.
John is having a dream. It woke me up. I can’t see how John can be having a dream because he has no imagination but he keeps muttering and thrashing about. Perhaps he is reliving an old episode of Doctor Who.
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