Handmade cards to e-cards, caroling to MP3s… How has technology changed your holiday traditions?
Sponsored by LifeScoop: Bringing You Tips for a Connected Lifestyle.It hasn't.
I am sitting at the dining table trying to organise Christmas Amazon orders to various family factions.
I am facing the open french windows and looking down to the bottom of the garden where, under a startling pink bower of Bourgainvillia, Sprog has set up a small table and chair. She has very carefully carried her bowl of porridge and her cup of milk down to her table. She is sitting in state, putting me in mind of a Victorian jungle explorer taking tea.
Wilf has gone down to bug her and she is distracting him by singing her very own version of jingle bells. Rattling a jingly baby toy she is lustily singing "Jingle bells! Jingle bells Jingle all the WAY!! (Hey!) Ohmah fahhh eddesterahhh! Amana OPEN SLEIGH (hey!)"
Wilf is clutching his nadgers and dancing from one foot to the other, laughing like a drain.
They are both starkers.
Life is good.
What was your favorite class in high school? (And no, lunch doesn't count.)
Lunch class? Pah.
How about smoking behind the newsagents across the road class?
Or bunking off and going to Drummonds class?
Or maybe those free periods either side of lunch when my friend would drive us to the Dome on the Kings Road and I'd drink gin and tonics before returning to my A Level English Literature class?
Lunch class, schmunch class.
There should be alcoholic tea.
Sometimes you really need a cup of tea, but you could also do with a drink.
Some people put whiskey in tea. But then your delicious tea would taste of whiskey. Yuck.
Cognac, I suppose, but again, it would be ruining both a perfectly nice cup of tea and a glass of cognac.
Coffee lends itself so much more to the addition of alcohol, but coffee doesn't scratch the itch that tea does.
An evening drink that combines the oooooh of a good cup of tea and the ahhhhh of a gin and tonic. Then my life would be complete.
I have blogged here about Italy and stuff, and will be doing so regularly from now on. There's quite a lot to say. Do drop in and comment - 'twould be lovely to see some friendly faces.
So, the music quiz answers, in the style of e.e. cummings, are as follows:
1. marry the man today, guys and dolls
2. distance, editors
3. the last resort, eagles
4. the accidental, gene
5. local god, everclear
6. how do you feel, 5ive
7. am i the only one (who's ever felt this way)?, dixie chicks
8. sweden, divine comedy
9. spinning the wheel, george michael
10. mile end, pulp
11. disco inferno, the trammps
12. lady marmalade, labelle
13. i just wanna make love to you, etta james
14. manhattan, kings of leon
15. you better you bet, the who
16. jimmy olsen's blues, spin doctors
17. mirrorball, elbow
18. changes, david bowie
19. goodnight moon, shivaree
20. goodnight goodnight, maroon 5
Are you prepared in case of a natural disaster? What do your plan and preparations include?
I have an ice pack in the freezer in case there's a volcano. or I'll just run whatever it is under cold water, I reckon.
I also have my Cave Plans ongoing - including who's in and who's out. Plus the tent that Big Boy won't let me get rid of (we haven't camped since 2005) 'just in case there's a nuclear holocaust' and we need to escape the city for the woods.
MUUUUUUM! Wilfie did a POOOOOOO!
Comming!
On the FLOOOOOOR!
Comming faster!
Of your BEDROOOOOOOOM!
Ahhhh!
Just next to your beautiful new sparkly CARRRRRRPET!
I'm here! Where is the poo?
There.
Where is the rest of it?
Nowhere.
There is no other poo?
No. Just a little tiny cute baby poo.
Really?
Yes.
Hmm. Okay. Just this tiny poo then.
And the wee.
There's wee?
Yes.
Where?
Umm...
Where is the wee darling?
... ... ...
Sprog darling, have a think and tell Mummy where on the floor Wilfie did his wee.
The wee you're standing in, or a different wee Mummy?
- Does Father Christmas know what I want for Christmas Mummy?
- Oh yes, he's clever like that.
- Does he know I want a yo-yo?
- I am sure he does.
- Will you tell him?
- We can write him a letter if you like?
- Yes. And you can write words on it to let him know.
- I'll do that.
- And I'll draw a picture of a yo-yo, just in case.
- Good idea.
- Or, I could just draw a picture of a yo-yo on some paper and I could pretend it's a real yo-yo and play with that?
At the party I met a lovely lady whose children went to school with the hosts' children. She was shocked that I had brought my children to sleep in the spare room and asked why I didn't let my nanny babysit. I told her I didn't have a nanny. This is very unusual in Dubai and not a concept that some people find easy to understand. It is even more shocking to some women to learn that the reason it really is not hard for me to look after my two children without the help of permanent live-in staff is that my husband is every bit as capable as me in every aspect of looking after our children (although he has yet to get lactating down pat). One woman actually shrieked and grabbed her husband to witness when Mr S , not me, went to settle Sprog to sleep shortly after we arrived.
So, I am often fiercely grilled as to why I don't have a nanny. Last night I said that we simply didn't have the room in our house to put up a nanny.
- Couldn't she sleep in with the children, in their room?
- Um, no. Not really. A third bed would make the room awfully crowded.
- Ha ha! No! She wouldn't need a bed. Just a bed roll which she can store away during the day.
- Yeh... anyway... she'd still need a room wherever she slept and we don't have a spare room.
- Why would she need a room?
- To keep her clothes? Her things?
- Oh mine has a cupboard in the children's bathroom for that.
- Your nanny sleeps on the floor of your children's room?
- Yes of course.
- But don't you live in Emirates Hills?
- Yes. In a five-bedroom villa!
- And you only have two children?
- Yes.
- So you must have spare rooms?
- Well, yes, but I need them.
- Hang on, the Emirates Hills places all have maid's rooms.
- Yes, but I wanted the maid's room for my study.
- But there's...
- My husband has the main study.
- But still...
- Yes, the children actually share a room, and I have a sewing room, and we've not decided what to do with the last bedroom yet.
- You have a room standing empty and a woman sleeping on the floor of your children's room? Why not let the nanny have the extra room?
- Oh, I don't think I like the idea of her having her own space. I wouldn't know what she was up to.
- This is a woman you trust enough to take on the entire care of your children, but not to read a book in private?
I didn't say the last bit. I smiled politely and walked away.
I checked this out with friends and have learned that apparently my good friend F also has her nanny sleeping on the floor of her son's room, despite having a large en-suite spare room standing empty.
And when V went to stay with her Mother-in-Law and took her nanny with her, MiL would not let the nanny sleep in the empty, spare, twin bed in the children's room. She did not want staff sleping in the family beds and so the nanny slept on the floor on a bed roll next to an empty spare bed.
