Weevilstepmother

So, a couple of days before our holiday, Tallboy and I are planning our route to Romsey. I reach for the Road Atlas, Tallboy grabs the TomTom Go and punches in the postcode. The majority of the route is our normal road towards regular destination Ringwood - I decide which way I think is best from the map, Tallboy decides that we'll use the TTG. 'Look,' he says, 'it's only 80 miles and will take us 2 hours 33 minutes.' The night before we go, Tallboy decides to input our day out destination into the TTG ready for when we need it. He rather likes the TTG...

Sunday afternoon we load up the car and pile in. Tallboy suckers the TTG to the windscreen with Oliver Hardy-esque smugness and precision. He'd have done that tie-fingering thing too, had he been wearing one... The TTG took us south towards Bath and then directed us in exactly the opposite direction we would normally have taken. We glanced at each other and agreed that we would have faith in the little magic box. As Tallboy negotiated the roundabout, I peeped behind me and checked that the Road Atlas was in its usual place (in the rear offside footwell so that the kids can really trample it good without putting themselves out too much) in case of emergency directions requirements.

The TTG took us down a most unpromising-looking lane where we ended up at the tail end of a tailback. The cause of the holdup was an ancient-looking toll bridge, staffed by a brace of inept-looking herberts whose traffic management skills amounted to standing in the middle of the bridge, flapping their hands ineffectually and shrugging in a pseudo-Gallic manner. As we pulled away from the bridge and navigated back onto our normal route, Tallboy and I agreed that it would have been further to drive had we taken the old way. Quicker, and cheaper - but further...

I settled back into the passenger seat, knowing I wasn't to be called on to navigate as the nice lady told Tallboy where to go. We conjectured about the point where we would be diverted from our usual Ringwood route. I stood by my Atlas-planned route. Tallboy just showed huge faith in the TTG. So much faith in fact, that when we passed the point where I would have turned off, I quelled my worries, reminding myself that at Bath we had gone the opposite way I would have chosen and here we were happily on our way. Although Tallboy did start getting twitchy as we approached Ringwood, miles away from our destination. 'I'd have thought we'd have turned off by now,' he muttered, peering sternly at the TTG screen.

I mused a little. I wondered. I cogitated. I ruminated. 'Er, Tallboy dearest,' I enquired gently, 'did you actually set up the TTG to take us to where we're going, or is it just doing its default thing and taking us to the last destination you entered?' Tallboy's response said it all: 'Er...' The TTG was taking us to our day out destination for the next day (a little spot just near Ringwood), and not our accommodation. Wordlessly I reached for the Atlas, and glad to shake my brain out of its torpor, navigated us elegantly and stylishly to the door of what is possibly the most brilliant place to stay on the planet.

On the way back, we swung past Poole (Tallboy indulging me in my desire to make a pilgrimage to the home of Lush). At a roundabout just outside Poole we saw a lorry which had shed its load of steel girders. Blue flashing lights, policemen directing traffic, the works. The oncoming traffic was being diverted off the main road and the huge tailback of traffic that we passed had no idea what lay in store for it. We only sniggered a little.

Pilgrimage over, the TTG was asked to navigate us home. It all went swimmingly. Until we ended up at that roundabout. You know, the one with the lights and the lorry. Diverted we were, all off our route and everything.

'No matter,' said Tallboy lightly, 'she'll recalculate the route.'
'Please turn round, then take the roundabout, third exit'
'Nah, give her a minute, she'll recalculate.'
'Please turn round'
'Any minute now.'
'Please turn round'
'WE CAN'T BLOODY WELL TURN ROUND THERE'S A LORRY IN THE WAY!!!'
'Please turn round'
*click of mute button*

Later, when calm was restored, Tallboy noticed a brown sign. 'Ooh Badbury Rings, look.' A bit of a bonus that, rather off our route but very welcome nonetheless. 'Let's pull in, I'd love to have a little wander.' And we did. And it was fantastic - trees and Iron Age fortifications and a pond and dragonflies and cows and more butterflies than you could shake a curly antenna at. Perfect. In the middle of the clump of trees in the centre, Tallboy professed a need to wee. Looking around him in a semi-hunted manner, he ensured that the coast was clear before selecting his preferred shrub. Unthinking, I reached out my hand towards him, meaning to relieve him of his water bottle and leave both his hands free for the business in hand. He looked at me sideways and in somewhat petulant tones informed me 'It's all right, I can manage by myself, you know!'

Tallboy and I have been on holiday. Two nights near Romsey in a rather spiffing little establishment, and very nice it was too.

The only problem with going somewhere you've never been before is that you're going somewhere you've never been before. Yes, there are such things as maps, but these rather nifty little items become rather redundant when it's Tallboy sitting in the passenger seat next to you. He's very good at identifying the former species of what is by now just a mangled lump of protein at the side of the road. Or commenting on the year of manufacture, number of downpipes, engine capacity, cylinder arrangement, transmission quirks and nicknames of the motorbike hammering down the road in front of us. Or gazing vacantly out of the window just at the point when he ought to be looking at the sign showing which exit of the horribly be-junctioned roundabout up ahead we should be taking in order to arrive at our chosen holiday destination.

It was a great relief when he bought his TomTom Go. Funnily enough, although I'm the techie of the family, it failed to move me much at all. But Tallboy was all fiddling and poking and charging and excitement. So what that he had to take it outside into the garden in the rain for it to actually get a signal. He remained excited; I, unmoved. And he made me remove the custom splash screen I created for it. I still fail to see what could be objectionable about a finely crafted bitmap image of a pair of purple Y-fronts appearing every time the gizmo was switched on...

It did mean, however, that the stress of driving halfway across the country for work did evaporate rather. Knowing that he would get where he was going alleviated the routefinding worry and left him able to concentrate through the whole journey on worrying whether he'd be able to fix the broken kit when he got there.

The comforting lady's voice has become Tallboy's constant companion on the road. He has learned her foibles and ways, and they have an understanding. As for me - she freaks me out. 'Prepare to turn left' she says, and I'm poised like an ocelot about to spring. 'Not yet,' says Tallboy, 'she means in 800 yards or so.' I can't cope with too-early instructions. They throw me.

Then there's the motorway problem. When you're going in a straight line, she doesn't give you any instructions. Not even a little bit of chatter: 'You're doing grand there, Weevil, keep it up' or 'Have you lost weight at all?' or 'Lovely day for it' or anything. So you're on the M5 and the whole bloody point of being on the M5 is that you can go squidloads of miles without turning off the road. I drive. I concentrate on the traffic. I swear at the morons. I forget that the bloody TTG is there. Until we're 800 yards away from our junction. All of a sudden, heartstoppingly, from nowhere, comes the voice: 'prepare to turn left'. 'Arrrrrrrggggggggggggghhhhhhh!' I jump in my seat, I squeal in alarm, my heart pounds and to be honest it's likely that before long there's going to be a puddle in the driver's seat.

Er, this was meant to be a quick tale about our journey to Romsey. But I appear to have gone off at a little tangent. I'll tell you about it next time. In the meantime, perhaps I need a BlogNav?

'Prepare to pick up the thread.'
'Deviation ahead.'
'Cross the ramble-about, third exit.'
'You have reached the end of your post. Please remove all luggage and ensure the blog is securely locked when you leave it...'

As well as escape, my focus at the weekend was also making the acquaintance of a new member of the Weevil clan - the Cartographer and the Planner have produced a lovely little girl who does not in any way resemble a gibbon as previously predicted by me.

In a stunning display of synchronised chaos, the Planette put in her appearance a week before the Cartographer and the Planner were due to move house. The Planner went into hospital from one house and left to the other. From the new Auntie's point of view, it was an admirable opportunity for a cuddle with her favourite niece and a poke round a new house. Bonus.

Visiting the handy cloakroom conveniently situated off the spacious entrance hallway, I was slightly taken aback to see that the obscure glazing in the window behind the loo wasn't really very obscure at all. Just a little fuzzy, kinda. Even more alarming, it was overlooked by Next Door. I found this desperately offputting - I really don't like feeling visible when about my business.

I suppose I have a thing about loos that aren't mine. If I have something stressful bubbling up in my brain, it often manifests itself in my standard 'worry dream' which consists of me, in a strange place, needing a wee and finding only a loo that doesn't have a full door or is overlooked or has a secret second door that I didn't spot and so on. I don't like loos that have little doors, open windows, doors too close to the loo so you have to squeeze in, doors too far from the loo so you can't bring an emergency wedging foot into play should the lock fail, loos with holes drilled through the door (like at college), loos with an occupied adjacent cubicle...

When I was 16 and had finished my O levels, I had to do two weeks' voluntary work - I ended up at the Dogs' Home, cleaning kennels, feeding pooches, looking the other way on Fridays when the condemned pups were taken through to the Putting Down Room and avoiding going for a wee if I could possibly avoid it. They had a perfectly adequate ladies loo. It was just that it was miles away from the door. And on my first day the all-knowing 17 year old had told me the lads liked to take the lock off from the outside, and I believed her. My overriding memory of that place is a constant feeling of pressure...

My arch-nemesis toilet was to be found at the home of my Best Friend At School: Shrimp. A large, many-storied property, the loo was just outside her bedroom door at the top of the first flight of stairs, separate from the bathroom. The hours I spent at that house, refusing offers of cups of tea, in dread at the prospect of using that loo. The door, you see, was a huge single pane of clear glass. It was like sitting down for a wee in a phone box without the benefit of the discreet BT signage. I used to only go if I really had to, and was as quick I could possibly be, trembling at the impending excruciating embarrassment if one of the family came up the stairs. This never happened, though my fear never lessened.

The last time I used that loo, as I reached to open the door to leave, I noticed the discreet roller blind mounted at the top of the door...

I escaped last weekend - from Friday evening to Sunday morning I was a guest at the heavenly haven known as Mum's place - a gorgeous cottage in the Worcestershire countryside.

On Saturday afternoon, Mum was in bed having a leetle siesta, Brummie Stepdad was off at a Steam Fair and the dogs and I were sat in the garden in the sunshine. I was idly making a few jottings in my notebook and relishing the peace and tranquility surrounding me. As I sat there staring into space, the realisation dawned on me that it wasn't actually very peaceful at all, though the collection of background sounds ganged up to give that impression. What with the birds and dogs and so on, there was a veritable symphony happening all around me. To see it, you'll need to click here - it's the wrong shape to fit on this page...

Tallboy and I caught the Park and Ride into Bath yesterday. The day started well as we both jiggled excitedly in the car as we drove to Lansdown. 'I'm going to Lush! I'm going to Lush!' was my mantra, while Tallboy gleefully repeated 'I'm going on a bus! I'm going on a bus!" I guess we're easily pleased... Things deteriorated a little as the turning into the P&R place rather took Tallboy by surprise and we nearly went past it. And then we had a little tiff about what parking inside the bay really means. But in the end we made it onto the double decker and scrambled to the top deck to secure a place at the front for the best view.

It was a thrill-packed ride to Bath, round impossible corners and down vertiginous hills, our little white-knuckled hands clutching the bar as we lurched around in our seats. We staggered slightly as we alighted in Milsom street, anointed by the rain which had kindly started to fall to mark our re-entry onto Terra Firma. I grabbed Tallboy's hand and dodged round the bus, across the street and into the dry haven of Jollys. I looked round me and registered my presence at the makeup counter. A stroke of luck...

I hadn't actually mentioned to Tallboy but as part of the Weevil transform-a-thon (7 stone 1 lb lost so far and counting) I had planned to spend half an hour or so at the makeup counter, looking in bewilderment at the selection until a kind assistant whisked me away to make me up properly, revealing with a flourish an astonished and gorgeous reflection in the hand mirror to the hushed applause of half a dozen other customers overwhelmed by the amazing transformation. Or something like that. Trying to convey this on the spot was beyond me, so a suggestion that he wander off and avoid returning for half an hour or until earlier summons seemed to suffice.

Now, I performed quite well at the viewing extensive range of colours and products with bewilderment part. I've never been very good with makeup. I tried as a teenager and kind of gave up. The aim: sultry glamour. The outcome: third prize in free expression for three year olds with hand-eye co-ordination problems. My friends just seemed to touch the brushes to their lids and behold they looked wonderful. Mine looked lopsided and patchy and just pants really. Lipstick made their lips look luscious and pouting. Mine looked like I had been pigging out on jam doughnuts and had forgotten to lick my lips. How I envied their ability to make themselves look good. In the intervening years I had the occasional foray into makeup but it never looked right, I never felt comfortable with it on and I never stuck with it. I just didn't know what to do.

Now in front of me were eyeshadows and little brushes and pencils and medium sized brushes and lipsticks and pigments and big brushes and bottles with mysterious contents and tiny brushes and packages and well all kinds of unfamiliar stuff... Colours vibrant, muted, tantalising, offputting, smoky, pretty, scary, yukky, nice. Eek!

'Are you OK there?' came a little voice from behind my left shoulder. I turned gratefully to face her, er him, and started to explain what a numpty novice I was with makeup and how I fancied giving it a proper go as part of the Weevil transform-a-thon and could he please please help me? He steeled himself and said he'd give it a go. First he ran me through his look. 'Well, we've got Tangerine Acrostic over the brow, Savage Wombat to the crease, then I've got Asphodel Hamster blended into the socket and just a touch of Loulou la Web underneath.' 'Erk.' 'OK, you come here, take a seat, we'll try a daytime look for starters, here we go, a bunch of neutrals.' I sat there with my glasses off and eyes shut as he painted and dabbed and blended. He talked me through what he was doing, showed me what brushes he used for what and became the first person other than myself to apply mascara to my eyelashes (he did it a thousand percent better than any of my previous feeble attempts).

When he'd finished, he held up the mirror and I popped my glasses back on and peered in. No hushed applause. No glamorous reflection. Just me, looking tidy and nice. A subtle application that belied the effort that had gone into it. Something I could wear every day and feel nice in. But how could I be sure that I could reproduce what he'd done? I made him go over the brushes and their uses again. We rehearsed the order and location of application of the colours. He grabbed a lippy and suddenly my lips did look rather gorgeous and pouty. I was sold. The scary pile of makeup and brushes translated into an even scarier total on the till. What a mug I was going to feel if I couldn't use this stuff...

As I was about to attempt my barely-remembered credit card PIN number entry, my phone rang. Tallboy was wondering if he might come back yet? But yes, all finished this end. I met him in the street outside, and as he approached he smiled at me and bent his head to say in my ear 'You look lovely, darling.' He's not daft. Well, sometimes, anyway. He bent his head even more to plant a kiss on my lips but I turned my cheek. 'You can't kiss me! I've got lipstick on!'

When we got home I did something rather brave. I wiped off every trace of the beautifully applied makeup. And redid it all by myself, carefully unwrapping my three new mindblowingly expensive brushes, reverentially popping open my new little pots of eyeshadow, bracing my quivering hand to apply mascara and finally summoning enough courage to put my glasses back on and look in the mirror. Do you know, it wasn't bad, even if I say so myself. Later as I slaved over the cooker I realised that we were out of carrots. 'Just popping round to the Brazil Nut's,' I called as I zoomed out of the front door. Prefacing my request for some emergency veg with a bit of polite chatter, I mentioned where I'd been that morning. 'Oh yes, I can see you have some makeup on, very nice,' she dutifully replied. I told her about my makeover and took off my glasses so that she could inspect. 'Oh,' she said, impressed, 'he's made a nice job of your eyes.' 'Noooo,' I responded joyfully, 'it was meeeeeeeeeeeee!'

Skipping happily out of her front door with a whole bag of carrots (that's the best I've ever done there if you don't include the cucumbers from the greenhouse) I was so chuffed that I chased a clump of errant party balloons round her front garden. 'Happy 50th Birthday' read the legend. 'I don't want them,' she squealed. 'People will think they're for me!' I hooked them up on a vacant hanging basket bracket and they danced happily in the breeze. I turned at the front gate and raised my hand in a gesture as grateful as it was valedictory. 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY!' I shouted at the top of my voice and ran home, my pounding footsteps accompanied by a drawn out screech that registered at least 6.7 on the indignation scale...

The Sun has been chirping mightily all week in anticipation of his School Fair this afternoon. At the stroke of 6 he was harrying me towards the door, sheepdog-like. I managed to evade him for long enough to nip to the loo, then off we went down the street, stopping only to call for the Brazil Nut.

The Fair was in full swing when we got there, balloons and horses and bouncy castles and stalls and coconuts and screaming children and everything. The Sun had a momentary options-overload moment of indecision then dived off into the fray in the general direction of the cake stall. The Brazil Nut and I wandered around casually, chatting about life and work and her poor aching feet, peering at the offerings over the heads of the children thronging the stalls. I parted with my first one pound fifty at the Tombola and came away with a soothing foot spray. The Brazil Nut pocketed that one quick enough, though I did manage to persuade her not to apply it there and then.

We visited other stalls but none had the lure, the draw, the potential wine-winnage of the Tombola and we soon found ourselves back there. Er, and once again a bit later. I can't help it, I like it the best...

So, as a dieting vegetarian my haul at the end of the Fair comprised:


a soothing foot spray - donated to the Brazil Nut's poor aching night-shift feet

two sachets each containing an fcuk deodorising wipe - cheers

a 400g bar of Galaxy chocolate - that's 38.2 calories a chunk you realise

a leather photo frame - eep

and

a tin of Tesco Value Meatballs - woop de doo


The piece de resistance had to be the third ticket I pulled out of the tub - it seemed somehow to set the scene for my chances of winning something decent. Ending neither in a winning 0 nor a victorious 5, my special ticket was number 666.

OK so it's that time of year again. The boiling days. The sweltering nights. That time when it gets so bloody hot that you need to open the windows, even though you know this will allow the ingress of a) noise from the Shouty Neighbours shouting happily in their garden, b) smell from the Shouty Neighbours' crappy ducks, c) projectiles lobbed by ASBO-in-waiting Shouty Neighbour junior, or d) all of the above. Sadly, this also allows an entry route for the least welcome visitors to our pond: *pause for dramatic and foreboding music* ~~~~~~~ mosquitos.

As Tallboy and I made ourselves comfortable last night, just ready to drift off to sleep, a high-pitched buzz echoed round inside both our heads. 'It's a mozzie, isn't it?' enquired a sleepy sounding voice from my left. 'Uh-huh,' I replied, reaching for the lightswitch.

Like a well-oiled machine we each glided into our Mozzie hunting roles: Tallboy leaping out of bed and hefting his weapon of choice (a single sock) while I grabbed my glasses and lay out on my back, scanning the ceiling and walls for small black moving things. Needless to say the damn thing shut up at this point, and the scanniest scanning of the walls and ceilings revealed no trace of the little creature. There were a few false alarms, but they turned out to be the traces of previous squishings.

'Jiggle the curtain,' I suggested, from my vantage point. 'No, not that one, _that_ one!' He jiggled half-heartedly. 'Now try actually agitating the bloody thing instead of just agitating me!' Finally he drove the Mozzie out and I tracked its progress across the room. Pointing out its location I squealed like an excited three year old. Tallboy trotted across the room, poised for action. He wielded the sock and missed by a mile; he was so slow in the squishing that the Mozzie had an age to evade the Sock of Doom. I lost track of the Mozzie trajectory and instead watched Tallboy wandering aimlessly in search of the enemy.

'Hmmm?' I responded, aware that he had said something to me but that I had been too busy admiring his bottom to take whatever he had said on board. 'I said - where did it go? On top of the wardrobe do you think?' Quickly weighing up the relative benefits of a Tallboy perched on the end of the bed peering on top of the wardrobes and the view this would afford me, I agreed emphatically. 'Ouch!' he yelped as he turned his ankle trying to climb up on the end of the bed whilst slightly entangled in the duvet. Wimp. He made it on his second attempt. 'Can't see a bloody thing up here,' came a muffled voice from the dusty reaches of the North face of the Wardrobe. 'Lovely view from down here,' was all I could say...

Suddenly the noise started up again and we both cocked our heads to locate the source. There he was on the blinds. Tallboy dashed to apply the sock but he pulled his punch through fear of bending the cheapo Ikea metal blinds and the Mozzie lived to buzz another day. Gah! It was late, we were tired, Tallboy had to get up early the next morning, but there was no way we could sleep with that winged marauder making that noise in the room.

I caught a glimpse of movement as it traversed the bed and ended up high on the wall in the corner. This was my cue for more pointing and juvenile squealing. Tallboy crossed the perilous duvet-at-the-bottom-of-the-bed terrain and crept up on the resting Mozzie. Bunching the sock in his most menacing manner, he sized up the angle of attack and struck. What a blinder! Cheering to himself, he scraped the Mozzie remains off his sock and into the bin and returned triumphantly to bed, laying his sock (sans Mozzie, more or less) on the floor next to him, ready for the morning.

I turned off the light and snuggled under my sheet. 'Night darling,' came Tallboy's muzzy voice as he dozed off. In the stillness between wakefulness and sleep, I could hear a buzzing. Was it another bloody Mozzie or an echo of the ex-Mozzie interred in the bin, a ghostly insect presence to haunt my fitful... zzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ