Everybody needs them

Good neighbours that is. Ruby From Over The Road has just ding-donged on the doorbell and offered me a choice between homemade apple pie or homemade carrot cake, complete with frosting. She knows I can’t cook cakes and had just spent the morning “knocking up a couple of goodies” and did I want any? Ruby is amazing. She’s been married three times, currently on her fourth, and has five children – to this day I can’t work out when she had which child and with whom. But I know Felix, who is four and calls his daddy Demonic because he can’t say Dominic. Dom is Ruby’s current husband and is an architect and an ardent Green. Ruby has embraced his beliefs and, when she’s not at the end of her garden tending to her compost heap, is sorting rubbish to be recycled in the weekly trip to Peckham Rye park and its recycling bins.

Like my friends, I’m very lucky with my neighbours. We’ve been living in this house for four years and I immediately felt at home the minute Pickfords departed, purely down to the many greetings we received whilst lumping furniture through every available door and window. Out of all my neighbours (including Mad Michael, who wears shorts and vest in all weathers and likes polishing our lamp-posts. At 2am.), I have my favourites.

Apart from Ruby, there’s Jack Next Door who is the Alan Titchmarsh of Nunhead. The things that man can do with a few seeds, a lump of earth and a drop of Baby Bio. His garden is immense and spotless, with serried ranks of vegetables all growing as they should and the rose trees! His summer displays are dazzling. The honeysuckle cutting he gave me three years ago (from his plant that scents the whole neighbourhood) has not prospered in my poor excuse for a garden so I’ve hidden it behind a tub of begonias. I chastise myself that I must really do something with the patch of earth behind my house – I feel ashamed to be in my garden when he’s out there and tend to scurry inside to get out some seedling catalogues but it never comes to much.

On the other side of us we’ve got The Posh Couple. We don’t know their first names (they sign their Christmas cards “from the Robinsons”) and they’re not really very friendly. That doesn’t mean they’re unfriendly, far from it. We smile when we see each other in the street or in the garden, She once chased my hat down the road when a gust of wind caught it and He complimented David on his golf bag only this weekend. But, so used to knowing our neighbours fairly well, the Robinsons intrigue me. They both leave the house before 9 - She walking, He driving - and both return after 6pm when every light in the house goes on. They went to IKEA on Saturday, the amount of stuff that went into the house was amazing. Then that same evening they entertained guests to what sounded like a hugely cultural evening with lots of braying laughter and the slamming of Audi doors on their guests departure. I wasn’t quite glued to the window watching their guests leave but did show more than a passing interest in the arrangement of the bedroom curtains. Then on the Sunday, they both disappeared at half 8 (I was concerned about what looked like a dead pigeon in our front garden but turned out to be a broken umbrella and so I was at the window) wearing tracksuits and iPods and didn’t return until the Eastenders omnibus. Very strange.

Then there’s Alice Three Doors Down. Alice is affectionately known as Hyacinth Bucket, you know, from the TV programme. She’s hugely well known in the area and “does a lot for charity”. She’s also a bit, shall we say, erm, nosy. Not showing an interest like me with the Robinsons but actually a bit of a gossip. Usually, when I see her, I make excuses to get away from before I get roped into “and then he said, and she said”. My current favourite is “oh, Mackenzie’s on his own and I’ve left the stove on”. It doesn’t faze her – or stop her talking - her but it does give me a chance to back away slowly. Many’s the conversation I’ve had with her as I’m walking backwards into my house. Her latest concern is the daughter of those at Number 43. I’m not quite sure what she’s worried about but it involves a Hells Angel.

And lastly there’s Bill and Jane Opposite. Bill drives a Porsche but doesn’t work. Jane is constantly at the hairdressers/manicurist/Bond Street shops and they have an au pair called Lara for their two children Jessica, 9 and Melanie, 12. One look at the Golden Family and you’d think top drawer family, elegance, good manners, well rounded vowels. When you hear them you think resident of Albert Square crossed with fishwife and Burberry-Kappa style innit. Don’t get me wrong, they’re lovely. But when you’re in your front garden on a bright Saturday morning, discussing the benefits of troughs as opposed to tubs with Jack, you don’t necessarily want to hear “get a faaaking move on yer stoopid caaahs, the faaaaking shops’ll be faaaaking shut” from Jane as she shepherds two sullen children into the back of her 4x4 while Bill leans out of the bedroom window yelling “don’t faaaaking swear, it ain’t faaaaking ladylike” with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and scratching his, erm, nether regions.

At least I hope that’s what he was doing.

Everybody needs them

Good neighbours that is. Ruby From Over The Road has just ding-donged on the doorbell and offered me a choice between homemade apple pie or homemade carrot cake, complete with frosting. She knows I can’t cook cakes and had just spent the morning “knocking up a couple of goodies” and did I want any? Ruby is amazing. She’s been married three times, currently on her fourth, and has five children – to this day I can’t work out when she had which child and with whom. But I know Felix, who is four and calls his daddy Demonic because he can’t say Dominic. Dom is Ruby’s current husband and is an architect and an ardent Green. Ruby has embraced his beliefs and, when she’s not at the end of her garden tending to her compost heap, is sorting rubbish to be recycled in the weekly trip to Peckham Rye park and its recycling bins.

Like my friends, I’m very lucky with my neighbours. We’ve been living in this house for four years and I immediately felt at home the minute Pickfords departed, purely down to the many greetings we received whilst lumping furniture through every available door and window. Out of all my neighbours (including Mad Michael, who wears shorts and vest in all weathers and likes polishing our lamp-posts. At 2am.), I have my favourites.

Apart from Ruby, there’s Jack Next Door who is the Alan Titchmarsh of Nunhead. The things that man can do with a few seeds, a lump of earth and a drop of Baby Bio. His garden is immense and spotless, with serried ranks of vegetables all growing as they should and the rose trees! His summer displays are dazzling. The honeysuckle cutting he gave me three years ago (from his plant that scents the whole neighbourhood) has not prospered in my poor excuse for a garden so I’ve hidden it behind a tub of begonias. I chastise myself that I must really do something with the patch of earth behind my house – I feel ashamed to be in my garden when he’s out there and tend to scurry inside to get out some seedling catalogues but it never comes to much.

On the other side of us we’ve got The Posh Couple. We don’t know their first names (they sign their Christmas cards “from the Robinsons”) and they’re not really very friendly. That doesn’t mean they’re unfriendly, far from it. We smile when we see each other in the street or in the garden, She once chased my hat down the road when a gust of wind caught it and He complimented David on his golf bag only this weekend. But, so used to knowing our neighbours fairly well, the Robinsons intrigue me. They both leave the house before 9 - She walking, He driving - and both return after 6pm when every light in the house goes on. They went to IKEA on Saturday, the amount of stuff that went into the house was amazing. Then that same evening they entertained guests to what sounded like a hugely cultural evening with lots of braying laughter and the slamming of Audi doors on their guests departure. I wasn’t quite glued to the window watching their guests leave but did show more than a passing interest in the arrangement of the bedroom curtains. Then on the Sunday, they both disappeared at half 8 (I was concerned about what looked like a dead pigeon in our front garden but turned out to be a broken umbrella and so I was at the window) wearing tracksuits and iPods and didn’t return until the Eastenders omnibus. Very strange.

Then there’s Alice Three Doors Down. Alice is affectionately known as Hyacinth Bucket, you know, from the TV programme. She’s hugely well known in the area and “does a lot for charity”. She’s also a bit, shall we say, erm, nosy. Not showing an interest like me with the Robinsons but actually a bit of a gossip. Usually, when I see her, I make excuses to get away from before I get roped into “and then he said, and she said”. My current favourite is “oh, Mackenzie’s on his own and I’ve left the stove on”. It doesn’t faze her – or stop her talking - her but it does give me a chance to back away slowly. Many’s the conversation I’ve had with her as I’m walking backwards into my house. Her latest concern is the daughter of those at Number 43. I’m not quite sure what she’s worried about but it involves a Hells Angel.

And lastly there’s Bill and Jane Opposite. Bill drives a Porsche but doesn’t work. Jane is constantly at the hairdressers/manicurist/Bond Street shops and they have an au pair called Lara for their two children Jessica, 9 and Melanie, 12. One look at the Golden Family and you’d think top drawer family, elegance, good manners, well rounded vowels. When you hear them you think resident of Albert Square crossed with fishwife and Burberry-Kappa style innit. Don’t get me wrong, they’re lovely. But when you’re in your front garden on a bright Saturday morning, discussing the benefits of troughs as opposed to tubs with Jack, you don’t necessarily want to hear “get a faaaking move on yer stoopid caaahs, the faaaaking shops’ll be faaaaking shut” from Jane as she shepherds two sullen children into the back of her 4x4 while Bill leans out of the bedroom window yelling “don’t faaaaking swear, it ain’t faaaaking ladylike” with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and scratching his, erm, nether regions.

At least I hope that’s what he was doing.

Love is in the Air

Did you know it's nearly Valentines Day? How can you fail not to? Whenever I go into a shop I'm confronted with huge red cardboard display boards, full of cards proclaiming "To my husband", "To my wonderful girlfriend", "To the one I love", "To my special someone", "To the bird I'm shagging behind my wifes back". That's without the twee displays of teddy bears all wearing "Be Mine" T-shirts, stuffed cuddly gorillas (?) holding roses, keyrings that play "Love is in the Air" when you go within a foot of them and, my personal favourite, wonderfully tacky plastic effect roses in a vase. I admit the last one was spotted in the 99p shop in Lewisham but even so.......form an orderly queue please.



I'm not averse to Valentines Day - or love even. I've gone gooey in my time, especially when I was 17 when my then boyfriend presented me with a hanky soaked in his aftershave "so you can smell me even when we're apart". Nice. David's Valentines presents have been - and are - wonderful. For our first Valentines Day together he gave me a fluffy heartshaped hot water bottle cover. I got the hot water bottle for my birthday but that's besides the point. I loved it and still have it, it's now stuffed with pot pourri and sitting fragrantly on my pillow. Last year I got a Swavo....Swarsk.....crystal heart pendant, a slap up dinner and some serious loving on our return home.



What I'm whinging about, I suppose, is the fact that it's shoved in our faces from New Years Day onwards. It's fine for those of us who have partners (oh how I hate that word......I also hate "my other half" as if it suggests that you're not whole unless you're together....gggrrrr) but a very lonely time for those who don't. I count myself very lucky that I have a man I can buy soppy presents and a card for......but I don't rub others noses in it.



Last year, a friend (who shall remain nameless) went out and practically prostituted herself on 1 February in a bar in town just so she could ensnare a man for Valentines Day. She managed to hold onto him (his name was John and he kept fish. Real ones, everywhere, in tanks. He boased that his house looked like one of those walk through tunnels in the London Aquarium) in the lead up to the big day and on the day itself, presented him with a 3 foot high padded card with a picture of a girly mouse eating a bit of cheese seductively, an £89.99 pump thing for his main tank he told her he fancied getting, a pair of boxer shorts with red lipstick kisses all over them AND matching socks and told him she was taking him out to the Chop House for dinner at 8pm that night. He accepted the card, pants and socks with alacrity, the pump thing with a fair amount of glee and told her he'd meet her at the restaurant at ten to eight. Suffice to say, he didn't turn up and she was left sobbing into a plate of lamb cutlets and mash. She saw him, a week later, in Pets at Home in Blackheath with an aged relative, an harrassed expression and a very broken looking pump in his hands......as she ducked down behind the bunnies she heard him say "I've only had it a week - it shot out of its holder and has cracked my tank - I've had water and guppies everywhere". Some consolation, however slight although she felt sorry for the deceased guppies.



This year she's decided to wait and see what happens on the run up to the big day and, if nothing does, will buy herself a singing key ring, a box of chocolates and a nice bit of fish.

Snow Joke

The Sky Broadband engineer arrived at five past 9 this morning moaning about the “bleeding snow” and all the “stupid bleeps that actually enjoy this bleeding weather”. He looked at me as if I was one of those stupid bleeps. However, I was so pleased to see him with OVER A WEEK BEING INTERNET-ACCESS FREE I let him in with nary a word.

It’s my mother-in-laws fault we have no internet access. Indirectly. Because, if you read my last blog entry you will see that I’m perhaps less than complimentary about her. The last time I sla….erm, moaned about her slightly in print was in an email to my sister Bea just before Christmas. My washing machine blew up, but not before it had regurgitated diluted Lenor all over the kitchen floor. Coincidence? I think not.

So, to protect my other household appliances from her bile, I have made a conscious vow never to be anything less than nice to her in print. So there!

Anyway, the engineer did what he had to do and left to go over to “bleeding Streatham” and I merrily logged on. To 54 emails, 21 of them demanding my immediate attention. There’s one from Charlie who had a bad first day at her new job on Monday (despite the sexy doctors) and needed advice on how to handle the person she shares an office with (bad BO and a propensity to stuff her face all day long with jaffa cakes). There’s three from Eliza, all with pictures of Ashley. And one from the National Lottery which I opened immediately with excitement, to find I’d only won a tenner. Only! As if a tenner isn’t going to help me fund my next trip to Ayres!

Anyway. As I’m one of those stupid bleeps that actually likes the snow, I’m taking my pride and joy and the dogs for a snowy ramble around Peckham Rye Park

Ssshhhh!!!!

I’ve escaped. I’ve been on the welcoming committee for a full half an hour, made sure Amelia has a cup of tea and a shortbread biscuit and is settled in front of Coronation Street and that dinner is coming along nicely. David is bathing Mackenzie and the dogs have taken refuge at my feet. All very nice but I’ve currently got a drooling mouth resting on my bare foot. A small price to pay for some me time.

I cleaned the house, if not from top to bottom, from side to side. The bathroom is smelling nicely of Cif, the guest bedroom is heating up nicely (Amelia can only sleep in sub tropical temperatures, even whilst wearing winceyette pyjamas and bedsocks), the living room is buffed to perfection and the kitchen is pristine and host to my Roast Lemon and Tarragon chicken

I went shopping and got away with just a couple of tantrums which is fairly good, considering I was there longer than usual because of all the extras I had to buy. Amelia only drinks Yorkshire Tea (she took the remainder of the box of 60 when she left after Christmas as she had none at home), she only eats the French set yoghurts because she doesn’t like the bits, will only eat shortbread biscuits and has to have milk roll bread “for the calcium”. Oh, and jam for her Saturday morning croissants, but without the pips. After ten minutes of looking for smooth jam (even the conserves couldn’t promise a pip free offering) I chucked a jar of lemon curd into the trolley and hoped for the best.

To help me out when I get home, I sort my shopping on the conveyor belt at the till. All fridge stuff together, the freezer stuff so it can go in one back, fruit and veg separate, toiletries together and all the squishy stuff like bread at the very end so it doesn’t go into the trolley first and come out flat at the car.

Unfortunately I got one of those ladies who just randomly pick from the conveyor belt and chuck down the ramp at the other end, with only a cursory bleep in the middle. This enrages me far more than it should. Plus the conveyor belt is still running so my items that I haven’t yet packed are revolving alongside each other and behaving like bumper cars. My peppers are getting bruised. And the speed with which she’s beeping is mesmerising, she’s clearly due for a break and wants to get through my mountain of shopping quickly. Obviously, this woman isn’t aware of my shopping foibles so I bite my tongue. It wasn’t until I got the ham from the Deli chucked down along with the baby wipes that I said something. Something like “oh for God’s sake, can’t you just slow down a bit?”. But at a very loud decibel judging by Mackenzie’s awed face and the fact the woman is holding aloft a box of mushrooms with her mouth open. She grunts “sorry” at me and slows down only minimally so I’m still stuffing broccoli into carrier bags when she’s reeling off the total and demanding both my credit and loyalty card.

As if mesmerised by mummy’s bad mood, Mackenzie only had a slight whimper as we passed the jaunty Bob the Builder ride in the front of the shop but pointed at it longingly as I whisked him out into the rain. I feel like such a bad mother at times, the poor kid only wanted a two minute ride AND he didn’t even ask for his usual bag of Haribo minis.

Homeward bound, I stop off at Ayres the Bakers for a pastry fix. Mackenzie is quite cheered by this and asks for a sausage roll. I buy that, one croissant which I eat on the four minute journey home, one custard Danish and a strawberry gateau. The gateau is for dessert, the Danish is for me. Mine. All mine.

And so, at 6.25pm, when I was practically comatose on the (nicely plumped and Febrezed) sofa when David and Amelia arrived in a flurry of coats, rain and “hellooooo’s”. The dogs scurried to me and formed a protective barrier. It didn’t work. Amelia takes one look at the empty, crumb coated Ayres bag, the half drunk cup of cooling coffee, Mackenzie still with ketchup round his face and raises an eyebrow at David and says to me “Oh, I See You’re Busy Then”.

Granny's Coming!

As my husband gave Mackenzie his final tuck-in last night he said cheerily “Go to sleep and then tomorrow Granny’s coming!” Mackenzie’s face split into a beam as my heart sunk.

It’s not that I don’t like my mother in law Amelia, I do, it’s just that she brings the worst out in me. For David, the Golden Boy, it’s an opportunity to swank about a bit (In a nice way, he’s not an arsey man) and for Mackenzie it’s a chance to be spoilt and to sit in a nice lap all day and be fed titbits like a doting Pekinese. All I get are the chores and the extra cooking and cleaning and a feeling of worthlessness. It’s easier with my mum, she’s only ten minutes away so her visits are never Events. Amelia’s visits are Events. Usually lasting a weekend, and accompanied by enough luggage for a month, she manages to make me feel like a naughty schoolgirl. The merest raise of her eyebrows send me and the dogs scurrying to the kitchen. The teeniest utterances sound like she’s passing judgment because she uses Capital Letters. You can hear the Capital Letters as she speaks. When it's accompanied by a raise of an eyebrow, I break out in hives.

So, I’ve got roughly 7 hours to get the house shipshape, do a Sainsbury shop, sort the dogs out and generally prepare myself for a weekend of Comments, servitude and guilt. Wish me luck, I’m going in.

Windy Weather

It's a touch windy isn't it? Mackenzie doesn't like the wind, it gives him nightmares of ghouls and goblins and he spent last night sleeping between David and myself like a gently snoring contraceptive. Not that I felt much in the mood for anything romantic. The tree in our garden was swaying rythmically when I retired to my boudoir at 10.25pm. When I got up to visit the loo at ten past three it was practically running round the garden. I panicked at the thought of the whole thing crashing into Jack's garden (Jack is the Alan Titchmarsh of Nunhead) and onto his newly erected greenhouse and then couldn't get to sleep again. Mackenzie's gentle snores made a lovely backdrop for David's own groundshaking nasal offerings and I lay awake pondering broken glass, ruined seedlings and an angry Jack throwing bills for glaziers and garden centres through our letter box. I got up feeling 109.



The tree is still standing (for now), Mackenzie is bathed and ready to go into his own bed but has cunningly left Brown Bear on the end of our bed "just in case mummy" and my sister Bea is scouring her address book for the "wonderfully witty lumberjack darling that sorted us out in the summer". I fear it may be too late for lumberjacks as the wind is whipping itself up into a frenzy again - David has left the Yellow Pages open at "Glaziers" and is joining me in my early night.

Friends

I’ll be there for yoooooooooo……….cos you’re there for me tooooooooooo!



Isn’t that how the song goes? Why, whenever I watch the likes of Jennifer Aniston and Matt LeBlanc frolic through re-runs of Friends, do I feel quite bereft because I haven’t got 5 gorgeous friends with great hair who sit on my sofa and find everything I say hilariously funny. But then I look at the friends I actually do have and feel quite guilty for thinking thoughts along those lines. I’m not one to categorise my friends (nor am I boastful) but, well, I’ve got a lot. There are my every day friends……I class the postman as a friend because he buys my dogs presents and gives me child rearing tips. He’s also a great source of local gossip but that’s another story. Then there’s the Shopping Direct delivery man. He’s on my Christmas card list. So, I like catalogue shopping! Then there are friends from work (I haven’t struck up the courage to leave Mackenzie with a childminder and return to the rat race….thankfully my husband doesn’t mind supporting my shoe habit). There’s John and Sarah and Emily and Phillipa…..on and on into infinity. One of the joys of working for the NHS is the people!

My definite best friends feature greatly in my life (and therefore this blog)

There’s my sensible friend Eliza who has a little girl Ashley, who’s Mackenzie’s age, another one the way and makes her own bread. Every day! Then there’s Saskia who is a fashion buyer for a well known high street store and who always looks immaculate even in the depths of a hangover. Charlie (Charlotte to her mother) has just landed a fantastic job at a Central London hospital in the Communications Department and, although she isn’t looking forward to the commute, is quite keen on the amount of sexy doctors that will be littering the corridors. Andy, as camp as a row of tents, who is big in interior design with his life partner Adam (Mackenzie’s bedroom was a freebie and is fantastic – he loves the cartoon characters on the wall, my husband is freaked out by the lifesize version of Scooby Doo that is painted on the wall by the door). And then there is my oldest friend of all Trudy who I went to school with and between us we terrorised Mr Phillips the art teacher. She’s got twin girls who now terrorise anyone who comes into their orbit. It’s not often that I hate children but I dislike Alice and Anna intensely. Sorry, where did that thought come from?

And of course, there’s David my husband of five years. He’s the best friend a girl could I have, he’s my diamond. And he does a mean back rub and spag bol but obviously not at the same time.

I’m quite lucky to be able to call members of my family my friends as well. Mum and dad are my best friends even if, like best friends, we fall out occasionally. We always make it up in the end though. I’m incredibly close to my oldest and only sister Beatrice (oh how she’ll love me for saying that) – we’re great chums. She’s also provided me with a gorgeous nephew Ian and an equally scrummy niece Caitlin. I’m quite fond of her husband Stephen but not in that way obviously!

Best friends at school rarely lasted - apart from Trudy of course but even we lost touch for a couple of years before meeting up again at the swimming pool in Eltham. Don’t ask. I myself had a best friend each year at secondary school, come the following September I was auditioning for a new one. Fickle? Well yes, but I didn’t know the true value of friends back then. Now I do and I’d like to think I’m as good to my friends as they are to me. I am truly blessed with my friends, they are fantastic and I wouldn’t be without any of them…..they give me so much.

When Mackenzie was two months old and wouldn’t stop CRYING AND GOING ALL RED IN THE FACE and David was in Milan on business I did the most sensible thing in the world and rang Saskia, at 2.30am, for some advice. Saskia, who doesn’t have children, suggested that I put him in his cot, shut the door and go and mix myself a vodka tonic. When I shouted at her that that was the most irresponsible thing in the world ever, she said she was on her way. Forest Hill to Nunhead in five minutes flat. She arrived, took him off me, told me to go to bed and muffled his cries for another hour downstairs. He fell asleep mid bellow on her shoulder and she was frightened to move until GMTV started. Each of my fantastic friends has a different function in my life. Charlie always manages to cheer me up. Whenever I’m feeling low, as well as a wonderfully rallying phone call/night out, I also get supportive texts and wonderful cards. I can rely on her totally and she knows more about me that I think even I do! Anthony is so totally outrageous he doesn’t mind if I drink lurid pink cocktails and cackle inanely in public. Eliza reins me in when I’m going too over the top and always has a sensible way of looking at things – she’s quite the grown up which is what I need to counter balance my slightly childish manner. Trudy knows me of old, she remembers me when I had chickenpox and a crush on Mr Smith the English teacher and will never let me get above myself.

Reading this entry back I realise that maybe I don’t envy Ms Aniston and Co as much as I thought I did! Now, where did I put that DVD of Series 5?