The Beautiful Holiday

Auntie Gwen is back from The Beautiful House in Turkey with her full complement of Beautiful Children. This is a testement to Auntie Gwen's strength of character as all of The Beautiful Children were ungrateful little feckers on holiday.

If I hadn't given birth to these children, I would seriously doubt they were mine. I abso bloody lutely love love love the sunshine and I can happily prostrate myself on a sunlounger with a book for hours, okay days. All of my children refuse to sunbathe.
The Beautiful Son and Beautiful Baby Daughter will play in the pool for at least a peko second before arguing and then involving me to referee before one of them will storm off inside in a major huff.
Beautiful Eldest Daughter is maintaining her Bride of Dracula/Princess of Darkness look which so does not involve a tan. She had to be bribed to spend ONE HOUR per day in the sun, yes that is correct ONE HOUR per day. The locals in Turkey had never seen anything quite like her, people were bringing out their grannies to see the weird girl who was so white she was almost luminous.
Every feckin hour someone would complain it was too hot, which fair play it was, very nice for me thank you very much, every day in the high 90 s at least, but too hot for the beautiful children. Who god love them , who were so bored in their own private villa with pool, silly silly me for thinking that the pool complete with lilo's, floats, balls and inflatable dolphins etc and satellite tv and dvd player and books and board games and nintendo ds and game boys would be enough to occupy them and I didn't think it necessary to bring an x box and a laptop and their mates with me, my poor deprived wee souls.

So very lovely to see my friends who live over there, my beautiful neighbours Keith and Heather who have retired from life in Kent and are contemplating buying a quad bike to get around on, you go guys !! again thank you for the 2 glasses of wine in the afternoon which enabled me to sleep and not get out the house till after 10pm and my children had to wait till midnight for their tea. Fortunately BBD doesn't have social services on speed dial over there !!

Syl and Les,again retired from the Uk and now living the retirement I dream of, thanks for taking us to Fethiye's old town Paspartur where we ate in a little restaurant with it's own courtyard fountain and duck pond. Again thank you for laughing like drains when I had to explain to BBD that the lady duck did not want to give the male duck a piggy back and that was why she was screeching.

Thank you to all my Turkish friends who either offer to marry me or BED, fortunately no one has offered for us both, it's nice to go somewhere and be appreciated, but I don't think either of us will be taking you up on your very kind offers.

Biggest thank you of them all to my new friend Janine, god bless her little heart, who had the foresight and down right kindness to leave Sunderland and go and marry a lovely Turkish man called Suraj and open an internet cafe about 10 mins walk from The Beautiful House, a cafe that not only is air conditioned but has full access to msn and my space, and for that reason it made my holiday bearable as the lure and bribe of full virtual connection gave me the only bargaining tool I had.

Yes, that's right I spent a significant part of my holiday in the sun waiting for my children to talk to their friends on msn via a web cam. Next year I'll go by myself and leave them at home with all their clicky finger gadgetry whilst I lie on my lounger drinking the wine I can afford gallons of because I don't have to fork out for their plane tickets. Everybody's happy.

Endings and beginnings

The Beautiful Baby Daughter has finished primary school, how old does that make me feel ? Never mind that she's only 10, that's the 3 school system for you. I was 12 when I went to high school and like all old ladies, I think everything was better in my day. In September she will join The Beautiful Son at middle school, and I cannot really convey to you his deep and profound joy at having his "tell mummy everything" little sister being with him, to help him behave in what she deems an appropriate way.

Also you can imagine Beautiful Eldest Daughter's deep and profound joy at being joined at her school by me ! As from September I will be teaching A level Health and Social Care part time at her school, I will get to know quite a lot of what is currently a mystery to me. Now there will be staff bulletins, staff meetings and me just generally being around....... excuse me while I throw back my head and laugh like a muskateer, oh what fun I'm going to have !!! All the " no one really bothers if your course work is late" and the " no one really goes to form time" type stuff is coming to an end.

Today I'm off to The Beautiful House with The Beautiful Children for a 2 week holiday, and I am conscious that next year BED will be 16 and may not want to come on holiday with us. This makes me conscious of how near it is for her to leave home and start her own adult life and of how much I will miss her when she goes. I can't believe how quickly the years have flown. I've no idea what next years summer holiday will bring but I await the next chapter with interest.

So, here's something I never say don't text me please, it costs me 30p to receive them and 48p to reply, I love you all dearly but after 6pm tonight I am officially incommunicado. Of course feel free to bombard me with love messages until 6pm but after that quiet please and I'll be back on the 28th July.

No dial tone

Last Wednesday or Black Wednesday as it will be forever known, we lost our internet connection. When you tried to log on, the message flashed up, no dial tone. I don't think I can convey to you the extreme terror and pain this has caused in our house. Beautiful eldest daughter has suffered the most as she has also no credit left on her phone and cannot text people, her poor fingers don't know what to do with themselves, it's like they're on holiday. I am absolutely sure that some people can withdraw from feckin heroin easier than BED having no virtual connection to people. She really cannot be by herself, she either has the matey boys within a 2 feet radius or she's on msn or texting.

I also have missed it, no emails or blogs but have a lovely morning in front of me now with all my catching up. Whilst I have been offline, I have been tagged by Lisa, the ubertalented over at 40 's singleness and my mission as I have chosen to accept is to provide you with some random facts about me. I also have to post the following rules

1 If you're tagged, you must post the rules

2 You post your 8 random facts

3 At the end of your blog, you tag someone else and they must post their random facts

4 You leave your chosen people a comment telling them they've been tagged

Okay, random facts

I love getting text messages and emails

I don't like pets - my poor children would love a rabbit or a dog, but selfishly I won't get them one

I don't eat meat, fish, poultry or eggs. If it had a mother or a face I avoid eating it.

I cry really easily

I have never been unfaithful

I am a bit obsessive about getting my laundry dried outside and hate using my tumble drier

I would love to go to Glastonbury or any big music festival but know I would struggle with the mud and the toilet facilities

I was a prefect at school despite being a punk

Okay, I will tag

Newfie

Lena

The Beautiful Man

I won't tag the Edge as he hates these ( see what a considerate friend I am ! ) and I can't tag Lisa as she's already done hers. I can't be clever and link you to their blogs but if you look for their comments on mine and click on them, that'll take you to them. I'll let TBM post on mine.

Self absorbed, who, my daughters ?

This is a word for word text message I received from Beautiful Eldest Daughter -

" I'm in office ( for Newfie and Lisa , it's the name of a shoe shop), the shoes I can't have make me want to cry, I love you "

Glad to see the state of the economy, global warming, all the poverty, hunger and war in the world aren't troubling you too much then, honey.


Transcript of discussion between Beautiful Baby Daughter and I earlier today

BBD - what's for tea?

AG - pasta

BBD - I hate pasta, you are a remakably mean mummy if you make me eat it

AG - (after laughing uncontrollably for a bit) sweetie, you used to like pasta

BBD - people's tastes change - then a pause where she is thinking of playing the DIVORCE card, (she plays dirty in an argument), then thinks better of it, but looks pointedly at me and I know exactly what she's thinking

AG - pasta's good for you and we all like it except you

BBD - you wouldn't make Lara eat chicken

AG - Lara's a vegetarian, it's not the same thing

BBD - I'm a pastatarian, so you can't make me eat it

AG - I am making pasta for tea and you will eat it

BBD - It's your fault I don't like pasta, you made me, so you made me not like pasta

AG - Don't worry, honey I know everything's my fault

BBD - You're grounded

Not for nothing is she also known as Little Miss Last Word, and she always has to be right, so I can't quite decide whether my BBD will end up either running the country or in jail. It's a close call.
Whilst this argument was in full flow I was emailing someone who I felt would be giving me a little sympathy but all I got was " well done for raising such a determined and influential young lady, I am soooo proud of you " , again darling, thank you for your understanding , just remember you might need my sympathy at some point !!!!

Whilst I've been blogging this, BBD has taken matters into her own hands and has very quietly raided the freezer and has made her own dinner, a true culinary delight of cocktail sausages that were left over from Xmas and oven chips !!!! Game,set and match to her.

Okay, it's official, she'll be running the country by the time she's 12 !!!