Wheels and more wheels

When I met mr auntiegwen/adventureshe drove a Volvo estate and seemed completely uninterested in cars. I liked that plenty fine, I am also completely uninterested in cars, if they take me where I want to go and I can park them easily that'll do me. I was completely lulled into a false sense of security on this issue.

It transpires that having me and the 3 beautiful children plus the boy wonder, the one he made earlier just took up a lot of time and we had a bit of a honeymoon phase. As the children have grown and needed less input mr auntiegwen/adventures has had a bit more time. This spare time is mainly taken up by the fire service but in the 3 and a half minutes a fortnight he has off he started looking at motorbikes. He had them before he met me but clearly felt being married to me wasn't enough of an extreme sport and needed some more adventure in his life. 

He has plans for big long trips on motorbikes, the most wacky of which is buying a Ural motorbike and a sidecar for me and travelling from Alaska to Argentina, when we start I will be in a parka and when we finish I will be in my pants. 

The first motorbike he bought was the same model he had before and had loved. It was too lairy. 

The second motorbike he bought  was too big and safe.

The third  motorbike appears to be just right.

The first and second motorbikes we had simultaneously, we have no room for 1 motorbike never mind 2 so I stropped a little and motorbike 1 was sold to a mate down the fire station.

I thought that was the end of it but motorbike 3 arrived to keep too big and too safe motorbike 2 company so I stropped and motorbike 2 was sold (on eBay, no one at the fire station wanted this one)

Motorbike 3 looks like the worst of all 3 but what do I know?

He has now moved on to looking at VW camper vans. 

Another way of looking at it....

Today I was explaining to my lovely colleague about mr auntiegwen and myself's upcoming jollity to Latvia, and I  uttered one of my most favourite sentences "spending the kids inheritance one city break at a time"
Mr a never missed a beat and merely said " also known as our money"
Quite.

Polka dot notebook of doom (TM)

Hello dearest readers, every time I don't post for a while I feel guilty and then I think it is probably a treat for you not having to read my haverings. It's all a bit strange chez auntiegwen, some of us are madly busy (that would be me), some of us are faffing around (that would be him) and some of us are stressed to the max (that would be Beautiful Baby Daughter)
I started a new job at the beginning of July with the same employer but in a different role, me no likey, I may likey later but presently it's all a bit woolly but with lots of stuff about how I am autonomous and strategic and responsible, which is grand until someone decides they are more autonomous and strategic and responsible than me and makes me change and redo stuff I thought I was autonomous and strategic and responsible for. I have bitten holes in my tongue, seethed myself into an ulcer, woken through the night nightly and my eyebrows haven't yet managed to come down from my hairline since July.  My current flexitime is running at 60 hours over and as I can only take 14 hours back, I just have to suck it up, my normal working hours are awake to sleep, Monday to Friday. My life at present is all too work focussed and not enough gin focussed, baah.






And by the law of Sod, mr auntiegwen has finished his contracting work and finished renovating a flat, which is up for sale and until it is sold and he has the cash money in his pocket to buy the next property he has no gainful employment. He has time aplenty, none of your awake to sleep hours for him. This concerns your auntie not one jot, I have eleventy million jobs that need doing round this house. For ease and convenience, I have documented them in a lovely Emma Bridgewater polka dot notebook. Now mr auntiegwen is not enamoured of said polka dot notebook, I would go as far to say he avoids the polka dot notebook, he's not afeared of it more disdainful and refusing to admit it's existence. It exists plenty fine. I fear it may become a source of marital discord.
Beautiful baby daughter is getting ready to leave home for university, she doesn't really want to go but staying here and being a house daughter is not an option, her brother floated the notion of him being a house son circa 2013 before his departure for university and got short shrift for his trouble. I could quote you some of the utterly ludicrous thing she is saying but she might read this and I am still afeared of a major meltdown I shall refrain but it's killing me. September 14th is when she gets her keys for her halls of residence and I am hoping we can co-exist peacefully until then.

23 and 9

Every year we have a May half term holiday with The Boy Wonder, who is the son my husband made earlier, if you don't get that splendid joke, clearly you are far too young for this blog, be off with you and return when you have grey hair.


Now as my husband only made one child, that child needs entertaining. I have never had to do entertaining on that scale as I made three children. When my kids were small they would never entertain the notion of going to a kids club so we rented villas and they all amused each other, when you have one child in a villa you are the only option. Last year's holiday and the dawn to dusk entertaining clean wore us out. This year we have opted for a Eurocamp in Brittany as we hope that having a kids club and other kids around will allow TBW to make some chums and we can have a conversation at some point over the week.


At lots of points in my life do I wonder what is going on. Never more so when I am going to a caravan in France, in a half term week, with lots and lots of overexcited, shreiky children and non guaranteed sunshine and the fight for a non towelled sun lounger.


Especially  when  I realise that my children no longer come on holiday with me as the youngest is 18 and I own a beautiful villa in Turkey with every home comfort imaginable in a quiet spot, no children around, sun splitting the stones and 6 of my very own loungers, I can put my posh hamman towels on any one of them I fancy.


23 years of parenting in and 9 more to go and you just know that someone in the next 9 years will have a baby and we will be destined to be doing this children malarkey for ever. And never once does anyone think of me as a mummy blogger!

Travels with your auntie

I have been away, I am now home and normal auntie service has resumed. I have had 2 jollities, 1 with husband and one without. Med mand (is not the tinternest marvellous? I found the Danish for with husband in a peko second) the jollity took us to  to Copenhagen, it was very cold, on the same jollity, we went to Malmo, over the Orsesund bridge (I can't be faffed trying to find the proper O with a line through it, just pretend I have) on a train, the very very bridge that Saga and Martin went on (if you are wondering if my last marble has rolled away, it's from The Bridge, the most marvellous of marvellous tellybox programme)


In Malmo, it too was very cold. Mr auntiegwen took eleventy million pictures in both places, I hardly recognize him without a camera attached to his face, I expect if he ever sits down for more than 2 minutes he will blog all about it, with nice pictures, my laptop hates pictures and it takes a long time (which clearly I haven't got much of left) and quite a lot of swearing, you might be better waiting for him. I liked all of the jollity, we even caught sight of a new Nordic noir drama that hopefully will make it's way here called "The Team", we tried very hard to keep up but they don't do English subtitles when you're in Denmark.


After my return from med mand jollities, I went to Essex for work, not normally my stamping ground but I did get 2 diet cokes and a big long chat with Note Bene, glad he could fit me in with all his canapé ing, witty chit chat and flirting with the French ambassador.


My ohne Ehemann jollity took me to Germany (see what I did there? oh I'm fair away with myself today) and I went to visit Eldest Beautiful Daughter who is now living in Dusseldorf. We had the luffliest of luffly times, I luff that child, she is just wonderful and I adore spending time with her. Germany was properly bonkers and Ehemann is gutted that he missed  EBD's local shop displays, especially
- the hairdressers that has a random selection of stuffed toys, books and cake plates
- her landlord, who is selling off his "gone into a care home" mothers possessions in an empty shop
- the local furrier, all kinds of crazy going on there.
Worst of all, he  missed a house with a mural of their Labrador painted on their garage door and the biggest duck you have EVER seen, (not on a garage door mural, on a pond) in your whole wide life, and I am very old and have seen a lot of ducks, this was a mutant.


Anyhoo, I'm back and I am going to have a big sit on the sofa, possibly with gin or wine and if I'm lucky, some maltesers to recover. What have you lot been up to?

A year of adventures

2015 is going to be a year of awfully big adventures for myself and my beloved husband. We have spent the last few years juggling being a parent with looking after elderly parents, some of it has been easy peasy, some of it not so much. I am currently day 10 of my parents 12 days of Christmas visit.  The husband and I have survived by sheer blind determination and quite a lot of gin.
To compensate ourselves for all this duty (which, quite frankly is boring beyond belief) we have decided that 2015 will be the year where we do interesting stuff.
We have some fancy pants trips lined up, all booked and sorted, all we need now is some clean knickers and a toothbrush each. Fortunately Santa took care of that. Roll on 2015

My deep love of Mumsnet

I am always behind the curve, if it's trendy or new or hip, I will find it years after it is trendy/new/hip. I am a late adapter.

So, eleventy million years after it started, I have become addicted to Mumnet. I can spend hours on it, it has boards for everything, all open for the great British public to chip their tuppenyworth in. I have had loads of advice about parenting a troubled teen, dealing with, quite frankly, bat shit crazy ex partners (not mine) and the best Farrow & Ball colours for north facing rooms. I have had squillions of clothes advice, I now know where to buy really cheap shoes and the best jeans. The mumsnet swears by has made me open my purse numerous times. I bloody love it.

Himself now takes me out for a walk every night just to get me away from it, I will clickety finger my way through an evening nae bother at all. So he has now taken to joining in, we do enjoy an "Am I being unreasonable?" of an evening.

Although he's now not allowed near it if he's had a sherbet as when a nice lady asked for good ideas for her husbands 40th birthday present and ON MY ACCOUNT, SO EVERYONE THINKS I'm THE WEIRD ONE. The bold mr auntiegwen replied

"Tie him to a hotel bed and shag him senseless, You're welcome x"

They haven't banned me though, they just chat to me a bit less now.

Bedroom chatters

Every morning my husband talks to me, a big lot, till I wake up. Tis his usual habit, he does love a chat, so I get a good 45minutes of chat every morning. That's another little bit of married bliss that was new to me, I had trained the children not to speak until I was fully caffeinated, then I get himself, chatty is his middle name. He talks before and during my first coffee of the day. This has taken quite a deal of acclimatising to.

Andrew will chat about anything, he feels quite entitled to share his opinion on everything in the world and beyond with me, his opinion doesn't necessarily need to be wanted or qualified, I am his wife, therefore I will want to hear it.

Today's topic of choice was the moon. He was amazed that I didn't know someone had driven a car on it and that there was golf clubs and a family photo of some astronaut's wean on it. Frankly at 6.30 am I don't know my own name, I don't care about that either.

I told him so and qualified this with, "I don't have the spare brain capacity to wonder about someone's wean's photie being on the moon"

To which he replied "Yep, unless it's about what's for your dinner or neurological disorders, you're not interested"

Just my bloody luck for the honeymoon to be over before your food and work obsessed auntie has actually got on the plane.