So you’ll like this. Back yonder in October, I reported to you with near manic excitement, that I had secured myself a job testing recipes for a magazine. It started off really well – I developed their Christmas recipes and even helped with testing recipes for a book. The excitement of seeing my name in print was well worth the magazine’s rather erratic payment schedule. Initially.
By April this year, though, I was getting a bit worried. I’d only been paid for October and November 08, and although my increasingly concerned emails were met with ‘a cheque run will be done on Friday, I’ll make sure you’re on it’ or ‘I’ll have a word with the accounts department’ type replies – somehow the cheques never materialised. ‘They’re going to go bust’, said Hubby, ‘mark my words. And they’re going to take your money with them’.
Every month became a toss-up between accepting the proferred offer of work or declining it as the likelihood of my getting paid seemed more remote. By the time I went to Florida in May I had still not received any more money and started to chase my payments a little more vigorously. One was, indeed, paid while I was away – the invoice for work I did in December. This was getting ridiculous, as were the excuses for non-payment: the person who signed the cheques was away, then the accounts lady was away, then my invoices weren’t right and had to be re-issued… You get the picture.
The accounts woman was… well, not exactly sympathetic – in fact, her emails got more and more aggressive and she even picked a fight with Hubby on the phone when he tried to explain a tax issue that she patently didn’t (or wouldn’t) understand. I started to picture the evil octopus lady (what was her name? Ursula?) from The Little Mermaid – whenever I heard her voice. ‘Fair play to ‘em though’, said Hubby, ‘she must be the best darned accounts person ever – she never actually pays anyone.’
Another month of polite enquiries got me absolutely nowhere and I finally sent an email to the Editor pleading for payment of at least a couple of my outstanding cheques. This was ignored. I sent another saying that I wouldn’t be doing any more work until I got paid. Well. Evil Octopus Lady did not like that one bit. I got another snotty email telling me off for going to the Editor and pointing out that ALL (bold, capitals, underlined) accounts enquiries go ONLY (bold, capitals, underlined) through her.
Finally, after a snotty email exchange of epic proportions, I got January cheque yesterday and – holy cack – another one today covering February and March, meaning only one left to pay. Evil Octopus Lady’s final nose-thumbing coming in the form of a complement slip enclosed with the cheque stating, and I quote, that ‘invoices will only be paid 30 days after date of receipt of invoice AND NOT BEFORE’. Oh, so she was just making doubly sure by keeping the cheques for 150 days, then.
She obviously passed on our last snotty exchange to her boss, though, and I got a ‘piss off’ letter today in the form of an email telling me that my services are no longer required. I couldn’t help myself. I replied, saying that I wouldn’t work for them ever again even if they were the last employer on earth, and that I hope the next mug they take on to test their recipes doesn’t mind waiting five months for their money.
So that’s it, then. Fired. Anyone need a cookery writer?
For the sake of full disclosure I would like to point out that the three large glasses of Jacob’s Creek Sparkling Shiraz that I had (what? I was testing fizz for our anniversary party) had the calorific equivalent of:
1 onion bhaji
1 slice of pizza
1 doughnut
2 jaffa cakes
Honestly, though. I’d rather have the booze than that crap. Anyone else care to fess up their calorific equivalents?
So once again, there’s a load of hassle about working mums versus stay at home mums. An article in The Times has set quite a few female pulses racing, and rightly so; commenting stupidly on the ’yawning chasm that opens up between the mothers who do, and the mothers who don’t’ is never likely to win friends and influence people.
But seriously, these things have been done to death, haven’t they? And really, the biggest issue here as far as I’m concerned isn’t whether some silly woman feels she needs to validate her existence by describing stay-at-home motherhood in terms of ‘the endless coffee mornings, the loneliness, the intellectual invisibility, the simmering resentment, the gin-soaked afternoons’, but her contempt for her fellow female – her total lack of sisterhood. As I commented before, I’m perpetually astonished and appalled by how women treat each other. Whether this is solely the realm of womankind, or whether men do it too but are just better at hiding it (let’s face it, they’re sneaky gits), I have no idea. I just notice it more with women.
Have you noticed how early it starts, too? Again, I’m not saying that boys aren’t horrible to each other, but they seem to be better at the face-to-face slagging. Let’s face it, is there anything more venemous than a group of girls? You know how it is – one of them has some perceived flaw or says/does the wrong thing and suddenly they’re on the outside of the circle looking in, forever destined to be the one that nearly was. I wouldn’t mind if it stopped there, but somehow young women are even developing a taste for violence. Did you see poor old Gemma Whatnot the Page 3 girl recently – beaten and assaulted in a nightclub, not by muggers or leering young men, but by a group of girls? What on earth is going on?
A while ago I commented on women who break up relationships. And my point here still stands…where do we get off nicking each other’s husbands? ‘Oh, it takes two to tango’, they bleat, ‘if he was happy he wouldn’t have looked elsewhere’ and other such rubbish, as they walk off hand in hand into the sunset, while once again some poor, rejected wife faces a new life alone with devastated children and even more devastated self esteem. Nothing knocks your confidence more than the person you love choosing someone else over you. How treacherous; how unsisterly; how downright wrong is that? I understand that sometimes you just can’t help who you fall in love with, but if he’s attached with children, walk away for God’s sake. You have ears and eyes – don’t you think if he’s done it to his wife, he’ll probably end up doing it to you? When I originally wrote about Husband (and Daddy) stealers I said that they should be pinned down while their cellulite is photographed at the most unflattering angle and then humiliated with big, blown-up photos of it being posted all around their home town. I stand by that comment, but now I think they should have them posted on the web too.
Any volunteers?
Once, on this blog, I said that every so often we should tell our mates how fab they are (even if, like me, you have to email most of them), what we love about them and the qualities that we most admire. I stand by that. Cherish your friendships, strive to make new ones, and never be guilty of excluding anyone from your social circle, no matter how complete you think it is. Strike up a new conversation at the school gate… smile at a lady with a new baby… compliment a total stranger on her fabulous shoes and celebrate the fact that we are, obviously, in this together.
Okay, so this is a long piece for me, but bear with me as I’d welcome any comments. Sometimes growing up is difficult: stuff happens and as a parent you’re supposed to have a solution – a piece of advice for the child to follow so that the situation doesn’t rear its ugly head again.
Take my youngest. I know I’m biased but he’s a lovely chap; happy, sporty, smiley and a lot of fun. He can be a huge pain in the arse, granted, but generally he’s pretty easy going. He lost his sparkle for a while when he had a difficult time at his last school, but he’s fitted in just fine at the local school and comes back full of tales of what he’s been up to, with a big smile on his face.
I do think, though, that what he went through at that school knocked his confidence. He plays well with a bunch of kids, but although he’s friendly and likes them all, seems to keep a little bit of distance. I’ve taken the opportunity, while the big fella’s away to encourage him to ask a couple of different kids round to play. We’ve had one so far, which went well, and he’s slowly getting used to the idea again.
Recently, though, a child that he plays with quite a bit said something mean to him. This is normal kid-to-kid stuff and nothing unusual – a little playground snipe. A play, quite cleverly, on the fact that #2 doesn’t hang around with many people. ‘You’ve got no friends’, said Child A. ‘Yes I have’, said #2, ‘go on, then, name them…’ said Child A.
Now at home, none of us are backward in coming forward – we are all quite quick with the wisecracks and #2 is no different – he’s very well equipped to deliver a stinging rejoinder to anything anyone can throw at him – in fact, on several occasions it’s how he gets himself in trouble: these little sarky replies going a little bit near the knuckle when directed at one’s parents. So what did #2 do? Did he redirect with a stinging comeback (of which he’s quite capable)? No. He dissolved into tears, tried valiantly (but failed miserably) to hide it and carried on. I went to talk to him and found out what had been said, and this is where I’m doubting myself.
In fact, with the benefit of hindsight, I’m furious with myself. I talked to Jen about it afterwards who quite rightly said ‘what, and you didn’t say anything to Child A?’ Er.. no. I’m terrible with any sort of confrontation. If there’s any telling off to be done, I tend to direct it to the group as a whole and will ignore things with other children that I would no way tolerate in my own kids. I took #2 to one side, told him that he should brush himself down, ignore it and get on with stuff – that he knew better than to take any notice of silly ‘sticks and stones’ rubbish like that.
But have I made it worse? By not taking Child A to one side and saying ‘now hang on, that was mean and I won’t tolerate you being mean in my house’ have I shown Child A that spite has no consequences? That next time #2 gets on Child A’s nerves will they deal with it by another spiteful comment? By not encouraging #2 to fight back (verbally), do I make him less well equipped to deal with the slings and arrows of the playground?
Hubby is of the opinion that if someone is mean to you then you’re quite entitled to be mean back: ‘f*ck that’, he told #2, if Child A’s mean to you again you bloody well give it back double. You know you can’. However, I’ve always followed the tack that two wrongs don’t make a right, but now I’m starting to wonder if Hubby’s right and that the best course of action would have been for #2 to turn round to Child A and deliver one of his rather witty and stinging put-downs. Child A would be instantly silenced, and everyone would carry on.
We talked about it a bit last night ‘but you’ve always told me not to be mean’, argued #2, ‘in fact, the one time I did say something back to Child A when I was at their house, #1 told you and you went mental’. This is true. It was a lot to do with the fact that I feel strongly that my children should be polite in someone else’s home – I was furious to think that #2 could have been overheard saying something rude when he was a guest there.
Ugh. I’m so confused. As parents, should we get involved? Should we take a step back? And if we take a step back should we allow our children to sort out their own battles in the way they best know how, even if, to a certain degree, they’re doing stuff that we wouldn’t normally encourage?
So after months of planning, #1, the Mad Professor, has gone to visit The Disreputable One and EnglishGrandma (not together, obviously) - they have five days of carefully planned custody each, plus two neutral territory days with my brother, the Lycheeni demon: Uncle I, Auntie L and the fleas (what? no of course I wouldn’t let him stay with Mad Uncle Alg. Are you mad? – he’ll no doubt take him out for alcohol and loose women somewhere during the trip).
The build up to this event was more than stressful, and involved me doing this approximately every five minutes:
‘So keep your passport and boarding card safe, and don’t talk to anyone, and don’t wander round the shops and lose track of time, just get to your gate quickly okay? And don’t put your bag down at all. And leave plenty of time to walk to your gate…’
#1: ‘Yup’
I was worrying that it wasn’t all sinking in, especially when, in the car on the way to the airport, his précis of the task in hand went:
‘and I have to go to the checkpoint place and, like, sign in yeah?’
Oh God.
So anyhoo, I took him to the airport, I signed a disclaimer at the Aer Lingus desk (basically a piece of paper that says ‘no of course I don’t give a shit about my child, otherwise why would I be letting him travel on his own all the way to England without anyone to look after him?, and if you happen to lose him or kill him well sod it, that’s fine with me, I didn’t want him anyway’), and walked him through to security.
We hugged. We kissed. We hugged again. I squeezed tighter. I might have detected a little tremble.
He went through.
He looked back at me with a slightly wobbly smile and all of a sudden didn’t look like the clever 14 year old Mad Professor, but like a little lost and slightly bewildered toddler again.
I sent him a text from the car park which said: ‘now remember, don’t go shopping, just get to your boarding gate, it shuts at 4.30′.
No reply.
I send another: ‘oy. Are you at your bloody gate or not?’
Finally the phone beeps:
‘Yeah mam. Of course. Lol.’
So I drive home, worrying, and by the time I get home he’s in the air (hopefully) and there’s nothing I can do but wait for the phonecall. It comes. It’s my Dad’s mobile. Oh good grief…
Disreputable One: ‘Did the child not get on the flight? I waited ages at arrivals and there’s nobody here…’
I think I might actually be sick.
And then…
#1: ‘Ahaha yeah, I’m here. Everything’s savage. Grandad was here to meet me. Oh and I spent all my money at the airport. What? Yeah, the Euro and the Sterling. What? On some savage PSP games! Ah it doesn’t matter, I’ll get some off Grandad. Yeah, and I had to sit squished between these two massive Polish blokes, and one stole my window seat. No of course I didn’t say anything, he was, like, HUGE! Yeah love you bye’.
So that’s it. My world is a quieter place for a week and a half. Bert will have to find other comfy perches in the garden:
And his Grandparents? Well, I hope they’ve got plenty of food in…
Which leads me swiftly onto other news and here, in all its glory, is Anouk’s rather luscious version of my Rhubarb Crumble Traybake thingy, which has the right amount of rhubarb, and which looks a lot more gorgeous than mine:
So a friend of mine mentioned that she’s rather fond of rhubarb crumble traybake, but that she’s been unable to find a recipe. Being a stick-my-nose-in sort of a person, I decided I’d have a fiddle around and see if I could make her a good approximation of her bakey cakey thing. And here’s what I came up with:
First you need some lovely young rhubarb. Mine’s not quite ready in the garden so I had to make do with some from Tesco, which was well past its pension-pulling age, I can tell you. Anyhoo, here’s what you need:
115g butter
115g sugar
2 eggs
A teeny grating of fresh ginger/orange zest/tsp vanilla extract/cinnamon/whatever
115g self raising flour
400g sliced rhubarb
Beat the butter and sugar together until it’s really light and fluffy, then beat in the eggs, one at a time. To flavour your sponge, you can either go with the usual teaspoon of vanilla extract, or I found that some grated fresh ginger added a nice zing (I keep it in the freezer and grate it straight from frozen). I was discussing my ressup with Madame Belly Rumbles and she then pointed out that a little chopped preserved ginger would be lovely here too – along with a dash or two of the syrup. Or some orange zest maybe. Anyhoo, then gently stir in the flour. If the mixture is a bit stiff you can add a splash of milk.
So spoon this batter over your sliced rhubarb, which you’ve arranged in the bottom of something akin to a small baking tin or lasagne dish or whatever (if you haven’t yet discovered the bestest non-stickiest tray ever that was dirt cheap in Tesco, then I suggest you butter your tin first too). I used 200g rhubarb, but honestly, it was a bit of a case of ‘spot the rhubarb’ – you really need at least double that I think as it practically disappeared.
For the crumble:
115g plain flour
60g butter
60g demerara sugar
So after you’ve blobbed the cake mix haphazardly over the rhubarb, make the crumble by gently rubbing the butter into the flour, then stirring the sugar in. Give it a bit of a squeeze with your fingertips so it clumps together, then crumble it over the cake mix.
Bake at 180 degrees /gas 4 for 30 mins and serve with cream or custard or vanilla ice cream (not the one made out of rehydrated skimmed somethinorother, the one made with eggs and milk and cream, thankyouverymuchly).
This is one of those ‘use anything’ kind of recipes – it would be just as nice over a layering of apples with some grated lemon zest, or some lovely fresh peaches and a touch of honey… Oh, and then on the Sunday when me Ma was here, I did the same recipe, but instead of the rhubarb, I dolloped about a ton of golden syrup in the bottom of the tin, covered it in the cake mix and then added the crumble. Naughty, but ohhhhh so nice:
So it’s bank hols here in the Republic and yesterday dawned the most beautiful, hot sunny day. There’s nothing quite like a sunny day in Ireland. Not only is it very unusual and therefore all the more welcome, but the whole greenness of the place gives it an almost luminous, lime green glow. The kids started off mucking about spraying each other with water guns, then hubby disappeared to the shop and came back with industrial strength rolls of bin bags to create the garden waterslide from hell. Here’s Hubby, #1, #2 and Little C (Lou was far too dainty for hurling herself downhill on a bit of plastic) having fun. Apologies for the hideous cackling, but what you couldn’t see, just out of shot, was that they all crashed into the side of the garage at the end of the trip (oh and check Hubby’s ‘argh! incoming!’). Oh and sorry about shooting directly into the sun. I don’t think I’ll be entering it at Cannes this year. Enjoy though.
We had lamb-burgers for lunch, made with minced lamb, breadcrumbs, crushed garlic, cumin, mustard seed, salt and pepper, with a lovely salsa that hubby made out of the lovely frondy fennel in the garden, plus chilli, pineapple, tomato, greek basil and spring onion. Summer on a plate:
Bert enjoyed the bank holiday too. Hubby has mowed another beautiful heart in one of the front lawns for me which is now full of wild flowers:
and happens to make a rather nice sunbathing spot too:
Mind you, when you have a comfy child to lean on, you can sunbathe just about anywhere:
We rounded the day off with hotdogs and a bonfire, with a bit of guitar playing and a sing song. Ah, I hope the summer lasts.
Having the time to look after your kids whilst providing for them can be tough. Workingmums.co.uk offer advice and support on how mums can work from home and how they can set up their own franchise. Working from home gives you the flexible lifestyle that you require.
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