Hello. It’s a bit quiet in here.

Should I make excuses for abandoning my blog? Would you believe me? No, me neither.

Have a photo instead. Euan makes breakfast for both of us every morning. He gets a sense of achievement. I get… breakfast. The only time it doesn’t really work is when I’ve failed to do the washing-up, so the normal bowls aren’t handy.

Using infallible kid-logic, Euan improvises. This was my breakfast the other day, combining a hefty serving of cornflakes with a pint and a half of milk, or thereabouts. How could I tell him off? He was just being helpful… I got about halfway through, in case you’re interested, before giving up.

Euan said, “It’s OK mummy, you did very well. At least you tried it.”

The national reaction seemed to be “Woah, look at all this white stuff, there’s like three inches of it, I hope we’ve got plenty of tinned food. Snowball fight!”

Is it Spring yet?

Usually, when it snows, we just get a disappointing inch or two (insert cock joke here) which quickly thaws. So the difference this time seems to have been the volume of snow… oh, and London. Apparently the fact that London got hit makes this a national hype-worthy event, rather than some regional frivolity. We got comparatively little up here, so life went on pretty much as normal – except for a few school closures, but not Euan’s of course. Mr Lewis won’t let a bit of snow stop education.  I took this photo whilst out at work on the Tuesday.

I thought it was 80% gorgeous, 15% bumpy, and only 5% scary. And part of the scariness was because I was hoping there would be somewhere to turn around at the end. There was, although it was about a 9-point turn in untouched deep snow, which was an experience… but I wasn’t going back to the house to ask for a push, because I don’t think they were too pleased to see me.

The rest of the day was quite easy – all the major roads had been gritted, and when I got to residential areas I just had to look out for rogue sledges whizzing onto the road. And of course, with so many people staying away from work and school plenty of my customers were at home for a change, so I was basically the scrooge in the wintery wonderland. Ah well, someone has to be.

Of course, Euan and Steve had great fun in the snow, and they were able to use the sledge that Euan was given by Nana Sylvia for Christmas. Euan’s verdict? “It was good fun, but I’d like to do it when it’s warmer.” I completely agree with the sentiment – I always thought that sledging, building snowmen and having snowball fights would all be a lot more fun if your hands didn’t get so icy.

Muesli time!

For necessity only.

Max does not like the snow, as these pawprints show. It appears that nature called, and he reluctantly obeyed before coming straight back to his radiator. The ducks and chickens don’t seem too bothered, but were grateful for a bit of muesli as a treat. Either they don’t have any feeling in their feet… or they go numb from the cold and don’t notice it any more. Brrr. They’ve got their yard back now, but as I type this there are definitely fresh flakes falling outside… here we go again.

I’ve been round the new shops a couple of times, and it’s a nice enough sort of place, at least they’ve made an effort with some nice lighting (I give it three months, tops) and a funky bridge linking it to the town centre. However, as Dan and I discovered last week, it may not all be the high-quality of workmanship you would expect for that amount of money. Running through the pelting rain, we were worried to see a curtain of water dribbling into a very soggy doormat in the entrance to Topshop/Topman. Dodging the unwanted cold shower, we noticed that next door at La Senza, things were even worse:

Raindrops keep falling on my head...

They later dragged a whole wheelie bin into the shop front to catch the streams of water. Then there were some helpful-looking men in fluorescent yellow jackets who got a stepladder and tried ineffectually running their hands along the guttering. Er, lads, hate to break it to you, but this water is dripping out of the lintel, so it’s getting into the walls somewhere higher up than that little gutter there.

We didn’t hang around (it appears the new development is also perfectly shaped for funneling the wind into a cone of icy hell) but when we got down to the underground car park, there were a couple of places where water was dripping out of the concrete above and forming large puddles.

I could be charitable and write these off as teething troubles, but considering that this is Wrexham, it’s far more likely that corners have been cut, idiots have been placed in charge, and somebody forgot to tick the box saying “must be waterproof”. Never mind, someone will have made shitloads of money out of it, and I bet they’re not the ones with their hands in the gutter.

Incidentally, whilst I’m having a nice little rant, I note they haven’t bothered with an apostrophe. The internet seems to think the correct rendition of the name of the area is “Eagle’s Meadow”, although admittedly this might be group guesswork, with people being aware of the need for punctuation, but no-one being bold enough to put the apostrophe at the end of the word and give our lone Eagle some company.

Alternatively, if anyone speaks Welsh well enough, we could work out whether it refers to a meadow belonging to a single eagle or multiple eagles…

Now, does anyone have a giant black apostrophe, and a really long ladder?

Euan’s birthday is coming up, so I’ve been fishing for ideas for his party. Techniquest last year was amazing, but I want to give him a bit of variety so I was trying to think of an alternative.

Zoo? Too expensive, and a bit rubbish in February.

Laserquest? Minimum age 6, which means half his friends can’t come, and even the ones that can might burst into tears or injure themselves horribly. Save that one until he’s bigger.

Cinema? Meh.

Jolly Jungle/Silly Barts/other soft play area places? Everyone does that. And it’s quite pricy.

Then I thought about a good old-fashioned house party. Pass the parcel! Musical statues! Jelly and ice-cream… Euan would love it, and it would work out nice and cheap. So we started writing the guest list, which is always difficult because Euan either forgets people or wants every single one of his acquaintances to attend. We’ve been spending a few minutes each evening trying to refine the list – adding close friends and removing those he’s not so bothered about. And then as I started to think about it all, anxiety crept in.

I don’t really know any of the other parents, you see, and I suddenly realised that all these strangers would be turning up on the doorstep and leaving their cherished offspring in my tender care for a couple of hours. (Note to self: scrub the doorstep.) I know a few faces, and I nod and smile at them, but I don’t know anyone’s name, nor which child they are associated with. This is made worse by the fact that they clearly all recognise me as “Euan’s mum” and several of them even know my name, by that strange playground psychic ability that I simply don’t have. So when I pick Euan up from parties, he is promptly packaged for me with the correct coat and a party bag. It will be awful if I have to ask every single person which child is theirs. Just to add to the social agony perhaps I could ask each of them to pose for a snapshot so I can learn who everyone is?

I started scrabbling around my panicked, rubbish-with-names brain for ways to mitigate this impending embarrassment. I’ve been dragging poor Euan to that school for two and a half years, and in all that time I can remember only ONE playground conversation. I stood with Nathan’s mum (her name escapes me) and we discussed how cold it was. That’s it. In my defence, it was very very cold that day.

I thought about making sure that I was always “busy” when the door goes, so that another helpful adult (e.g. Uncle Dan) can answer it, because it’s OK for them to look cluelessly at people. But that might seem a bit rude.

So I have come up with an ingenious plan. I have 18 school days left until the party. That’s 18 dropoffs, and 14 pickups, so a total of 32 playground scouting opportunities. Instead of being the last to arrive, only occasionally beating the bell, from now on we will be punctually exemplary models of routine, so that I can see which kids arrive with which parents. And I will be paying attention. Euan will be my informant. “Which one’s Rhys?” “Which Rhys?” “Either Rhys, which one do you want at your party?” “That one.” “Got it.”

Operation Social Butterfly is underway. They shall come to the ball!

I spy, with my mince pie...

I’m rather a fan of Jamie Oliver. I never really watched his stuff in his Naked Chef days, but was vaguely aware of his Sainsbury’s affiliation, and the the national irritation he seemed to inspire. But he’s come through that and gone on to bigger and better things, with the School Dinners thing (which I also didn’t watch) and the Pass it On campaign – which I liked. And now I occasionally dip into his TV series. So we decided to see what he had to say about Christmas.

It all looked very practical and quite tasty, but we decided we would copy his mince pie recipe. Roll out some puff pastry, spread mincemeat on it, roll it up and cut into twelve, plonk them in a tray on top of some filo pastry, and there you go! Very easy, minimal work required, and as he said “It’s basically an assembly job”.

The first attempt turned out OK – some of the filo liked our tray a bit too much, causing pie collapses, but most of them worked and apart from the rather thick puff pastry getting a bit puffy, they were acceptable.

So when Steve cooked a bit of a feast last night for his friends, and I said I’d do dessert, I thought the second attempt could only be better! I would roll the pastry out thinner, and thoroughly grease the tray this time. And I did, I swear I did. But for some reason the results were a bit disastrous. We couldn’t serve them. Luckily our guests were completely full of yummy lamb, pork, gravy, and assorted vegetables, so they didn’t seem to mind.

They taste OK. Steve reckons it’s probably down to the geriatric oven. Better luck next time.

He's behind you...

Oh dear. One of those films where you could easily spend the whole thing shouting at the screen.

“Don’t go in there”, or “Grab a sharp knife in each hand and leg it”, but mostly just, “No no no, stupid stupid stupid”. Also possibly, “I don’t care if the tyres have been slashed, it still has an engine, use it and get away”.

I’m sorry Liv Tyler, I like you, but I was hoping for so much more.

I watched this under the misapprehension that it was a remake of the film Ils, which it isn’t. It is still valid to draw comparisons, as they are quite similar, but the most remarkable difference has to be that The Strangers is STUPID.

I rather liked the masked people, although Ils manages to conceal the aggressors too without such a big cartoony statement. A couple of tense scenes were done very nicely, but mostly it was just a case of people running about randomly, failing to take even basic steps to protect themselves, and ultimately getting what they deserved.

I seem to remember that in Ils, the sanctity of the house seemed to gradually crumble in stages, with the tension building as the feeling of security was eroded… whereas Liv and her fella just dashed about the place leaving doors open and exposing themselves to risk at every turn.

I liked the way they weren’t the perfect couple in love , and we were spared the standard “Here are our two main characters, life is perfect for them right now, watch them have sex in a really connected and quite silhouettey way and then watch someone ruin it all for them”. But then having set up a nice awkwardness and discomfort between them, the film just forgets all about that later on – it doesn’t even go for “oh but deep down under pressure they rediscover their love for each other”, which would be the obvious route, instead it seems to strip them of any personality and fling them around the place.

The end result is a film that negates its own scariness. How can I be scared when you’d have to have the intelligence of a gnat to end up in the same situation? Never mind the “based on true events” bit – that probably just means that once upon a time, a couple heard a knock at the door on their remote country house, and when the girl outside turned out to be a bit creepy, they immediately phoned the police and lived happily ever after.

Sod this, I’m going to watch Wall-E again and feel warm and fuzzy.

Sorry.

New Year’s Resolution: to blog properly.

There, I’ve typed it, there’s no going back now. And they say that once something is released into the wilds of the tinterwebs, it’s out there forever. (Which is why John and I share a mild embarrassed feeling about Gemcasts. Ah well.)

Luckily for me, there is a flexible definition for “blogging properly”. 

As 2008 draws to an end, allow me to share with you the beautiful sound that has woken me with so many of this year’s sunrises…

Possibly the worst way ever to be woken up. The gradual realisation that she’s going nuts again, the futility of trying to muffle the noise with a pillow, and the resigned trudge downstairs to find some raisins or lettuce to throw at her, if the water hose doesn’t work.

I have a mental image of a bunch of feral kids all over an unattended car, ripping off wing mirrors with their teeth, using windscreen wipers in mock fights, and jumping triumphantly on bonnets…

If the signs are a bit blurry, blame the rain. They say “All vehicles are parked at owners risk” and “Caution; children at play”.

I’ll let them off the missing apostrophe in the first sign. After all, they were probably distracted by the pre-pubescents circling their van…

There’s no real reason for this phobia. I’ve just always had it. And this was when I was a kid, before I’d heard more horror stories, before I’d seen the speed and ferocity of fire.

I sometimes still lie awake at night, very aware of all the flammable stuff around me, just waiting for something electrical to go ping and trap me in an inferno.

But last Thursday I had to be brave and calm Euan down, because our next-door neighbour had a fire. We didn’t realise at first. We heard shouting outside and thought it was just the usual drunk people staggering past, just earlier than usual. Then we saw the blue flashing lights through the curtains, and popped upstairs to have a look. Two fire engines, and black smoke billowing out of the windows next door.

Being the helpful neighbours that we are, we helpfully stood there gawping for a few minutes. Then we helpfully went outside, and when we realised that there was nothing we could really do, we went back to gawping. It smelled terrible. All chemically upholstery stuff that shouldn’t be burning. I went to shut the ducks away. I took Euan into the house, but we couldn’t concentrate on our book. So we went back outside for some more gawping. It didn’t feel so bad, since there was a bit of a crowd by this point, so at least it was fashionable. It was a bit chilly, but luckily the firemen had managed to put it out quite quickly and it wasn’t very dramatic watching them put their hoses away so we went back into the warmth. No-one was hurt, and most of the damage was from smoke.

On the positive side, it meant that I spoke to the neighbours opposite for the first time ever, which was nice. But we were all quite shaken, and Euan is still asking questions about it. So far, no sleepless nights though – for him or me – which I’m taking as a positive sign.

But I still watch them. And enjoy them, in my own way. For anyone watching with me, this means they have to endure my outbursts of “Why? Why walk away from the nice safe place into the horrible scary murderous spooky place? Armed only with a torch???” or occasionally, “Tell me when I can look.”

So. I watched The Orphanage with Nicola – she brought the DVD round, knowing of my enthusiasm for all things Del Toro. I’ll try to talk around major plot points and avoid big spoilers. Basically, a woman called Laura moves back to the orphanage where she grew up, settling there with her husband and son, full of good intentions, planning to renovate the place and look after disabled kids.

I liked it very much. All right, so you could pick out the formulaic bits – the setting was typical scary film, the characters felt a bit identikit at first, but I did warm to them as the film went on. And there were a number of moments where I snapped, “You stupid woman,” but that’s true for most films that scare me. My defense mechanism is to ridicule the actions of the protagonists. And yes, you could work out what had happened quite a while before it was revealed, but I still enjoyed the way you could interpret the events with a side order of supernatural, or just plain old rationalism thanks.

Of course, the woman is more suggestible to the spiritual side of things, and her husband is the logical one. Towards the end I would have liked him to have more depth – he was dependable to the point of annoyance. OK, we get it, he doesn’t buy into all that stuff, he’s still allowed to have a bit more character, at the moment he might as well be a big skeptical lump of rock. I liked their interaction at the start, it was nicely observed, but as the film went on and their relationship suffered I thought more could have been done to show how they were growing apart.

My biggest problem was that I simply didn’t like the child. I didn’t share Laura’s protectiveness for the little brat. If he wanted to go running off to scary places on his own then good luck to him, he knows where to come back to when he’s finished his attention-seeking strops. Kid needs a good slap if you ask me…

Overall it’s well worth a watch, beautifully put-together, just suspend your disbelief for a little while (“Are you telling me no-one noticed when…” etc).

I’ll stop now, because I’m sitting here on my own, and I feel the need to put some music on and maybe a few more lights…