A Humdrum Mum

During the half-term holiday, we celebrated Mrs Humdrum Senior's 70th birthday by renting a cottage in the Middle of Nowhere, South Wales for the week. Holidaying with my parents and us three, I imagined finding a happy medium of activities for us all would be tricky. We like sightseeing, we like walks. He likes - well, YouTube. After overriding Mr Humdrum (oops not good parenting but I had to do it), we allowed Ben to use his phone on the wifi in the car to watch The Simpsons or YouTube. Our journeys ranged from 30-90 minutes each way each day, and I reckoned that this was a good trade-off for his attention during daytime and at mealtimes. To be honest, I was asleep on the way home most evenings! It seemed to work; he disappeared upstairs after the hot tub each night, but came down again to play a game or to watch a film. He put up with our walks; even when the sightseeing wasn't quite to his taste, he didn't moan. I think the little angel is starting t...

I call them uncontinued, because to name them discontinued lends a sense of finality. They may, of course, be picked back up again. The prefix "dis" means a negative force. Not continued. But they are just not continued for the moment. Therefore uncontinued. Whilst off work recently, and saving my voice, I trawled the internet as usual. Well this time, I did some work on my old blogs. I have two (a private one and this public one) and I hadn't blogged on this once since July and the private one since October last year. I have thought over the last year or so that I was probably a bit too early with my ideas with blogging. I blogged (privately) intensely about my son's baby/toddler/child/teen-hood from 6 weeks of age. He's now 11 and I know there would be more of an audience now were I to have started this lark last year. In the past, I made up a story called "That's not my son" using the "That's not my..." books as inspiration. Now ...

I thought Ben was finally feeling motivated to clean his boots. No. He's cleaning his old ones so he can sell them. 

His shoes lay strewn near the front door. ACDC riffs belt out from the amp in the front room. My head throbs. Peace reigned for five days. Five long, lazy days. Now that peace is shattered. The boy is back. But - prepare yourself for the shock - I didn't miss him! The school parents' Facebook chat page buzzed while they were away at their Year 5 residential. I started a thread asking if any other parents had received their postcard. We were asked to pack a stamped addressed card. I had but some other parents didn't, making them feel totally rejected! One mum forgot and felt awful. It was on this thread that it appeared I was the only parent who didn't miss their little bundle of joy! Other mums described tears at bedtime the night before. Tears when they were pulling away on the coach. And this was boys, actually, not girls. I jokingly said I was certainly going to win the Worst Parent Award for this half-term. One mum replied that I'd raised an independent boy ra...

ACDC Queen Elizabeth Park, London 4.6.16 Last December, I was quite hungover, the night before having fallen asleep in a curry house after a long school term. I booked ACDC tickets with trembling hands. My son has recently got into them and has started playing the electric guitar, so it seemed like the right thing to do. Take him to an ACDC gig for his first one. We booked with our friends, also having two boys well into ACDC and a dad who'd seen them before.

(Photo taken from Duran Duran's official Facebook page) Six months ago, my Durannie friend asks if I want to go to this festival in Southampton to see Duran Duran. It's just before my birthday, what a great idea. And let's upgrade to VIP tickets! Together, we've seen them three times. The first - no John sadly, but still good. The second - in Birmingham, fantastic to see JT at last (he's always been my fav, my friend preferring SLB). The third - extremely special in St Andrews football ground. We were so close and I was pregnant with Ben, dreaming JT was the father! 

Having heard about the Dirk Wears White Sox tour, we knew we had to buy tickets for the Kings of the Wild Frontier tour. Thirty five years since its release, it has remained a firm favourite in our house. We were 11. It was the first "proper" album that I got into. Glynn's parents wouldn't let him have a copy, instead buying him a Shakin' Stevens album - which he now can't jibe them about as they bought him an expensive watch to shut him up. I had a copy taped for me by one of my parents' friends.