The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet - Aristotle

My son, who for the purposes of the blog wishes to be known as Will, went off to university a few weeks ago. He seemed concerned that there would be a tearful parting when we left him to settle in to his new halls, but I'm an old hand at this now, his older sisters thrived at university and I am sure that Will will do the same. He seemed a little disappointed when I reassured him that there would be no tears, just a hug and pleasant thoughts of a tidier house! 

The week before he went to university was busy uneventful - at at least that was the case until the Wednesday evening. We'd had a very nice family meal at the Chinese restaurant, to say goodbye to Will. I ate too much and by the time we got home I was starting to regret it but it had been a lovely evening and I felt happy and contented when we got home. 

I should have known it was too good to be true! Will vanished soon after we got home from the meal, he said goodnight, took his things and went upstairs leaving Robbie and me in the lounge. I thought no more about it until later on when I decided to go to bed. I'd been putting off going to the the loo until that point so I needed to go quite badly. I went upstairs with some degree of urgency and straight into the bathroom without putting the light on. As soon as I sat down I realised that the seat was sticky and I jumped up wondering what on earth it could be. When I turned on the light I saw what looked like the aftermath of a bad case of dysentery! On closer inspection I saw the tell tale signs that Will had dyed his hair, box sticking out of bin, container still on sink and dark brown marks everywhere! The white toilet seat was marked with abstract streaks reminiscent of zebra stripes and to my horror I realised that a mirror image of the design was imprinted on my rear end!! I tried my best to restore my skin to its usual colour but without success (it looked like a henna tattoo but it vanished after about a week) vanish very soon. I got Will out of bed to restore order in the bathroom. He had the good sense to be very apologetic so I managed not to harm him but it was a close call!

Will spent a large chunk of the next morning in the bathroom scrubbing, the marks clung stubbornly to the toilet seat, floor, walls and door. I had to deal with it myself, but it did me good to see Will scrubbing the floor!

Apparently these were essential supplies for uni! 

The remainder of the week passed in a blur. I ironed 13 shirts, 14 pairs of chinos, and countless t-shirts and sundry items. I replaced missing buttons, altered jeans, sewed decorative patches on his onesie, collected his suit and coats from the dry cleaners and folded and sorted all his clothes ready for packing. By the time the car was packed with food, cleaning stuff, iron, assorted gadgets and their chargers, books, stationary, bedding, clothes and random clutter I was exhausted. There were no tears as we drove away from the halls just a huge sigh of relief and a feeling that like Will, Robbie and I are also starting on a new chapter of our lives. 

“Life is a frail moth flying caught in the web of the years that pass.” - Sara Teasdale

We live quite to a park and there is other open space nearby too, perhaps that is why we get so many moths in our house during the summer months. They come into the bathroom, maybe they are attracted to the light, but I read somewhere that they like a humid atmosphere so perhaps that explains why they choose the bathroom. 

I rather like moths, they have beautiful markings and they don't really do any harm in the bathroom. I love having the chance to take a close look at their markings when they settle on the wall, they really are very beautiful in a more subtle and understated way than butterflies. The problem is that our cat Oreo has appointed himself moth catcher in chief and during 'moth season' he lurks in the vicinity of the bathroom ready to pounce on any unsuspecting moth which is careless enough to stray within his reach! I feel very sorry for the moths.

Since we have been back from holiday it seems as if the moths have a death wish, I gave found corpses in the bath damp and dying moths around the sink and moths turning up their toes on the window ledge. I don't know what is going on. On Friday I found the corpse of what I thought was a grasshopper in the bath. On closer inspection I found that it was a speckled bush cricket. The question is, how did it get there? Speckled bush crickets are flightless, they can jump but our bathroom is upstairs and only the small top window was open, so how could it possibly have got into the bathroom?

Ready at Last

Friday was a bit of a blur, packing, getting the car ready and filling it with fuel as well as last minute shopping. By 7.30pm everything was packed, the house was a tidy as I could manage and I tucked myself into bed to get some sleep before the long drive to Cornwall. I planned to get up at 2am so I needed a very early night. I'd not heard from Robbie but Laura was on standby to pick him up if he managed to get home without incident.

The call of the bathroom woke me up at midnight and as I sleeply emerged from the bathroom Robbie came bounding up the stairs wearing some new PJ bottoms, they had Batfink on them and they were startling to say the least. I went back to bed and reluctantly got up again at 2am. Robbie was still up, he was too scared to go to be because he knew he wouldnt get up again. I had to hurry him along because he was still running on Irish time and at that speed the holiday would be over before we got there!

I packed the flasks and food for the journey, then I packed the final items into the car while Robbie downed tools and made himself a bacon sandwich (at 3am!). Finally Laura and Sam and I were ready in the car and after sitting in the car waiting for Robbie for what seemed like hours we drove off towards Cornwall. By the time we reached the end of our road everyone else was asleep and I was left with an increasingly stressy sat nav for company. I knew the best way to go and each time I ignored the sat nav I could hear the edge in her voice as she announced that she was "recalculating".

Sound Effects

Robbie was late home from work again today and when I left work he was waiting for me in the car park so that he could get a lift home. I love him dearly, but at times like that I wish he could be a little more 'normal', last time he turned up wearing that dreaded flasher mac and today he had his white London Underground umbrella!

He told me a funny story on the way home. This morning he was in he bathroom on 'the throne' when he became aware that he could hear faint music and someone was talking to him. It wasn't 'heavenly' music so he had no fear that he was about to 'do an Elvis' and meet his maker in the bathroom. This was much more down to earth music, and it bothered him, he couldn't believe that someone would be thoughtless enough to have their radio on in the street at 5am loud enough for him to hear it. He then remembered that the bathroom is at the back of the house, so he deduced that the offending radio must be in our garden, but he wasn't in a position to go an investigate straight away. Thankfully the neighbours were spared the vision of Robbie in his smalls searching for a radio in the back garden, because he found the source of the mystery music before he left the house. We have two radios in the bathroom, ours (tuned to Radio 4) and theirs (tuned to something else). One of the children had turned their radio down to almost nothing instead of turning it off!

On the subject of mystery noises, the previous day Robbie and Emily searched the lounge for a phone that kept vibrating. It wasn't a phone, it was the cat snoring!

The Sights You See ...................

Now I know why they say that you should be careful what you wish for. I am fairly used to sharing the house with assorted teenagers (and a 36 year old who closely identifies with his inner child!) so I am used to challenging behaviour of one kind or another. I have been wishing that a certain 14 year old would grow out of his aversion water, and that our daily battles about having a shower would be a thing of the past. My wish came true! He has discovered the joys of soap in a big way. Every time I go into the bathroom it looks as if there has just been a tidal wave, there are so many lotions and potions around the bath that it it takes me ages to move everything before I clean the bath. He uses so much shampoo, shower gel, deodorant, aftershave and assorted smelly stuff that breathing apparatus is required before entering the bathroom, but there is something even worse than all that. He balances a great big mirror behind the taps at the edge of the bath! The last thing I want is to sit and look at myself when I am in the bath, and when Robbie is in the shower - no I will not go on, some images are just shouldn't be imagined. I keep removing the mirror and it keeps mysteriously reappearing. I almost find myself longing for the old days!

Chaos on the Coventry Corridor

This morning I decided to have a nice relaxing bath. The bathroom is about the only place in the house that I can have a few minutes peace, and even then it is not guaranteed. The bath water was lovely and warm and I lay back in the bath with my eyes closed listening to the radio and enjoying the luxury of the moment. Suddenly I became aware of a presence looming over me, he stood there hands on hips with indignation etched on his face. His lips were moving but I was getting no sound (bliss!) there was water in my ears but as I moved my head my hearing returned in time to hear the 'headline' Chaos on the Coventry Corridor. Robbie was pleased that he hadn't been at work today because there had been delays and confusion on the line. He told me in detail about each delay and the reasons for it, but I will spare you the detail. I have (mostly) enjoyed having Robbie at home and I will miss him when he goes back, but it will be nice to have a bit of peace!

Conspiricy Theory

I am old enough to remember a time when our lives were not ruled by mobile phones and occasionally I feel nostalgic for those days when you could go out and not be troubled by messages or phone calls. During my childhood the house phone was connected to the wall and nobody thought of phones in every room, often it was positioned on a table in the hall and it certainly didn't dominate the house. Now I am driven to distraction by the phone, we have two cordless phones but when the it rings the handset is never on the base and I have to sprint from one room to the next looking for it. It is usually in Emily or Laura's bedroom, but by the time I have found it the ringing has stopped and I am left to wonder who was calling.

I think our bathroom is bugged, as soon as I get in there you can guarantee that the phone will ring. I would understand it if I shut myself in there with a magazine, but I don't stay in there any longer than necessary. I know the caller can't see you but I am never going to be comfortable about chatting on the phone while using the smallest room. I have to rush out in a dishevelled state to find and answer the phone and it is almost always Robbie just ringing to say hello. I don't know how he manages to time it so badly so often. Even more annoying is when I have just got into a relaxing hot bath, the phone rings and my moment of luxury is ruined. It is bad enough to drag myself out of the bath and stand there dripping and freezing to death just to answer the phone, but when it is Robbie ringing to tell me something 'exciting' about a train that he saw on his way to work I find it very hard to be civil to him. We probably couldn't manage without our mobiles for long, but just occasionally I long for the way it used to be! Of course I could ignore the phone, but it could be important. My parents may need help or Sam's school may need to get hold of me, I can't ignore it.

The Big Question 22.01.08

I have been pondering on one of the great mysteries of life. My family have many skills, they use computers, mobile phones and ipods with ease, so why is it that I am the only person in the house with the necessary technical knowledge to remove an empty toilet roll and replace it with a new one. It is not rocket science, just a spring loaded bar that the roll hangs on, but the children never even attempt to change it, they just leave the new roll poised on the back of the loo ready to fall down. Robbie tries his best but he always gets the roll so that the perforations of the top layer of paper are offset from the perforations underneath and the paper doesn't tear properly. Oh well, I suppose it is nice to know I still have my uses!

You never know when some seemingly innocent remark will start Robbie off. The television was on and I expressed my irritation at a stupid advertisement that involved a man doing a somersault across the bathroom in order to fit a rim block to the loo. How ridiculous, when did a (straight) man ever interest himself in cleaning the loo and whoever has enough space at the side of their lavatory for a grown man to do a somersault!

My comment was enough to start Robbie off on the poor design of the toilets at work. Apparently they are lopsided with too much space on one side of the cubicle, too little on the other and the toilet roll holders are placed inconveniently causing problems for people who are not double jointed. The ergonomic analysis continued with a detailed analysis of the dodgy design of the Network Rail toilets. It was at this point that I experienced déjà vu and relived an interminable and unnecessarily detailed account of the management of controlled emission toilets on Voyagers - he even described the smell and the problems with the seals!

Robbie is full of surprises and suddenly the conversation veered away from design and function to position and posture when using the facilities. I will leave the rest to your imagination ...... as Richard says, too much information!!

More Morning Madness 07.03.07

This morning was deeply frustrating. As usual I was rushing around like a headless chicken, trying to do everything in an impossibly short amount of time. As usual I was having to chase Sam around to ensure that he with all his kit and equipment would be ready to leave the house on time. The girls are not what you would call morning people - but they are most definitely bathroom people, so constant vigilance is necessary so that I can nip in and briefly take possession of the smallest room. It is intensely off-putting to have someone sighing deeply as they queue outside the door, but I have learned to harden my heart. Megan has her own agenda to follow, it involves sitting in the most awkward positions so that I have to keep stepping over her, then moving at the last moment so that I trip over. A variation on this is when she walks slowly in front of me then suddenly reverses causing me to stumble. I am sure that in a previous life she was one of those geriatrics with a pull along shopping trolley who insist on shopping at peek periods just to create an obstruction in the supermarket and annoy busy shoppers.

Anyway Sam was eventually ready and he sat waiting for me with his rucksack on his back. It was only when we headed out of the front door that I spotted his shoes - the wrong shoes. He had apparently 'lost' them - how can anyone loose their shoes? I sent him back to find them while I sat in the car watching time slip through my fingers. He arrived, moaning and got into the car, I pulled off, then glanced down and saw him still wearing the wrong shoes!! Off he went to try again and I tried to remain calm - and failed! Finally his feet reappeared in the car, this time they were correctly shod. I was so late and so stressed

This afternoon, Sam was had made the magical transformation from neatly ironed schoolboy, to a mud encrusted mess. The unironed look! He managed to bring home half of the park, it stuck to his shoes and to his clothing. This afternoon, Sam was had made the magical transformation from neatly ironed schoolboy, to a mud encrusted mess. The unironed look! He managed to bring home half of the park, mud was caked all around his shoes and artistically spattered over his clothing. Even Meg doesn't get that filthy when she rolls in mud!

More Morning Madness 07.03.07

This morning was deeply frustrating. As usual I was rushing around like a headless chicken, trying to do everything in an impossibly short amount of time. As usual I was having to chase Sam around to ensure that he with all his kit and equipment would be ready to leave the house on time. The girls are not what you would call morning people - but they are most definitely bathroom people, so constant vigilance is necessary so that I can nip in and briefly take possession of the smallest room. It is intensely off-putting to have someone sighing deeply as they queue outside the door, but I have learned to harden my heart. Megan has her own agenda to follow, it involves sitting in the most awkward positions so that I have to keep stepping over her, then moving at the last moment so that I trip over. A variation on this is when she walks slowly in front of me then suddenly reverses causing me to stumble. I am sure that in a previous life she was one of those geriatrics with a pull along shopping trolley who insist on shopping at peek periods just to create an obstruction in the supermarket and annoy busy shoppers.

Anyway Sam was eventually ready and he sat waiting for me with his rucksack on his back. It was only when we headed out of the front door that I spotted his shoes - the wrong shoes. He had apparently 'lost' them - how can anyone loose their shoes? I sent him back to find them while I sat in the car watching time slip through my fingers. He arrived, moaning and got into the car, I pulled off, then glanced down and saw him still wearing the wrong shoes!! Off he went to try again and I tried to remain calm - and failed! Finally his feet reappeared in the car, this time they were correctly shod. I was so late and so stressed

This afternoon, Sam was had made the magical transformation from neatly ironed schoolboy, to a mud encrusted mess. The unironed look! He managed to bring home half of the park, it stuck to his shoes and to his clothing. This afternoon, Sam was had made the magical transformation from neatly ironed schoolboy, to a mud encrusted mess. The unironed look! He managed to bring home half of the park, mud was caked all around his shoes and artistically spattered over his clothing. Even Meg doesn't get that filthy when she rolls in mud!

The Cossack Dance 14.02.07

Valentine cards for Robbie? You will be making him big headed! To be honest if you had told me that this morning I would have paid whoever sent the cards to come and take him off my hands - but more of that later! If he does have a harem of women (well I assume they are women, with that gay walk you can never be sure!) sending him valentine cards I better put him on a course of vitamins to keep his energy levels up!

Bad Walsall Woman, you have him completely freaked out, he doesn't know who you are! Kempoian, Robbie says you are just trying to get him into trouble, surely you realise he can (and often does) do that all by himself!! Sheffield rocks, I used to work there (in Nether Edge) in the dim distant past, lovely accent, a few nice men and a really nice area. I had worked in Dundee just before that and when my mum heard how that odd combination had influenced my accent she nearly had a fit. She said she hadn't paid good money all those years for me to end up speaking like that. I moved to Plymouth next and hated it, so despite marrying a Cornishman my accent gradually reverted to something that passes for normal.

Now to explain this morning's upset. We got up in good time and Robbie had as long as he needed in the bathroom, so things were going well. Considering they only have fractionally more to wash than women, I can't understand why men need to take so long in the bathroom!

The trouble started when we got to the station, Robbie went to get the parking ticket. I realised that he had brought his rucksack, I attempted to lift it and found that it contained a hundredweight of work documents as well as, diary, i pod, magazines, snacks and all the 'essentials' to deal with any conceivable railway emergency! Samuel has an unhealthy attachment to his rucksack too, he hates to be parted from it, but he has Asperger's Syndrome, Robbie is allegedly normal!

I took his i pod, pager and sweets out of his rucksack and put them in my handbag. When he returned I refused to let him take his rucksack. He would look ridiculous with a suit and a rucksack, I didn't want him to look like a Sherpa! Robbie went mad and had a full scale tantrum in the car park. I won the first round and he thundered off with what I can only describe as a cross between a stomp and a shuffle - if it had been speeded up it would have looked like a Cossack dance! He was impossible and he continued the argument on the train, I was tempted to tip my hot chocolate over him, but it was too expensive to waste. It took him until almost lunchtime to recover his temper - so much for Valentine's Day!

The university visit went well, I would be happy for Emily to go to Leicester, but she will make her own decision in due course.

Bathroom Blues

I stayed in bed too long this morning and ended up with backache. To make matters worse I had to lay the new floor covering in the bathroom, it isn't difficult just awkward. Robbie, as I have mentioned before is not the most practical man, but he is very enthusiastic!

Against my better judgement I ended up trapped in a confined space armed with a wayward roll of vinyl and a stanley knife. Robbie dressed only in PJ bottoms was there to 'talk' me through the process! All went well for ten minutes or so, then I made the mistake of asking for a bit of practical help in manoeuvring the vinyl around the lavatory. Robbie just doesn't have the gentle touch, and before I could say anything to stop him, he had pulled the base of the loo away from the soil pipe. I acted quickly to avoid a full scale flood, and we managed to fix the problem. I don't swear but I must admit to raising my voice and indulging in some rather unpleasant thoughts! Following the maxim 'when in a hole stop digging' Robbie beat a hasty retreat to make me a nice (much needed) cup of tea, while I got on with the floor.

Despite the mishap the floor is now laid and Robbie has worked hard to get the bathroom organised again. I couldn't wish for a better husband, I may get frustrated with him for five minutes but I can never stay cross for long.

Introducing Robbie

Robbie is 'for decorative purposes only' by that I don't mean that he has film star good looks, whatever it is that makes him attractive is more than skin deep. He has lovely blue eyes, his own wacky style and a great sense of humour. His enthusiasm for any new task that comes his way is boundless, but it is not always matched by practical ability! That's what I mean by for decorative purposes only!! 


On a Sunday a couple of weeks ago he finally carried out his threat to finish decorating the bathroom. It proved a severe test of stamina - for me! First he filled some holes with expanding filler, he managed to stick his fingers together, and the wall looked as if we had a sudden outbreak of dry rot! I was still dealing with the aftermath of that when he reappeared in the kitchen covered in white hammerite paint, he had set about painting the door frame and got it all over his clothes. I left him armed with a bottle of white spirit and I came back to find he had used my washing up cloths – and put them back! Finally with wet gloss paint nearby he decided to sand the walls with his new sander - we now have textured paint around the door frames. Thankfully after that he stopped for a rest!"