Tuesday 3 February 2009

Crazy...

Me: "Is it icy out?"

Husband: "Not particularly..."

Me: "So I'll be alright to walk to the gym in my trainers?"

Husband (curling his lip slightly): "What, the same trainers you work out in?"

Me: "Yes. And don't look like that, no-one has separate trainers for the walk to the gym and the actual work-out." (What kind of Desparate Housewives world do you live in?)

Husband: "Well, then yes. If you must, it should be fine."

5 minutes later as I walk - no, sorry; slip, teeter and skate - to the gym, I realise that having the conversation above with a person who spends much of their winter in Moscow may result in a slight clash of view points about what exactly 'icy' means...


It's a half snow day in London town today. To the uninitiated, that means that the roads are more or less clear, public transport is up and running, the shops are open, and the sun is shining. There is, however, just enough slush on the pavements and next to the kerbs to make the faint-hearted feel justified in staying home 'just in case' it gets too icy later to get home safely... To which end, more importantly, Boy #1's school has requested that the children be collected at 12.00 rather than 3.00pm...

This is feasible for us - though not convenient as Boy #2 is sick - but I can't imagine the mayhem it must cause for those families where both parents are in paid employment. I can just hear the conversations that (mostly) women are likely to be having all over the city with their employers, the bargains that need to be made with unsympathetic colleagues who don't have the same problem, the soul-selling that is required to get carers to work an extra couple of hours...

Anyway, as I mentioned, we don't have that problem. My problem is instead what to do with 2 boys, one of whom is desperate to get out into the snow with his friends and knock over other people's snowmen (oh, the mortification, the pulling of my hat further down over my eyes and the vain hope that none of our neighbours are looking out of their windows), and another who is really not up to outside entertainment. Boy #2 has retreated under his duvet and is lapping up C-Beebies and sleep in equal measures.

This means unfortunately that Boy #1 is confined to quarters as well since our garden set-up is not condusive to leaving him alone and unsupervised. After getting home from school at lunchtime he was disgusted to find that instead of the afternoon's play he had envisaged - accompanied no doubt by his traditional outraged screams when a snow-ball finds it's way down the inside of his jumper - he is instead condemned to an afternoon's pre-school television, (Husband is out, needless to say, hence the wanton use of tv as babysitter), and revising his sight words and sounds.

We need to get out soon though; did you know that C-Beebies repeats it's morning schedule in the afternoonb? Spectacular use of the Licence Fee. If I have to listen to the soundtrack of 'In the Night Garden' and Upsy Daisy singing into that blasted microphone one more time I am going to go crazy...

13 comments:

  1. Crazy indeed. The Littleboys' nursery is shut today - and it's the first day in about a fortnight that I've actually had some freelance work to do. This meant that The Doctor had to spend half of this morning at home, as it seemed silly for me to waive my meagre earnings...then it turned out that the person commissioning me couldn't do it till tomorrow anyway, as THEIR client had failed to make it into work. The whole city has ground to a halt, it seems.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I've just photo tagged you - hope you don't mind. Also hope the enforced house arrest doesn't last long.
    x

    ReplyDelete
  3. trainers? your husband is mad. it's a pure wellies day. tomorrow will be better. There will be new programmes on Cbeebies tmrw morning at least..

    ReplyDelete
  4. NVG, it certainly has. I just got off the phone with a friend who has been 'snowed in' for 2 days. Where do you think she lives? Hammersmith.

    Mud - me too!

    GM, please god, new programmes. Or I may have to go off-piste and check out Nick Jr - though that way madenss (and ads) lie...

    ReplyDelete
  5. We discovered the laziness of CBeebies after a duvet day enforced by a vomiting bug. Quite disgraceful, I agree.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Snort.. mine have been holed up watching the Sound of Music. They then spend the rest of the day singing
    " I am 16 going on 17" totally out of tune. It is hilarious although Fraulein Maria is starting to slightly grate on my nerves..

    BM x

    ReplyDelete
  7. When it snows around here people act like we have never had snow before. I live in a part of the USA where it snows a lot in the winter. Not like Buffalo, N.Y. where they get 3 feet a day for three months, but still..it snows. The annoying snow you were talking about is common for us and we do that same thing: trying to decide if we want to "risk it" or just stay inside. I usually opt to stay inside, because even though I've dealt with this weather my entire life, and driven in it since I was about 18, I am still not a fan of going out in it and trying to drive through it.

    I hope Boy #2 feels better soon. Poor little guy!

    And his poor brother who is stuck inside. :-(

    ReplyDelete
  8. Yes, I was being entirely selfish when I wanted my school to close and go home with daughter (it didn't happen). My school knows how difficult it is for parents to collect children during the day - and we don't want to inflict more CBeebies on them!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Gosh - we have this stuff most of the year here!

    *shaking my head*

    Mostly lurking these days PM...please forgive my lack of comments...

    ReplyDelete
  10. Wheeeeee, bugger, ow ! The sound track of yours truly stomping to work, and that was in wellies !
    You see, not pushy Mum but mother of amazing prescience (MAP) - skating lessons now utterly vindicated....... or should we just blame you for the weather ?

    ReplyDelete
  11. More Than, ITNG and vomiting? You have my sympathies...

    BM, could be worse. You could have your oldest child trying to sing like Dick Van Dyke doing a bad cockney accent from Mary Poppins.

    J's Mommy, let's just say that I sent up a thankyou to god when we hit a blizzard on our way back to London on Sunday night that it was Husband driving and not me. But of course I am VERY brave normally... Like in heavy rain, for example.

    WM, you should all get medals for toughing it out. Really.

    Aims, I love the idea of snow. And the look of it. I just get bored by the inconvenience and the cold - is that bad? And don't worry about not commenting, it's fine, I know you have other stuff on your mind!

    TR, blast, my secret is out! I have been out praying to the White Witch to bring snow to the land of Narnia otherwise known as Kensington, and she finally got tired of my badgering and gave in...

    ReplyDelete
  12. PM - have just come from reading a quote from you on the Times Online.

    I don't know how far behind I am on this but I have posted on this in response to how I felt about that article.

    http://bigbluebarnwest.blogspot.com/2009/02/i-blog-therefore-i-am.html

    (nothing to do with your comments btw)

    ReplyDelete
  13. Children´s television nearly drove me over the edge when my kids were little. I thought I would go stark raving mad after hearing the same familiar tunes over and over again. These were definitely not the best years of my life. I should have been on tranquilizers, now that I think of it. It got much easier when they got older and could play outside on their own.

    ReplyDelete

Go on - you know you want to...