Wednesday 21 February 2012 6.58am

It may not be 1984 but we're watching you!

Good morning Citizen 546HTY and rise and shine for another day of freedom in the western world. Get out of bed you sleepyhead, you don’t want to be late signing on today (as you have been on Monday and Tuesday of this week).  We know you weren’t delayed by the telephone, as your telephone records don’t show any calls at 8am this week. And speaking of it if yesterday was anything to judge by  your day today will go a little like this….

Come on rise and shine, time to get into the shower and wash yourself down with Nivea shower soap (you bought 3 in the last special buy at Tescos which gave you another 10 clubcard points. Good job!). For breakfast you’ll make yourself some toast and wash down your regular dose of Prozac (don’t be ashamed, 9/10ths of people registered with your GP use it too!)  with fresh orange juice that you can’t really afford but what the hell. You’ll follow that with a chaser of good coffee, it may be a recession but one does have to draw the line doesn’t one, and instant coffee just want do. Your two children under 16 years will race out the door walking to their local school where the older one is doing poorly and the younger one spends most of her time drawing pictures shrouded in black featuring daggers and cemetaries and titled ‘Die Bitch Die’. Let’s just say that the school has made record of our concerns about her mental wellbeing on her permanent record.You’d be well advised to keep an eye on her, and her university student brother.

You’ll receive an email from your son at 0915am when you log into Google mail, and he’ll tell you all about how hard he is studying (he’s not – unless his lectures are delivered at the local White Swan pub), and how he’s managing his money well (except for that humungous overdraft for beer money), and how things are pretty sweet. You’ll be pleased to hear from the prodigal son but don’t be too pleased, whilst writing this email he was simultaneously conducting a Google search for ‘fat old chicks with big titties’.

Ah well, kids eh?

At 1040 you’ll remember you need to run some errands so you’ll switch your mobile to vibrate and set off. If work rings you they’ll realise that you cannot be reached and must be on the phone. Cunning! At 1045 you left the Post Office wearing a red ski jacket and faded blue jeans and jumped into your car (an Audi license plate number – TY5498 and registered to HobNob Designs Ltd) and sped down the road. And we do mean sped.. you were clocked at doing 50 miles per hour in a 30 mile per hour zone and 100 miles per hour on the motorway. The signs on the motorway CCTV cameras say they’re not currently in use, but hey, whaddya know, we lie!

When you pull into your own car park you will sit for five minutes scoffing a chocolate bar of despair before grabbing the shopping bags and walking inside. By this afternoon that loaf of bread will be eaten and you’ll need to go out and buy some more. Did you know that your family currently consumes 10 loaves of bread a week and that is 5 loaves per week more than the national average for a family of your size? But then your family aren’t stingy with their creature comforts are they? If only you and your husband actually used that gym membership you took out at the beginning of the year, you are starting to look a bit porky (and your BP was 145/100 – you’re a walking heart attack!) Your family also used more than three times the typical amount of water for your size household and double the electricity.

After dinner tonight you’ll check your Facebook account, fend off some flirty personal chat from one of your husband’s friends (he must have been drinking as you are!), and will send out a couple of forlorn tweets about ‘is this it. Is this this good life’. It’s a good thing you chose to not send that tweet about how you were so fed up with your life that your husband’s body could be found under the patio. Good thing you didn’t send it, as we don’t have much sense of irony or humour when it comes to premeditated murder.

At 1130pm your husband will take one of his little blue pills that he bought illegally off the Internet and will hope for some sexual release – with or without you. It’ll be ok because as long as you’re still doing it things are ok. But tomorrow you will search for advice on Google about ‘why doesn’t my husband excite me anymore?’

It’s all over at midnight and you’ll turn out the light and head for the land of nod. We have no idea what you dream, we have no way of knowing……….. yet.

Sleep well Citizen 546HTY, sweet dreams of an unobserved life where you are free to do whatever you like in a free world.

Adjectives are at the top of a marketer’s tool box, and most of those adjectives are about what something looks like, or how it feels. Very few are about how it smells. Oh sure there are the perfumes and food and wine which are often described in laughable terms.

A nose by any other name would smell as sweet

Does a wine that smell like woodchips or fruity with a hint of grass sound attractive to you? And how about a perfume that smells like ‘sweat’. Oh don’t worry, we are talking ‘good sweat’ not ‘bad sweat’. Remind me again, what does good sweat smell like, if not deoderant?

But very few other items are advertised by how they smell. For some products that’s a bloody good thing, otherwise they’d never sell any.

Does anyone sniff the cat’s food as if they are taking in a great whiff of their lover’s nape of neck? Do you choose your blue cheese on how much urea you can smell or whether it is so potent it makes you want to chunder like you were from the land Down Under?

It’s not typical is it, so imagine when I came across this curious piece of marketing when I was wondering around the local supermarket in my weekly grocery stupor. Febreze is a popular UK brand of indoor air freshener. I’d not come across it before I arrived in the UK but my Englishman swore by it. He had been living with a chain smoking landlady for over 18 months and basically didn’t go anywhere without it. Clothes a bit whiffy after a tumble in the hay? Febreze it! Spilt three day old milk in your best sweater so badly that it’s turned yellow with rancidity? Febreze it. Febreze with its cheerful smells of roses and lavender was his answer to most problems.

Personally I think clothes benefit from a good airing on the washing line, but then I came from a country where you can actually put clothes on the washing line and not have them rained off 99% of the time! But then, as I saw in my local Sainsburys, Febreze has come to New Zealand. Or rather, it has been to New Zealand and taken a long deep whiff of the local air (that’s fresh air that is, smells good don’t it!) and brought it back to England and…

……. shoved it in a Febreze bottle!

Now, being a natural born Kiwi I’m a bit concerned about what genuine Kiwi smell they shoved in that bottle. Did they bottle the Rotorua one (thermal activity makes Rotorua smell like rotten eggs!) or the green fields one? (a la cow pats and wet wool?) or was it that wonderful smell of Auckland smog in the morning?

I shouldn’t have been concerned. Here’s what Melanie said on her Yahoo review of Febreze! (No, I didn’t know they did Yahoo reviews of air freshener either!)

This one has a gorgeous refreshing misty fragrance, that resembles a scent you would smell if you were standing beside a raging stream, with the mossy rocks nearby, and the light misting of refreshing fresh water hitting your skin.

New Zealand Springs is definitely woodsy and rugged, but with all Febreze fragrances, that official clean, fresh fragrance still lingers closely behind the woodsy riverbed scent.

Er right you are then! So, I wonder Melanie; ‘Have you actually ever been to New Zealand?’

I did have a sniff and it smelt like complicated molecular polymer whatsits MEANT to smell like fresh stuff, or whatever a London based cooped up advertising copywriter thinks it smells like. Not at all like a dripping wet walk around the waterfront when the wind is blowing so fiercely it’s actually chucking salt water up your nose and is helpfully giving your sinuses a work out. It doesn’t smell like ponga or green manuka, nor does it smell like South Island snow or Northland’s surf.

But then you’d need a pretty big bottle for that. I think they call that bottle, an airplane to take you there.

If they put England, or your country in a bottle, what would it smell like?

NB/Melanie’s febreze review – http://voices.yahoo.com/review-febreze-air-effects-zealand-springs-7912796.html

Bad service takes my breath away, but bad service from the authorities, completely winds me.

Our love story made the papers but where's the fairytale ending?

My inner good girl just doesn’t expect bad service or poor treatment from the authorities – the police, the courts, or the UK Border Agency, but this afternoon the good girl guide inside me died.

You know about my struggles to get the visa to stay here that have included an appearance in court, tens of thousands of pounds (immigration tax anyone?), and a pound of flesh. You might even remember that I sent my final application for indefinate leave to remain to the UKBA (+ another £2500) at the very beginning of December and have been waiting ever since for our documents to magically reappear.

I am currently without birth or marriage certificate. I have no passport or identity document (bar my driving license) at all, and it terrifies the crap out of me. The UKBA has everything, somewhere in that monolithic inefficient bureaucratic tyrannosaurus rex. I know not where. Nor, when I’m getting it back.

A Kiwi friend was encouraging when I first sent it off, telling me that she had received hers back within three months. Fab, I thought, I could get through the longest January ever, and the gloomy February that followed with the hope that my passport and shiny new visa will be returned to me by the end of March. I turned down the opportunity to go to a same-day appointment as it was going to cost over £3k and I had no assurance that it would be decided on the day. Call me cynical, but I just don’t trust the UKBA anymore.

“You don’t need it anyway, do you?” my Englishman encouraged.

Famous last words.

Doubtfully I calmed my ire and started sending positive thoughts into the ether. Christmas came and went, January disappeared and now February is here I’ve been offered very exciting opportunities to travel in March and April, which is a very good thing for a travel blogger! It’s been a difficult time waiting for my visa, my feet have been getting increasingly itchy with the desire to get out of here, to go and explore! You know when you say ‘I’m not going to think about snakes,’ and then that’s all you can think about? Not having my passport has made me feel like a homing pigeon with her wings clipped.

But that wasn’t the only problem. Son wanted to apply for his provisional license, but couldn’t without his passport, nor could he apply for a bank account or student loan.  Minor inconveniences sure, but then son’s university applications started returning with conditional offers (Good) but alarmingly had him listed as an international student, (Bad) paying £15k per year tuition (instead of the £9k national students pay) because his nationality is listed as New Zealand – and of course no recourse to a student loan for the tuition or the extra living expenses on top of that! Once I’d recovered from my heart attack I questioned the university and they said they cannot change it until he receives his passport and visa back.

“When do you get the visa back?” they asked.

Good question, and so this afternoon I rang them.

The first number gave me three options – 1) make a booking, 2)ask for your documents back, delay your application even further and pay yet another round of £3000 to get the documents back, or 3)enquire about the process of your application.

I chose option 3. The officious sounding voice on the phone said: “The UK Border Agency takes time to carefully evaluate applications, this may take six months. This call will terminate now.”

And it did.

But I’m a cunning old vixen, and rang again choosing option 1 this time hoping to get the operator on the line who might give some sort of advice.  I waited for 15 minutes on hold, with the answering machine message interrupting the hold music (three times) to tell me that all the information I need is on the website.

Yeah, right. That’ll be the same website that has a different spiel of information every single time I go there.

I held on for grim life, and finally I spoke to a woman who sounded exactly as if she was sitting on a broom stick. I politely explained my concerns and asked where I could find out where my application was in the queue. When she discovered our applications haven’t been in the queue for six months she told me upbruptly  to get off the phone and ring the contact centre again. That’ll be the number I rang before, option 3, which leads me directly to disconnection.

So I asked for the complaints service. There isn’t one, only an email which would be replied to in…..get this…..

20 DAYS!

Where in the world is this acceptable? I have work I need my passport to do, I have life that needs to happen for the kids and I and they can’t even tell us where my application is up to? They can’t even respond to my complaint efficiently! They know everything there is to know about me, I’ve made three visa applications in my time here, have been to the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal court (and won!), and have lived here and paid tax for four years this August. What on earth could be taking that long? How long does it take to check to see whether the situation they confirmed in December 2009 has changed by February 2011? And whilst we’re asking, what exactly was my £2500 fee for?

In London this afternoon there is a Jordanian national who has been released from prison on bail to a £400,000 property he and his family are renting.  He has well known associations in the terror web both here and in his homeland Jordan, and has even been described as ‘Osama Bin Laden’s ambassador in Europe’ and by many others as a ‘hate cleric’. Ensuring Abu Qatada does not breach his strict bail conditions is costing the UK taxpayer the wages of up to 60 police officers per day, according to The Telegraph.

I’ve not cost the UK taxpayer one pound since my arrival here.

It’s cost me all of my life savings to be here with the man I fell in love with in Paris 2008. I’m not sure what to do now, but I can’t help feeling I can’t continue fighting such an unfair system.

Is it time for me to admit defeat, pack up my toys and go home?

Further information:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/9081626/Boris-Johnson-Abu-Qatada-surveillance-requires-60-police-officers-a-day.html

 A thousand step journey begins – Part One

When I was a teenager there was an immutable rule in our house – no boys in our bedroom.

No Boys allowed

It hadn’t always been that way because I can remember playing with male family friends in my cheerful yellow bedroom. As children of the jet age we played airports, and made Qantas and Air New Zealand planes out of paper darts. It was simple, childish fun, because we were after all, still children in every sense, except perhaps the one – physically.

My father was a parent of the fifties parenting in the 80s, he didn’t believe in girls wearing jeans, boys with long hair and, when we grew to a certain age, he didn’t believe that boys should enter into a girls’ bedroom. Emotionally I was still a little girl, in awe of him, not yet distanced from him as I would be later in my teenage years when he would be effectively lost from my view.  Whilst I physically matured early, my head then was still full of  heroes and heroines, mainly Batman and Wonder Woman, and none of those dreams were in the slightest way sexual. I didn’t know there was a game called Doctors and Nurses and if I had I would have expected it to involve needles and blood. I didn’t hear the purple lyrics in Grease and thought Sandra Dee was simply a really nice girl.

I didn’t have any brothers and I went to an all girls school, so my experience of boys was limited. At primary school the nearest I’d got to anything vaguely ‘lovey dovey’ was playing  kiss chasey but when I caught them, it was all about the win for me, not the kiss. When I was ten I was sent to a private girls’ school and the separation of girls from boys began.  Yet it wasn’t until I was twelve that Dad introduced the ‘no boys in the bedroom rule’.

I didn’t really understand why, but I did as requested and never did have a boy in my bedroom (at home) from that point on. It wasn’t until I was 18 yrs or so that I reflected on Dad’s policy and saw the error of his ways. It is possible to make babies in other locations Dad! Where there is a will, there is a way.

I was thinking about this recently, this change in family behaviour and the quiet dissipation of innocence. My own girlish innocence flew away prettily like torn tissue on the breeze. I didn’t have time to say goodbye, and with its passing went my confidence that girls could do anything a boy could do.

My youngest daughter, my Millennium baby is a tom boy, as her mother was, and has had a close friendship with a boy for the past two years. Her friend is my friend Strawberry Muchkin’s son and we often spend time playing and hanging out all together. My baby is, as her mother was, physically mature, but emotionally still innocent. She and A play happily together and share an interest in Lego and computer games. It’s not unusual to find them curled up together on a couch, companionably showing each other cheats for this game or that game, as they were late on New Years night.

The tissue is straining in the persistent breeze. I can see it tearing, see through becoming seen and broken through…soon it will be a thousand white flags surrendering to adult hood, and then it will be gone.

Miss Fliss spent the day with her friend A on Tuesday, whilst I took oldest Son for a tour around Reading University. She had a lovely day, as she always does have with Strawberry Munchkin and her family, and there was a certain amount of kerfuffle when I arrived to pick her up.

“Awwww can’t I stay a bit longer?” she called downstairs from A’s bedroom.

“Just a bit” I called back as I sat down to share a drink with my friend. Strawberry Munchkin started retelling the day’s adventures..

“They’ve had a good day, Miss Fliss had a huge piece of cheesecake at lunch, and they all had fun going on a very muddy walk, ” she said. She paused for a bit and looked down.

“Oh, I should tell you that I had to ask them to keep the door open in the bedroom when they’re both in there. I know they’re only playing games on their DSes but..”

I nodded sadly. I completely understood. Of course it is the right thing, but I can”t help mourning the passing of childhood  innocence.  Her relationships with the other sex will never again be as free and natural again.

Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw a spot of white as it floated off into the cool dark night sky…

But then again I thought in a moment of quiet celebration; In a world where other twelve year old girls are having contraceptives inserted without their parents’ knowledge, isn’t she lucky we were able to preserve the innocence for as long as we have done?

Happy 12th birthday, Miss Fliss, (we can’t call you Miss 11 on this blog any longer), the next stage of your life may be a little complicated at times but I can promise you that when you come out the other side, relationships with boys/men though different will be wonderful again, as they once were.

What do you think? Should boys be allowed in girls’ bedrooms? Should girls be allowed to meet the boys behind the bicycle sheds? Would you die of shock if your daughter came home with a contraceptive inserted in her arm? And do you think our children are growing up far more quickly than we ever did?

It’s been a really exciting day with The Telegraph including an interview with me in their feature about expats Moving for Love.

Would you move for love? @TelegraphExpat

For all of you who have read the piece in The Telegraph and want to hear a little more about our story you can catch up with it here.

How I ended up in Paris in the first place

What happened in Paris

Our Engagement

Our Wedding

Have a happy Valentine’s Day even if you don’t believe it.

Vix x

Why are New Zealanders known as Kiwis?

NZers named Kiwi after strong, resilient, tough bush fighters?

Is it because we resemble little round balls of fuzz with green squishy centres?

Actually no.

Is it because we are flightless birds unique to Aotearoa?

Travelling is one of Kiwis’ most popular passtimes, thousands of Kiwis leave each year to go on their OE, and if you go to the furtherest, darkest, snowiest corner of the world I bet you’ll find a Kiwi there pouring a Steinlager, so that’s not it.

This question was really puzzling me so I did a bit of research and found out that the term Kiwi was originally a military term used to describe the New Zealand faction of the famously brave ANZACs. That figures but that didn’t seem to be the end of the story. After all, describing yourselves as a flightless hairy bird that fossicks about in the mud for grubs and is so timid it only comes out at night, didn’t seem to be appropriate for the fearless ANZAC warriors.

So that wasn’t it, but the truth came as a bit of shock. After the Pavlova palava, and the Vegemitevendetta…. not to mention the Phar Lap, Crowded House and Russell Crowe shock horrors… it is with a large slice of humble pie that I have to reveal the origin of the moniker that we ourselves use to describe ourselves came from shoe polish.

Kiwi shoe polish is the dominant shoe polish in the world

Though it was a shock, I decided I could spin this one. Shoe polish is not so bad – it’s strong, resilient, nuggety – that’s New Zealanders right there in a nutshell!

But that wasn’t the end of the shock, further horrors were yet to come.

Kiwis are named after shoe polish created at the beginning of the 20th Century and named ‘Kiwi’ for the creator’s wife’s homeland. At the time New Zealanders were called all sorts of things – some of them printable – and referred to by symbols like Moa, Southern Cross, and Silver fern but the Kiwi was a rounded figure that Mr Ramsay could fit easily on a shoe polish tin.

When WW1 broke out eight years later, Kiwi shoe polish was in high demand for maintaining millions of soldiers’  boots and their horses tack. Before long Kiwi shoe polish was the dominant brand in the world, NZers were known as Kiwis and New Zealand became the only country in the world whose colloquial identity was given a boot along by a brand of shoe polish.

So far, so good.

War time Kiwi poster

Brace yourself Sheila and Bruce…..

But the bad news is that the creator of the world famous Kiwi shoe polish, the shoe polish that went on to describe our proud, independent nation’s people was none other than an Australian, from Melbourne.

Kiwis get their very name from an Aussie!

Oh the shame..

NB/On reflection the Aussies can have Russell Crowe. But Vegemite, and Pavlova are definately abso-frickin-lutely Kiwi!

I’m a shocker at the shops.

Jealous? Moi?

If I’m not fantasizing about the awful zit on the neck of the person in front of me and how much I want to squeeze it, or chatting wontonly and without invitation to other shopper-victims in the queue, (a real no-no in Britain) I’m turning green with envy. Of course I’m not the ony one, you probably do it too. No? Come on! I bet you have. I bet you turned into a green monster in the computer superstore when you passed those people with ipads stashed in their shopping baskets. We’ve all done it, but I think I’m the only one who does it in the supermarket.

I typically avoid the problem by doing my shopping online. That way I don’t have to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, that see me purchasing family packs of loo roll instead of caviar and gourmet treats pour deux. Shopping online also inures me to the taste-me-take-me-home-and-eat-me siren calls, and the supermarket strip lights that flash – ‘look at me I’ve dropped my kegs! Look at me!’ Yes, it’s much safer for a marketer to shop at home where speed is of the essence and I can’t get distracted, or jealous.

I usually shop online, but today I had to brave the local Sainsburys. At first it was ok. I avoided the seasonal specials aisle which was half loaded with chocolate for Valentine’s Day and the other half loaded with chocolate for Easter. They’ve been ready for Easter since Boxing Day. I staunchly wandered past and dipped into the fruit and vege aisle glowing with virtue as I did. It was a good thing there wasn’t any water on the floor or I could have slipped and become a fallen angel.

Next came purposeful visits to the meat, milk and merlot mutley’s food aisles. There’s not much temptation amongst the nibbles and kibbles. Then it was off to the butter, bread and biscuits boring-but-essential-household-cleaning aisles.

So far, so good.  We were almost there. The chuck out counter was in sight. Get ready to wave the checkered flag. I sidled smugly up behind a young guy standing at the counter. He threw me a sympathetic smile. I smiled back. No need for sympathy I thought to myself as I reviewed my trolley. We have the necessities of life – bread, milk, loo roll, coffee, cabbage, pet food.

I have no need of frivilous bars of chocolate, or bottles of wine, like some people I know.  Or even that guy standing in front of me. He had wine. Four bottles lying on their side voluptuously begging to be taken and consumed. They were cradled by pillowy bags of crisps – cheese and onion, balsamic vinegar and sweet thai chili flavours! I looked away.

Breathe Vix. In. Out. In. Out.

That is not hunger you feel. You must be tired, bored, or thirsty.

Oh yes dammit I was thirsty. I could hear the wine lasciviously sighing. I chanced a glance.

OMG he had chocolate in there too! Big HUNKS of good dark chocolate, and packs of virginal meringue nests with bottles of cream. There was also little nibbley bits,  olives, bottles of decent beer and pate – all of which meant only one thing…..

He was having a party!

I looked back at my mingey trolley load itching with ire. I could feel the green resentment rise slowly but surely from my spleen. Tonight I will take the lean mince and turn it into a hearty spag bog for five whilst the guy in front of me is having a party drinking good wine and enjoying putting the world to right. I am not the least bit jealous…much.

Do you ever envy the contents of other people’s shopping trolleys?

I should have thought it through.

You know when you go out and hunt for the perfect Valentine’s present and you find it so you buy it? Completely forgetting that there are approximately 60 something more Valentine’s Days to celebrate with your husband.

Yeah. That. That was last year’s gift.

So, obviously after buying the perfect gift that keeps on giving, I am now at a loss as what on earth I can buy for my Englishman this year. Somehow a measly box of chocolates looks a tad cheap.  Valentine’s is next week and I don’t have anything in mind for the romantic one.

So, I did what 99% of you out there have done, or are about to do if you’re running late on it, like me – I consulted with the experts, and typed:

Valentines Day gifts for him

into Google.

First up was this enticing number -

A sweet Valentine's treat

All I can say to that is thank God it’s winter time and not the height of bug season. I’m certain a pouch full of ants wouldn’t be that romantic. Mind you, I don’t think the creator has given it due consideration. Is the product fit for purpose? I say no. There is nothing sexy or erotic about pubic hairs matted together with sugary drool.

For something a little tamer I considered this one.

Desktop vacuum cleaner

A little something for his desk at work, to remind him of me. Yes, I’m the one that actually knows what the vacuum cleaner looks like. With this on his desk every time he looks up from his work he will be reminded of me – the scrubber at home!

Somehow that doesn’t sound so romantic to me.

But then men aren’t really into romance are they? They’re more practical. Would this be more helpful?

With this on the side.

What every man wants for Valentine's Day - a car shaped air freshener

Nothing seemed to have the right je ne sais quoi… nothing seemed to be quite as perfect as last year’s gift. I schlepped through page after page of manly treats presented to me by Google – blow up girlfriends (I hear Prince Harry has one), nipple pasta, bondage gear in vanilla (I didn’t know they came in flavours! I’m such an innocent) and unusually shaped, unfeasibly large boys toys.

Couldn’t find anything to suit. Nada.

I had a similar problem last year until in a moment of pure genius I hit upon the purrfect present – an Ocicat we named Monteith (Monty for short).

The purrfect Valentine's Day present.

Of course Monty is a lovely fur baby full of trouble. He’s quite big now – think, the size of a small jaguar – and continues to delight with his generous nature. He brings in special little treats and lays them at my Englishman’s feet. Birds mainly, but I expect he’ll bring in a full sized wildebeast some day soon. He truly is the gift that keeps on giving.

What on earth can I buy to compete with that, this year?

Feeling down I decided to give it one last go. This time I typed the following search phrase into Google

Perfect Valentines gift for husband.

The first hit was this lovely set from M&S. I agree it is perfect, but for me, not him. It could be a little small for him?

Do they have it in his size

What is your perfect Valentine’s Day gift?

Where to buy:

Candy knob pouch

http://www.prezzybox.com/candy-posing-pouch.aspx

Desktop reminder of his scrubber

http://www.valentinesgift.co.uk/gifts/gifts-for-him-73/desktop-henry-vacuum-cleaner-2638.html

Farting in bed self-help book

http://www.find-me-a-gift.co.uk/cure-for-farting-in-bed.html

Haynes car air freshener

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Haynes-air-freshener-VW-Golf/dp/B0045HVVJI/ref=sr_1_20?ie=UTF8&qid=1328624155&sr=8-20

Naughty knickers set you can buyhere

http://www.marksandspencer.com/Collette-Dinnigan-Spot-Guipure-Lace/dp/B005LKPK04?ie=UTF8&ref=sr_1_12&nodeId=1568181031&sr=1-12&qid=1328629056&pf_rd_r=0BPM59WG4CN9JVJNDYPF&pf_rd_m=A2BO0OYVBKIQJM&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_i=1568181031&pf_rd_p=215570647&pf_rd_s=related-items-3

“Come on in, can I get you a cup of tea?”

Cup of tea with an arsenic biscuit

With an arsenic biscuit?

I’ve heard a great deal about you from my friend, your ex wife. You remember her, the mother of your children. The one you left for a life more stimulating. I assume you achieved that.. I bet your life is now more interesting than it ever was before.

The Chinese were clever in their curses – May you live in interesting times – they say. Clever.

Funny how interesting, is not at all location dependent. You may have left for the interesting times you could have in your bedroom, yet didn’t realise it would lead to interesting times in the court room.

“Come on in, out of the cold. Your kids know the way.”

They spend more time here than they do at your place. I understand it’s daunting getting reacquainted with your children but you could try just a little more. They are great kids, your ex-wife is doing a fabulous job. On her own.

“It’s cold out there isn’t it? Come in, come in out of the cold.”

Or will our living room freeze over when you enter the room with that icicle beating in your chest? Will it freeze over, like hell?

She told me all about how you kept each other warm, once. How you held each other close, how you held each other’s hearts. How you saw a future entwined together, never breaking. ‘I didn’t ever imagine we would ever split up’, she told me, ‘Never in a million years… when hell froze over.’

“It’s  a little chilly in here. Sorry about that I’ll turn the heat up. Did you have an ok trip driving down the M4. I used to drive that every day when I worked up that way….”

I’m prattling now.

Yet all I can think about is whether it felt strange coming back to the old stomping ground. How did it feel to visit your kids, to pick them up from the door step, to take their resisting hands, in yours. Your strong hands that once changed their nappies and wiped tears from their cheeks. Those strong long fingers that belie your artistic nature, free spirit, and the attendant artistic, troubled soul.

Was it really worth it?

Your roll in the hay.

Was it worth throwing your family away?

“Would you like my phone number? I mean, just in case there’s a problem, with the kids. You know, I work at home so I’m often around when they might need me..and you…”

Live so far away now.

But I cannot finish the sentence because I catch the look on his face. And it is one of sheer pain and confusion tinged with vulnerability. I’ve seen that look before so many times on my friend’s face but never once have I imagined I might see it on his.

I’m ashamed now. There’s always two sides, two broken hearts, two suffering adults. I just haven’t been confronted with it before. Divorce is a bitch for everyone, even the former couple’s friends. I might hate him for hurting my friend, but how can I hate him when I see how much he has hurt himself? I well know, that no one on the outside can really know what goes on inside a marriage. We were all friends once, can we be so again?

“Sorry. Where are my manners. Did you want that cup of tea?”

But only tea, I don’t have any bikkies left, sorry.

Image: flickr CC

http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurelfan/

Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.

Of course you can drive my car. If you can find it!

In fact, be so afraid that you willingly get off the roads. You see, we have a learner driver in our midst, and if Son is anything at all like his mother…

………well, you have been warned.

I bought Son driving lessons for Christmas and he is soon to get out there and start the learning process. That process otherwise known as reeking fear and wanton distruction. When I sat my driving test in the main street of Dunedin I slammed the driving instructor’s car into a truck, whilst sitting my test with the traffic officer sitting beside me. Needless to say I didn’t pass that day, but I they gave it to me a week later.

I was only 18 but by then many of my friends had been driving since they were 15. I didn’t actually drive until I was 21 and had returned from backpacking adventures and even then, despite being more mature I had a number of ‘collisions’. Letterboxes, traffic cones and trees all seem to throw themselves into my reversing path.

It was an expensive time, but nothing compared to what lies before us now that my own teen is keen to get behind the wheel and paying for driving lessons was only the tip of the financial iceberg.

What the hell will we do about insurance?

Will he drive my car from time to time and be added to my car insurance? Or will he drive his own car and need his own policy?

Either way, it’s going to cost truckloads.

Here are some things I’ve found out:

• The Guardian says that insurance companies regard teenage drivers, particularly 17 and 18-year-old males, as a much higher risk due to their lack of experience.
• Insurers say that premiums are high because young drivers are more than 2x as likely to make an insurance claim as older drivers. The BBC’s One Show revealed that the average value of each young driver claim is 3x greater than older drivers.
• According to the AA, young female drivers are more cautious than young males, with much lower-value accident claims. (Which doesn’t help us much unless he can start cross-dressing! He’d look good in a skirt!)
• The first year’s car insurance premium for our teen could easily exceed the cost of the car they are driving. £500 for a car – £1500 for insurance?

It’s so damn expensive, but it comes down two options – pay for the insurance himself, or go on my policy as a second named driver and contribute towards costs.

Having his own insurance policy could help him to build up a no claim discount, which will go a long way in lowering his future insurance premiums, but that’s if he can find cover. Less than half of main stream insurers won’t cover teenagers.

If I listed him as  second driver on my policy, (and he drove my car) his insurance premium would be grealy reduced because I am also listed on the policy and I am in one of the safest driving groups, and with some insurers he could even build up his own no claim discount on my policy. Of course the downside is that my insurance premium will be significantly more and …

…..what. if. he. pranged. the. car.

Gulp.

And I don’t want to have to fight for access to driving my own car. I don’t like much like sharing my toys.

Of course, there is another way. A shadowy way where parents add their kids as a named second driver when he or she is actually the  main driver or owner of the vehicle. I didn’t realise that this is actually illegal until quite recently, and if found out I could be prosecuted and lose all hope of ever getting insurance ever again.

What to do, what to do?

Of course, the easiest thing to do would be to stick my head in the snow and encourage him to take up a virtual life – no driver’s license required – but in actuality I guess I’m going to have to decide what situation suits us best. What do you think is best?

Own car, own insurance policy, own risk,own cost?

Or should Mum and Dad help our teens get on to the highway of life?

NB/ This was a guest post. But even so, it is an issue we are actively considering. No vehicles, or letterboxes were damaged in the writing of this blog post. Well, not recently.