We had 5 people to stay this weekend. Maxton has drafted my post about it for me: “My humdrum groundhog-day existence (I can hardly call it a life) washing nappies and cutting tuna fish into tiny bits  was temporararly transformed this weekend by the arrival of those monstrously testosterone laden young bucks (lock up your daughters!), Phil and Max.”

I needn’t add more.

East Fife Observer, 13 July 1916

An interesting account given by Mr Alex Watson, Abbey Road, skipper of the motor fishing boat “Andrewina” on to which the German U boat transferred the crews of the Lowestoft steam drifter “Peep o’ Day” and the North Shields motor fishing boat “Annie Anderson”, which were submarined in the North Sea early last Wednesday evening. When lying almost becalmed, 18 miles from Shields, Skipper Watson stated all hands on board the Andrewina were turned out by the man on watch, who sighted a submarine and a small boat with a crew of eight men coming towards them. On reaching the Andrewina, the German in charge of the small boat stood with a revolver in hand and demanded the flag. He then turned to the submarined crew and inquired what type of craft the Andrewina was. The men replied she was a small fishing boat of between 45 and 50 feet, with no motor, although in reality she is one of Pittenweem’s largest, and measures 70 ft. He then asked if she would hold them all, and the men readily responded, “We’ll do if we get aboard her..” The submarine, Skipper Watson stated, one of the latest type, and carried three light quick-firing guns and one five or six inch gun on her deck. She lay only a distance of 100 yards from the Andrewina when the men were being transferred. When the German in the small boat set off to transfer from the submarine the crew of the Peep o’ Day, Skipper Watson said, “I grasped the situation, and as he had not previously boarded our boat, I ordered the crew to prepare the mast and set the sail ready, there being very little wind blowing at the time, and thus we duped the Huns that the Andrewina was a sail boat. Our small boat,” he added, “was hidden from their view, being covered by the mizzen sail on the port side.

When the submarine’s small boat arrived the second time, a member of the crew of the Andrewina ventured to ask, “How is the war getting on in Germany now?” and for a reply received “I wish to H— it was over and me out of this. The German in charge admitted that the Germans knew they were beaten, and the war, he said, would be over in three months. He was almost ruined, and wished the war had never started. However, it would soon be over and the British would win. The Germans, he admitted, were too hard pressed on both fronts now, but “when you go ashore you can tell the people we are not yet starving in Germany.” He stated he was sent across to sink all the fishing fleet and, he added “We will do it. If we fail to do our duty we will be shot when we return to Germany”. Bags of flour were taken from the doomed vessels before they were sent below, and one fisherman who forgot his watch had it handed back to him by the Germans. The fishermen were suffering from cold owing to their clothes being drenched, and were taken below to the cabin of the submarine and were kindly treated. They were also entertained for about two hours to gramophone selections. Skipper Watson also stated the Germans were very anxious to gain information and inquired if the trawlers carried guns on board, but needless to say the Scotch fishermen were not being drawn, and acted “green” on this point, even although the Germans threatened to shoot them. They also referred to the loss they had sustained in the recent naval engagement off Jutland, and prior to leaving shook hands with several members of the three crews, wished them good luck, and at the same time were overheard to remark that the Andrewina would have been a good prize, too.

The submarine, Skipper Watson stated, appeared to be going in the direction of the fishing fleet, and after she was out of sight they started their motor and made for Shields. The thick weather prevailing saved the fishing fleet, otherwise, in Skipper Watson’s opinion, many more crafts would have been doomed by her. This is the second narrow escape Skipper Watson has experienced, having, while fishing off Yarmouth only a year ago, captured a live German torpedo, for which he received a reward of £24.

* Cameron’s great-grandfather

And really quite excited about our holiday. Not entirely sure why (except it is a long time since I had one) and hoping very hard that this weather holds. While the rest of you have had stair-rods along with Bill-n-Kate, Cheshire has had high summer. Like we used to have when we were children: day after day of unrelenting sunshine (presumably because I have invested in a rainwater butt). Cameron, in a really dramatically underhand bid to avoid doing any packing at all, has swanned off to Houston for the week. Maggie is being super-whingy-whiney (I alternate between blaming two grandparental visits in quick succession – she often gets a bit strange afterwards – and daddy being away. Or is she a bit poorly, who knows. Or the heat. Or just four.) Tamsin is interminably teething, and we are still overrun with critters of all description.

Slugs, check. Spiders, check. Mice – now in the kitchen cupboards so b*ll*cks to being humane, I’ve been out for proper traps this morning. Blackbird flying round the morning room battering against the windows, check. Next-door’s dog coming and depositing, um, deposits on our lawn. Check. Until I put a note through her door* yesterday and now she has blocked the hole in the fence (hooray). Unfortunately while blocking it she investigated what he was barking at and found a rat in the hedge (did you say you had a compost bin because perhaps that is attracting them). Have purchased larger traps to go with the small mousey ones: intend to spend the rest of the week before we go away disposing of rodent corpses. Unceremoniously.

Today I bought new nappies. Not terribly momentous, I agree, but the old ones had been in near-constant use for 4 years and were looking a little sad. (How much money I have saved. Smug, moi?!) The tipping point came when I realised T was either holding them up with her hands or giving up and taking them off altogether – the elastic had finally given up the ghost and, now we have sunshine glorious sunshine and she is no longer in a pop-up vest, they were feeling the effects of gravity. Rainbow bots, purchased all those long years ago, are no longer in production (mine are no longer beautiful icecream colours like those in the picture but a kind of nondescript grey), so I went along to see Lizzie, my local nappy dealer. I knew one of her neighbours so we started with a bit of a gossip (Chester is like that) then I came away with two discounted discontinued end-of-line bamboozles (slim-fitting, very absorbant, take forever to dry, she says). Apparently I am alone in my love of a coloured nappy as the lovely bright yellow and purple are no longer to be manufactured (all these people who want boring white nappies have not fully considered staining, I suspect). Four fluffles (bulky but fast-drying and oh my goodness as soft as a cloud: I’d like to cuddle one if that wasn’t a bit weird. White. Nippa fastening rather than velcro, which will take a bit of getting used to), also discontinued for reasons unknown as they are enormously popular. Four state-of-the-art flexitots (mid-bulkiness; fit like a disposable ie slim round the waist baggy underneath, which is a bit peculiar but ok). They have velour inners! I’d wear one myself (if, you know, I wasn’t toilet trained. Which I am.) Some people become nappy junkies and like to try every sort; others (like me) find ones they like then just stick with them and stop looking – so no more nappy chat, maybe ever.

*A very polite note, and it is all quite amicable. We like our neighbours. Apart from her horribly yappy dogs that bark all the sodding time when she is at work (but have very cute puppies). And the other side has a horrible barky dog that scares even me never mind Maggie (Tamsin doesn’t bat an eyelid) and whose “deposits” remain on the nice new patio for an unseemly length of time, making hanging out my washing really unpleasantly smelly.

A slight mishap while Maggie was, ahem, enthusiastically sweeping my kitchen floor (children have their uses!) has seen the demise of my favourite mug. Curvy in profile; thin white bone china; comfy handle and a tasteful picture of camomile and borage, it was perfect for herbal tea – and, in fact, I never drank anything else out of it (and rarely drank any truly herby tea from anything else). Cameron’s aunty kindly gave me some very nice, thin, new mugs for my birthday – indeed, I have a cupboard-full of mugs of various shape and size – but I can see I will have to hunt for the perfect replacement. I feel more sad than is reasonable (I’ve had it a long time) and this has made me wonder about favourite mugs and hot-drink rituals. I have a few – see below – and would be (really!) very interested to hear about other people’s. I’m not on my own with this am I?

Coffee is best, if I’m on my own, from a large, heavy, slightly chipped yellow and blue mug. If there is two of us I have a matched pair of tall, straight, red and white mugs, which are rather elegant (and, unusually, suit both tea and coffee). If these are unavailable, a conic blue-and-white striped pair. Any more than two requires the wedding denby or the six blue and grey toning-not-matching mugs I bought in Japan.

Lady Grey tea, which is only drunk mid-afternoon, comes in a hello kitty mug: not a cheap and nasty pink one but a quality white one with line drawings, which was issued to mark her 30th birthday. Or a asymmetric one with a duck.

Normal (Earl Grey) tea is drunk from whatever comes to hand, but usually the denby again. Unless it is first thing, in which case it warrants a squeeze of lemon and a glass mug or a tall thin one with Robert the Bruce on (don’t ask: I hadn’t realised until I started typing this how set in my ways I am), or (a new addition to the list of favourites) a black and white “Beatles” mug, presumably Cameron’s, that has thin walls but a chunky shape. If we are doing jobs,a chunkier, more square sort of a mug, possibly from a museum or similar, is required. And if we are gardening or doing DIY (ha ha as if) then it has to be a very thick small grey one with blue flowers, which I got 3-for-a-pound when I was a student.

Hot chocolate comes in the Denby – but the green vase-like Denby not the blue curved ones. And If Maggie is having a warm drink, she has a small two-handled bone china cup with cats on. Fab. Reassure me.

So far since we moved to this house I have blogged about rats in the compost, giant arachnids, slugs (and children ha ha ha). At Christmas, our suspicions were raised when the chocolate coins I had hidden in the small bedroom had been nibbled – I went and bought a mouse trap that has sat unopened on top of the microwave ever since. Sunday, I went into the room again (we don’t use it much) to check on the progress of my chitting potatoes*, only to find a small pile of droppings next to a neatly nibbled spud. Unwrapped and set trap.

Last night, quietly watching telly**, I noticed Cameron gesticulating at me from his sofa (we have one each. His is larger and has better sound quality, and I sit there when he is away). A mouse had run around my sofa then popped underneath – it spent the rest of the evening peeping out at us in a cute and cheeky manner. We need a cat – although I brought the trap downstairs and it had efficiently caught said mouse by the morning (I put him out the front door: I do hope they don’t have a homing instinct and that he will just have gone off somewhere else not come straight back in again).

Am hoping we just had one (but am about to rebait the trap and put it back upstairs again just in case) not a family.

*They are fine yet still not in the ground. Arg.

**Gavin and Stacey, I think, so we were pretty quiet. It’s not laugh-out-loud-funny, season 2, is it.

It’s not that I’ve not been thinking about posting, nor that I haven’t had time: life has just been failing to provide anything much to say. Cameron went to Houston last Monday; Katy (and Megan and Evan) came up for a day, which was nice; she went home, it was Good Friday so we stayed in the house and didn’t see a soul. Cleaned a bit. Saturday, mum and dad arrived but it was really too cold for any of our planned activities. We were busy-ish and it was very pleasant, but not very exciting. They left on Tuesday, I’ve cleaned a bit more, we still haven’t seen any body. Have spent the entire day today waiting in for a parcel that will apparently be here before 5.30 (how hard would it be to ring with at least a morning or afternoon estimate). 5.10 now and counting. It has to arrive else tomorrow’s party bags will be quite empty. I got so bored I used an attachment to hoover behind a radiator. We made the all-important cake.

Cameron is due home tomorrow and really does have to make it: being stuck at Gatwick will not do. Fingers crossed.

I am very happy with the new furniture: doesn’t my room look larger and lovelier? Something of a saga getting hold of it: we initally ordered some bespoke free-standing stuff last March. Excuse followed excuse (at one point the cabinet maker cut off a finger, which we thought was a good reason for a delay, but the replacement just seemed to spend all his time making expensive kitchens); the chap in the shop never once rang us spontaneously or for weeks after when he promised to, and sometime at the end of last year he sold the business. Eventually, patient people that we are, we just asked for the deposit back (and got it after 6 weeks of hassle).

Then we rang Neville Johnson. I cannot praise them highly enough: if you are in the market for fitted furniture and have plenty of cash* (they were not cheap but it appears you do get what you pay for) then put them high up your list. I suppose it shows what shoddy service one gets used to that I am utterly delighted to have found a company whose employees ring when they say they will (within half an hour when they say they’ll call you back), turn up spot on time, are courteous, clean, and well-presented and completed the entire process from initial contact via design (3 hours at our house), planning and installation in less than 2 months. I am a very satisfied customer.

In other aren’t-people-fab news: Tamsin dropped my purse in Asda today and apparently when I picked it up I left my card behind. Flustered in the queue (T climbing out of the trolley**, M crying because she hurt her finger), I was on the verge of putting back all my shopping when the lovely kind shining-armour lady behind me in the queue paid for my shopping! Gave me her address so I could send a cheque: she deserves some really fantastic karma. (My card had been handed into customer services by somebody else kind so I could get cash out to pay her back on the spot.)

*or are sufficiently fed-up to pay anyway.
**why don’t they have straps?

This is dedicated to anybody who has not been sufficiently put off the thought of visiting us by my last post.

So, it’s one thing having rats waaaaay away at the bottom of the garden (who hasn’t?) but slugs in the living room? I’m less keen. (Fortunately the monster spiders are nowhere to be seen at this time of year, else I’d be firmly esconced in the travelodge up the road by now.) We’ve been aware of their presence in a vague back-of-the-mind way for some time, as we often come down in the morning to a silvery trail on the carpet: I was actually moved to do some research into getting rid* just last week.

Tuesday morning, Cameron was up at some ungodly hour to go to London – his taxi arrived at 5.15 – and decided to investigate. The three slugs gruff (daddy slug, mummy slug and baby slug) were parading around our dining room, bold as you like. On the bright side, they appear to be coming and going via the fireplace, which covers step one of how to get rid of slugs (“find out where they are coming in”) if not giving any clues to step two (“and stop them”).

*Possibly the least-useful google I’ve ever done: the consensus appears to be that they prefer older damper environments (no shit Sherlock) and that one must find out where they are coming in and stop them.

Cameron was actually here this morning (unlike last year) but, as he left at 6 for Germany, it wasn’t much of a party. On the other hand, Maggie is more useful than she was last year: she remembered to bring me presents when she woke, and sang to me and everything. She’s a bit put out that I am not having a party (or even a cake bah humbug) but has enjoyed opening my cards.

We had a small celebratory lunch at Borders after swimming, and I have just submitted my tax return a full 3 weeks early! I am so proud of myself (and yes thank you I am quite aware that I could have done it in September but, seriously, 3 weeks before the deadline is hugely progressive for me). Sara is coming for tea (salmon that I am marinating in den miso, and will be cooked just slightly but mostly rare, yum yum) and to help put the children to bed. And, I hope, join me in a celebratory Baileys.

OK, I’d like some menu ideas please. I have post-Christmas catering fatigue (we had takeaway for New Year and have been eating “simply” since – unagi for tea tonight, which just needs to be put in a bowl of boiling water. Yum.): I don’t want to make anything that requires effort; I don’t especially want meat; I don’t particularly want to have to go and buy anything, but accept that I probably must. Maggie went back to preschool today and Cameron and I celebrated with a bacon and egg sandwich from the B&Q carpark, which really hit the spot.

Still quiet here. Cameron shampooed the carpets today, while I taxed and insured my car (woohoo) and shoe-horned toys into unyielding and over-full toyboxes. Tamsin is coming on really fast: having people around constantly has provided an adoring audience for her attempts to walk, spurring her on to longer and longer efforts. She really can walk well now, although crawling is still faster and therefore the default. We call her tornado Tamsin for her ability to rocket through the house leaving a trail of havoc and devastation.

Little other news. Am turning my mind once again to the allotment: this year’s plans are Bigger and Better (and hopefully More Realistic) – last year’s were hampered by Tamsin’s metamorphosis from sitting still and watching baby to marauding crawler just at prime planting season: next season she should be stomping about in wellies which, at least in theory, should be easier to work with. I’ve had carpet over the unused bits of land for a year, too, so they should (touch wood and cross fingers) be rather more weed-free and easier to plant in.

Lastly, we have discovered the Mighty Boosh. Why didn’t anyone tell us before?