Going Round in Circles

It's like buses, isn't it - nothing for months and then three in a row. I am not a good blogger - I am seriously inconsistent with my posting, and this is due usually to a Sense of Humour Failure. This latest SoHF comes after a house move, which was hugely desirable and long awaited, but of course, extremely stressful.

However, we are now in our roomy house in the country, where we have such things as a garden and a utility room and even a garage. This has been a boon on many levels, not least of which is Ordering Over the Phone from Catalogues. In the last house, I would have been cornered within seconds by Isla, now two and a half, and Hester, now One. They would have performed a pincer movement in the three yards between the sofa, the table, and the kitchen and been tormenting my trouser legs in seconds. In this house, which has a rather excessive number of doors, I can run round and round in circles, often culminating my flight locked in the utility room - just me and the washing machine and the water softener gurgling away, while I give the lady my issue number and security code so I can complete my purchase of some size 36 boots in black. It is a race against time of course. Any second now one of the aforementioned will discover me and press her little face against the glass, bellowing.

Hester is going through the Oh, A Phone! I Want It! phase, which is what makes ordering from catalogues a bit tricky, so I give her my mobile phone. This is foolhardy in the extreme. I have yet to lose it completely, but have so far eventually located it 1) in bed in the cottage from Well Known Toyshop's village play set 2) in Hetty's shoe and 3) in the dustpan and brush. On all occasions is it very sticky and has bits poking out of it, as though it has been hung, drawn and quartered and its innards left hanging out.

But our happiest moments (or rather mine) come when, ground down by running circuits round my house, I shove the girls in their newly acquired brilliant outdoor all-in-one all-weather suits and throw them in the garden. Then I stand drinking tea at the command and control post (otherwise known as the kitchen window), and watch as they lick water out of the bird bath, and then put sand in it, before applying it, masque like, to their heads.

I am hoping there will be fewer SoHFs in the coming months, so don't worry, the next bus should be along soon.