Curse of the Dummy

I think my estrogen levels are going through the roof. Two years of being a daddy who takes on the traditional role of the mummy, or Dummy as one friend helpfully suggested that I now designate myself, has led to some alarming developments.

Just this afternoon I took delivery of a machine that will make my life so much better. No, not a sports car, rather the Miele Rotary Iron. When the delivery man turned up I ran outside in my pinny ( I was baking) and squealed with delight, making small jumping movements and clapping my hands rapidly together. The look of pity the delivery guys gave me will haunt me until the day I die.

I tried to man up and lift the machine down the stairs alone. My goodness it was heavy, so in the end I gave in and let the big strong men take it for me. As soon as the job was done they were out of the house like a shot, seemed like they were uncomfortable spending time alone with me in a confined space. It was only when I glanced in the mirror a little while later that I saw my face was lightly dusted in glitter makeup, a legacy of cleaning out the daughter's room this morning.

Oh the shame, how has it come to this. Must dash, think my macaroons are burning.

GS Widowers Club

Concussion is better now, I can focus again. Forgot to mention that last night was the inaugural meeting of the GS Widowers Club at Pot Bellies Snooker Hall. It is open to all chaps who have been brought to Zurich by some femme fatale, only to be cut adrift like so much flotsam and jetsam to fend for themselves, or something like that, bit hazy on the club rules as we were on beer number four,but you get the drift.

Anyway, a chance to get out of the compound is a rare treat indeed and I met up with Big J and Blind Jon for a game or two of snooker. Blind Jon is not atually blind, just colour blind, which made for some interesting choices of ball selection. And he is a Liberal Democrat. It really makes you realise that there is always someone worse off than yourself. That said, he still beat me, must have spiked my drink, typical shabby Lib Dem trick that. I will have to get him defrocked and disbarred from the club for ungentlemanly behaviour.

Just thought you might want to know. Must dash.

Play the Game

Off to the daughter's school this morning for a parental visit to see the little angels do PE. So there we were, 20 parents crammed onto a bench obviously not designed for sitting on if you are over four years old. Watching the kids run around was enchanting, at least for the first 10 minutes. After that I lost the feeling in my left leg. At the half an hour stage it was frankly wearing a bit thin. Distracted myself by looking at all the greying roots of all the neighbouring mums.

By the 45 minute stage the lesson had decended into mayhem, the chaos theory as interpreted by 5 year olds. Kids ran wild, smashing into each other at high speed, richocheting off walls while squealing with delight. Why the heck are we spending billions on the Large Hadron Collider when we could simply wire up all the junior school PE lessons in the world and achieve the same effect for a fraction of the cost.

And then it happened. The teacher called for a volunteer. My Swiss German is not what it should be and I did not fully understand. I made the school boy error of making eye contact with the teacher. "You, Herr Welle-Skitt, come here".

I was told I would be playing Britsih Bulldog against the whole class. I had to stand at one end of the sports hall while 40 plus tots stood at the other. They were and ugly looking bunch with a nasty collective glint in the eyes. I am sure I caught site of a knuckle duster and a cosh being slipped expertly up sleeves. Anyway, my mission was to make it to the opposite wall. The spawn were to stop me.

How difficult could it be I thought. So I charged, and so did they. I dealt with the first two kids, a couple of crew cut thugs from Fat Kath's neck of the woods with well aimed palm slaps to the face. The third I caught with my knee and sent the spud flying. Then I felt something wrap around my right leg. I still had no feeling in the left leg.

And they were on me. One sweet little girl, dressed in a delightful Laura Ashley flower print dress, donkey punched me. My shins were being kicked and I feared my belt was about to give way under the weight of tots hanging off it. I stumbled, they scented a kill. One well aimed blow to the solar plexus from an unseen hand sent me down. I had lost, but that did not stop the little hooligans from giving me a good kicking until they were pulled off by the beaming teacher.

I limped back to my two square centimetres of bench space in disgrace and a good deal of pain. I don't know how long the lesson went on, I had mild concussion. Infact, I have no recollection of how I got back home. Must rest now, painkillers are wearing off.

Know Thy Enemy

Last week I decided it was time to integrate with the local Sunnymountain Street Mothers Mafia. If you can't beat em, invite them round for a coffee morning. Invites were issued to the top five movers and shakers.

I cleaned the house, read a month old copy of Heat magazine for small talk purposes, ironed my best cravat, bought five packets of chocolate biscuits and put the coffee on. Then I waited, and waited, and waited. By 10.30 I realised no one was coming. The whole experience has left me feeling sick to the stomach, mainly because I ate all the choccy biscuits while waiting. My social isolation is now complete and I have put on 2 kilos.

Well, if they want a war a war is what they will get! Operating on the principle of know your enemy I decided to do some research before I strike. I found the wife's copy of "The Female Brain". It's quite thick.

But what an interesting read it is proving to be. Did you know that the hippocampus is not an ancient type of Roman fat camp but rather the brain's seat of learning and memory? Or that every brain starts off as female and only becomes male 8 weeks after conception, usually coinciding with the start of the football season and the release of excess testosterone that shrinks the communication centre and reduces hearing?

Its all to do with hormones apparently. Estrogen, Progesterone, Manoloblahniksale, Cortisol, Jomalonebuyonegetonefreeosol, Androstenedione and Allopregnenolone to name but a few.

These flood women's brains every few days and, to quote the book " their influence can be said to create a woman's reality...which is not as constant as a man's. His reality is like a mountain that is worn away imperceptibly by glaciers, weather and tectonic movements. Hers is more like the weather itself- constantly changing and hard to predict". Oh great! Even highly paid BBC meteorologists can't get the weather right, what chance do I stand.

I'm off to have a lie down and rest my hippocampus.

More Home Thoughts From Abloke

At 8.45 this morning I was sitting on the terrace preparing to enjoy my first dry sherry of the day. Life seemed good, daughter at school, hedgehogs snuffling around in the rubbish bags and empty beer bottles that I had left out overnight, not a care in the world in fact. Why am I telling you this. Well, just lonely I guess.

It's a Wonderful World

Tried to put a petition on the No10 website today. It read "We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to stop being nasty to bankers." I sleep with a banker, need to keep her sweet.

This is the reply I have just received


Hi,

I'm sorry to inform you that your petition has been rejected. Your petition was classed as being in the following categories:


* Intended to be humorous.


If you wish to edit and resubmit your petition, please follow the following link:
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Hugabanker/Au7sWXDP3kGUAArMHlABICo

You have four weeks in which to do this, after which your petition will appear in the list of rejected petitions.

the ePetitions team

Couple of points...The reply starts "Hi...Hi!, this is an official communication from Downing Street for goodness sake. Second, it appears I am now officially classed as someone with unacceptable humorous intent, that must now be a crime surely so I may be going away for a while. And it appears this email reply was not the work of a single person but was a team effort. Well done the ePetitions team, keep up the good work.

Must dash, off to make some popcorn and watch Neo Nazis on the BBC's Question Time. What a strange and wonderful world we live in.

Top Tip

Back to the supermarket again this afternoon with ravenously hungry daughter. I was in such a state from this morning's visit (see below)I clean forgot to buy any food. To calm the daughter's constant moaning about hunger cramps I bought her some Littlest Pet Shop toys.

In the vegetable section I was trying to get the daughter to agree to eat more fruit and veg but she was protesing that she wanted pizza. She was sitting in the trolley trying to suck any nutrition from the plastic packaging when we passed a little girl and her mother. As kids do they stared unashamedly at each other. Within second of passing, the daughter announced in a loud voice that "that girl wanted my Littlest Pet Shop toys but she can't have them and she did not look very nice". Ssshhhh! I hissed, although I had to admit she was an ugly little spud with a face like an angry elf chewing on nettles.

Then it came to me in a blinding flash of pedagogical inspiration, I could turn this situation into a valuable object lesson for the daughter. "Well" I said " if you don't eat enough fruit and vegetables then you may end up looking like her".

We left the supermarket with a trolley groaning under the weight of fresh, healthy produce. The daughter is currently gnawing on sugar beet and anxiously checking in the mirror every few minutes. You can have that child rearing tip on the house.

Supermarket Creep

Another day on Sunnymountain Street and the dreaded trip to the supermarket to buy the wife some tights. I hate doing this. I am sure I catch women looking at me out of the corner of the eye and thinking "cross dressing perv in your dirty old mac". Of course it doesn't help that I am wearing my favourite old mac, which to be fair could do with a dry clean. To counter this I have developed a strategy to prove beyond doubt that I am not a cross dresser. This is a small town and I have my reputation to protect.

Firstly, I do not approach the women's section directly. Rather, I hang around by the powertools testing the equipment until I am satisfied that enough female shoppers have noted my presence or I am asked to move on by security.

Only then will I make my approach, theatrically checking each isle for the women's underwear as though I have never done this before. In reality I know the exact position of what I want. Ideally I will wait until it is clear and make a precision strike. Usually however there are women around, have they got nothing better to do!.

I then have to move to stage 3. I whip out my fake shopping list and pace up and down the aisle looking perplexed, a stranger in unchartered territory. I have contemplated taking this to another level, maybe scratching in a manly way or spitting on the floor but I would probably get a fine this being Switzerland.

Once I have the tights I have to run the gauntlet of the check out queue. Here I deploy classic deception techniques. Sometimes I fake a phonecall to the wife, talking just a little too loudly into the phone even though there is no one at the other end: " Yes I have your tights, I hope they're the right ones as I have never done this before" Hang up, check reactions around me, exchange knowing looks with any other men in the line. Sometimes I will buy chewing tabacco, no one who cross dresses could chew tobacco. ( I have many tins at home if anyone is interested). Occasionaly I will turn my collar up, try and look sinister and hope the girl at the check out till thinks I am an armed robber just stocking up.

Then out into the street, gasping for breath, heart beat at attack level, offending items tucked beneath aforementioned dirty old mac. Well thats over for another few weeks. Have to go, need a lie down.

Oh me Oh my

The bad dad stories have been flooding in. Just this morning the daughter reminded me of the incident at last year's Raebe Festival. This is a Swiss celebration where basically you go into a forest at night with a lantern and sing songs to a turnip, or something like that, I wasn't paying attention when it was all explained.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, last year us parents and respective tots were walking in a long procession into the dark forest, lanterns swaying as we threaded our way up the valley, casting little pools of light into the November gloom.

Well, I had obviously not secured the daughter's candle inside the paper lantern properly. It caught fire. There the daughter stood, flaming torch in hand, screaming people of all ages scattering left and right into the forest.

Like a flash I grabbed an old coat hanging from a nearby pram intending to beat out the spreading flames. How was I to know there was still a toddler inside it, anyway I don't think there was any lasting damage, although the child still flinches when he sees me.

This year's festival is fast approaching, I wonder if they will let us have a lantern again this year. I will keep you posted.