I Scream, You Scream

Back to reality after our seaside idyll – with manky hairbrush and underwear well hidden in the bottom of my bag.
As always, the beaches of South Wales did not disappoint. There was only one slightly tense moment when my luminous blue-white legs emerged from their protective covering, causing bronzed locals to avert their eyes in embarrassment, and hiss urgently at their children not to stare at the poor lady. The sea at this time of year is cold, very cold, but being British it was only natural that we should want to submerge our pasty bodies in it. Of course, the kids were all decked out in several inches of state-of-the-art neoprene, so not only did they look stylish, but they were also relatively inured to the arctic temperatures. I was wearing a baggy lycra swimsuit, which might as well have been knitted, for all the thermal protection it gave me. It took me ten minutes of girly squealing to achieve full body immersion, and I would say that it was worth ten weeks of concerted pelvic-floor exercises. Unfortunately though, it was some time before that pinched, concentrated stare of the ‘secret pelvic-floor clencher’ began to dissipate.
After we had all leapt about like salmon for half an hour, I finally persuaded the kids to get out by bribing them, bizarrely, with an ice cream – although chicken soup and hot sweet tea might have been more appropriate in the circumstances.
In the same way that banging your head against a wall feels great when you finally stop (or so I’m hoping, with this child-rearing lark), when I finally emerged from the icy depths, looking more Honey Monster than Honey Ryder, my skin felt like it was burning in the comparative heat of the air. A brisk rub down with a sand-encrusted towel was a more effective exfoliator than any salon treatment, and totally painless at the time, due to the anaesthetic effects of the Atlantic. I’m sure it won’t be too long before the skin on my upper arms heals properly.

Although I was disappointed that I didn’t even get close to trying any of the Welsh Cariad wine, I am very excited by the prospect of drinking this glass of Barramundi Semillon Chardonnay as recommended by The Grocer (£4.79 Ocado, or go to The Grocer’s shop!).
It tastes of melon and citrus fruit, and makes me long to dabble my toes in tropical waters.
I seem to remember that about ten years ago, this wine used to be sold in a brightly labelled bottle. If so, it has had something of a sophisticated make-over (I could do with one of those myself), but the label still suggests warm, sandy, Australian beaches.
Maybe Cariad wines could do a similar tie-in with the beaches of South Wales - the wine label could include pictures of sand, surf, baggy lycra and mottled blue legs.

Tic-king Off

I was sprawling on the sofa, watching TV with the kids today, when I realised that the youngest was making a slight throat clearing/grunting noise every ten or so seconds. I surreptitiously checked he wasn’t choking, farting or being slowly asphyxiated by one of the others, then sat back again.
Now, I know all the child psychology Fuhrers tell you that you must ignore any nervous tics, or you risk making them worse, so I said nothing and sat there wondering how long he had been doing it – days, weeks, months? I had no idea – couldn’t remember it ever being quiet enough in the house to hear. After about another ten minutes I couldn’t stand it any more, and asked him gently if he was aware of the noise he was making.
“What noise?” he asked, turning his chin towards me, but with his gaze firmly locked onto the TV screen. I explained, doing a passable impersonation of the little grunt, but there was no glimmer of recognition, he just continued gawping at the screen – and continued grunting, only now every five seconds instead of ten. I was left pondering the prospect of his gradual slide into Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and then a full blown case of Tourette’s Syndrome by the time he hits puberty. In the end, I had to leave the room to avoid gnawing on my own knuckles, or yelling “For God’s sake, just stop it!”
This is not new territory, so I shouldn’t really be worried. My older son went through a stage of gurning alarmingly, and also developed a ‘spinning around’ tic that would have put the Jackson Five to shame. At the time, I was convinced that it was a result of dosing him up with cetirizine for hayfever, but now I’m not so sure. It could just have been the stress he was under that year at his Alpha-child school. The tics would stop whenever he had a school holiday, and then gradually build up again as the term went on. He grew out of it eventually, but not before he had left me with a legacy of fretting silently about a possible return.
Therefore, I am tucking into a glass of crisp and tropical Jacob’s Creek Semillon Chardonnay (£5.49 Tesco) in an attempt to restore some common sense. I seem to remember having a similar irritating grunt pointed out to me by a school friend once, so maybe its genetic. I daresay that by the time the boys are teenagers, irritating grunts will be their sole method of communication.