Sunday, November 12, 2006

Weekends at home

I was supposed to be having a peaceful time this weekend, boy-less. Their father, however, found himself stuck in Paris with a Saab that had a totally disfunctioning alarm. When this happens, the rest of the car can be in perfect working order, but you can go nowhere, even if you unplug the wretched alarm. It's anti-theft, you see. You can't even 'steal' your own car. Bravo Saab.

An extra complication is that France demanded a different alarm system from everyone else in the world, which means that instead of a nice array of coloured wires that go into colour-coded spots, the whole business is in black, so, once cut, you're buggered. Bravo Saab.

He was quoted 6,000Eur to repair the problem. Yeah, right. A financial black hole, that car, je te jure.

There was no point my having hysterics on the spot declaring that he had to fix for the boys to be away this weekend, come hell or high water - such is my life that I was just looking forward to some peace and the prospect of working on my book - so they stayed with me. No, I didn't work on my book, although I did a little on Friday, which I had off work when I didn't know I was going to have the boys. I had been planning on a book weekend, but the best laid plans...

Friday was also spent watching a video of the series 'Mine all mine' set in Swansea and Mumbles, with Griff Rhys Jones. It was a great laugh, with some lovely views of dear Mumbles. Yesterday afternoon, RA and I watched 'Love Actually' with Hugh Grant which was a right soppy, cute piece of cinema. I was a bit surprised at all these 40-something actors getting off with cute young 20-something ladies, however. Maybe a last ditch effort to pull a young chick before it looks vile, I suppose... and a good reason for Hugh Grant to make a movie with all his pals, plus a few. The line-up was terrific. My favourite was Billy Mack the aging pop star, played by Bill Nighy who obviously enjoyed himself immensely and hammed up his part to the hilt. I didn't quite get Hugh Grant as PM, although I loved the speech where he tells the Yanks to sod off and stop being such a big bully. Marvellous!

The boys had a lovely weekend too, out in the road, playing with their pals. I had wondered, seeing as it was such lovely weather whether we should go somewhere, but they always want to stay at home and play with their pals. So I think, why bother? Why drag them out? So I didn't, and they were in roaring form all weekend.

I'm just going with the flow.

8 comments:

  1. Yes Billy Mack is hilarious in this movie. Great movie but really the 'sod off Yanks' part was a bit cheap, or...well, how shall I say? Never mind! Ugh. Anyway, great movie. Quite romantic even.

    I just watched another chick flick romantic type movie last night --"Hope Floats." It's a tad old but Sandra Bullock is great and, was recommended by a dear friend who is going through her own divorce so we all could well relate... aside from my own parents divorced (several times) home upbringing!

    Later,

    duncan

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  2. Sensible to let them have the kids of weekend fu they prefer - I "DID things" all the time with mine - and once they grew yp and were married and parents they told me I messed up all their free time by organising outings when they would have prefered stay at home with pals & tv!

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  3. Duncan: I don't think anyone was getting at Americans, but at that awful bullying regime. I have lived in the US and enjoyed parts of it immensely, especially the extraordinary welcome that people gave us, and their generosity with their time and hearts. The regime, however, stinks and is letting down its people.

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  4. NG: I'm surprised your kids didn't tell you more forcefully what they would have preferred to do. I just have to hint at an outing and I get a barrage of objections. :)

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  5. Aghast, when thinking back about it, I don't think they bothered so as not to "spoil" my fun...which I stupidly thought was setting up interesting things for them to do....which gave them the impression that I was a bore, and always organising boring things to do - like picnics, and visits, and sports, and raids, places to visit, stories about their history with places to fit it into etc., etc.,....they would have rather stayed at home with the tv. So, I have to come to the sad conclusion that I was not at all the wort of Mother they had hoped for!

    They would have preferred shopping spress, tv and fast food!

    I am not the Mummy who won the first prize! Actually - I don't think I am really a first prize anyway!!!!!!!!

    How much I would love to hear about their every day life, and spend more time with them & all my grandchildren or even get a few more telephone calls, perhaps once a month at least.. However, I have been listed forever as the bcbg bore, with "principes" and "un coté trop comme il faut"

    That's the way the cookie crumbles (sorry Nikita!!!)

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  6. NG, a mother's place is in the wrong so whatever you do, it's never quite the thing and your kids will reproach you for it later.

    How many adult children never call their parents, or even see them on a regular basis? Loads.

    Anyway, your children are not exactly your average brood, coming from the bloodline they do...

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  7. i saw it again yday on the plane. it's a good movie, i like emma thompson there. that scene when she found the gift.

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  8. That's a classic. One of the best scenes of any movie.

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