Bummy cream, mangoes and a twitch.

No, not my shopping list, but my life over the last 12 hours (o:

Adam’s got this thing about bummy cream…. When Mum was over and we’d have a coffee, every time he saw the froth on the top of a cappuccino, or the cream they add to an iced coffee, Adam would let out a loud ‘Eeerrrr, you’re eating bummy cream!’. It came to be a bit of a catchphrase with him, so now every time we make a coffee, it has to have extra bummy cream. Honestly, the people in the local coffee place must think we’re barking!

Mangoes! Well, the excitement. Sam came in from the garden today, carrying a mango! ‘What’s this Mum?’ he asked. It was a lovely, juicy, ripe mango, fresh from our garden! How exciting’s that? We didn’t even know it was a mango tree – it looks a bit dead to us, but Sam found it, in all its glory lying on the ground by the side of the tree. We took it in washed and peeled it and devoured it in minutes! When we took Pentley out in the garden later on, you could almost hear the mango tree complaining…..’four months I was blooming nurturing that. My one and only fruit. My beloved. The Fruit of my loins, and you piggin lot take it and scoff it with no thought for me in less than 30 seconds!’ It was delish though. Even Adam thoroughly enjoyed it and had juice dribbling down his chin. I’m hoping Sam will come back in tomorrow having discovered a prawn tree or a chocolate bush. We do have an olive tree that we bought when we first arrived. This is growing well, but I’ve no idea what to do with the olives to make then edible? There was a man harvesting olives on the roundabout on the way to the supermarket today. I should have pulled over and asked him what he does with them – I love olives! We also have another tree that we bought that’s a cross between a lemon and an orange. I only wanted these to go in my G&T. I’ll have to find a recipe for a alcoholic smoothie that I can use my mango in (who am I kidding, the tree looks half dead and we’ve just eaten it’s one and only fruit…. Next year’s harvest doesn’t look too promising (o: )

Oh, and I’ve got a twitch. Forget about all this moaning that Paul keeps doing about his ‘major’ operation; I’ve got a twitch and it’s driving me mad! I’ve had it since before Mum arrived and it rears its head from time to time. At first, it only ever happened when I was talking about spending money! Very strange. When we first discussed buying this house, when Paul and I discussed mortgages or finance, my twitch would come out to play. It also started in times of stress, so over the last few weeks, I’ve been twitching more than a professional bird watcher! It’s very annoying and whilst Paul’s may be a definite, treatable medical condition, mine is just as troubling! I’ve even googled it and a twitch may last as long as 12 months before disappearing as quickly as it arrived. I didn’t ask it to come. I almost interrupted Paul’s consultant the other week to say ‘ignore all this crap about a tumour – what do you know about minor twitching?’ A valid question, I think? I’ll let you know how it progresses through a new segment: Twitch watch (that’s twitch – NOT twit!). Stay tuned for regular twitch updates and feel free to contact me with any home made cures – no Mum, I’m not using your poultice before you offer – I’d rather have a twitch than smell of onions.

Well, the Easter Bummy (sorry – Bunny) came for a visit. It was touch and go for a while as the stupid bunny delivered to the front garden and not the back! A little confusion occurred for a moment; coupled with lots of cursing and shoulder shrugging, until we realised that he’d obviously mis-read the delivery instructions! Darcie was most put out for a while and told me if he hadn’t been, she was going to ‘write and complain to the council’ Can you imagine the fun the council would have explaining that one to a six year old…

‘ Dear Miss Delaney,

I write with reference to your recent complaint regarding your lack of delivery by the Easter Bunny. We regret to inform you that due to council cut backs and the wrong kind of leaves on the line, the Bunny was decommissioned from service back in August 2006. We are making plans to replace the bunny with the Mandurah Crab Fest crab – however, progress has not been as forthcoming as we had hoped, due to his inability to distribute eggs with his pincers. A great number of eggs have been culled due to his fumbling.

Thank you so much for taking the time to write to us with your concerns. May I take this opportunity to assure you that the council are making every effort to ensure that normal service is resumed for next year. Should all else fail, we will be putting the contract out to tender; previous rodents need not apply.

Kind regards,

The council’

Luckily, disaster was diverted with a scattering of eggs on the front lawn that the kids collected in the rain – yes, I said rain! I also devised an egg hunt in the house where Sam and Darcie had to solve clues to find their eggs. This went down well and I have already had a repeat order for next year!

Paul is still poorly and continues to sleep all day; if he slept any longer within a 24 hour period, I think it could be medically diagnosed as a coma. He only wakes to:

(a) visit the loo – sometimes he doesn’t even bother waking for this (o:

(b) moan at me or the kids

(c) take more painkillers to put him back to sleep

I get more conversation from the goldfish at the moment; and certainly no help on pooper scoop duty. I tell you, if it’s not Pentley poohing, it’s Adam weeing on the carpet. They’ve started to blame each other now and just eye each other as if to say ‘that one was definitely yours’! The house smells like dog and detol – lovely! Perhaps I should write to Airwick and suggest it as a new fragrance.

Speaking of dog. We broke Pentley. We had him three whole days and had to take him to the vet. It was really quite serious yesterday….. He’d been out in the garden playing with the kids when Sam came in and said Pentley was ‘wobbly on his feet’. I went to see him and soon realised that all was not ‘normal’. His eyes were darting constantly from side to side like windscreen wipers on full speed and he was disorientated – moving his head around like Stevie Wonder. When he tried to walk, he wobbled about more than a drunk on a Saturday night. Not good )o: So, being a public holiday weekend, I had to phone around and see if I could find a vet open on Easter Saturday. Luckily I managed to raise one not too far away and Sam and I bundled Pentley in the car and sped off.

You can imagine my upset when the vet said that he’d have to stay in whilst they did some tests. Basically, he was concerned if Pentley had been bitten by anything’ snake / spider / Adam…. The symptoms he was displaying were in line with damage to the nervous system like a bang to the head or a ‘sting’. I just instantly felt like a parent in front of social services! Had we squeezed him too hard? Should his eyes have popped out like that when Adam hugged him? I felt SO bad )o:

The vet kept him in and gave him antibiotics and a cortisone injection and told me to phone back in two hours to see how he was going. I cried in the car on the way home. Three days we’d had him and he was already broken! Did we still have the receipt? Could I exchange him for a different size or colour? Anyhow, two hours later I called and they said there was some improvement, but they still weren’t sure if he would be allowed home and could I phone back at 4.30pm? So I waited and called back and they wanted to keep him in overnight to ensure that he recovered fully )o: Poor Pentley.

The night was very quiet. It’s amazing how quickly you get used to a pup around the place. We were up early with the kids this morning seeing as it was the great Easter Hunt, so we were all really pleased when the vet confirmed he would be allowed home. He’s on antibiotics and we are supposed to keep him ‘quiet’ (yeah right; puppy + 3 kids = hyperactivity squared!), but he seems fine and it’s lovely to have him back home.

The vet seems convinced that ‘something’ bit him (says a lot about my kids if it was Adam; he’s fine, but the dog needs antibiotics! Ha ha ). It’s a one-off, freaky chance in a lifetime thing that will hopefully never happen again, but even he admitted that his signs were ‘quite concerning’ when we took him in yesterday.

We had three disasters yesterday: the freezer was leaking when we woke up (the door hadn’t been shut properly and the ice cubes had melted and pooled on the floor), we broke Pentley and then I broke the patio door and got he key stuck in it (on the outside – no, I don’t really know how I managed that, either!). The locksmith wanted $140 just to come out and said if it was a ‘so and so’ type he wouldn’t be able to fix it any how! I said it could wait until Tuesday when his call out rate would drop to $70 and if he looked and couldn’t fix it, he wouldn’t charge us. I suggested trying WD40, at which point Paul lectured me on the fact that it wouldn’t work; before wetting the bed and falling back asleep (o: - not really!). But I thought I’d buy a small can and try it today whilst he was asleep; and guess what – it worked!!! Good job really as I spent the locksmith’s money at the vets! Actually, the vet's bill was quite reasonable - $180 (about £80) all in, including a course of strawberry flavoured antibiotics and a night’s b&b. (The vet told Darcie not to take the dog’s medicine or else she would start barking. How gullible is she? She wants to just have a sip to see if she can talk like Pentley!).

So, how exciting was your Easter weekend? Bet it wasn’t as exciting as ours and we’ve still got a day to go. Must go – the vet gave me an instruction manual for Pentley, so I’m off to find out where his replacement batteries go and where the ‘reset’ switch is. See you next time for twitch update!