Another year gone then . . . what's for dinner?


July signals the end of the school year and, in my case, the beginning of a new year. Having a birthday in July is a mixed blessing. In my school days, I longed for some reason to have a birthday at home and always felt thwarted that I only just missed out on this treat. I don't what I was imagining would happen - at school you got cards from everyone and presents and a cake and the bumps. At home, it would have been a much quieter affair. In those days, when your father was in the Armed Forces, your family moved to a new place every two years. If you went to boarding school - which we did - you never got to know anyone long enough for them to think about remembering your birthday.

The value of having a birthday during term time has been brought home to me by the realisation that Youngest Son, whose birthday is in August, will always miss out. And even though we have no intention of moving anywhere for decades, his little friends will no doubt be off on their holidays as soon as term ends and so he will never have a full cohort of buddies to attend his celebrations.

This year was significant in the sense that it was the first time since I was 13 years old that my birthday fell on a Friday 13th. I recall scoring 13 rounders on that day, and we won the match, so it was probably a very good day indeed and the fact that we were playing rounders indicates that the weather must have been good too.

This Friday 13th, sadly, was not so auspicious. Birthdays do not usually bother me too much, so it took me by surprise to find that I was SO p***ed about this one. It is true that Mr Darnbrough did take me to see the new Harry Potter film on the Saturday night but I did have to make my own birthday cake and the boys did have to be dragged from playing with their new hot wheels track in order to sing happy birthday to me. It doesn't really make you feel appreciated.

Eventually, I realised that it wasn't so much the birthday being a bit of a damp squib it was the fact that, as many mothers will probably recognise, I was just feeling as though everyone else's needs took priority over mine - all the time. It happens occasionally. You find yourself at the kitchen sink, or shoving washing into the washing machine for the umpteenth time and you think: "I didn't spend four years at university to end up doing this!" It can make you very crabby and difficult to be around while it lasts but it does eventually wear off.

That feeling of being at the bottom of the heap was summed up for me by Youngest Son, who has been busy planning his own birthday celebrations. Initially he had decreed that no girls would be allowed to come. He has relented sufficiently to include me because "you can serve the food, Mummy."

Note to self: This summer to be the point at which the boys start taking more of a share of the household chores - and Daddy helps to set an example.

Note to self (and any Significant Others): next year I want to go to The Henley Festival.

Earwiggings: Overheard in a cafe . . . .



A woman describes how her husband bought her a hand blender for her birthday. She was seriously underimpressed.

"And then I thought, OK we'll see how he likes it. We'd been saying we needed a gravy boat for ages so I bought one for him for his birthday. He got the point . . . "

Earwiggings: Overheard in a cafe . . . .



A group of women are talking about all the things they could do now they've hit 40.



"I love thinking about all the things I'd like to do. It gives me so much pleasure . . . ."

Don't we live in momentous times?







What a couple of weeks: Gordon Brown is now Prime Minister; terrorist attacks get thwarted (thank you God!); Federer wins his fourth Wimbledon; I harvest the first of the courgettes and the Marcos (garlic bulbs to the uninitiated) and my cousin Owen in Peru forsakes geology to set himself up as a classic car entrepreneur with a social conscience. . . . oh, and Mr Darnbrough has taken a sledge hammer to parts of our kitchen . . .

I expect everyone has read and talked all they wish to about the first three subjects and I am sure that they can wait patiently for the latest veg patch bulletin. The subject I wish to turn to now is my cousin Owen and "Clasicos con Carino".

This is a charity which he has set up to train orphaned and underprivileged young people in Peru to restore classic cars, thereby giving them marketable skills which they can use to to get jobs or to set up their own businesses. Owen reckons that the classic car market is on the up in Europe and North America and will improve in Peru as the Peruvian economy picks up. He wants to use this to the charity's advantage.

Talking to him about this is like being hit by a hurricane. He is SO committed to it and so full of ideas about how to take it forward. From its beginnings a couple of months ago, he has already organised one event on 24 June and is now planning the official launch of the charity later this month. I will be covering the event for this blog (sadly from this side of the Atlantic). Might even work out how to put pictures up . . . .

And so we come to the veg patch

The Marcos are wonderful. They slip out of their skins like broad beans out their pods. This is fine because you don't have to do very many of them to get enough - when you are shelling broad beans it can get a little tedious - and they roast divinely. I shall definitely be planting garlic again next year.

The first courgette was a triumph. I insisted the whole family gather in the greenhouse to be there when I cut it. I was going to share it with Mr Darnbrough but Youngest Son was sufficiently impressed with the whole business to ask if he could have first taste. In the spirit of encouraging your children to eat more vegetables, I let him have it. . . . after all, I do have about eight plants . . . . anyone interested in some courgettes in a few weeks time?

Washing fruit and veg thoroughly before eating has now become an absolute priority owing to the fine layer of dust that has settled over the fruit bowls (and every other surface). It was Mr D's intention to have this particular kitchen project finished before he started his latest job (as of today he's going to be doing a lot of travelling around Europe for the next few months). . . . The result is that we are now living with the fridge freezer in the middle of the breakfast area and a bomb site were the utility room used to be.

It would be easy to point the finger and say that DIY enthusiasts always underestimate the size of the job that they take on but that would not really be fair in this case. Events really have conspired against him. The final nail in the coffin was the fact that we had not one but two sets of visitors staying the night over the weekend. Lovely though it was to see them all, it did not make it easy to get on with the job in hand. He managed about an hour and a half on Sunday afternoon in between the first visitors leaving and the next ones arriving. I expect it will all get sorted out eventually. In the mean time, all meals get taken in the dining room and I have decided that the next job on the list will be to take down the wall between that and the kitchen.

What with chatting, holding pieces of plasterboard, making endless cups of tea and soft drinks, cooking, keeping children amused, getting them up, putting them to bed and feeding them, we didn't see very much of the tennis.

This Boots was made for walking (out of)


I was in Reading with Youngest Son earlier in the week. We were in Boots and I was about to make the radical decision to buy a trendy pair of sunglasses to replace the seriously naff ones I have been wearing until I saw my reflection in a shop window. . . .

Anyway, there we were. And there I was, poised with my hand going into my bag to reach for the credit card . . . when Youngest Son says: "I want to go to the toilet Mummy," in one of those voices that leave you in no doubt that he means it.

I looked round quickly. We were on the first floor of a seriously big Boots store. We were surrounded with all the toys and paraphenalia (and sunglasses) that go together with shopping and being a parent. There was no sign suggesting a ladies' loo. I spotted a young shop assistant and collared him. "My son needs to go to the loo," I said, can you tell me where the Ladies' is?"

"We don't have one."

This took a moment to sink in. "You don't have a customer toilet . . . ?"

"There are staff toilets," he said helpfully. My face must have brightened because he followed up quickly with, "but you can't use those."

"He's four years old and he needs to go to the loo!" I said, plaintively.

He was clearly not a parent himself. . . . "I think there are some customer toilets in Marks & Spencer," he said. "They're . . ."

"I know where they are!" I replied somewhat sharply and marched out of the place. There was no way I was going to be able to propel Youngest Son all the way to M&S without a large puddle of pee making an inappropriate appearance. A vague memory propelled me in the direction of a nearby cafe. "My son needs to go to the loo," I explained to the chap who appeared to be in charge. "Please can we use yours?"

"Customers only" he replied.

There are times, when, as a Mother, you know you have to stand up to authority or else civilisation as we know it will crumble. I looked that man in the eye. I spoke slowly, clearly and with a lot of emphasis, making a great effort to ensure that everyone around -many of whom were mothers with children -could hear me: "HE'S FOUR YEARS OLD AND HE NEEDS TO GO TO THE LOO . . . . HE CAN'T HOLD ON MUCH LONGER!"

He unlocked the door and let us in. We legged it up the stairs with Youngest Son explaining that he wasn't actually Four yet . . . . . and both of us breathed a big sigh of relief when we made it in time . . .

Honestly Boots, can't your senior executives remember what it was like to be nearly four and desparately wanting to go to the loo? I really think you could treat your customers a bit better.

Never did get those sunglasses . . .

Anyone for a Music Festival?

The Friends of Stoke Row School (FOSRS) held the second of its Family Picnics with live music on Sunday. The event is timed to coincide with Father’s Day and the plan is that local families bring a picnic to the village recreation ground, and FOSRS organises the music, lays on a bar and doles out strawberries and cream and Pimms. Oh, and it also sells raffle tickets and auctions things. It is an incredibly relaxed format and for the two years that it has been running has been a very good fund raiser for the school.

This year, we had two bands: The Big Ned Lasagne http://www.bignedlasagne.com/
(which played last year as well) and Aitch & Co http://www.myspace.com/aitchmcrobbie,
both of which contained one or more parents of children who are at the school. It is really quite amazing how much musical talent is lurking under the surface in this part of the country. Lynne Butler, the current chair of FOSRS is also getting airplay on US and Australian radio stations for her new CD http://www.lynnebutler.co.uk/.

I would love to include myself in this galaxy of talent but in spite of nearly a whole year of guitar lessons, I am still fumbling around in the primordial swamps of musical ability with fingers like sausages and less sense of rhythm than a tomato plant. This is in no way a comment on the skills of my teacher, Ian Mariss, who has been kind, patient and encouraging. He will no doubt be proud of me when I tell him that I can now see that someone is playing a bar chord . . . .

Enough of the music side of the event. The other aspect of it that should be mentioned was that the children all had an absolutely fabulous time. Stoke Row Recreation Field is a big open space. At one point while I was checking up on the whereabouts of the smaller Darnbroughs, I paused to look around me and saw children everywhere, playing football, playing cricket, throwing balls and Frisbees, riding bikes, climbing trees and generally running around and enjoying themselves. It was an idyllic scene: chilled out parents and happy children. It makes me realise quite how fortunate we are to live in a place like Stoke Row. It really is a small slice of Middle Class Heaven.

So would anyone want a Music Festival here? There are at least two open air venues (the Rec and the Cherry Orchard – complete with bandstand) and at least one, if not two pubs within walking distance that already do live music (The Crooked Billet and The Rising Sun). The Crooked Billet is already a name on the music circuit http://www.thecrookedbillet.co.uk/music.htm and I’m told that it used to have a camp site in the field at the back. . . . it all sounds perfect. At least it would be a bit different to the usual local village fete. . . .and a lot closer than Glastonbury . . . . not sure how the cricket club would feel about it however . . . .

Goodbyes . . .

Two important goodbyes had to be said this week.

In chronological order, the first was to the last of the toad- and frogpoles that have been living in the tank in the kitchen. By last Saturday they had all developed into miniature adults and the time had come to put the tank away for the year. We let five go on the last morning. After last week’s debacle, I chose the boggy area of the pond as the release site. The children obediently said “goodbye” and then shot off to do other things. I sat and watched for a while as the tiny little creatures made their way into the undergrowth. I hope that they meet with better fortune than that poor little blighter from last week.

The second, and more important “Goodbye” was to Aunty Sara. On Monday night we put her on a plane to Madagascar. She is off for six months to do VSO work for a charity based in Maputo. I’m going to miss her.

We do have Sooty to look after however. Sooty is a venerable glove puppet from the eponymous television series. In her hands, he has been a magical figure. The children both know that he’s a puppet. But when she is manipulating him, they interact with him as if he was a real person. The link with Sooty is so strong that they used to ask to speak to him on the phone and would always if he was coming too when she came to visit.

Sara will not be completely incommunicado however. She is going to get Skype downloaded onto her computer and we will also be in email contact. Eldest Son is planning to send her homemade postcards as well – we’ll see if that happens. . . .

Sara was most amused to see that her ticket (organised by VSO) was charged at a special “Missionary” rate. It is a charming archaic reference and you wonder how it has survived in a world of “aid clients” and “units of need”. It set us thinking about the way in which travel has changed. When we lived in Bahrain in the late 1960s, the only economical method of communication with our parents when we were at boarding school was a letter.

(It has just struck that the toilets at Stoke Row Primary School were installed during this period – and havn’t been upgraded since. That’s over thirty years ago! I’m now feeling totally outraged! But more on this subject another time. . . .)

The children are growing up in a world in which instant communication is available almost everywhere. The original missionaries who travelled to Africa and beyond in the nineteenth and even the early twentieth centuries could be out of contact with family and friends for months and even years. In Maputo, the capital of the fourth poorest country in the world, there is mobile phone service, internet cafes and wi-fi.

Youngest Son did a lovely drawing of an aeroplane for her which she has said that she will put on her wall when she gets to her new home. Eldest Son has discussed with her where she will be in relation to Madagascar (which he knows from the Disney movie). He is clearly “cool” about her trip and we hope that it will encourage his interest in the world and the way in which other people live. Youngest Son however, has been more anxious. In the days before she left, he kept raising the issue of “Aunty Sara going away from her house . . . but she will be coming back again, won’t she?” Time is a tricky concept when you are not quite four.

Pond Life – the harsh realities

Crikey did it rain over Half Term! The pond overflowed and the ground under the fruit trees was so waterlogged that they started keeling over. Mr Darnbrough and I were out there hauling them back into the vertical and trying to wedge them upright. There was no point banging new posts into the ground, they would have fallen over too.

The flooding subsided fairly quickly once the rain finally stopped but since then we have not seen a single tadpole. At first I had visions of them being stranded in the grass and “asphyxiating” as the water level receded but now I have come to the sad conclusion that they have probably all been eaten - either by the fish, the newts or the heron.

I have been feeling desperately sad about this but it seems that I am alone. Everyone else just laughs at me when I tell them, or says that it’s nature and I shouldn’t get upset about it. They have a point, but sometimes it’s hard not to intervene to try and protect the things that you care about. The trouble is, at times like this, you’re not sure what you are meant to be protecting.

The circle of life, in particular the carnivorous portion of it, has been very active in the pond over the last week. We have been receiving daily visits from a local heron, which seems intent on relieving us of the last remaining fish and may also be responsible for the recent reduction in sightings of frogs and toads.

It is quite exciting to look out of the window at 7 o’clock in the morning and see a heron standing little more than twenty feet away from your bedroom window. In other circumstances I would have been entranced, but this one was after “our” fish and frogs. In spite of a lot of arm waving and yelling from me, it didn’t seem in that much of a hurry to leave. Mr Darnbrough suggested that this was because it had a full stomach . . . he received a “look” in return for his poorly timed attempt at levity.

The heron has only been one of our difficulties. I am now wondering about the fate of all the little frog and toadlets that we have raised in the tank and then released back into the pond. Yesterday, Eldest Son and I released seven of them. We were crouching happily by the pond watching them make their way to freedom when we saw one of them being consumed by a newt: it had only been in the pond for five minutes . . . . Life in the state of nature for this little scrap was very definitely of the Hobbesian variety: “nasty, brutish, and short”.

Eldest Son was clearly a bit shocked at this display of pond “realpolitik”. He wanted to try and save the toadlet but by the time we saw what was happening it was already halfway down the marauding newt’s throat; we got a good view of its little arms waving about helplessly and then it disappeared for ever beneath a lily leaf.

Eldest Son was enraged: “Next time I see that newt I’m going to kill it!” at which point Mummy (who was feeling rather upset herself) was left to explain that her favourite amphibians were carnivores and would not have understood what all the fuss was about. (I was also forced to reflect that the heron would have felt the same way.)

Later in the day, I confessed to Eldest Son that I was still feeling rather sad about the fate of the toadlet. He appeared to have already ‘moved on’. His advice was simple and prompt: “Try thinking about something else that’s nice Mummy. Try thinking about Christmas.”

A bit later still, when he was clearly in a more reflective mood. He announced that the newts were like Tyrannorsaurus Rex. It’s a good analogy. I have found myself thinking about Hobbes and the Social Contract. The only “enlightened self interest” in that pond is of the “newts gotta eat” variety. I think I may have to pick up my copy of “Leviathan” and do some dipping (if you’ll pardon such a weak pun).