A sunday jaunt to A&E

Lily fell head first out of her high chair yesterday morning. I was standing at the oven, stuffing a leg of lamb with rosemary and garlic, when i heard the thud. I whipped round to find her lying on her back, eyes wide with fright. Then she started screaming. My frantic efforts to soothe her were in vain. I checked her head to see a lilac bruise forming on the hairline above her left eyebrow. She was still crying five minutes later; after an invective filled hunt for the elusive car keys, i bundled her into the car and shot off to the hospital. She fell asleep almost instantly , which put the fear of God into me. I tried to rouse her, but soon realised that if i carried on driving whilst simultaneously scrutinizing Lily for signs that her life was ebbing away, i was going to crash. So i clenched my jaw, and tried to concentrate on driving, as tears poured down my cheeks.

We stopped at the traffic lights in Dorchester. I leant over and tickled her tummy. "Lily, please wake up darling." Nothing. Oh God. the lights changed to green and i screeched to a halt in a disabled spot outside A&E, ignoring the furiously disapproving looks of two old ladies on a nearby bench. I opened the passenger door and lifted her out. My legs were wobbly, my hands trembled and my heart was hammering in my chest as i prayed over and over "please let her be okay, please let her be okay". I rushed up to reception and told the nurse what had happened.

"Has she been sick at all?"

"No."

"Did she cry straight away?"

"Yes"

"If you'd like to take a seat, someone will be with you shortly."

I sat in the waiting area, rocking her backwards and forwards and tried to hold back the tears that were threatening to engulf me. Her pale face was utterly still. The bruise was an angry purple now, spreading towards her left temple.

After what seemed like an interminably long wait (about 5 minutes), a nurse appeared, and beckoned me into a side room. I caught sight of myself in a mirror. I was white as a sheet.

"Right then Mum" trilled the nurse in a jolly voice. "What's happened to Baby?"

"She fell out of her high chair." i managed to whisper.

"Oh dear oh dear, let's have a look at you then."

As she lifted Lily gently from my arms, Lily's eyelids fluttered open. She gazed at the nurse in surprise before smiling shyly at her and nuzzling her head into the ample bosom and yawning loudly.

I collapsed back against the plastic sofa, weak with relief.

I watched dazedly, as the nurse took her temperature, shone a light in her eyes and checked her oxygen levels. All fine. Gulp.

"I'll just put her on the floor to check she can crawl okay" she said, placing her carefully on the rubber play mat. Lily's face lit up at the sight of a Fisher price Camper Van and she shuffled off to investigate. There was a chortle of glee as she discovered Mr and Mrs Weeble in the back, enjoying a picnic lunch. Seconds later she was crawling back to offer Mr Weeble to her new friend.

"There's not much wrong with you!" smiled the nurse, scooping her up and rubbing noses, eliciting squeals of delight from Lily.

"You're rather scrumptious aren't you? yes you are. Yes you are. You're a little beauty."

"i thought she was dying." i tell her in faint voice.

The nurse chuckled. "Poor Mummy. You gave her quite a fright didn't you?" Lily smiles broadly.

"Is Dad at home?" the nurse asked as she stood up to leave.

"He's milking the cows." i replied wondering if i have the strength to stand up too. The pumping adrenaline that has sustained me for the past hour has ebbed away, leaving me weak.

"Ah yes, i guessed you lived on a farm." nodded the nurse, glancing at me as she wrote something on her clipboard.

I look down and realise for the first time, what i am dressed in. Cath Kidston Rose print pyjamas stuffed into a pair of horse poo encrusted Hunter Wellies. The pocket of my apron bulges slightly with baby courgettes from the vegetable garden and my hair is piled wildly on top of my head with an elastic band. ...

We go outside into the corridor and Lily flutters her eyelashes as a trio of nurses gather round to admire her.

One of them presents her with a teddy for "being such a brave girl."

I smile as Lily sings to herself on the way home and I marvel at her robustness.

I'm looking forward to having friends over for Sunday lunch. I suddenly realise that Jasper must be wondering where we are. We arrive home and walk into the kitchen. The cat's had the lamb and Tilly (Lily's miniature pony) is standing with her head in the kitchen sink, chomping away at the carrots.

Jasper calls through from the other room.

"Hello darling. Have you had a nice morning?"

Too many cocks....

We are going to have to perform a cockerel cull. There are eight cockerels to ten hens and the situation has reached reached crisis point.
They are all "homegrown" as it were and therein lies the problem. I was present at their hatching, and watched in awe as they emerged from their shells in a chorus of cheeping; eight fluffy yellow easter chicks, peeping out from the vast warm plumage of their proud bantam mummy.
New chicks are notoriously hard to sex, but within 8 weeks we had deduced that we had 2 hens and eight cocks. Eight! We gazed gloomily at them.
"The Law Of Sod stikes again." Jasper said morosely.
"Look on the bright side. We've got 2 lovely hens." i chirped, with nauseating Polly Anna optimism. Jasper grunted and walked off.
The next day i discovered the 2 hens had dropped dead behind a plantpot. Perhaps they had a dreadful prescience of what was to come and decided to quit whilst ahead. As i sadly disposed of their lifeless bodies in the slurry lagoon, i wondered why nature was so illogical and cruel. I understood the premise behind survival of the fittest, but eight cockerels was phenomonally unfortuneate.
I watched them digging in the back garden for worms. The thought of striding outside, rounding them up, and strangling them, seemed utterly monstrous and filled me with horror. I told myself that they would be fine together. They looked perfectly happy from where i was standing, and after all they were brothers! (I can now appreciate just how delusional those rose tinted spectacles made me....)
I went to a poultry fair and bought 10 bantam hens to redress the balance, and for a while, they all rubbed along together quite happily. Until the hormones kicked in...

12 months later my naive optimism had returned to haunt me. My kitchen window has become a viewing panel for the scenes of violent debauchery that take place daily in the back garden. It is like being a unwilling spectator in the poultry version of a snuff movie. Their wary suspicion of each other has stealthily developed into a burning hatred, which manifests in increasingly ferocious displays of machoism, as they indulge their pathological desire to reign supreme. I had fondly pictured them wandering amiably around the farmyard together like something out of band of Brothers. It is with great sadness that i realise that the pervading atmosphere of murderous intent and brooding antipathy is more reminiscent of a cross between West Side Story and Jeremy Kyle.
Their black eyes glint malevolently as they circle each other like boxers. They crouch down in clumps of grass and ambush each other triggering terrible fights and squawked promises of retribution. They constantly goad one another, jeering, insulting, delivering (and perpetrating) threats of violence.
They ignore my shouted pleas to "STOP FIGHTING AT ONCE!" I have to physically separate them with a broom, whereupon they skulk off together to resume the battle out of sight, like a pair of unruly schoolboys sent home in disgrace, only to begin brawling again outside the school gates.
Occasionally, they will call an uneasy truce, and the whole mob will strut off together to partake in a spot of gang rape. I watch, transfixed with revulsion as they single out a hen, surround her and take turns on her, pinning her down with their wings and egging each other on with a raucous cacophony of clucking and crowing. When they have finished, there is an awkward silence during which they ruffle their feathers and avoid eye contact, before swaggering off in different directions.
The hens are permanently braced for the next onslaught. They wander about the farm yard looking slightly stunned - like an advertisement for Battered Wives Anonymous.
The swiss chalet hen house, once so charmingly kitsch, squats in the tussocky grass like a symbol of violent repression. The cockerels skulk in its shadows waiting for an opportunity to pounce, like ASBO youths loitering in the stairwell of a tower block.
Something has to be done. I take a deep breath and make the phone call.

Pearl's Teddy Bears Picnic. (2nd Birthday)

Just got back from Pearl's 2nd Birthday. It was held on the village playing field opposite the pub. My nieces Hollie and Abi came too, which Lily was thrilled about. Hollie and Abi are nine and five respectively and Lily thinks they are the bees knees - she gazes at them with an awestruck expression whenever she sees them.
We had a lovely time - the sun was shining, and the picnic table was bedecked with a gingham cloth and laden with every different kind of sandwich imaginable, profiteroles, cakes, millionaires shortbread, home made lemonade....
After saying hello to Hayley (Pearls' Mummy) we went over to get some food. I handed Hollie and Abi a plate and asked what they would like to eat.
"Chips." Abi replied firmly.
"There aren't any chips Abi." I told her.
She gave me an artful look before saying "There's a pub across the road."
"Can't you have a sandwich?" I say. I don't like the wheedling tone in my voice.
Abi folds her arms. " I don't like sandwiches"
I turn to Hollie and look pleadingly at her.
She moves closer to Abi to symbolise a United front, and says "Sausage and chips please." And as an afterthought "...and a Mango and raspberry J20"
Humph. So much for Teddy Bears Picnic.
"I'm so hungry" Abi said, rubbing her tummy like a Dickensian waif begging for scraps.
"Me too." said Hollie.
I sighed. "Why are you two so fussy?"
They both shrugged, palms upwards.
40 minutes later we're ensconced in the pub ordering sausage and chips twice and the girls are happily sucking J20 through a straw and plying a delighted Lily with ice cubes, which she loves.
A man walks in and stands with his back to us at the bar . I can't help but notice that he has a large skin tag in a prominent place on the back of his neck.
"Look at that mans Tick! It's massive" Hisses Abi in a theatrical stage whisper.
"Hadn't you better tell him Jess? You can pull it off for him with Granny's special tick remover." she urges me earnestly. I notice that the back of the mans neck has gone very red.
Blushing myself , i say quietly "It's not a tick Abi, it's a mole."
She spears her sausage with a derisive snort. "Don't be silly. I know what a mole looks like." she replies stoutly. "Dido dug one up this morning on Granny's lawn."
I realise it is hopeless to contradict her, so i change the subject.
We are finishing our drinks and preparing to leave when they start singing along to a song on the radio.
"baby baby baby, oh, my baby baby baby, oh my baby baby baby oh...."
"Do you like Justin Bieber Jess? " Abi asks.
I don't. I think he's an over-indulged, squeaky voiced, pre pubescent little cretin and he gives me the creeps.
"Ooh yes, he's fab." I reply.
"Really? Well i think he's weird."
"In what way?" i ask, intrigued.
"One of my friends thinks he's actually a girl. I don't think he is. I just think he's gay, which is fine, it's his choice. He's got a few issues though." she concludes sagely.
"Gay?" i repeat idiotically.
"Yeah, gay. Like a lesbian. But a boy. You do know what a lesbian is don't you?"

I awaited my Boden bounty in a state of feverish anticipation. I requested that it arrive after 3pm so that Jasper would be busy milking the cows, enabling me to take delivery of it without any danger of being apprehended. I was then struck by the awful prospect of him coming to the house for some obscure reason at exactly the same time as the parcel arrived! I shuddered at the thought. After some quick thinking i phoned the delivery company and explained every detail of my predicament. The nice lady on the end of the phone was very obliging and assured me, with ill concealed amusement, that she would instruct the courier to phone me when he was in the area and i would meet him at the end of the drive. She promised that she would tell him he MUST NOT GO DOWN THE DRIVE. I sighed with relief, then "You're not just saying it? You will remember? " I almost added "If he doesn't do it my way, the deal's off."
Finally satisfied, i allowed myself to relax.
Three days passed and i had worn a path in the gravel, pacing up and down outside the house and listening for the distant chug of the parcelforce van. Jasper had started to smell a rat.
The phone rang one lunch time and i almost jumped out of my skin.
"What IS the matter with you?" he asked.
"Too much coffee." I mumbled.
I tried in vain to hide my blushes.
"What have you done? Come on, out with it." he said sternly.
"I haven't "done" anything thankyou very much!" i replied in a tone of mock hurt.
He looked beadily at me over the rim of his coffee cup.
"You've been spending haven't you? Don't give me that innocent look bun, i know you too well."
I crossed my fingers under the table before replying "I haven't spent anything ACTUALLY. " i snorted, hoping that he couldn't see my nose getting longer.
"You're blinking. You always blink when you're telling porkies."
"Well really! I have never heard such nonsense!" i said as i stood up and cleared the table. I stuck my head in the dish washer to escape his scrutinizing gaze. I felt his eyes boring a hole in my back as i hummed to myself whilst pulling agonized faces to relieve my internal angst.
Sensing a counter attack, I smiled sweetly at him "I thought i'd make Fish pie tonight. I know it's your favourite." He looked mollified.
"Can you do those courgettes in garlicky butter again?" he asked hopefully.
"Yes my darling!" i trilled, planting a kiss on his nose. "And an apple cake for pudding."
His eyes lit up. I was safe. Distraction technique. Works like a charm...
The next day i was having a nice relaxing bath during Lily's lunch time nap. The dogs started barking outside. Grumbling to myself, i stuck my head out of the window to see who was there.
I froze in horror as a portly little man wearing the parcelforce logo appeared round the corner holding an enormous box with MINI BODEN emblazoned across it. At the same time i heard the ominous rumble of an approaching tractor. Jasper on his way home for lunch!
The man was knocking on the door.
"Hello!" I shouted. He looked up and waved cheerfully.
"I've got a parcel for you love."
"Thankyou. Can you hide it in the dog kennel please?"
"You what love? he said, cupping his hand behind his ear."
"PUT THE PARCEL IN THE KENNEL!" I hissed, hopping frantically from foot to foot in agitation.
"What do you mean?" he frowned.
"HIDE THE PARCEL IN THE KENNEL! MY HUSBAND'S COMING!"
The penny dropped, and he chuckled as he man handled the box into the kennel and shut the door. He played his part in the covert operation with evident relish , waggling his finger at me cheekily and saying "Whose a naughty girl then?!"
"Quick! Quick! He's coming!!" I whimpered. The man giggled and ran back to his van as fast as his little legs would carry him before screeching off down the drive. I leaned against the door frame, giddy with relief as the tractor rumbled around the corner.
Five minutes later Jasper came in.
"Did you see that van?"
"What van?"
"Doesn't matter."

I have left the brochures behind the S bend. If Jasper knew that i had found them, he would probably be quite alarmed, filled with horror at the thought that their discovery could trigger a financial splurge. He will soon be adding The Autumn Collection to his stash. He'll need to find a bigger hiding place. The current one is running out of space.
One of the fun things about having a baby girl (or boy) is choosing her outfits. When i was pregnant i passed many a happy hour in The White Company gazing dreamily at all the beautiful clothes. Surprisingly, I only bought a couple of things, deciding that he/she could wear white baby-gro's for the first 12 months. It was, after all, highly practical, enabling me to wash everything on a 60, liberally sprayed with Vanish to maintain a pristine whiteness. I bought her a little dress "for best" and was proud of myself for being so frugal.
Consequently, i was slightly dismayed by the relentless stream of babywear brochures that landed on my doormat to test my resolve. I stoically ignored them at first, binning them without so much as glancing at the front cover. One day i made the fatal mistake of opening the Baby Boden brochure before chucking it out, exposing myself to the irresistible charms of outrageously cute clothes, modelled by equally cute babies. I caught a fleeting glimpse of a pastel pink romper suit with an applique of Mother Goose and a navy chunky knit woolly jumper featuring a cartoon fox. I threw it in the bin and carried on loading the dishwasher...5 minutes later, i was rummaging in the bin to retrieve it and scraping the congealing morsels of fried eggs and cornflakes off the front cover. These companies are clever. They realise that if they tempt you for long enough, your resistance will eventually crumble. Slowly and insidiously , they work their magic, tempting you with the siren call of white broderie anglaise smock dresses, cashmere mix rompers, corduroy trousers with pink turn-ups, angora hats and matching mittens. It's a no-win situation. Eventually, i succumbed.
When Lily was 4 months old, i wearily admitted defeat and locked myself in the bathroom with Baby Boden Winter 09, the telephone and my debit card. 10 minutes later i emerged, £200 worse off. I sneaked down the stairs, opened the woodburner and shoved the brochure into the flames.

I have been wondering why i haven't received any Little White Company or Mini Boden brochures lately. Imagine my surprise on discovering a whole stash of them, wedged unceremoniously behind the S bend of the (little used) downstairs loo. When i had recovered from the surprise of this remarkable find, i pondered upon how they came to be there.
I am fairly sure that the Post man is not responsible, and therefore can only conclude that for the past 6 months, Jasper has been stealthily intercepting them in a last ditch attempt to curb my lust for buying baby clothes. I can't say i am really that surprised - my obsession with smock dresses, applique t shirts and cashmere mix romper suits in every conceivable style and colour, is an issue that i realise i have to address. It isn't healthy. Here i was confronting the unequivocal proof of my addiction: the irony of the situation was not lost on me.
One would normally imagine a bottle of Smirnoff, not babywear brochures, to be artfully concealed in the grimy recesses of a downstairs loo.
It is official. I am a Bodenaholic.

I am looking out of the window at a very clean and tidy hen house. I couldn't put it off any longer. A) I had run out of excuses and B) i was starting to feel a bit guilty.
After lunch one sunny morning, Lily and I got to work. Well, Lily sat on the grass and kept a close eye on proceedings as i climbed into the house and started sweeping out all the poo, feathers and straw.
It was a boiling hot day and the house was stuffy, dusty and claustrophobic. My heart sank as i discovered a new infestation of Red Mite - horrible parasites that live on chickens. They hide in the roof of the house in the day, and once the hens have gone to bed for the night, they drop down, burrow under their feathers and feast on their blood all night. They're incredibly persistent too. You can kill them by treating the house with special sprays and powders, but within a few months you will see the tell tale signs of their pestilential presence - feather loss, furious scratching, and an air of dejection about the hens.
Being on your hands in knees, sweeping up sticky poo in a stiflingly hot, dusty henhouse wasn't my idea of a treat, especially when combined with the grim sensation of red mites scurrying across my scalp. My irritation was compounded by the discovery that the access door for humans had jammed and no amount of pushing and kicking would open it. This meant that my only means of escape was via the pop hole, (the chickens front door if you like), a square hole about 18 inches in diameter. Grimacing and frantically scratching my seething scalp i lay down on my stomach atop a layer of oozing chicken faeces and prepared to make my escape.
Wriggling forward i stuck my head through the pop hole, whereupon Lily started to squeal with laughter. "Ha bloody ha." i muttered, edging my shoulders through the gap before staring my ungainly descent down the ramp.
Suddenly the dogs started barking and i heard a car pull up outside the house. I barely had time to ponder upon how absurd i must look, when an official looking man wearing a pinstripe suit appeared round the corner. He stopped dead in amazement when he saw me. I assumed he must be a farm rep and pointedly ignored his irritating expression of facetious surprise as he curiously surveyed me from a safe distance. I wanted to scratch my head but my arms were pinned by my sides in the narrow entrance.
"Can i help you?" i asked tersely.
"Er, I'm looking for Mr Miller."
"Sorry, i don't know where he is."
I writhed a bit more and slowly edged my way through the wretched pop hole.
"Is Mrs Miller here?" he asked, glancing towards the house.
"I'm Mrs Miller." I grunted crossly.
He looked at me in unflattering disbelief. I scowled defiantly back at him.
"If you leave your card he'll call you if he wants to make an appointment." i snapped, resisiting the urge to add "Now sod off."
He watched Lily plunge both hands joyfully into a mound of chicken shit, before smiling indulgently as though humouring a moron... "I don't make appointments. I'm a Hygeine Official from the Ministry of Agriculture, and i'm here to inspect the cleanliness levels on your premises..."