Author: toughmotheruk

In New Zealand, as a sheep is being shorn, different parts of the fleece need to be sorted into different classifications to get the best price for the quality. So, of course, there are different names for each part. 

The best bit of the fleece is the back and sides, from which you need to remove the crutch area (it can be a bit daggy) and the frib – the really short curly crusty bit of wool between the side and the belly. Also separated are the shanks around the leg (if they’re short and stained) and the top knot, the tufty bit of wool on their head (not to be confused with the jowls which, as you’d expect, are the woolly cheeks but which also don’t make the grade).

Some sheep don’t have it one – a ghost topknot if you will.

That was always a bonus when you’re trying to manage sorting the wool on the board (picture a raised platform) where usually three shearers were each shearing as fast as they can (they’re paid by the sheep and usually motivated by being the quickest in the shed or getting to at least 200, so basically running at least a marathon every day at work).

I haven’t had to sort wool for a very long time. Not a lot of need in London. 

However, I have concluded that my son (almost 14…) is growing a top knot. 

Or, as my husband put it, a front mullet. 

When he was younger, my son wasn’t keen to go to the barbers so I ended up cutting his hair more often than not. Covid continued this out of need, if not choice. Although, now he is not so trusting – either of me, or my husband taking him to the barber, something about dad directing a short back and sides…

He did take himself off a while back to get it cut but I’m not sure he was very happy with the result. So he now seems to be focused on growing the winter coat early. After all, it has been a cold start to the summer…

He’s heading back to New Zealand shortly so perhaps I can just ask one of my siblings to get the handpiece out…

Explainer:

If the number of times I’ve had to correct auto-correct is an indication, some of the terms used may not be very familiar…

• I’m assuming crutch is self-explanatory although a crutcher is someone who is just focused on removing the dags…
• Dag can have a few meanings – rattle your dags means hurry up, or if one is a ‘dag’ they’re funny, here though I’m referring to a crusty piece of poo hanging from the fleece.
• Handpiece is the industrial version of hair clippers although the combs could be confused with lethal weapons.
• Frib – according to Oxford Dictionary there is less than a one in a million (0.01 in fact) chance that you’ve heard this before… 

I recently went on a course with work. This one was actually immediately useful.

Apparently, the emotional part of your brain responds four times faster than the rational part of your brain. For both evolutionary reasons and to capture your attention, this is called our chimp.

Once you see your chimp, it’s very hard to unsee it. 

Although, as we get older, we get better at managing it. Usually.

That was put to the test on returning home.

Both kids had bees in their bonnet and introduced me (again) to their chimps. Explaining my recent learning did distract them momentarily and eased the escalation. Sort of. 

Although I might have heard mutterings of mum being more of a gorilla when they walking away…

We recently went skiing as a family. My husband and kids have been a handful of times, usually in New Zealand in the summer (but winter downunder) holidays. However, it was my first time in twenty years with only a handful of times before that under my belt.

So, it was with a bit (a lot) of trepidation that I hit the slopes with my brother and sister in-law on the afternoon of our arrival (their younger kids were super excited to show off their (superior) skills to their older cousins!).

In the melee of the chairlifts, I ended up on my own, with ample opportunity heading up the mountain to give myself a talking to… Show no fear and all that.

Luckily, the dismount from the chairlift went smoothly so it was a good start!

However, I was re-thinking that a wee while later when I watched my daughter’s ski pole disappear off the side of the mountain, and the boys skiing on unaware. My sister-in-law was on hand to literally talk my daughter back from the edge, and scoop up the pole. While I am usually pretty comfy with my very average height for a woman, I admit to some relief that she is indeed a few inches taller (and a much more proficient skier than I am!).

Thankfully, lessons for the week sorted us out and we managed to complete all the colours, although I freely admit to not needing to do another black any time soon. 

As the kids are now hitting teenage years, it was perhaps the first time that we’ve had a holiday that we’ve all been able to participate in and have fun fairly equally.

The fact that there were four different views to factor into plans remained standard… 

Maybe it won’t take another 20 to strap on skis again…

One of the activities we have done with the kids over the years is bake. It is the ultimate win win – it fills time constructively, you get to lick the bowl (literally when they were younger, now they use a spoon, mostly), and you get to enjoy the product once it’s done.

So, it’s been interesting watching them build their confidence and independence in the kitchen. There’s been a bit of trial and error!

My son recently got the (store-bought) pizzas in the oven to then have to get them out again and remove the cardboard – genuinely a schoolboy error?

So, when we were going out the other night, we took the time to interrupt him and his friend from their devices. That itself took several moments to wrestle their eyeballs (and brains) from the screens. We ran through the steps – turn the oven on, wait for it to heat, insert the pizza minus the wrapper and the cardboard, and stay off a device and in the kitchen while it cooks!

Arriving a few hours later, it was reassuring that the house was still standing. The boys confirmed pizza had been consumed, so we quietly congratulated ourselves til we went into the kitchen to find that the oven was still on…

When challenged, his response was we didn’t tell him that step!

However, he has since made pretty fabulous flapjacks (and switched the oven off) so all is forgiven!

Sometimes as a parent you need to cover big issues. Other times, you really don’t.

This was the case the other day when I had a conversation with my 13 year old son about how to close a door quietly.

This was after several mornings of early awakenings by doors being closed loudly, multiple times. More effectively waking the rest of the household than an alarm clock.

It’s probably particularly acute as I can still very clearly hear my mum’s voice in my head saying “come back and close the door quietly”, said whenever there was even a hint of a slam when I was growing up. She had to use this often with the 20 odd years of teenagers in the house!

So my son and I talked through the options…

1. Not closing the door all the way (although as he pointed out this risked disturbing us anyway),

2. Staying in his room until a reasonable time (I may be regretting this one in a few years),

3. Actually using the handle to quietly close the door (accompanied by a demonstration).

There is a fourth option of taping the snib closed but I’m saving that…

It’s early days, so hard to tell if the lesson has stuck, but my husband reminded me that I’d had to teach him this when we first started living together. So it could be seen as a skill for life …

or it could just be me…

For Christmas this year, the kids got a SodaStream. It was perhaps also a present to self…

We had one when I was growing up – it was orange and white and lived in the “Cake-tin Cupboard”. That might have been the best cupboard in the house as my mother used to bake at least three times a week, so the tins were usually full…. The rule was only three pieces for afternoon tea but it was very loosely policed!

Although this was closely rivalled by the “Lolly Cupboard” (kiwi-ish for sweets), which mum kept well stocked. I suspect this was mainly to keep us kids motivated given the closest dairy (corner shop) was not just around the corner but 20kms (and perhaps so she could enjoy a moment of quiet too).

The SodaStream was reserved for Sunday lunch, which usually consisted of a roast my dad made while us kids went out to do any farmwork after church. Sometimes it also came out after a particularly hot day – provided we had worked hard enough!

Best of all, you had to keep pushing the gas until it burped. Which kid wouldn’t love that?

I never thought my own children would be asking for one circa 30 years later!

It was cool to see it bring similar joy… although the ‘healthy’ flavours weren’t the most popular choice and the burp feature isn’t a thing anymore!

We seem to have developed a Christmas tradition in our household.

We can’t get the Christmas tree and successfully decorate it in one day. Someone seems to have a meltdown, it all turns to custard, and we have to come back to it the next day so there is some semblance of joy, not just yoj.

It’s ridiculous but there it is.

Obviously the anticipation doesn’t help – no one is allowed to talk about Christmas until after my birthday… my daughter even asked recently whether I’d consider moving it (that was a no).

But I think I have pinpointed the real problem.

Tidying.

In order to get the tree in place, we first need to tidy. Which to be honest, isn’t a strength in our household. 

So my cunning plan is have them tidy in advance of my birthday instead.

Now I just need to wait a year to see if that helps!

My son came into see me the other day while I was working. It went something like…

Mum, I’ve been selected for a great offer, but I need to make a decision quick!

Oh?

Yes, I can get paid for watching YouTube!

(Who wouldn’t want to get paid for that?)

Sure enough, he was one of 20 selected, and there was a count down clock. Worth a bit more scrolling…

They were after a debit or credit card, because it turns out you’d have to pay to get paid. When I pointed out that’s not the usual way money flows when you do work, he got a bit thoughtful but still wasn’t sure.

So we looked at the comments – all six of them that all seemed to be made in the last 30 minutes. 

We did a quick google and couldn’t seem to find the companies being mentioned… until we checked the company plus scam, when hits came up straightaway.

Unfortunately, no such thing as getting rich easily… he was slightly appeased when I explained that I’m now of an age that is more likely to get targeted for romance scams than get-rich-quick ones.

When I mentioned the offer to his younger sister, to get the full benefit of the parenting moment, she just shrugged and said that was obviously a scam as she walked away….

Or should that be an official measure up?

They don’t quite roll off the tongue like a weigh-in though…

Getting to the point, we have an official measuring wall to capture the various heights of kids (as well as us).

This did lead to problems when we moved. I think my husband transposed the various heights onto a plank of wood… that turned out to be part of the base of the bed… which was given to a friend.

Undeterred, a new wall has been found.

Somehow I managed to grow an extra centimetre. 

But I have well and truly been overtaken by my son. I’d hoped he’d at least get to 13 before this occurred. I realise this sounds a bit ridiculous, but it seems like quite a milestone when your little person all of a sudden becomes a bigger-than-me person.

I knew I was on a slippery slope when he started putting his arm around my shoulders. I well and truly entered denial when I suggested we didn’t need an official measurement until his birthday.

Which was clearly highlighted when I received the photo of the unofficial measure, where the only way he was shorter than me was when using a banana as the levelling tool…!

Now he’s reached 13, you’ll be relieved to know the official height-in has occurred, and we have all moved on (no more up for me!).

The dictionary says Spanish for opportunity or chance.

It was also shamelessly appropriated by my husband to brand a day out in Madrid after we’d been stuck due to the UK air traffic issues.

What was going to be a two hour stop-over turned into an exercise in patience as no one really knew what was going on. Bags had to be reclaimed (or at least those that could be found) and queues queued in while determining which queue was the right one to obtain some information, while simultaneously checking websites and phone lines.

We waited with bated breathe when the latter changed from not connecting at all to a recorded message saying they were experiencing high call volumes… and to try back later!

It was also one of those moments when you appreciate how much the kids had grown up as we all managed to keep it together with minimal moaning. Obviously, aided by Wi-Fi, enabling fairly unlimited access to devices (with the only potential panic while a charging point was found), and a promise of McDonalds.

The next morning, my husband tried to convince the kids that having longer in Madrid was a great opportunity to explore and hang out with him. It was a hard sell until they realised that this included some shopping and the Lego store… and me taking one for the team and rejoining the queue after being informed by the hotel that there was no room at the inn unless we were picking up the tab directly… and the transfer to the airport was leaving in 2 minutes!

However, there was no complaining when the “oportunidad” was cut short as a flight was found departing in a few hours. It was a wee bit tense as they diverted to the hotel, grabbed the bags, and made it to the airport… to discover that they hadn’t had lunch.

Luckily, an emergency Kit Kat during check-in and a refuelling stop after security meant we all made it.

I haven’t seen as much excitement to land into a rainy, grey, cold England day… ever!