ANOTHER fractured night with the lovely posse of Poles next door partying
into the night”.

Apart from trying to sleep with the smell of Polska kielbasa* flooding into my bedroom and keeping me awake with a growling stomach, I’’ve had to endure group renditions of ‘We will, we will rock you’ way at 4am. Frankly , despite the fact that I’m a devout Freddie Mercury fan, I could have done without this” Spouse says I’m just moaning because I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be young but honestly, if they only chose to sing something more recent — like from this century for example, — I’d almost forgive them. Instead I lay awake seething while mentally correcting their massacred lyrics. Anyway, what does spouse know? He was blissfully ensconced in front of back to back episodes of House last night while I was trying to put James to bed — an experience that involved the reading of 23 story books punctuated with enquiries of ‘Can I have some of that sausage, mum? They’ll give us some if you tell them it’s good to share,’ and ‘How come we never have fun parties like that?’ The day really didn’t get better. James’ school was being used as a polling station for the local elections, so we had the day off. I decided to battle the increasingly dark skies (what summer?) to visit our local city farm, so that I could drag my culturally neglected child away from the TV and show him how a pig behaves when it’s not ensconced in sausage skin” We cut up all the vegetables in the fridge that were turning mushy to take with us (felt slightly better that at least the farm animals would get their !ve-a day even if James didn’t.) Alldidn’t go asplannedas how was I to know that llamas don’t like courgettes? James thought it was hilarious to dodge mashed vegetable spit from the furious creature though I’m still in a dilemma about how to remove gunk from my cashmere sweater. Even so the miniature ponies were lovely andmy son’s warped sense of humour came to light when he laughed like a train every time the flatulent donkeys added to the hole in the ozone layer. Persuaded spouse to join me for the PTA quiz in James’s school this evening. Not a great success. By 7.30, he was falling asleep (never a good idea when perched on child sized chairs) and was no help at all in answering questions like ‘What is than atology the scientific study of?’. When spouse suggested that Bartok might be a new brand of loo cleaner selling at Sainsbury’s, I thought it prudent to take him home. By the way, we came third last. God, I hope James does better at school than we did” *smoked polish sausages scented with garlic and herbs Joanna AbishegamDavid was a journalist- around-town in Kuala Lumpur before marrying and moving to London 10 years ago. She is now a senior civil servant with the British Government, though her main job is running an ab-fab home and maintaining her sanity as mum to five-year old James.

Source: Malay Mail – May 9, 2008