So, it turns out that in 45 years, Sheryl Crow HAS NEVER HAD A POO. 

To the Black Hearted Son of a Prostitute Who Has Been Using My Debit Card to Buy Phone Top up Cards and Pornography;

So glad to have been able to facilitate your texting/filthy movie habit. Being a new mum on a budget definitely gives me the leisure time and money to call my bank, sort out fraudulent transactions and then have to reclaim money that’s actually been debited to my account. You know, between nappy changes, feedings and senseless screaming, that’s exactly how I’ve envisioned spending my afternoon.

It’s gratifying to know that my maternity pay is going to a good cause.

You utter fucksock.

Love and kisses,

Blogapotamus

Around this time of year, it’s customary for me to get a little bit gooey about living in the countryside. This year, I am particularly filled with goo due to the spectacular weather, our own, new, small garden and the view out of our living room window encompassing a blossoming fruit orchard and green hills.

This morning, to celebrate her 1 month birthday, we took the Prawn up to the bluebell woods, which is one of the rather spectacular features of our particular bit of countryside. As always, it was stunning, although the Prawn didn’t particularly appreciate the view, The Rock Star and I relished the tranquillity of a nearly empty woods. Unfortunately, lots of other people also like to acknowledge it’s spectacularness, making it an Attraction. If you are unfortunate enough to be unable to visit the bluebell carpeted forest during the week, you will undoubtedly encounter the Public at Large.

The Public is very, very good at spoiling nature. Nature, would, in fact, be better off without the lot of us, but it just has to be so dang aesthetically pleasing that we just can’t keep away. Several summers ago, The Rock Star and I found ourselves awed spectators at one of the greatest natural spectacles the US National Park system has to offer- Glacier Point, at Yosemite National Park in California. The vista, comprising waterfalls, forests and two of Yosemite’s most famous rock formations, Half Dome and El Capitan, would fill most normal mortals with a sense of reverence, inspiration and quiet contemplation. Most mortals, save for a large family from Brooklyn who felt the need to pollute the atmosphere with their loud and lengthy discussion of Uncle Morty’s prostate operation. The vista, for them, was another box to tick and another photo to bore friends with upon their return. Proof positive that The Public suck.

This past weekend, The Public descended upon our little stretch of countryside and turned it into less of a quiet glen of tranquillity than Ringling Brothers Chavtastic Side Show of the Irritating, Graceless and Behaviourally Challenged. The beautiful overlooks and peace of the woods and hills were swamped with cars, portable radios and ice cream men scrambling for a patch on which to serve the sugar deprived masses.

The Rock Star, BoyRacer, Trumpet, the Prawn and I found a relatively empty spot on one of the beautiful overlooks- only occupied by about 60 other men, women, children, dogs and model airplanes.

“This feels like a concert or something,” The Rock Star said, looking at our fellow hill-dwellers, “like we’re waiting for something to start.” He laughed at himself. “ENTERTAIN ME, COUNTRYSIDE!”

“Sinkhole! Earthquake! Spontaneous crop circles! Anything!” (I half expected “Sod off, meatbags.” to appear in the ferocious yellow field of rape seed in the valley below.)

As the summer progresses, we must live with more incursions into our peaceful, green paradise. Batten down the hatches.

My 32nd birthday did not exactly have the most auspicious start.

The Prawn, deciding to buck the trend of good sleeping that’s been blessing this house for the last two weeks, spent the hours between 3.30 am and 7 am grizzling and making dinosaur noises, making any rest for weary parents impossible. In a fabulous display of the reason I married him, The Rock Star finally admitted defeat and got up with her, leaving me to have a lie in, because I’m obviously old.

Strangely enough, however, for the second year in a row, the weather gods were on my side and strangely unseasonal weather made the fatigue more bearable. However, unlike my last birthday, I couldn’t spend the day in the pub drinking cider until I felt like I could see through time. My offspring’s immature liver is unlikely to be able to cope with 50 proof breast milk.

Bithdays post 30 have a tendancy to all blur together. My 31st birthday was memorable for my inability to remember much after 5 pm, however, so it was a slight exception to the rule. This year, due to a certain someone from who’s birthday I am still taking medication to recover from, we opted for a low key day at home and a dinner of bangers and mash with BoyRacer and Trumpet. I even got to imbibe a small amount of bargain champagne mixed with liberal quantities of orange juice.( For my 30th, The Idiot gave me a bottle of Dom Perignon. We’re waiting to drink that until after I finish my moo-cow duties with The Prawn.)

At any rate, a wholly satisfactory natal celebration.

My parents, who left yesterday to go back home, (to a great weeping and gnashing of teeth on this side of the ocean) brought with them a recording of a Sesame Street album that I spent many, many hours listening to as a child. I bought it on ebay last year with the idea that the Prawn could also benefit from it’s wholesome goodness. Although the Prawn slept through it’s first playing, I’m sure that she will also spend many happy hours enjoying songs like Old MacDonald, On Top of Old Smoky and John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmitt.

The album opens with the long suffering and dreadfully anal retentive Bert taking a leisurely bath when his perpetually orange, hetero life-mate Ernie bursts through the door of the bathroom with his piano and the entire population of the Sesame Street ‘hood in order to have a singalong. Along the way, the shindig aquires any number of monsters, a motorcycle, a big bird and finally, in the coup de gras, the University of Michigan marching band. Rather a tall order to cope with when you’re sitting naked in a tub of rapidly cooling water. (in so far as muppets are capable of being naked, at any rate.)

Am I right in thinking that if Ernie was anyone’s real life roommate, it’d be only about a week before they started to seriously consider putting rat poison in his breakfast cereal?

Gentle readers, be assured, Blogapotamus is not dead. Mearly experiencing motherhood. Normal service to resume shortly. In the meantime, here is yet another photo of my offspring with her father.

The Prawn rules.