Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom

We took Lumpy to a firework display, because babies love loud bangs and noisy, thronging crowds better than anything. And if he's going to achieve his ambition of becoming a mad scientist, he's going to have to get used to explosions and lots of screaming. Start 'em early, is what I say.

For this adventure we dressed him as a badger. Of course we did. All the better to increase the trauma and embarrassment of the entire experience:


It may not actually be a badger costume, I admit. It could be a zebra. Or a humbug. With eyes. But let's just say it's a badger, okay? He's the spawn of badgers, and is thus a badger. And doesn't he look pleased about it.

**Pause while Lumpy attempts to wrestle control of the keyboard...

halp!!11!! saaaave me frm thes peple,plllzzzzz... they is crayzees,,.

Sorry about that. Got him chained to the radiator again now. On we go.**

So we trussed little Lumpy up in his badger suit, slung him in his sling, and took him to a muddy field where people were setting things on fire. We ate some hog in a bun, with lashings of crackling (mmmm, delicious crispy pig skin. Can't beat it.) Mr Badger viciously refused to enter Lumpy in the children's fancy dress competition, despite the fact that he would clearly have won. C'mon! It's a baby! Dressed as a zebra badger! What says Halloween better than that? He'd have crapped all over those witches and pumpkins (probably literally).

But no. Mr Badger was more interested in the Beer Tent. Make of that what you will. I'm saying nothing.

And then Mrs Badger spotted the tombola.

Mrs Badger has a bit of history with tombolas. As a child, she was eerily lucky at these thrilling games of chance, with the winning tickets somehow magnetically attracted to her sticky little hands. Tombola organizers would quake at her approach, knowing that she would clear their supply of prizes in one fair swoop, emerging from every roll of the barrel with her arms full of chocolates, perfume, bottles of spirits, and other items entirely suitable for seven-year-old girls.

Mrs Badger may not have played a tombola for several years, but she was sure the luck was still with her. Surely such a gift never departs its possessor. She strode straight up to the stall and laid two pounds upon the table, then picked her six tickets from the barrel.

And, lo! The very first one she opened was a winner. Ha! She looked with pity at the stall holders, and cast her eyes over the selection of prizes. Which would be hers? That fine bottle of malt whiskey, perhaps? The radio-controlled blimp? The diamond necklace? Probably the lot of them! Ah ha ha haaaaaa.

She unfolded the next ticket. Not a winner. Oh well. Then the next, and the next, and the next. No more winners. But never mind. That first one would surely be something truly magnificent. The tombola-winning magic was still with her.

The stall holder took the ticket and went to find the prize. And returned with this:


In case you're not familiar with pointless tat, this is a pair of rose-scented coathangers. Because normal hangers are just not smelly, padded, or floral enough.

Mrs Badger's delight at this wondrous prize is clearly evident in the photo below. Along with Mr Badger's raging alcoholism, and Lumpy's general disapproval of the whole business:

And then there were some fireworks, apparently. But we were too busy exclaiming over the coathangers to notice them.

Speaking of tat, is this not the most disturbing thing you have ever witnessed in your life? It will haunt my dreams forever. Why?? Why, I ask you?

Smear campaign

Somehow I managed to get through the whole process of pregnancy and childbirth without ever having anyone poke around in, or even have much of a look at, my lady bits. As my epic, moo-intensive birth story explains, by the time we got to the hospital things were at such an advanced state that the midwife merely flashed her eyes at my undercarriage before running for her catcher's mitt.

I was pretty pleased with this situation, not being a fan of having strangers (or even fairly close acquaintances, to be honest) rummaging around my nether regions. But a few weeks ago I got a letter from the doctor, telling me that it was time for a smear. Well, hurrah, I thought. I've dropped a baby out of there. How bad can a little speculum be?

So off I skipped to the doctors, ready for a good scraping. My doctor (the same one I scared with my jazzy nappy liners) is rather headmistressish, and frankly quite petrifying. Just the sort of person you want coming at you with various proddy and scrapy things while you're naked from the waist down (and while we're on the subject, why does being naked from the waist down feel so much more naked than actually being completely naked? This surely defies the laws of physics in some way. I must consult Stephen Hawking about this at the first opportunity).

After bumbling about doing something lengthy and incomprehensible on the other side of the curtain while I was lying in my hyper-naked state, the headmistress-doctor finally graced me with her presence, and lost no time cranking my bits open and having a good poke about.

"Hmm," she said after some protracted jabbing. "I can't find your cervix."

"Maybe it's fallen out!" I chirruped, because I like making jokes while people are in between my legs. And, you know, it might have fallen out. Nobody had looked, after all. It could have slipped out when Lumpy bungeed out of there. A lot of stuff did seem fall out around that time, as far as I remember.

The doctor ignored me, and proceeded to insert her entire hand and most of her forearm up my vee-jay-jay.

"There it is!" she proudly declared, after a few minutes tickling my tonsils. And then celebrated her discovery by giving it a good scraping with a sharp and scrapy thing.

"Well, no wonder it was hiding," I would have said, if I hadn't been going "eeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyaaaaa!!! Stopscrapingmycervixwiththatscrapything pleeeeeeeeeeasssssssse!!"

And I only get to do this every three years. Life is just so unfair.