On being Shrek

At the bottom of a garden in a picturesque village in Wiltshire, beyond the apple and plum tree and behind the dark leyandi bushes that demarcate the garden’s end, is a place where the dragons used to live. Whether they still live there or not I have no idea since Mum and Dad moved away five years ago, or so.

Bedwyn, in the heart of the west country, is a particularly quaint and peaceful picture box village with thatched roofs and the smell of burning log fires in the autumn. On summer evenings the soft tap of the cricket ball against the bat, followed by the gentle clapping of those fed on cucumber sandwiches, can be heard wafting across the canal.

When we lived there, sometimes, not all the time of course, but sometimes, that peace could be interrupted, shattered rather, by a vast amount of noise that emanated from beyond the hedge. “Dragons at the bottom of the garden” Dad termed them and the phrase stuck. The dragons were, in fact, a large local family.

Mum and Dad knew the family but I was never home long enough to get to know them myself. All I did was to, well, hear them. From what I could gather though, the children liked nothing more than to tear wild around their garden and scream and shout. They were magnificent, masters par excellence, at winding their parents up.

“Will you come off that F….ING tree!”

“Arggghhhhhh Daddy Noooooooo Dadddyyy. Leave me aloooooone. Argghhhh.”

“Come down here you F…ING idiot. Get off there NOOOOOWWWW!”

“Argggghhhh. Arghhhhhh!!! No leave me alone, leave me alone…. Don’t hurt me!”

Mixed in with this was the noise of a baby wailing in the background and the mother shouting from the kitchen window.

“What the bleeedin’ hell is going on out there. Will you leave him alone. And get off that tree will you. Oi! You put the washing line back up now or I’ll come and get yer! ”

“Argghhhhh! Argghhhh!”

And so and so forth. Sometimes they could be a very cheery family. The dragons, not unsurprisingly and a bit like us, used to barbeque when the weather was nice. Only we did ours without the stereo bit. The dragons, on the other hand, did. The stereo would be turned on full volume to Radio 1 and there would be singing and dancing, hearty laughter and hearty banter on the other side of the leyandi hedge. Sometimes it would spill over into a brawl or two and then the dragons would be off again and the screaming would begin over who had burnt the sausages.

When it got really bad I would sometimes say to Mum and Dad, “Shouldn’t we call someone?”

“No.” Mum would say. “Leave them. They’re harmless.”

At the pompous age of twenty or so, I thought, though never verbalised, that they were a really vulgar family and shuddered at the thought of hearing them when I was comfortably reading a book underneath the apply tree.

And here I am fifteen years later reminded of the dragons. Why?

Because of the BBC’s Dragons Den. No.
Because J. is potty about Potter and has already pre-booked J.K. Rowling’s final instalment. No.
Because I read about Saphira the dragon in Eragon with J. every night. No.

The reason, I am sad to say, is that there are times when I feel as though this household is as good as, if not better at being, the dragons than the “dragons who lived at the bottom of the garden” were – or are. They might still live there.

No, never in a million years did I think that the shrieks and screams, the howls and growls, the hysteria and hysterics that emanate from our household would be comparable to the Wiltshire dragons. The only difference is that we live along a busy street with many passers by and we do not have a front garden and we have single glazing meaning that all the students who walk by on their way to the station can share in J.’s fury at being asked to come off the computer for the tenth time, in K.M.s indignant screeches when she can’t get her own way, in L.s howls when R, whom she has pushed, pulls her hair, or R.s (worst of all) terrible two toddler tantrums. I should hasten to add at this stage that we do not do the F word nor do we play music full volume (that will probably come still). For the rest, it shames me to say, we are a noisy vulgar dragon family.

And, as if arguing wasn’t bad enough, J. who is full of nervous energy likes just to squeal, full volume, for no particular reason other than, I guess to let off steam. He’s not necessarily angry or frustrated – he just likes to squeal, high pitched. These squeals are very random and can come at any time and in any place – though generally they appear mostly at bedtime when I am trying to settle the little ones. He already does swimming, karate, piano lessons and sport at school. How much more energy does the kid need to get rid of?

I once heard Archbishop Desmond Tutu say:

“My father always said to me: Don’t shout. Refine your argument”

How wise. I implore the children not to shout. I plead with them not to scream for no reason. I beg them to stop it. Hopefully one day they will calm down.

In any case, there may be some truth in the suggestion that we live in some kind of pseudo fairy-tale world. One Saturday morning, a few weeks ago, L. crawled into our bed at some ungodly hour. After sitting quietly for a few minutes, she looked at me intently and said:

“Mummy. Sometimes, early in the morning you really remind me of Shrek”.

Great: Green ogre spawns dragons.

Grazing

Once, a very long time ago in Bruges, an elderly gentleman with hunched shoulders, told me that in a previous life I had been a monk in a north German monastery transcribing and illustrating the bible. He told me this after consulting a chart and matching it to my exact time, date and place of birth. He was, quite clearly, barking mad. And, in any case, I think he got it all wrong. I am convinced that in a previous life I was not a monk. I was, in fact, a sheep.

I say this because I like to graze. A biscuit with my tea here; another one half an hour later, a nibble here and there won’t harm….From what I can gather I am not alone in my grazing habits – so, I have come up with a new theory, perhaps we are in fact descended from sheep and not the apes as Darwin asserts.

This grazing (along with four pregnancies), however, is a disaster for the waist line. Ever since R.’s birth I have been unable to shift the 8 kg weight gain. Previous diets have worked but they have typically been on the back of negative influences (splitting up with a boyfriend/high-blood pressure during pregnancy etc.). A negative presence in my life is not what I seek though. I seek weight loss.

In desperation I have turned to a guru the like of whom I would, under any other circumstance, shun. I mean, guys who do big audiences for money are charlatans. Right? Yeah well, when you’re desperate its amazing what and who you’ll turn to. I Googled Paul McKenna and what with one thing or another I ended up buying his book “I can make you thin” and cd on-line. Its so easy these days… and it wasn’t that expensive… and thousands of women swear by his method… and Rebecca did say he made a lot of sense and… hey I can’t stop grazing.

A few days later his book arrived. It was one of those Mondays when the kids were off school and slouching bored around the house. There was not much to do other than watch TV: it was a rainy day in January and you can’t exactly throw them in the garden on a day like that. So, whilst R. was sleeping and the others were stuck in front of the box I settled down with a cup of tea and began to read.

I instantly liked what he said: he is offering a technique not a diet; he asks us to stop obsessing about food, which is what you do when you diet (oh that is so true); to eat when you are hungry; to eat what you want not what you think you should eat; to eat slowly and savour every single mouthful; to stop when your tummy tells you are full; and not to weigh yourself for two weeks. Its so obvious ...but too good to be true? Eat when you’re hungry and eat what you want not what you think you should eat? I decided to give it a go. I had nothing to lose…other than weight.

For two weeks I followed his technique. I stuck to the rule of not weighing myself and in those two weeks I broke every rule of every diet I have ever been on. It was great fun. I ate pizza…but stopped when my stomach told me to stop. I had three helpings of cereal in the morning…and stopped when I was knew I was full….I ate bread with cheese and mayonnaise. Sometimes four slices of bread…before my tummy told me I was full. Am I living in a fool’s paradise I wondered? Can this simple, liberating technique really be working? Surely not – mayonnaise on a slice of bread. How many calories are in that? I ate four slices before I felt full.

This Monday I weighed myself. Even G. was getting nervous about the result. On Sunday he said: hey, tomorrow you weigh yourself. Result…ta ti ta ta. Fool’s paradise or divine truth? I lost 2 kg. Hell ladies and gentlemen it works. We should be rejoicing. Singing from the roof tops, ringing the church bells, organising street parties, congregating on Trafalgar Square.

This simple technique has shown that you do not have to go through hardship to achieve something. In fact it has been such an eye opener that I wonder if other conundrums can be resolved using such simple logic. Imagine if the equivalent could be achieved in, lets say Iraq, or on climate change, or on world poverty.

Some thoughts for Paul McKenna to consider. Well, since Monday I am revising my theory on the origin of species as well as reconsidering whether I was a sheep in a previous life. Since following this technique I no longer graze. Given it up. The Paul McKenna diet has managed to take the obsession out of food. I no longer just seek to have a “healthy balanced diet” I am now seeking to have a “healthy attitude to food”.