Wet Wipes And Wine
Welcome to Wet Wipes and Wine where we aim to laugh, learn, and navigate parenthood with humor! Join Nikki Collinson-Phenix and her fellow parent guests for some fun relatable stories, witty banter, and expert insights.
Enjoy family banter in Uncorked, the special feature family episodes where you can get some insights into Phenix family life!
From toddler tales to teen triumphs, we've got it all.
Why Listen?
Real-life parenting, real-life laughs. Dive into the ups and downs of parenting life with us and share the laughs in the knowledge you are not alone!
Become a 'Winer' and hang out with us for a weekly dose of parenting fun. We will bring you funny stories, parenting hacks, real life parenting stories and fun learning all from a place of #keepingitreal
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Wet Wipes And Wine
#3 UNCORKED! - Life With The Phenix's!
Imagine braving the Bulgarian winter in a caravan or fostering a brood of abandoned puppies—sounds intense, right? Well, buckle up, because my husband Ian and I are peeling back the curtain on these adventures and more in our latest chat for our family feature UNCORKED where we share with you our own parenting adventures!
Wrap your fingers around a warm mug (or a glass of wine!) and join us as we laugh and learn from our journey into the unpredictable world of parenting, and how it's reshaped our lives and the lives of our kids.
Ever found yourself chasing after a child hell-bent on exploring every nook and cranny of a DIY store? We've been there, and we're sharing the highs, lows, and hilariously relatable moments of raising free-spirited children who test the limits of our home safety measures. And if you've ever felt the sting of judgmental eyes while wrangling a fussy toddler on a plane, you'll appreciate our take on the trials of travel and the cultural revelations that come with flying a family circus across continents.
As we wrap up this heart-to-heart, we touch on the profound ways in which parenting styles differ around the globe. From witnessing the discipline in South Africa to learning about responsibility from Ugandan children, we explore how these experiences have influenced our desire to break free from the 'hamster wheel life.' So, whether you're a seasoned parent, a globetrotter, or just someone who enjoys a good story, we're thrilled to have you along for this wild ride of a podcast. Cheers to the shared experiences that unite us all!
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Websites:
Life In A Can - For all the travel adventures
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Africa Childrens Development Trust - Nikki's bit of good in the world #givingback
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Speaker 3:Quick, pass me the wipes. Hi and welcome to Wet Wipes and Wine, the podcast for parents who maybe want to live life a little bit differently from the norm. Maybe you want to travel more as a family or just explore new possibilities. Maybe you have family dreams you want to achieve, or maybe you just want to be surrounded by people who remind you that when life throws a load of parent and crap at you, that wet wipes or wine is usually the answer. I'm your host, nikki Collins and Phoenix, and each week I'll be bringing you real life stories from my own parenting journey. I'll also be welcoming guests to share theirs, as well as introducing you to new ideas, thoughts, tips and tricks from my little black book of awesome people. Welcome to Wet Wipes and Wine. Too early for wine.
Speaker 1:Well, hello everyone, and welcome to today's episode of Wet Wipes and Wine. I have a guest right next to me, and that is my husband Ian.
Speaker 2:The one and only the legend in his own mind. I'd like to see what I'd ask your mates, what they would call you. I've said legend in my own mind. What?
Speaker 1:are some of the words your mates call you.
Speaker 2:Let's move on.
Speaker 1:Anyway, we decided to do a bit of a joint episode and we might do a few joint episodes on different things in the future. Just talk shit for half an hour about stuff Easily done and, to be fair, it's also a very rare opportunity that we've been to the kids off.
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:We have been to the kids off. So for those of you watching, if you're watching this on the video, you will see that it feels very dark and ambient. Right now we are in Bulgaria. It's been really, really cold. So we're here with our caravan Susie, who's parked outside and we bought this little plot in Bulgaria with this renovation building last year and we realized we wanted to try out a winter in Bulgaria with the caravan and because we knew that this part of Bulgaria doesn't get as cold as, like, the ski resort places. But actually last I was like 10 days ago, wasn't it? We started monitoring the weather and we saw that it was going to go down to minus 10. So we have this one room in this building. It's a two-storey building that we realized a few weeks ago. We were like, actually we could crudely make this some kind of habitable.
Speaker 1:We're calling it the snug. I think habitable is probably the best.
Speaker 2:Slightly habitable.
Speaker 1:Word we can use for it, but do you know what this room has been our saving grace hasn't it, it has. But the reason why it's dark is we don't actually have much lighting in it. We had one lamp we have one lamp in here and when we put it on just now, it looked like we were on fire.
Speaker 2:It did. It's like a flame in the background and makes it very eerie.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, but so we had to sleep in here as well. So the caravan completely froze up the other day. So we all were in here, the four of us me and the kids and we had no water for four days, did we? It was like a slumber party in here, wasn't it Like a kid's slumber party, matched with periodic pieces of ceiling pouring on you yeah.
Speaker 2:Through the night. There is that.
Speaker 1:So you know, for us for those of you that are new to us we've been traveling for two and a half years now. So you know, we decided we wanted an adventure.
Speaker 2:This is an adventure.
Speaker 1:This is our adventure and it looks like we're recording this now. On a Thursday, we've been looking at the weather report and I think we'll be moving back in here.
Speaker 2:Oh, the weekend.
Speaker 1:Saturday because it's going back into the minuses again. But anyway, so this is a his and hers episode today. You got both of us Sorry about that yeah we thought we'd like chat a little bit about this whole parenting malarkey and some of the funny things I mean when, when you thought about being a parent, like before you were a parent, what did you think it would be like?
Speaker 2:Well, to be honest, ever since an early age, all I wanted to do would be a parent.
Speaker 1:Which is really interesting, because that was the last thing I wanted to be.
Speaker 2:From from I don't know, probably from the age of like 15. I was like you know. I know I'm going to get married, I'm going to have kids. I wanted like 10 kids.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sorry about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, no, what we've got is fine.
Speaker 1:But like 15, you wanted to be a dad at 15.
Speaker 2:I didn't want to be a dad at 15, but I knew that when I grew up.
Speaker 1:I was thinking about the role of being a dad being a parent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wanted to be in a you know the traditional family unit and I knew that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Do you know? What I was thinking when I was 15 was where was I going to get underage alcohol and buy some cigarettes over? I was a typical teenage little.
Speaker 2:I didn't want to be a teenage dad. I was going to be wrong. I didn't want to be a teenage dad.
Speaker 1:I was genuinely thinking which of my mates can I get to go down the local off license? And me and my mates and get us some booze.
Speaker 2:We were doing that, but I knew that in the future. You know, some people when they're 20, 30, 40 are still not even thinking about settling down having kids Hand raised Hand raised. And I knew that, when the time came, I was going to be a dad and a parent and and try to be more of a hands on parent.
Speaker 1:But did you sit there when you thought about? Did you have like this idyllic little picture of, like you know it was all going to be some kind of like fairy tale experience, or we? Are quite realistic about it.
Speaker 2:No, I think I was quite realistic about it, you know, because I didn't have Do me a wrong. I grew up in a traditional family of mum, dad, two sons, but it wasn't a.
Speaker 2:It was tad dysfunctional that tad dysfunctional, you know we didn't. You know, go on the family holidays and do the family thing and go out on, you know, for family walks and all that kind of stuff. And that's what I wanted, because I hadn't had it. I knew that one day I wanted to be a parent and go on family walks and family holidays, even if they were two and a half year long holidays.
Speaker 1:This has been a good holiday. It has, yeah.
Speaker 2:So yeah. So I knew that one day I wanted to be a parent, wanted to be a father.
Speaker 1:Well, I was adamant. I was not going to be a parent at all, I was too busy being a career woman, a banker and everything.
Speaker 1:I was too busy yeah, corporate career first, then my degree and my cryopractic career, and there was no room in there for kids at all. And even when I used to like my friends had kids, I used to think like good for you, I don't want one. I would treat these beautiful kids in clinic and I'd be like you're really cute, really glad to give you back. And I genuinely I had on high. I thought that I didn't have a biological clout. And you know what? Because I didn't, because I genuinely had no biological clout. It's like when you, when you meet people that through their entire you know I'm a mom now, but when you meet people who through their whole life say I never wanted kids, and it's really hard for some people to think comprehend that.
Speaker 1:But, I can categorically say I was about 33 when I my biological clock finally kicked into action.
Speaker 2:And it amazes me how many women say never wanted kids, never had a biological clout, never wanted kids, and then wake up one morning and go, oh my goodness, I need kids, I need to start having a family.
Speaker 1:That was me, that was me. But if you'd have asked me at 32 years old, I didn't want children. I was very content with my career. I had no interest in becoming a mom and because of that I didn't feel I was missing anything, because the yearning wasn't there, the yearning In your loins, in my loins. This was not there, or my child bearing hips that my grandmother told me I had. You know, they were not required.
Speaker 2:I just, they were obsolete, they were just not there.
Speaker 1:So I didn't. And then when I did, oh then it was crazy, because then I did kind of just wake up one morning and I was like I want kids. And then I was, I just remember being slightly obsessed, like every kid. I was like I want one, I want one, I want one, I want one.
Speaker 2:But also what I think is, I suppose, slightly unfair is women have a window.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is unfair.
Speaker 2:When, isn't it? Yeah, so you say you were 32. And then, all of a sudden, you decided I want to have kids and you think well, I'm 32. I've really only got the next six, maybe eight years at a push.
Speaker 1:That's probably why it was so bloody hard work yeah.
Speaker 2:To have those kids, whereas if you're Mick Jagger, you can still be popping them out when you're in your seventies.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, seventies, eighties. Eighties yeah I know, you see some, but yeah that's. But anyway, when I did actually decide to join this whole parenting brigade, I did think I did have a bit of an idyllic picture of what I thought it might be like and even though I had a dysfunctional upbringing, I think a bit like you, I was like when I am a parent I will do things differently.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know I will do things differently. And I lit now like us as parents and I mean for anyone being a parent like I remember with Lani, I bought all the manuals and I read all the books and I studied everything, because that's who I am.
Speaker 2:Good job. They weren't podcasts around in those days.
Speaker 1:I'd just been permanently plugged in and I read everything and I studied. I wanted to get at you know the perfectionist then, because I am a recovering perfectionist. The perfectionist in me then was determined that there was a perfect way and if you read the book, she would be a good parent.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then realized it was a bullshit, because that kid did everything that was not mentioned in that book.
Speaker 2:Well, that book was written on a specific parent and a specific child. One child, yes.
Speaker 1:So then, when Rafe was coming along, I didn't even bother with the books. I've been them often.
Speaker 2:That's a good job as well.
Speaker 1:Because I don't think he would have fitted them with the books.
Speaker 2:Because he's unique.
Speaker 1:But I was just thinking some of the funny things that have happened, like that time when I think about when we were younger, when they were really young, that time when we went to the campsite at Nade's Point with Lani, do you remember?
Speaker 2:when she was no-transcript, our first caravan trip with my my first ever caravan trip we made with my uncle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we went to this campsite and then luckily it was pretty quiet.
Speaker 2:It was out of season because, because she was so young, she wasn't in school, so we could go out of season.
Speaker 1:So it was quieter and cheaper, and cheaper, that's why we went out of season and we were just there was a bit of the grass. There was other pictures around us that were empty, but there were some that had caravans on, but there were some that were empty.
Speaker 2:It was our first ever caravan, so we were concentrating on getting like now, we can set the caravan up with our icecloth, yeah but then it was like what does that do? First time. How do I put feet down? How do I level it?
Speaker 1:And she's just like milling around on the grass and we're like, oh, she's all right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but she's in our peripheral vision.
Speaker 1:Yeah. She's just behind us yeah and then, all of a sudden, she was just squatting and having a poo.
Speaker 2:Yeah, pulled up a dress, pulled down a pants and was just having a poo in the middle of someone's pitch.
Speaker 1:I blame Anne, the childminder.
Speaker 2:Yes, because she was very she was very pro alfresco toilet in. Yeah, well, they used to go for lots of walks, didn't they? They used to go lots of nature walks and everything. So while they were out and about and she'd have like six or eight kids and one of them goes Anne, I need the toilet, she'd go off, you go. Help yourself. You're in nature.
Speaker 1:And I mean we're not anti that when you need to, but I think she was pretty conditioned to. You know what I need to go. I'll just you know just just go here.
Speaker 2:I am Just go where we are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was funny. And then I remember the one when we went in B&Q that's a DIY store in the UK and I said to you you were going to get wood and I was going to get the patio set I've been saving up for. And I said to you you're in charge. You're in charge. It was learning, I thought it was rave. It was rave. I can't even remember what kid it is now.
Speaker 2:It was rave. Are you sure? Yeah, because he was a runner.
Speaker 1:No, it was luck. Oh my goodness it was rave.
Speaker 2:Okay, it was rave then and I said you're in charge, rave's the runner and then all of a sudden, because you were with Lani and I was with Rave.
Speaker 1:That's it. That's it. I'm still coming back to me now, right kid.
Speaker 2:Right place, yeah right relationship.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And then I said, yeah, you've got him, that's it. It's coming back to me now and I'm over ordering this patio set and then I get you know over the ten-eye or the owner of a child.
Speaker 2:Over two year old boy. Please come to reception and I just knew.
Speaker 1:I knew that you would totally take your arm off the ball and got so into your wood. We'd nearly lost him. They would have brought him back, yeah the thing was rave was, rave was a runner and if we ended up just having to tag team him all the time, so at home, so with Lani there was a ball, all the safety equipment, because obviously the book said sorry, the book told me to yeah we didn't use any of it. With rave, we bought more and more and more safety equipment and still needed more.
Speaker 1:We have five stair gates in different parts of the house we had the big fire guard you had to make because the standard one was too small. We had to fence off the whole kitchen dining area, kitchen to the lounge, yeah. We had those, those magnetic things on the kitchen doors so he could open the normal one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you could open it up.
Speaker 1:All those little corner things, loads of toys that he wasn't interested in because he wanted to climb the bookshelf, but nothing changed, but he was just a runner. There was a time when, if you so, we had to be a tag team, didn't we? And we would have one of us had to keep our eye on him at all times. And there was this time in Audi supermarket, and I was at the till paying and I said to Ian you, you've got, you've got him. That's how we used to say what you've got him, like you've got him. I said you've got him. And you turned, you put I think you just put the bag in the trolley or something, and I turned around and I said where is it?
Speaker 1:and he was gone and he was legging it out the supermarket door out the front door into the car, into the car where there were loads of cars, and luckily a lady grabbed him, didn't she?
Speaker 2:security lady wasn't.
Speaker 1:It was it okay and I just, you know, crucified you at the till, because I mainly crucified you because I was so embarrassed, it wasn't you had to blame someone.
Speaker 2:No, it was your fault, mate.
Speaker 1:It was your fault, but it was the fact that this woman comes in and she's obviously thinking that we're really irresponsible parents.
Speaker 2:Just do. You want this back? Well?
Speaker 1:and then that time at the council, when he we had to, we used to use these things where windbreaks to like. Have like a little. Like you do you have a little separate bit, don't you? To separate, but we have to make a prison we had to make a whole prison and hide how to get out of there and it still wasn't enough, because then he got a table and he dragged the table over.
Speaker 2:Drag a chair over, climb on the chair, climb on the table.
Speaker 1:Dive head first over this four foot thing, I know it's um, and he did. He climbed over, didn't he? And then legged it, and then, when you'd went after him, he was just laughing laughing his head off he's a little shit bad that boy.
Speaker 2:But nothing's changed now because I'll be outside working and he'll come around with the pickaxe over his shoulder or the sledgehammer and go look at me, dad, while he's climbing up the ladder onto the roof with the sledgehammer on his hands.
Speaker 1:It likes a screw gun as well.
Speaker 2:A screw gun, a screw, yeah, just wants to go around with it, oh my goodness. Don't have a boy.
Speaker 1:These kids. You know what, though? He is just a small version of you. Both of our kids are basically us in miniature. That's why we're screwed, isn't it really?
Speaker 2:But in different ways, because Lani's really strong. So Lani's really strong and independent and feisty and and mouthy like a mum, but then she likes her fitness and her running and stuff like me. Rafe is like me that he wants to do dangerous shit and be naughty and and he's an accident way to happen, but then, like his mum, he's very loving, very tactile, very thoughtful, brilliant at sharing and thinks of others before himself.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you bought the sharing thing up. He is a really good sharer.
Speaker 2:He's the world's best.
Speaker 1:He just he'll give you his last little bit of chocolate if he kids. Well, if they did Rolo still he's the Rolo Advertisement I like you, I share. You know the kids tell you that you're not only like really grumpy, but you are the worst sharer. What did you say the other day that you sneaked into the caravan so that you could eat your chocolate biscuits with no one else knowing?
Speaker 2:They don't have to share room. There's only like 20 in a bag.
Speaker 1:You are the one that has the secret stash of biscuits everywhere. So now you've been doing this parenting work for a bit.
Speaker 2:Quite a bit now.
Speaker 1:What has it lived up to expectation?
Speaker 2:Now that you have some hindsight and everything. When you when obviously when you're out and about and you see other families, other parents, and you know if you're not looking too closely, everyone seems like they've got the happy family, the happy setup and the kids are wonderful and parents are always smiling and everything else.
Speaker 1:Everything's Instagram perfect.
Speaker 2:Instagram perfect, but no families like that in real life.
Speaker 1:I love it when you go into, when you've like been moaning at your kids in the car or somewhere, and you get to the supermarket and you pass all the other families having exactly the same, because that's like our worst thing, isn't it now? Is taking those kids in a supermarket.
Speaker 2:It's when you look closer or deeper, or you're with another family for more than an hour that you see the same arguments, the same rudeness, the same disrespect. Yeah, and they're all phases. They're not because your kids or my kids are just pushing boundaries and you'll put all you'll see in the different stages of their development. When they they're, they just, you know, run away and laugh at you. When you, when you tell them off, or or they then get to that point where they don't just run away or laugh at you, they start answering back.
Speaker 1:But do you know what I think has been really interesting? So in the last two and a half years we've ventured, either for an extensive period of time and lived there, driven across, visited whatever 23 countries, and we have experienced pretty much exactly the same thing amongst parents and their kids in every single one of those countries, haven't we? It's not like in the UK. You're like, yeah well, you know they're the same, but when you go to another country you're like geography makes no difference.
Speaker 2:Being a parent is being a parent, I was about to say it's funny when you'll see a parent shouting at their kid, who they don't want to shout at, but the child has pushed their buttons one too many times and they're shouting and waving their finger and you can see the child's either being rude or laughing at them or whatever. But it doesn't matter, because they're either doing it in Romanian, in German, in Spanish, in French, in Turkish. It's the same thing. All kids went to the same school. They all got the same memo. They all got the same book when they were born. It's like Ray's film Boss Baby they get the memo, they know how to react, but then, once they get to a certain age, they forget everything. They can't remember being a baby anymore. I think when they're babies or when they're young, they get given this memo and this book of how to act. So act two. You need to be cheeky but cute with it.
Speaker 1:All geared up for the terrible tears.
Speaker 2:Nothing happened.
Speaker 1:Gorgeous indeed. And then she hit three and then I saw I was really smug at the end of two. I was like what's the big deal? That was a piece of pitch, she was fine she was great. I didn't realise that three-nager came and then she was a bloody nightmare Three, four, five, then six. She was an angel again. Do you remember that time when we were in Uganda on that boat trip? So on this boat trip she was three and we took her on that boat trip.
Speaker 1:And there was this trip on the Nile and I really wanted to go, because Ian and Lani and the kids very rarely come out to Uganda with me, but this particular time you came out it was before Afie was around and we took her on this boat down the Nile.
Speaker 2:So you've got these hippos and everything like that and you've got crocodiles and it's like it's a really low hull, yeah but because it's a tourist boat, it had a very low hull, so when you sat in the boat your shoulder was almost at water level. So you could, because hippos and crocodiles, they just poke this much of the head out of the water. If you were up you wouldn't see them. So you're down at their level and Lani was just Four hours.
Speaker 1:that was a long four hours.
Speaker 2:She just kept trying to climb in the water, get out the boat.
Speaker 1:All the other people were looking at us and staring at us.
Speaker 2:We ended up taking her up onto the top deck, didn't we?
Speaker 1:Yeah, just to keep, there was no one up there.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:And it was just like a keeper, like a cage, and all I wanted was wine. I wanted wine so badly that day you had wet wipes. I have wet wipes, I just needed wine. And then I remember that flight we took to see Mum, visit Mum in Spain with Wraith.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And we spent three hours. You were just walking up and down the aisle, but it was a really small plane. It was literally like two, two. It was a really small domestic flight New Cater, spain, but then people were just giving us the real evils.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but wouldn't you rather have that than some of these flights where you've just got a child there who doesn't want to be there and screams for 12 hours non-stop?
Speaker 1:To be honest.
Speaker 2:I've been on a couple of those flights.
Speaker 1:I haven't done a lot of flights. I'm always amazed, actually, how pretty good kids are. Now. I've never had a 12 hour screamer. At some point they've got a tire out, haven't they? Well?
Speaker 2:no, I think these days we've got the magic of phones and tablets and Netflix and stuff like that. So they just you know, we're all guilty of it where we just put a kid and set a headphones, put a film on for him and say watch that.
Speaker 1:The tablet babysitter. Yeah, but that's the difference to us on a plane, though, is it no? No, I know.
Speaker 2:But when I'm talking about the 10 hour screamers was before. You know, in the old days when everything was in black and white, in the old days when everything was, I was like the plane I was on the other day that had no when I was going to Uganda had no entertainment whatsoever. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It had only a flip down thing out the sea then and that was just to give the security thing and the security. I told you the security video. So, even with a Sony Walkman, and I was like, really, it's the end of 2023 and you haven't upgraded this video.
Speaker 2:Well, most of the flights to Uganda are on second hand airplane. You know if you go, if you go in with Only because I travelled cheap. Yeah, could we go cheap. So if you, if you're on like Air Kenya or you know, Air Kenya.
Speaker 1:Well, did you just make that up?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did the flights that go there. I remember the last one I went on with. You still had the ashtray in the armrest.
Speaker 1:But then then there was that one I went on in May when I said to you it had individual card readers in the back of the seat.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Anyway, flying, flying with kids. You can probably do a whole episode on flying with kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Don't fly with kids.
Speaker 2:Unless you've got a tablet.
Speaker 1:What is it? Other people use Fennegan. Is it Fennegan Fentagon, Fentagon, Fentagon. Something like that we would rise once from it a tour to do, but we've not resorted to. Not resorted to drugging children just yet.
Speaker 2:And for terms of conditions, it's not a drug. It's if I remember correctly, it's antihistamine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we haven't resorted to that yet Yet Yet.
Speaker 2:Well, luckily we haven't been on a flight with them for.
Speaker 1:No, they keep wanting to go on a plane. I think I'm still scarred from.
Speaker 2:Uganda was the last time, wasn't it?
Speaker 1:About five years ago.
Speaker 2:Five years ago yeah, oh, that was the one.
Speaker 1:So in Uganda that was the one the story when I was doing the mosquito net distribution and we had Lani and Rafe was six months old and I was still feeding him.
Speaker 2:You're still feeding him, yeah.
Speaker 1:But I was having to do the coordination, coordination.
Speaker 2:So the talks and everything. I've got Rafe, and so you've got Rafe and then and, of course, because Rafe is a white, blonde-haired little boy. He's like gold dust. Everyone I loved him and he is cute as well, don't be wrong. He takes off his dad. He's a little cutie. So everyone wanted to hold him, carry him, play with him.
Speaker 1:It's lovely.
Speaker 2:And they were passing him around like past the parcel, weren't they?
Speaker 1:But he was also hungry every two hours.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I had him, obviously because Nicky's doing her it, and one of the teachers was like, oh, can I have a cuddle? I was like, yeah, of course you can. And he started getting winchy and cry. I was like, oh, I can do him back now. He needs his mummy, he needs feeding. She went, oh, I can feed him. And I was like, excuse me, she goes, yes, I can feed him, and she's getting herself all ready. I'm like, no, no, no, it's fine, it's fine, I'll take him to mummy. I'll take him to mummy.
Speaker 1:I just remember you coming over to me going please, please, feed him. Please feed him, because otherwise that lady over there is going to feed it Just some random teacher who just met him for the first time.
Speaker 2:She was willing to.
Speaker 1:But you know it's, it's lovely really, because that that's just, that's just what they do.
Speaker 1:I know, I know it is, I know, I know, I know, I know Different cultures, different you know yeah, so when I sit and look at parenting it, when I see the kids in Uganda and I see the kids in, you know, I look at our kids or typical kids in the UK.
Speaker 1:I know we're not in the UK, but you know we're from the UK predominantly. I see, one of the things that I see that we have lost, I think, is just a little bit of the respect side of it, like like I'm not talking about. I do firmly believe as a parent that in order for my kids to respect me, I need to show respect to them, right, and I feel like it is a two way thing. I don't think it's a hierarchical thing in that sense, but, generally speaking, in in when I look at the kids in Uganda, there is just general.
Speaker 1:The older generation, yeah, you know they wouldn't mouth off, they wouldn't even consider back chatting or anyone. They're conditioned from very young age to just be quite polite and respectful and I think sometimes we've really lost that. I look at kids in the Western world and I see them, you know, like you're in a supermarket and you know, and you see them like mouthing off and we've we've met families with kids where a 10 year old is telling their parents to f off or like just the level of verbal.
Speaker 1:I, I, I wanted to ask. You obviously grew up in South Africa.
Speaker 2:Was it similar what?
Speaker 1:because obviously, you had. What was it like?
Speaker 2:No, very, very. I want to say very strict, but I think the strictness comes with respect. So my opinion is that all the ceiling's just falling on me, some of the ceiling just falling on my hair, Live on air live on air.
Speaker 1:That was ceiling, ceiling.
Speaker 2:So I I think that my opinion is that, as the world's progressing kids are, especially in the Western world, in, you know, western societies, we're giving our kids more and more and more, because I don't know if because we feel we never had it so we need to give it to them, or if it's just advertising and everything else, because every kid these days got a phone, a tablet, a play station on all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:But I find the more kids have, the more they want, the more they want and more they have, the ruder they become. So in societies in like Uganda and in other third world countries, where they don't have all these great toys and gadgets and everything, they're more humbled about what they do have and they show more respect for their parents and because their parents work so hard.
Speaker 1:A lot of them are brought up by grandparents and a lot of these kids as well, because we sort of sent through us as well a lot of those kids.
Speaker 2:They by nature, from a young age, will be actively contributing in the house, whether it's going to get water or whether it's doing some washing or looking after their grandmother or grandfather who's ill and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:And just today we've had Lani kick off because we asked her to help with the washing up.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, even though or help clean out the puppies. Oh yeah, the puppies.
Speaker 2:But that's not just our kids, that's all kids.
Speaker 1:But we need to talk about the puppies we don't have. When we talk about puppies we're currently fostering six puppies that were abandoned on our right, next to our plot of land, that we found completely by chance when we went for a walk.
Speaker 2:Half dead.
Speaker 1:It was just before I went to Uganda, so-.
Speaker 2:Seven weeks ago. It must be seven weeks.
Speaker 1:It was like the fifth of December. We found them because I left on the seventh, on the Thursday, and we found them on the Tuesday, fifth of December.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah six seven weeks ago now.
Speaker 1:And the shelter nearby didn't have room for them but said that they would support us. So we ended up just being stuck with these six puppies, but two of them tomorrow go. One of them's got a home and one's going to keep them company. Another foster carer, aren't they? But?
Speaker 2:when we first got them they were like I had to weigh them and they were less than 500 grams because I had to give them their warming medicine.
Speaker 1:So would you weigh them while they're cooking scales?
Speaker 2:Yeah, they were like they were less than 500 grams and they're now little porcas.
Speaker 1:But the kids, the kids want. They adore the puppies. So I know we're going to have tears.
Speaker 2:They adore the puppies Until it comes to when it's cleaning, feeding, walking, especially when it's cold outside and raining, then they can't do it, or-.
Speaker 1:Do you feel that, like when you talked at the beginning about you know, wanting to be able to be active, go walking with your kids and all of that stuff? I think we do that. I know we've been a little bit lapsed lately. We've been jugging a lot of stuff here and with the puppies as well, but in general we are a walkie family, aren't?
Speaker 2:we yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And we're outside.
Speaker 2:I'm saying we're wrong and I wish we could do more, you know, but obviously time and life and commitments and nothing don't always allow for it. But there's some families who, as we know, never spend any time with their kids.
Speaker 1:Well, that's kind of why we're doing what we're doing, isn't it? I mean the life we were living in the UK was just. I call it the hamster wheel life. We would just drop in the kids, sometimes at breakfast club and Rayford's still quite young then as well, and he was going to breakfast club to get to work for like eight o'clock If you were right, wanting to get an eight hour day in.
Speaker 2:You know you've got to get.
Speaker 1:The kids have got to spend a nine to 10 hour day in school and after school clubs, yeah, but then I had to be at work for eight, to start with patients at nine, and then I would often not finish till six and then they would have to go into after school club and then there would be evening clubs, like Lani was doing athletics or Cubs or something else, and then it was just quickly see them, throw some food at them and get them to bed, rinse and repeat. Monday to Friday, saturday was. This house is a frigging mess from the chaos of Monday to Friday.
Speaker 2:In and out.
Speaker 1:And the fact that I live with three really messy people. Yeah, you are really bad and you know you're really bad. And so Saturday was let's clean up the ship here and do the washing. Sunday was let's try and do something.
Speaker 2:And do the shopping Well, they saturday night.
Speaker 1:we've always tried to preserve. We even still do it now, don't be pizza and movie.
Speaker 2:Yeah, pizza and movie.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sunday was try and do something, but by about four o'clock you're thinking I've got to get ready for tomorrow. Yeah, so you know one of the reasons we decided to do it.
Speaker 2:I'm looking at jobs to be doing the next week and doing it. One of the reasons we wanted to travel on that and do.
Speaker 1:what we're doing is to see them. So, even though you know we're still working like, the kids are around us. We know them. I mean, they get under our feet as well as being around us, but we're with them, aren't we?
Speaker 2:But don't you find that when you've got your kids, you know they're amazing, they're loving, they're cute, they're a pain in the arse, they're cheeky, they're rude? This is a side of an idiot. They're time consuming, they're expensive. But, how miserable would your life be if you didn't have them.
Speaker 1:I mean, like tonight. Raffy was so proud, he made you scrambled egg, fried sausages, wrapped.
Speaker 2:He caught it. Daddy, daddy, daddy, have you finished now? Have you finished working? I'm out there with a head torque, charm in the dark.
Speaker 1:And Raffy's six years old.
Speaker 2:He's six years old, Daddy. Daddy, have you finished? Yeah, I'm finished. Can you come in now? Can you come in now? Yes, I'll come in now. Look, and he's been up there.
Speaker 1:And he's said welcome to the restaurant.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the restaurant. He showed me to the table. He brought me a beer and my beer glass and then brought me my dinner of scrambled egg and hot dog sausages, wrap with some tortilla.
Speaker 2:It was a tortilla wrap with sausage and scrambled egg, dorito crisp, yeah, dorito crisp with beer, which he'd all made himself, and sat to the table and he tells you how much he loves you. And he'd made me a little card saying I love you, daddy, with a picture of a hammer on it. And he made a hammer picture for you, yeah.
Speaker 1:Which counsels out the fact that he's had two warnings today on his behavior.
Speaker 2:So, as cutie as he is, he's a little shitbag. I've got a ladder outside because I'm up doing windows and the roof and everything else and he's like daddy, can I climb up the ladder? No, stay off the ladder. Okay, I turn around to get to my turn back. He's up the ladder. He's like halfway up. I said I'm staying here, I won't go any higher, I'm just going to stay here, don't go any higher. I won't go any higher. I turn my back. He's up to the top and climbed on the roof of the house.
Speaker 2:Yes just and.
Speaker 1:I said don't wait until after.
Speaker 3:And then when I say brave get down.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry. I'm sorry, it was an accident. It was an accident.
Speaker 1:That's his answer for everything.
Speaker 2:I'm so sorry, daddy. It was an accident. I didn't mean to do it, but how do you not mean to climb to the top of the ladder and then stretch over and onto the roof?
Speaker 1:He's awesome. We've got an interesting house at the moment because you've got Lani's, I'm navigating flipping menopause.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one going in, one going out.
Speaker 1:Lani's prepubescent hormonal highs and lows and dramas and everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, hormones all over the place.
Speaker 1:One minute she's laughing, the next minute she's screaming, then she's crying, and then she's just all over the show yeah. And then you've got Wraith that's just doing everything he can to end up in hospital. Yeah, with a smile whilst being super cute and charming. She doesn't share farts a lot, very messy, but we love you.
Speaker 2:And works. She works too hard and scrambles this. I work too hard physically and scramble my body, scramble this as in my head.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm in the head, I'm in the brain, it's all good fun innit.
Speaker 2:It's all good fun. It wouldn't be without them All you.
Speaker 1:You out and, ultimately, we are very, very grateful, aren't we? Because we very much know that there's lots of people in the world who would like to have children, for whatever reason. So, although we sit here talking about all of that stuff, we are always and always will be extremely grateful to have them, aren't we?
Speaker 2:Grateful for what you've got.
Speaker 1:It wasn't an easy ride to build our family. Another time maybe we'll talk. We'll come in and talk a bit about the journey and journeys, because it is a parenting journey that many people go on.
Speaker 2:Just more highs and lows, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Yeah and say that. So the fact that we worked hard to get this little family unit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we can't throw them away now, can we?
Speaker 1:Makes it even more precious. But yeah, today I want to just stress that I have used wet wipes on rave.
Speaker 2:Have you yeah.
Speaker 1:And when we finish recording this episode.
Speaker 2:We're going to have wine.
Speaker 1:I'm going to have wine, so yeah, alright, do you know what? That was quite fun. You want to come and do this again.
Speaker 2:Why not as long as the kids are in bed?
Speaker 1:As long as the kids are in bed, because maybe we won't do the wine after.
Speaker 2:We'll do it during.
Speaker 1:We'll just sit there and drink wine and record it and see what comes out.
Speaker 2:Bulgaria does good wine.
Speaker 1:Bulgaria does really good wine. I mean it's cheap in the UK to buy Bulgaria wine, but it's way cheaper to buy it in Bulgaria and it's actually quite nice.
Speaker 2:For the same price of a bottle in the UK, you can buy a 5-litre box here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's my favourite 5-litre box.
Speaker 2:Which works out about 7.5 bottles yeah.
Speaker 1:It's on sale often at 4 euros, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, 4.5 euros and all that it's alright.
Speaker 1:We like that one. Alright. Well, if you've managed to stick with us.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:For the whole of it. Thank you for sticking. You didn't sit there and go. Oh, they're just going to talk shit for half an hour. We're going to.
Speaker 1:I'm not listening to this. I'm not listening to this. But yeah, we thought we'd just do some stuff with us together. So it's not always, you're not always just listening to me. Meet my better half, other half, messy half and come and join us for a little bit of a chinwag. So thank you for joining us wherever you are in the world. You've met the hubby. You've met a bit more about me. I hope you're enjoying the start of this podcast and that you're going to stick with us and hang out with us. So, wherever you are in the world, have a great rest of the day and I will be back on the next episode.
Speaker 2:And I'll be back sometime.
Speaker 1:You'll be back sometime and come and join me again.
Speaker 2:And I'm sure sometime, if you're off in Uganda or whatever, I'll be hosting one.
Speaker 1:You want a host one for me.
Speaker 2:Why not?
Speaker 1:Nani wants the host one.
Speaker 2:There we go.
Speaker 1:So you might get the kids on as well. Another family affair. Yeah, alright, we'll see. We'll see. Alright, take care, see you later Bye. Yeah.