Bank Holiday #2

Typically, yesterday was a bit of a Bank Holiday washout - at least it was if you had to spend five hours on the road trailing the (very wet) cold front which seemed to be directly above us virtually all the way down. We arrived home (K, J and I) feeling rather cheated since lots of sunshine had been enjoyed by all down South in our absence. Can't have it all I guess! 

Off we set Friday night, thinking we would avoid Bank Holiday Mayhem, only to discover everyone else had the same plan! Once off the (totally wonderful M6 Toll Road) everything ground to a halt, and although J was able to enjoy waving at everyone as we sat there I had hoped for a slightly more exciting evening. The ipod was dead, and anymore "Jo Jingles" songs or "The Fairy Stories the Fairies tell themselves" and I would have got out and walked. Thankfully the persistent "rubber-necking" plague which affects this country lasted only 6 miles before we could reach a super-speedy 30 mph again. Aaaargh..... 

The roads "Oop North" are a complete mystery to me. Those who think the M25 and it's satellites are slightly manic obviously haven't experienced the M6 around Stafford on a sunny Bank Holiday. Games such as "Catch me if you Can" take on a whole new meaning and the urge to force everyone out of the outside lane come what may can be quite threatening. However the choice between a propellor "wind up" plane from Stansted and driving through motoring hell is not an easy one. Both fill me with fear and dread! 

I had a lovely break though, drank too much wine and had far too little sleep but thoroughly enjoyed catching up with Gabi. Bank Holidays really confuse me though.... I have spent all today convinced it is Monday, which has a knock on effect for the rest of the week! In fact it may well take me all week to catch up, unless A perfects the days of the week and puts me right. It's a current obsession of his to try and get them all in order much to H's annoyance, since he has absolutely NO concept of time himself. The fact that A is expressing a) an interest and b) some level of understanding is incredibly frustrating for H and he considers it easier to shout obscenities than consider the obvious and master them for himself. One day I hope he will gain a working knowledge of Western time-telling without sand timers and visual timetables, but that's some way off yet. 

UPDATE 2018

Whilst H did indeed master the days of the week, he remains undecided about the value of GMT and prefers metric time. It's no less frustrating.

 

Time off = time in lieu

Yay! Another Thursday over... sorry for the delay in posting ;) Life got in the way, as it has a habit of doing. Still, Richard is home early and I have red wine and dark chocolate! Antioxidants now, hangover later..... It's been an odd week. 

Tuesday I enjoyed a fabulous day girlie shopping with lunch in Cambridge, a rare treat! It involved a fair amount of forward thinking and preparation, not least ensuring someone was available at the end of the phone in case of an H emergency. An hour's travelling home just wouldn't cut it if he jumped the gate and left the school premises, or needed three members of staff to restrain him again! 

K and A stayed at nursery for the day (there were FOUR lunch bags out on the worktop on Tuesday morning, how cute was that??) and I had a whole day to myself. 

I should point out the chance of such a treat actually happening is rather low. Firstly with four children there is always a good chance one will be ill. Or forget something important en route and feel very ill making you ridiculously late because you have to succumb to their pleas to go home and get homework/sports kit/blazer..... insert your own option. It also requires H to take his Ritalin early enough to actually calm down and agree to go to school, which is always easier since you can still go in the outfit you started in once he's been firmly deposited in his classroom. 

Problem is, "Me Time" can rather go to your head. It's like alcohol, if you aren't used to it and it hits hard. Tuesday was a really good, smooth merlot drunk rather too fast.... (I told you Tuesday was a good day, right?) I turned out of Harry's school (the last drop off point for all four) with Maroon 5 cranked up on the radio and my shades on. Coffee en route? (I decided not since caffeine + freedom high would be just a bit more than I could take at 9.15am. ) The roads were clear, the faulty parking sensors turned off and the sun was shining. What more could you ask for? 

It was a great day, I spent too much and LOVE my new bag... but I have paid for the time off since. My tired toddlers (whom you would think might sleep well after their first full day at nursery) decided sleep deprivation is a fair punishment for too much maternal free-time. They loved having lunch at school though and want to do it again, but I'm slightly less keen after the extreme stroppiness of the past two days after far too little sleep. (And that could be read as them OR me lol) 

Harry has given me possibly the toughest 48 hours for a long time and the benefits of my day off are rapidly ebbing away.... ..... so it's just as well I've got a WHOLE WEEKEND off starting tomorrow since J, K and I are off to Manchester to stay with a friend and R is home all next week to help with the fallout after. SO I'm high as a kite and excited as hell that I get such a cool break, although I have the obligatory pebbles in my shoes to assuage the compulsory guilt I can assure you! 

Don't you love holidays?

The wheel of life

Another Thursday over, thank goodness. 

There is something innately frustrating about Thursdays. Not quite the weekend but tantalisingly close and for some inexplicable reason always loaded with maximum stress for all concerned. It's as if someone decreed long ago that being "almost the weekend" it was a fair bet that Thursday would be a good candidate for making all the jobs, tasks, activities, responsibilities least likely to appeal more acceptable. A "best option" for clearing down "To Do" lists and cramming in children's after (and during) school classes since it isn't in prime position in the week. 

After all, on Monday we're still recovering from the weekend, whether it is a post-socialising alcohol fuelled type of recovery of the young or the total exhaustion after quality time with the children sort. 

Tuesday is for the nice things in life because there is most of the week left to procrastinate over the less pleasant options. 

Wednesday, Richard insists, is "almost the weekend" but here we disagree. Wednesday is neither one thing or the other, it's really difficult to summon any motivation at all. 

Thursday on the other hand, well...... with the weekend looming large I need to empty the ironing basket (assuming the washing got done on a Wednesday lacking in motivational "oomph") plan the meals, clean out the hamsters, tidy up and hope I can get finished by the end of Friday. Why I have this "Thursday feeling" is beyond me to be honest - it's just NOT a good "day candidate" in our house for a start. As mentioned everything else is on Thursday so there is less time for action on the home front. All swimming lessons happen to be on a Thursday - always have been, in fact when I was teaching swimming the lessons were on Thursday too. (Anyone know whether it is National swimming lesson day or is that an East Anglian phenomenon?!) I barely have half an hour in the house at any point during the day yet enforce this ridiculous timetable of tasks on myself in preparation for the weekend. In my defence both the younger two are now at Nursery on Thursday mornings, but this actually makes the situation worse because I have OPTIONS. Not good. I manage to cram every Thursday morning with all the more complicated out of house tasks too. Meetings (and oh boy do we have a LOT of those.) , prescription collection (actually we have a lot of those too...) and food shopping. Vet trips and garage appointments. 

So on the whole, Thursday is NOT a good day for me. My husband insists it is traditionally a really good day for him because it was "Blue Peter" day, not to mention "Top of the Pops" and some other programme of the seventies which featured large in his life. I'm not buying it. Unless I can persuade Wednesday to take on the tasks currently allocated to Thursday in exchange for a healthy dose of procrastination going the other way my mind's made up. Thursdays never were meant to be easy, the business world has understood this for years and every week they troop out of work early on Thursday and head to the pubs and clubs to recover. 

Of course, there are always exceptions. Today my car DID have an appointment at the garage but I managed a leisurely brunch at a nearby pub/restaurant with my Mum whilst it was there. Of course that left only half a Thursday with the full quota of stuff left to deal with but it was SO
worth it. The chance to chat for more than two minutes and sit down in peace and quiet with a coffee probably belonged on a Tuesday but it was greatly appreciated. The croissants were pretty good too! Yum.