Monday Again!

We've had a full-on weekend with YD, she had a performing arts exam on Saturday and dancing exams yesterday.  She did exceptionally well in her musical theatre exam (speech, drama, singing and dance), gaining an overall distinction with a mark of 85%.  We'll have to wait a couple of weeks for the results of the dancing exams but I'm not anticipating any failures!  

The nocturnal child has also been busy, out babysitting on both Saturday and Sunday evenings, which was obviously so exhausting that she couldn't get herself up for college this morning.  I live in the hope that she will rouse herself for long enough to do the kitchen today, before we are reported to the Department of Health.

DH and I went to watch 'The King's Speech' at the local movie house last night.  It was well cast and acted, but I'm not convinced that it was completely historically accurate... nevertheless it was thoroughly enjoyable.

But what is it about Mondays that makes people so miserable?  Is it the thought of a full five days of work ahead or the mourning of a weekend wasted?  I don't mind them myself... I see it as the beginning of a new week, new opportunities and more importantly, the day everyone else disappears off to school/work and leaves me to it.  Well, that's the theory anyway!

We have had rain of biblical proportions for the past couple of days... the river looks about to burst its banks, the trees already have more than just their toes in the water.  We'll be OK though, we live on a hill... by the time the water rises as high as we are the ark will be finished!

Boys And Their Toys

The male child really needs to get the exhaust fixed on his car.  It sounds like a Harley Davidson motorbike at the best of times and when he puts his foot down on the accelerator at the end of the lane I can still hear it inside the house.  Apart from a new exhaust, it apparently requires a replacement driveshaft and a right front wing as well as a list of other bits as long as your arm.  Rather than taking the car to a garage to have it repaired, he has settled upon a plan to fix it himself (with a little help from a friend) and has spent the morning in a breaker’s yard looking for parts.  On his return, DH cheerfully pointed out that he won’t be able to repair the car on the drive as he needs a ramp to change an exhaust.  The male child has now retreated to his bedroom.

At least he has a car now… he had gone from April until December without wheels after writing my beautiful, limited edition Focus ‘Ebony’ off.  How did he do that, you ask?  Well, nobody is quite sure.  He came around a corner, skidded and hit a high kerb, then rebounded onto a bollard.  There was a lot of body damage, the airbags were deployed from the sides of the sleek leather seats and the driveshaft and suspension were wrecked.  It could have been repaired, but the insurance company deemed the work uneconomical. 

He maintains that he wasn’t speeding and that he simply skidded on ice (it was 5am), but I know that road well and am fully of the belief that he took the corner too fast and that if he had been driving slower the damage would not have been so catastrophic.

I was devastated… I loved that car.  However, I do now have a beautiful metallic green Peugeot convertible which I am equally in love with.  Needless to say, the male child is NOT insured to drive it.

My best friend calls it my mid-life crisis car.  She’s probably right!  All I need now is some decent weather so that I can take the ‘lid’ off and catch some sun… I spent last summer with the heating cranked up, wearing a coat, hat and gloves!

Shocking!

School hens: Vanilla, Toffee and Fudge

Somebody has stolen our school hens!  Shocking!  Why on earth would anyone do such a thing?  We have only had them since October and my friend and I have invested a lot of time socialising and handling them... just to the point that they had resigned themselves to the fact that they are 'school' hens and will be regularly manhandled by various children.  They were so good that the children could pick them up and they would eat out of their hands. It was only last week that they had started laying too!

The local press have been into the school today to take photographs and interview some of the children in the hope that someone will come forward with information leading to their safe return.  I am completely at a loss as to what benefit would be gained from the theft... all they've done is upset best part of 400 first school children.  

I shall keep you updated as the investigation progresses...

One of those days

Do you ever get the feeling it's going to be one of those days?  

I have suffered with pelvic pain, sciatica and constant general backache since my last pregnancy.  I have, in the past, had physiotherapy, osteopathy and chiropractic treatments which have all helped to some degree but ultimately one learns to live with persistent pain.  I know how to lift, carry and bend without hurting myself and am able to function pretty much normally, providing I am careful.  It is the little things that trigger the chronic pain though... such as picking up a sock, slipping ever so slightly on a patch of water on the kitchen floor or having your seven year old run up, bash into you and hug you.

I managed to put my back out on Monday night. I am not entirely sure how it happened, but I think it could have been getting out of the shower.  I woke up yesterday in agony, but managed to get to college and do my five hours of penance in the most uncomfortable chairs known to mankind.  I crawled into bed at around 9pm last night and fell straight to sleep.  Typically, I was woken twice for trivial things and consequently by midnight was wide awake, waiting for the diclofenic to take effect.  I just couldn't find a comfortable position and when I finally did, my DH turned over and snored in my face, rendering it impossible to sleep.  I did doze off in the end, out of sheer fatigue, only to be roused again by YD who had had another nightmare.  She got in the bed between us and kept us both awake until the alarm went off.

The male child has been missing for a couple of days.  There is nothing particularly unusual in this and he has been told innumerable times to either call or text if he isn't coming home, but he never does.  It has been worrying me in this instance though as the last I heard was that he and his lovely girlfriend had had a blazing row, ending with her storming out, followed by her returning shortly afterwards and going around the house collecting all of her belongings.  As a parent you always think the worse... young men, full of emotion but generally lacking in common sense have been known to do some very silly things.  Fortunately he was found sleeping in his bed this morning, very much alive but 'feeling like death'.  I am none the wiser as to the situation with his love life but relieved to know that he is OK.

The nocturnal child's bus was late this morning, so she was still in the house at 8:30am, rather than arriving at college.  I'm not sure what she was doing between 7am and then,  but it certainly wasn't her chores.  The promises she made about helping out around the house seem to have petered out and the kitchen is now back to its usual shabby state.  Oh well, it was nice while it lasted, but at least I won't have to shell out lots of cash this week as she's still in 'debt' for the money she borrowed last month.

On top of that, after preparing for an observation tomorrow, it's now been postponed (again) until next week so I'll need to do all the prep again.  I found out this morning that a good friend lost her father yesterday.  When I went to clean out the hens this morning (during my short drug-induced window of being pain-free), I discovered that DH had driven off with the feed, corn and straw in the back of the truck.  He's only had since Saturday to unload it, after all.  I've run out of eggs, I forgot to buy washing powder, the milkman hasn't been so I've no milk either and one of the goldfish was found dead in the bottom of the tank. And it's only 10 o'clock.

Looking on the bright side, the male child is home safe, the nocturnal child caught the 9am bus, I haven't got the stress of being observed tomorrow to keep me awake tonight, there are only two more days until the weekend and YD has had a couple of really good days at school as the boys have left her alone. 

I may even have time to do some crafting today.