Wednesday 23 May 2012
All's well that ends well
Unfortunately the amount of wine needed to get over a day like today could turn The Newbie from bubbly and sociable to babbling and disabled so miserably I will yet again have to medicate with food. At least the children are finally all away from me, on another floor, in their beds. I find the distance comforting. I have left the big two listening to the chilling sounds of Justin Beiber, Under the Mistletoe. Yes, it is his Christmas album. So, as we finally melt under the intense heat from a long time absent sun, my children are nestled under their thick duvets listening to JB singing about wise men, mangers and snow. Freaks.
I should have written days ago. I have been quite merry recently. Indecently so actually. I was on a hormone high and loving it. Everything seemed rather jolly and we had such a nice day on Sunday with G's other Godmother (must find her an official name - but nothing springs to mind- coincidentally she too has a great body but it would be weird to call her that and make me look slightly obsessed with my friends' physical appearance. She is very sporty - potentially Sporty Godmother?) and family that I was positively buzzing. The leftover champagne from Christmas that we opened definitely improved my mood but it was also that we had 'got one over' on the weather which was then, freezing cold, and gone ahead with the planned BBQ regardless. It was a rip roaring success and finished off with After Eights which they had kindly donated to the cause - there is nothing like a box of After Eights.
So, less than 48 hours after Sporty Godmother was standing in my kitchen, shivering in her shoes, coat and scarf whilst K and her husband stood beside the BBQ outside, the weather has made a ridiculously dramatic u-turn and now we are all roasting under the heat and I am the first to admit that I am now too hot. After months of cold and rain it seems a little odd to subject us to such an extreme. My shoe collection is all messed up. Only last week I was in Uggs and a thick coat. Now I am having to hastily paint my toe nails and dig out a flip flop or two from under three buggys in the under stairs cupboard. I am not an unreasonable person - I am extremely happy to see the sun - I have frequented two parks in two days and enjoyed picnics in the shade, due to the sun's sudden and miraculous appearance - BUT - it could have warmed up slowly so that we might have adjusted our inner climate control and wardrobe accordingly. This is just a cruel trick. The shops don't even have their full range of ice creams in stock. It is just ludicrous. Which also brings me on to today. The sudden 'extreme' (in the UK) heat was to blame for the start of my bad day. Whilst I was very merry that we didn't need to bother with coats and Wellies this morning for a change, I hadn't factored in adequate time for sun cream application which meant that I hastily grabbed a bottle before running out of the door. I managed to stop and apply an adequate layer to Bea's skin before sending her in to her classroom, but miserably, G saw my hasty cream application and decided that he wasn't at all keen on a similar treatment before he went in to his classroom. To cut an absurdly involved story short, by the time we got to his classroom he had made up his mind that I was going nowhere near him with the cream and he ran off, to the back of his classroom. The school has a policy that they cannot take or apply any sun cream during the day so if I didn't get any on him first thing this morning, he would have to spend most of the day in the baking sun without any protection. The first TA (teaching assistant) didn't manage to get G but the second managed to get him out of the classroom and in to the hallway where he seemed to be calming down, until he made a lunge away from me and the dreaded cream, which unfortunatly resulted in the poor TA being knocked off her feet (she was crouching down beside him and lost her balance) and she fell hard against a wall with G on top of her. It was totally mortifying. To add to my woes there was a man in a suit with a clipboard sitting and watching the whole encounter and looking at me as if I was the worst mother ever. I misplaced my anger at G on to the clipboard man and will forever hold a grudge and murderous thoughts towards him. I have no idea why he was there. He Could have been an Offsted inspector or someone peddling books for all I know. Anyway, he watched with his scowly face as a very pregnant and harassed mother tried to cajole (he was already fairly hysterical from the threat of cream and doubly upset and embarrassed at reducing his favourite TA to tears) and chastise her clearly mentally deficient son over sun cream application and trying to control his temper. We were hastily ushered in to a side room to 'calm down'. The Amazing TA continued to cuddle and calm G so that I was able to apply adequate sun protection and then carried on distracting Ted whilst I finally tried to get G to a point where he was able to be left. Anyhow, the whole debacle left me understandably shaky and a tad teary, but I still had to pay for the school disco tickets so I then went over to the school office, where the slightly prickly secretary chastised me for not putting the money and slip in an envelope, and when I asked if she might help me out with one she said I would be taking money away from the children of the school and we would have to send it in loose and hope that it got to where it was meant to be. At that point I really was a hair's breath away from hormonal melt down, but I continued on, to the post office to withdraw money for vital things like gas, bread, the cleaner and ice cream. I then discovered that I was in fact, over drawn and there was no money to be withdrawn. I was also baking hot and sweating. Thank goodness Ted was being strangely saintly during the whole sorry half hour of hell. Mercifully the lovely cleaner was terribly polite about not being paid, the lack of dishwasher and having to work with cold water due to my lack of money on the gas meter card(first time in ages I have actually hated the gas meter) and after I finally managed to get hold of k, he was able to calm me down, withdraw money and purchase a pot plant for the injured TA. So, after picking up the cash and the pot plant from him, things improved dramatically for me, until the afternoon school pick up. A brief hiatus of good behaviour followed the purchase of ice creams all round, but that finished as soon as the ice creams were eaten and several hours of misery followed as tired, hot and bothered children made my life a misery until I have come down here to write to you.
As you can tell, It isn't as if I've been evicted from my home or anything horrid, but it wasn't what I had hoped for when I awoke this morning. I seem to be having a run of bad luck recently (again, comparatively speaking - I haven't been diagnosed with terminal cancer or anything which is incredibly bad luck, mine is just a run of mildly unfortunate events in comparison and I am trying very hard to keep it all in perspective). To start, the laptop is still out of action so I am yet again struggling to write on the iPad, which isn't made any easier by the fact that the iPad is broken. I'm not sure I mentioned this but Ted took my iPad on the school run some months ago and when he tired of what he was watching from the comfort of his buggy, he threw it on the playground floor and the screen promptly smashed. A quarter of the screen is now rather tricky to use and uncomfortable as well. Thanks to the case front, I managed to hide the smash from K for about a month before he made the horrible discovery. It wasn't pretty. Bea, who had been in on the deceit thought it was rather funny. I, on the receiving end of K's lengthy rant, did not. Much like the newbie's name, any discussion or reference to the broken iPad has now been shelved. As has the loss of £40. On Friday night, K gave me £40 in four ten pound notes which I then put on the floor as I was comfortably lying on the sofa and couldn't be arsed to move. That was at about 8 o'Clock. By 10, when I decided to get up off the sofa and go to bed, somehow the money had vanished. Now, I had got up to get food and I must have gone to the loo at some point, but I did not leave the house. I don't think I even went upstairs, so how on earth the money disappeared is quite beyond me. Naturally, I assumed it was K. I thought he had taken it back before he went to the shop. He continued to say he hadn't, but also didn't get up off his chair to help me look or indeed avert his gaze from the tv, so I naturally assumed it was a practical joke that had gone sour and he was 'in too deep' to come clean once my anger rose. Just in case it wasn't, I went through the bin, the recycling, the bread bin, the fridge - anywhere I had been and might have conceivably dumped the money without thinking. Nothing. By 10.30pm I was flipping irate. As was K. Apparently me accusing him of being a thief was insulting. I became more convinced he was winding me up and teaching me a lesson and I was incredibly unamused. I went to bed seething. The money is still AWOL.
Yesterday a suspected burst pipe caused wide spread panic that the boiler might have broken. Luckily it was just a loose connection on the pipe leading to the dishwasher (hence it being out of action) and K was able to nip home from work and discover this, but the water damage is still pretty annoying and hasn't fully been discovered yet so could be doing untold damage to the back of the kitchen units. And to add to all of this, someone has fraudulently been using my PayPal account. I do think it takes the piss to steal money from me, who rarely has more than £100 to my name. To take £40 of that is just plain mean. Particularly as it was the cause of my woe this morning and will take a while to get back in to my account assuming Paypal believe it was fraudulent and not me trying to pull a fast one. Coupled with the lost £40 from Friday I am now £80 adrift. That is huge in my world. I am desperately hoping that at some point in the near future I will open a bag, lift up a toy or tidy something away and finally discover the hiding place of the freaky disappearing forty pounds - assuming that a. It wasn't K or b. we don't have a thieving Ghost haunting the place (the thought has gone through my mind more than once).
Oh, and the dreaded sick bug also paid us a visit. Poor George, who was greatly looking forward to his first ever foray in to the world of 'hip hop' dance on Saturday morning, came over all whiny and miserable as we took Bea to her dance classes and when we got home, promptly threw up. I was on my own as K was working (annoyingly that was the first of two in a row - I am so out of practise at doing it on my own that I find it incredibly irritating) which meant that when G fell asleep, post chucking up, I was left with a tricky decision. Leave him on his own, asleep in the house for ten minutes whilt I grabbed Bea from her dance class, or wake up the poor sick boy and force him out in the streets to pick up Bea. I opted for the former. It is a tricky one. But luckily all worked out ok and no opportunist child snatcher discovered my neglect. And G is able to start hippeting and hoppeting next week, so all's well that end's well.
It nearly wasn't as the fuss G was making over the pain in his head during his short illness caused me some considerable concern. He was screaming about the pain so much that more than once i considered ringing an ambulance as I automatically assumed it was a brain haemorrhage. I do think I should be kept away from hospital dramas. Luckily, the more sane side of my brain stopped me from following through with my suspicions. It would have been a tad embarrassing. I do have a tendency to go to the very worst place when it comes to illnesses. I voiced my concern over my tiredness to the midwife on our last visit - explaining that I suspected either Toxoplasmosis and/or Carbon Monoxide poisoning, but annoyingly she was of the opinion that my overwhelming tiredness was more likely due to anaemia or Ted (who was haring around like a mad thing at the point of our discussion) so refused to test me for either. I was annoyed that she suspected anaemia. I have always considered it a weak willed type of affliction and I am always faintly proud of my high iron levels. I eat meat, broccoli and bran flakes (not together) on a regular basis so I have huge faith in my iron levels - correctly so - the results are in and my iron levels are A.O.K. I am going to invest in a carbon monoxide alarm.
I've never understood the breakfast cereal backlash of recent years - the power of bran flakes simply cannot be denied. Not only does it contain a load of vitamins, iron and crucially for me, folic acid, it also contains a healthy amount of fibre. Which might explain why I find the adverts for constipation relief so incredibly irritating. I literally become irate at the tv when they come on. It is such a ridiculous affliction. One doesn't need to purchase a stupid medicine to achieve 'gentle and effective' relief in the morning - simply eat a bowl of bran flakes every day and you will never suffer from it in the first place. All the adverts are aimed at women which also irritates me. Either we are the only sex to suffer from ailments such as constipation, head aches and diarrhoea or we are the only sex to buy them - there has to be a reason why advertising companies only suggest concepts with thin women flouncing around the place - interestingly men can suffer from colds, flu and back ache - obviously these are deemed 'manly' enough and they shouldn't feel embarrassed if they are caught buying the remedies. I also lay the blame for the wave of constipation relief products at the sodding Atkins diet. If it wasn't for the most idiotic of diets ever invented, people wouldn't assume carbs were 'bad' and stop eating them in favour of high protein and high fat foods, leading to them becoming constipated and suffering from halitosis. Any eating plan that allows you to drink cream but not eat a potato is just beyond my comprehension.
Interestingly my mum's sudden u-turn on breakfast cereals means that she now deems home made biscuits and cake as healthy alternatives as they 'have eggs in them'. She uses eggs containing Omega 3 and must use one or two in each batch of biscuits or cake which means that instead of a small amount of sugar and salt in a bowl of cereal G can eat a large amount of fat and sugar with a small amount of Omega 3 egg inside. It really is genius. One morning over the Easter holidays she allowed him to have two pieces of chocolate cake for breakfast as she merrily poo pooed my angry reservations.
Enough of my doom, gloom and ranting. There have been some notable high lights to my week. Aside from the successful freezing BBQ and a very pleasant Pizza Express meal last night, there was a rather enjoyable curry and quiz night at the school. Regrettably I was not sufficiently knowledge endowed to be any use to my team, but the curry was very good and I was able to help on the final question of the quiz and partially help with a Paul Simon song title. The other 28 music questions were left to my able team mates as I was not alive for most of the 70s and when I was alive and old enough to be interested in/purchase music, I had crap taste. So out of around 70 questions I was helpful about twice. In order to help you if you are ever in a similarly tricky quiz, I would like to let you know that the collective noun for a group of Giraffes is a Tower and Rooks is a Parliament. How I would know this or who on earth Ziggy Stardust is, is quite beyond me. Luckily I was on a team with people who had a good general knowledge and a high level of intelligence, as well as an in depth knowledge of 80s music so we ended up coming a close second. Again. I had seconds of the curry. All's well that ends well.
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