Summer Holiday time

Schools out and Weston is heaving:-) The annual influx of Brummies and Scousers have arrived - and will stay for the whole six weeks of the school holidays (although not the same ones, obviously). We took the weekend off re-enactment as LMB is only just over her chicken pox, and LMD is still waiting to break out in cocoa pops, so we thought it would be sensible to stay near home.



Which meant that we had a whole weekend at home with no real plans:-0 Aggie decided to try socialising for once, and went off into bath with a load of other scaly people for a psoriasis meet. As we have such a enormous tank of a car, and he can't drink anyway because of some drugs or other (i can't keep up with what he's taking anymore), he was designated driver for the day, eventually lurching in some time in the early hours of the morning! It sounds like he had fun, which is great, because I don't think he's been out properly for at least several years.



The kids & I decided to listen to the weathermen and took a packed lunch off down to the beach yeaterday morning. Having packed eveything up, argued with Mstr A about what he should wear, and traipsed down to the beach, we settled down near the pier, and I handed out buckets and spades & picked up my book. LMD looked 100metres to the left & saw the donkeys, sceamed blue murder, clambered into my lap, grabbed both my arms and hugged them around her and refused to move. LMD doesn't like "horses"! No amount of reassurances that they were going the other way would budge her, so we sat like that for a while, as the early morning sun dissappeared and the brisk cool breeze picked up into a howling gale blowing straight off the sea, that was somewhere off on the horizon, collecting sand on it's way across the miles with nothing but us in it's way!.



After less than an hour, I gave it up as a bad job, and offered to take them to the park instead. LMD was delighted, LMB was persuadable, Mstr A was not happy. Some swift negotiation later, we packed everything up again, and walked up to the park. Up being the operative word. I know where the park near the beach is, and that it has a play area at the top. So I got us to the park and then allowed Mstr A to show me the way to the play bit. He chose a route that involved approx 200 steps! I carried the pram, and packed lunch and spare nappies/clothes, books, buckets & spades, fold up chair et al all the way there, and the kids all had a great time playing. We stopped for lunch, and were joined by a red squirrel - who popped right under the fence & lurked just a metre away from us. I threw him a grape, and he picked it up & nibbled it in front of us to the delight of the kids (and me). He gained himself a half dozen more grapes, before getting bored and bouncing off to go digging for worms or something.



The weather rapidly went downhill though, so by mid-afternoon we called it a day and headed home. I decided my own holistic navigation would be a better bet than Mstr `A's directions, and found a lovely slope straight down! Typical! We made it home before the`rains - just!



Today - which the weatherman said would be `awful, turned out gorgeous. I kicked Aggie out of bed about 10ish, and we went for a wander down to town, but ended up on the beach again as` it was `so hot and sunny. This is what living in a holiday resort is all about - it feels like your' e on holiday even when you're not:-) Even LMD consented to stand just a couple of meters away from the donkeys - in my arms obviously.

Oh yes, and I got a new computer (well, not new, obviously, but new to me) so hopefully my writing will not miss out quite so many letters now:-) Although the space bar is tiny, so it's going to take me a while to stop hitting / and ' instead!

spit spot pop

LMB is doing well - most of her spots have scabbed over, and she is feeling fine in herself now. She has ben really good about not scratching, even though she's ot a fair number of spots, and it really nasty places - one right in the middle of her belly button, a few on her feet, loads on her face, and one right on her vagina poor thing:-( I'm hoping she should be OK to go back to nursery on Thursday. Which will work out nicely as Mstr A finishes school on Wednesday and I'm not sure how well Aggie will cope with having them both at home all day!

LMD has not sported a single spot yet! Surely she has got to catch it? They play together, live together, go to school together - they even bath together!

We check each day to see if she has got any spots yet. each morning they come down stairs, and I look at LMB's spots to see how many new ones there are and how many have scabbed over. She asks if she is going to school today, and I say, no becasue she is still spotty. " I can't play with other children because I have chicken pox" she affirms understandingly.

"I got spots" LMD tells me, not willing to be left out. I check her carefully.

"No LMD, you don't have any spots. not like LMB's spots. She's got chicken pox"

"LMB got cocoa pops" agrees LMD "LMD have cocoa pops?"

"not cocoa pops", chicken pox" I explain

"NO! Cocoa pops" she tells me.

I think I'd rather have a bowl of cocoa pops than a dose of chicken pox:-)

On another note we had summer today. Unfortunately the rain is returning tomorrow:-( I know we're really lucky, it's barely affected us here

This is where we were supposed to be camping for our really big re-enactment event of the season last weekend.

but at least we don't live 30 minutes further up the motorway - that looks like this:

We've had a bit of flooding here, but nothing like Gloucestershire, our next door neighbour as it were. Hopefully it will stay that way.

And hopefully our insurance company will be so swamped with big claims they will rush our little claim for a new ceiling in LMB's room through to bump up their claim rate stats:-)

Will it never end?

I know that pretty much everywhere else in th world it's boiling hot and sunny, but right here, right now, it's the Great Flood! 40 days and forty nights of rain is nothing - I reckon we're at around eight weeks of rain here in the UK.

That's right, it has rained every day for eight weeks! Today I was sitting in work, listening to the downpour, as the day faded to a dim twilight at 2pm and the tempreture barely reached double figures and decided that I've had enough now. Even I have had to bow to the inevitable and buy a rain coat (well Aggie bought it, but I wore it). Our weekend event has been cancelled because of flooding - and it's a really big event - we were so looking forward to going & trading & chatting to other re-encators etc:-(

The trains have pretty much given up trying to be boats, the roads are all rivers - half the motorways are closed, even Weston-super-Mare beach is under water for once;-) It's JULY!!! I want some sunshine!

Actually, I think what has really got to the great British publi is not so much the rain - we're used to rain, but the lack of weather. Our weather should change - generally every few hours. 8 weeks of the smae weather is just not normal:-)

Oh yes, and just to make things even more depressing, LMB's gone and caught chicken pox (again) so we can't even do anything exciting with our wet weekend off:-(

ahh, aint I nice?

I am a Sunflower What Flower Are You?

"When your friends think smile, they think of you. There is not a day that goes by that you can't find something good about the world and your fellow human."

Not sure it's true tho:-)

Hat tip to Vancouver voyeur

Out of the mouths of babes..

The queen is coming to Mstr A's school next week.


My boss asked if we wanted the afternoon off to go see her, which me & colleague thought was hilarious - although oviously we haven't actually turned him down. an afternoon off may be useful;-)


I tried to catch Mstr A's taecher to ask him about it, but he's off on a course all week! As I've got the time availabe, I was going to offer to assist with Mstr A during the visit. we don't need a repeat of his first school harvest festival in the church..... All the children trooped in, sat quietly, listened to the sermon, and then the vicar?priest? said "let us pray", and all the children bowed their head readfy to sit & contemplate their toenails in silance for a few minutes, except Mstr A who jumped up & called out "I don't need to pray, I don't believe in od" and wandered off to play:-) I mean, full marks for making your own decisions and standing by your beliefs, but possibly a little more social awareess amy ahve been in order:-)



Or when Germaine Jackson came to visit. Big kudos to the school - he only went to half a dozen around the whole country, but Mstr A wouldn't shut up about how he talked funny (US accent) and who was he anyway? It took me WEEKS of explaining that once he had some pop hits, but mostly he was the brother of someone else, who once had some pop hits but was mostly known for doing dodgy things with little boys, and no, i don't really know how that makes him a spokesperson for an anti-bullying campaign, and no, you can not watch the big brother programme they were all talking about!


So without any advice available form the school, I decided to broach the sunject with him. He had been told, so happily entered into conversation about it...

"Mummy, the queen is coming to my school next week"

"I know darling. Will that be fun?"

"yes, it's very exciting"

"Do you know who the queen is?"

"yes!"

"who is she?"

screws up face. Taps teeth. Stares upwards for a while.

"it's quite difficult to explain"

"Do you know what she does?"

"she lives in a palace"

"Do you know what she looks like?"

"no. But I can imagine...." (I feel he is likely to be disappointed)

"Do you know why we have a queen?"

"no"

"do you know why she is visiting your school"

"no"



Me neither!

Diagnosis?

We've been offered a cancellation appointment with Mstr A's peadiatrician tomorrow morning. It's for three hours and will feedback on all the other professionals views & reports, and hopefully (possibly) get us actually starting towards a diagnosis for him.

Or I'll just be told I'm a pushy parent & to shut up & shove off. Who knows?

It's pretty good as usually we would wait about 3 months for this appointment after all the other professionals have had their say, which would take us well into the next academic year! - and it's only been a week. Although they were WELL pissy at work when I told them this afternoon that I wouldn't be in in the morning. My immediate boss was out, so i went to see the head of staffing. he gave me such a look! I know it's awkward, but tough - this is my child's future! Which I told him in no uncertain terms. He was not happy, accepted it, and went to shout at someone else - which i wouldn't have put up with if it were me, but there you go.

I'm slightly annoyed, cos he said how much they had been flexible for me which I think is just untrue - i said at the interview stage that I would not work past 3pm on three days a week. they did not need to show any flexibility. they just needed to decide whether I was what they wanted or not. they obviously decided I was. It's not as though I've been swapping and changing things since! Humph. but really, other thn a bit of self rightousness i'm not bothered. i know I work bloody hard there. my boss knows that. The rest of my team know that. Mostly i don't really care what the others think. they have little bearing on anything:-)

I'll probably work late tomorrow to make up some of th time though - I've only just managed to catch up on being off for those couple days last week! And I'm hoping to do a car boot sale on sunday, as it'sthe only Sunday we've got free until September! And we've got loads of stuff that needs to be got rid off. But that means I have to get on with packing it into the car, cos I'm out all day Saturday at a Spa - just for me. I've never been before, but everyone agrees I deserve it, and I feel it's time i started agreeing with them:-)

Stuff

We're off to Anglesea again today - because the windiest, wettest part of the British Isles is obvioulsy the best place to go camping in 600 year old design tents during the windiest wettest and coldest summer the Uk has had since records began:-)

It's our annual trip to Beaumaris Castle - beautiful place, shame about the fact that cars can not get into the grounds at all, so it's a long trek carrying stuff agan. Oh for a pack mule:-) last year went pretty well, if a bit wet, so this ear should be good too - I've packed all our wool, and cloaks, and hoods, and extra blankets - along with some nice strong alcohol to help the adults make it through the long dark evenings! July is mid-summer here you know!!!!

Talking about the weather - I am getting a bit annoyed by the sob stories on the telly every night about the poor people of Hull (how come the poor people of Sheffield aren't moaning so much?). I KNOW they were flooded and that was awful. But that is what insurance is for - it's a shit and then you get new stuff! The moaning mum on TV ad nuseum yesterday was complaining that the Government should compensate her for the fact that it rained, and she was too lazy/stingy to buy insurance. I'm not sure what her mortgage company will say about that, since it's usually a condition of the mortgage, but I say, tough! If she is homeless the council will house her. if she was too stupid to get insurance, why should I pay for her house and her stuff to be fixed?

I'm off work today cos that annoying chest thing has come back, and I was wheezing like a smoker last night so didn't get much sleep:-( Hopefully the weekend "relaxing" will clear it up.

Talking about smoking - we had a cooked breakfast in the local greasy spoon today - without the added taste of chain smokers for the first time ever! Hurrah for the smoking ban.

Mstr A had his Speach & Language appointment yesterday. Unsurprisingly the result was that there is nothing wrong with his speach or language! NO!! Isn't that what I said two years ago? In fact, she was rather impressed with his vocabulary - I pointed out that I had told the paediatrician tht he was very advanced in his language skills - his vocab, pronounciation & reading skills are all way beyond his average age expectancy - and have been since he was a baby. Speach & Language woman latched on to this as him being "gifted" and hence having behavioural problems becaus eothers can not keep up with him. Which is absolute bollocks to be honest. He is not that brilliant - his reading and vocabulary are advanced for his age, but his writing is barely average, and his communication skills probably below average (ie: making others understand what he wants), and in other subjects he's an averagely bright child (except art - he's inherited my anti talent in all things artistic!). That is not the sign of a"gifted" child!

So, we've now got to wait while she writes a report to the paediatrician, and see what happens next. I think we're still along way away from a label though.

feeling better

It's always good to have an argument debate - and you can always guarantee a good response by slagging of that old queen of tarts hearts, lady Diana Spencer, (she wasn't Princess Di, they took that title away from her, along with the right to be called "your highness" when she was divorced - I've always wondered how pissy Charlie got when he heard she'd managed to get herself killed, just after he'd put all that effort into being allowed the divorce, and then painstakingly PR'd himself out of being a shit and her into being a wacko.....He could've just waited a few years and been rid of her easily whilst gaining public sympathy!), and I've managed to get the most comments for ages on my joke post about festivals. feel free to wander down there and villify me for my callousness and heartlessness because I JUST DON'T CARE that she's dead. Still, I didn't much care that she was alive either.

Now the Queen mum - that was a much sadder day. the day she died I was travelling across London to go and identify my baby brother's body. He was 25. He worked for the council and was involved in many large projects that have made 10'000's of peoples lives that little bit better. I can't think of many more revolting ways to "celebrate" the 5th anniversary of his death this year than to invite a bunch of people who did not know him to a party!

Anyway, things are starting to get back on a bot more of an even keel for me now. Nothings really changed, but I'm feeling more like interacting with the world again. Nanny A is back from her holiday, and out of hospital! She ended up there with a serious chest infection just a day after arriving home! We went to see her at hospital at the weekend, and have just got back from checking in on her at home this evening. She's looking much better - there is still a way to go, obviously, but she's on the mend. I've finally started sorting out all my out sports stuff. I'm offering it to Mstr A's school first - if they don't want it I might ebay the lot:-) I've finally booked in for next years college course.

Work is picking up again. Both types - employed work because the system is changing (again) which means it looks like I'm going to get a lot more responsibility a lot quicker that I thought. Which is good, cos I'm not good a keeping my head down and shutting up. I try, but then things happen, and I have an opinion...... Self employed work because I'm an idiot who apparently can not count to three any more - I still have over a year left on my current tutoring qualification, so have been catching up with a few courses and making a bit of money ready for our holiday in August.

Mstr A got invited to a birthday party. That's two this year!

LMB adored "big" school and wants to go again every day:-)

LMD has finally grown her legs a bit and is now out of her 12-18 mth clothes, and into the prettier older stuff - although she is 2 1/2 going on 16 at the moment in attitude!

Generally, things feel like they are moving again. I'm not sure where, but moving is good:-)

Truth, Justice and the American way

I'm confused (OK, I know it doesn't take much, especially when talking about our USA cousins, but .....)

Can anyone explain to me how a Democracy, a world leader of freedom and personal responsibility (certainly in their own eyes), a country based on the fact that all men are equal in the eyes of the state, where the leaders are the loudest denouncers of dictatorship or tyranny in any form, can anyone explain to me how the president of THIS country has the ability to completely ignore the rule of law and due process and can apparently just turn round to the entire judicial system and stick to fingers up at them?

HOW does the president have the power to commute Libby's sentance? It was arrived at following all the corrrect procedures, using all the correct channels and people and systems, yet after the fact, Bush can change it? What?!

One has to ask, does he have the power to do the opposite? When someone had been found innocent in court, could the president decide that actually they were guilty/deserved a prison sentance anyway? Surely it is the same power?

Surely that is something only dictators do?

Isn't that what we condemn China for doing? And others?

I reckon it went something like this....

William Dad, Can I go to Glastonbury this year please?

Charles No son, I've told you before, no Glastonbury for you.

William But dad, I really want to go. Kate went....

Charles No William. I've tried to let you do lots of things you want,
but not this.

William It's not fair (Swings arms, Kevin-esque). You bever let me do anthing I want!

Harry He's right dad. You're horrible to us. You wouldn't even let me go to
Iraq, and that was my job!

Charles But it's for your own good boys. I'm just trying to keep you safe.

William Safe is booooring. I want to go to Glastonbury (sulks)

Charles I'll tell you what, you can invte whoever you want to come here instead

William That's no good. I want to feel the vibe of a big crowd

Charles Well, invite them to the Royal Variety Peformance then

Harry Now you're just being stupid dad. The RVP is hardly the
same as galston bury (rolls eyes)

William Yah! I want to have a whole festival vibe thing

Charles Well you cn't go t Glastonbury and that's that! There's no tickets
left anyway (stomps off to play in his garden)

William It's not fair! We never do anything fun. Whats the point of
all this money power and influence if we can't do stuff we want?

Harry We could do our own festival It can't be that difficult. if some
farmer can organise it on his own, we should be OK with all our staff.

William True. And we could have all the people we really wnat, and
none of that other rubbish

Harry Yah. It would be really cool. Just people we want. And we're
like royalty yah? We don't even have to stick to pop groups, we
could make anyone we want come along and perform.

William Yah, like Hollywood stars and sexy girls and such

Harry Yah, cool. Like we could even get old groups to turn up. The
ones that we missed cos we were too young. That would be cool.

William. Yeah cool.

William Oh hang on. Do you think that maybe the public would think
it was a bit of a waste of tax-payers money?

Harry Hmmmm. Good point. You don't want to ruin your public
image. Look how hard dad had to work to just not be viewed as insane.

William Yah. I think they might say we're a bit spoiled too. Shame (makes face)

Harry It would have been really fun though.

******AN EPHINANY******

William Uh, Harry. Do you know what I just realised?

Harry Wills, I've just had this great idea....

William & Harry We say its all for mother. the public will let us do
anything if we stick her name on it

William Yay, lets have our own festival. It'll be loads better than
glastonbury. we can chose everything. the acts, the
venue, even the audience. fantastic!