Ouch!

it's been one of those days...

I got up and spent the morning yelling at the kids, who were being particularly difficult today.

headed off to work at 8am, got 5 mins down the road and realised I'd forgotton my pass. Came back, hitting every red light possible, picked up my pass, went back out again. Got 5 mins down the road and my clutch went. Absolutely nothing there - i could change up and down gear with a bit of a bump, but there was no way to start from stationary - and it is rush hour in a town made up of roundabouts! there is lots of stationary......

Nursed the bike back home, again, and dumped the kids off to school then had Aggie drive me in to work. So I got there late, and spent most of the day playing catch up.

The big new scanner started scanning blank pages, so I call out IT to fix it and go and use the old litle scanner, which just refused to scan at all. Another call to IT.

Gave up and went to make a cup of coffee - and the vending machine is confused and won't vend as it can not recognise that I have put a cup in it!

Another call to IT to sort out proxy access to a lawyer who is away for the week. then another because they killed the outlook account of a secretary who left last week, instead of forwarding everything to me. I get the feeling IT don't like me today.....

I decide to try the bus home - at least there is not much of a walk to the bus stop - although I see my bus just go by as I turn the corner to the bus stop. 20 mins later, the next one turns up, and it costs nearly £6 one way!!!! The bus is mostly peopled by a family, who look like they are on thier way back from the hospital. the toddler spends the whole journey babbling at her siblings. Loudly. And the woman next to me waits till I sit down, then puts on her ipod at that particularly annoying volume so as to issue tinny crackles nonstop.

When I make it home, there is nothing to eat (well, nothing I fancy anyway).

And

I have a black eye. No idea why. it just turned up half way through the day. and it hurts:(

Meh. some days are just not worth getting out of bed for!

What a weekend!

Well, lots has happened!

i got an apology from social services - before I'd even sent the letter of complaint, so I'm slightly mollified.... Still applying for Mstr A's file tho, just to be on the safe side.

We went up to London for my big brother's 40th birthday on Saturday. Nanny A was booked to come & stay with the kids for the weekend, so it was a grown up only do:) Unfortunately, it also coincided with the worst weather of the year - and we pretty much drove right along with it as it moved across the country. ho hum. made the journey not fun - though Aggie drove, which was nice.

My sister from Brighton decided that the best way to come from there to N London was all the round the M25, which meant accross the Dartford bridge - which was, of course, closed, due to high winds, so she barely got there in time, but on the whole the night went pretty well for our family. One argument and two walk-outs - both of whom returned is a good result for my family LoL.

Unfortunately, Aggie went down with the stomach bug the kids have had on the Saturday night, and didn't get to eat anything at the restuarant:( He very kindly gave it to me overnight, so i spent the journey home feeling awful:( by the time I made it home I was shivering uncontrollably and just crawled into bed and stayed there for the rest of the day, so I didn't get to spend much time with the kids:(

Back to work today tho - at least it only lasted 24 hours for all of us. It was weston Carnival tonight, so I took the bike and had the usual race to get home before they closed my road. Made it in time, and took the girls out to see the carnival for half an hour, rather than the whole thing as usual, which made everyone much happier! the girls still got to see it, Mstr A could avoid the loud noise, and I didn't spend 2 hours getting cold and annoyed at all the rude/selfish bastards! And we still had hot chocolate and a late night so the kids were more than happy:)

Shocking!

I got home from the waste of time parenting course today (not that the course is a waste of time, just a waste of time for us, as we already do all the techniques suggested!) to find an answerphone message from the duty social worker asking that I call back urgently! Quite worrying - duty SW's are usually only involved in serious & immediately urgent issues, and considering I have been trying for nearly 2 years to get SS to assess Mstr A, me or the family without ever getting a reply out of them, I was obviously a little concerned as to what they wanted so desperately.

I get the woman on the phone & she queries why Mstr A has missed "several" appointments at a place I've never heard of. I ask for more details and get told the name of the centre, what it specialises in, what the appointments were for (blood tests), what the blood tests were for, and how many appointments have been missed. At which point I explain that Mstr A has not recieved any appts, has never had any contact woth that centre, and would not have any reason to attend somewhere of that specialisation, or to have blood tests, and certainly not for that condition! After a bit of arguing, SW agrees to check the details with the centre & get back to me.

5 mins later, she calls back & apologises - the details were all about another child with a similar name

So. Now I have loads of seriously personal info about another child. AND, SS obviously have utterly terrible record keeping procedures. WTF DO they have on Mstr A's file? I ask what details she has on his file. She is very cagey, but it transpires that they certainly do not have all the details they should (no referral from the school for starters, which I KNOW happened over a year ago!)

I have sent a formal comnplaint about the procedures & request for a copy of his file to check details held - but really, you have to wonder WTF is happening in SS nowadays! If I gave any one of those pieces of info to a client about another client I would be immediately sacked and, I expect, sued!

I wonder what sort of response I'll get - and what might be on my SS file now!!!!

Shopping

I blew out CAB today & went shopping instead:) I really needed to get some maternity clothes for work as it was getting silly, with nothing fitting! Also the kids needed some new school uniform as poor LMB is still in short sleeves (with a jumper) and Mstr A has grown, again! I was going to just pop into town, but Aggie persuaded me to go into the Mall - which ought to have a much bogger choice, and suggested this would be a good time to break the back of the Xmas shopping for the kids without them being around.

So we traipsed into Bristol, and wandered around. I thought BHS would be a good bet for me & for the kids clothes - I often buy stuff from the little local one. But even though it was MUCH bigger, it was mostly full of crap:( No school uniform of any kind in stock, and no maternity section at all. Lots of xmas baubles, but that is not what i wanted! We went into loads of shops, all pretty much unsucessfully - I finally managed to pick up one pair of trousers for me, but no school uniform at all. Even the great big ToysRus didn't have what we wanted to look at for LMD>:(

So after a couple of hours, we gave up and came all the way back to Weston, and went into the local high street. BHS there did have school uniform, but no long sleeved shirts in the right sizes. Found some nice tops for me at atrocious prices, and some atrocious tops at nice prices, so didn't buy any LOL. Checked out a few other shops and decided that it wasn't worth queueing and paying high street prices, when the same was available off Amazon, cheaper and easier.

In the end, we came home, and did pretty much the whole Xmas shop online. sigh. And I managed to order some school uniform for both LMB & Mstr A on the computer.... don't know why I spent all the time and energy wandering around!

Working girl

It was a busy day at work today. Why do lawyers feel the need to turn up with "urgent" and long winded jobs at 3pm rather than giving them to you at 9am so you can time manage properly? Grrrr!

It doesn't help that we've got a snazzy new machine that has taken the place of our printers, scanners and photocopiers. Very clever, and very expensive - which is why the whole department has one new machine, taking the place of numerous old single purpose ones. As it takes longer to do any one of the jobs that the other machines did, there is always a queue to do anything now:( Another great example of a good idea idiotically implemented. Apparently the new machines came out of the review of our services - the one that said we should make more people redundant than we didn't need, and then move people to departments they didn't want to go to, all without consultation....... However, they did implement my idea for saving paper today - I wonder if I'll get another staff suggestion bonus? I feel not, as that concept seems to have disappeared from the intranet site recently:(

I have also finally decided that taking the bike to work is now more difficult than taking the train. Boo. I hate taking the train - it adds an extra 90 mis to my day, and involves sitting around in a station for 20 mins getting cold, then fighting for a seat:( I took the bike yesterday cos it was a short enough day to get back in time for my scan as it was, and thought that was not so bad, but I did it again today, and after a full day's work, I could barely move when I got off the bike:( Back to the train on Friday I suppose. Meh.

Mstr A seems to have finally settled down a bit - after all the screaming recently & the total ban of computers, he decided he wanted to try to be good to win them back:) He was helpful this morning, and good at school, and almost managed not to contradict LMD at all this evening LOL. Which earned him 30 mins on the laptop. Hopefully he'll do the same tomorrow too.

gambling on getting some sleep

I had my 20 week scan today - looks like it will be another boy:)

Feeling really tired now - and fat:( I really do have to go and buy some maternity clothes! But otherwise everything is going fine.

Mstr A and LMD are at loggerheads over everything at the moment - LMD delights in making noises she knows wind Mstr A up, and Mstr A is constantly telling her what to do and how to do/say things>:( I'm seriously considering locking them both at opposite ends of the house all evening! grrrr.

Aggie played a freebie fiver on an online gambling site and made almost £100!!!! He tried to present this to me as a great achievement, but I am not so sure...... Obviously, the money is lovely (not that any of it is in our bank account yet), but I don't like gambling, and don't approve of him spending even more time on the computer! It would have been easier to condemn if he had lost his fiver LOL.

What a difference a day makes

Amazingly the kids got themselves up, came downstairs, and settled happily in front of the TV without any arguments this morning, so me & Aggie got to stay in bed until 8.30! Luxury!!! And much needed:) So we made it through the day with no shouting. Yay!

So on the whole, it has been a much better day today. Nothing terribly exciting, but an OK day.

I took Mstr A to his swimming lesson - where he managed to not get into any major trouble! Then we got a bit of housework done and braved a visit from friends with an Aspie/ADHD son. Sometimes its good to be reminded how much more difficult kids can be..... ADHD is tough:( It was a constant round of pick up a toy "whats this?" put it down, pick up another toy "what's this?" put it down, snatch another toy off whomever had it, "whats this?" put it down....... add in the inability to comprehend turn taking and a detemination to "keep" everything he touched and he was a challenge even for the usually laid back LMB.

Still, they stayed for a few hours, and he had a good time:) Mstr A found him very difficult and gave up fairly shortly, but LMD and LMB took it in turns to keep him entertained:) His mum relieved him of the toys he tried to take away with him LOL, and it was nice to be able to invite people over to play without having to apologise for Mstr A's behaviour;)

We haven't done any fireworks things this year - LMB is terrified of the bangs:( We did think about taking MStr A off to a local event, but it's absolutely atrocious weather, so I've promised them some sparklers in the garden tomorrow and we're just going to have a quiet night in for once. It's the last "spare" weekend before Christmas i think, so it will be nice....

Long Day

Today has been a long day.

Both Aggie & myself regularly contribute to an online support forum. On Wednesday we found out one of the people on there had died. He and Aggie had very similar conditions and were at similar stages of progression. He was only 44:(

The funeral was today, and was just down the road from us, so we said we would attend on behalf of the forum. I didn't realise how emotionally draining I would find it. I am totally exhausted:(

RIP Andrew. Life is so unfair:(

Restarting

OK - I know it's been a while, but I am going to try to get back into blogging:)

Why did it stop? I don't really know, lots of reasons I suppose. There has been a lot going in life recently, but mostly i think I was undergoing a period of psychological readjustment, and sometimes, it is easier not to write all that stuff down until you have worked through it!

So whats occurin' in casa Aginoth? Well, workwise, they FINALLY finished their review. It only took 6 months from announcing there would be redundancies to deciding who would be made redundant! Not a happy 6 months I have to say. I was absolutely convinced that my job would go, and was fully expecting to be out of work by now. In fact, in June I was actively looking for work and attended a couple of interviews. Luckily I came second in both, considering that in July I discovered I was pregnant again - which would make starting a new job rather difficult to say the least! So new babe due at the end of March - I told work the day after they announced the redundancies, which much to my surprise did not include me! However, I was right, last week my job dissappeared and i was given a new placement in a new department. I now officially job-share with someone I have never met, doing a job that I have no interest in. The job I have taken belonged to another secretary who also was not made redundant. She has been doing it for years, but during the re-arrange, she was moved into the empty role in the family department - which I would have loved to take, and she hates! Where is the sense in that?

Anyway, I still have my job, so i am not going to complain....

Mstr A has settled into school really well this year - he likes his teacher, and has kept the same LSA which was really fantastic. He is also now of an age where school is becomming far more about working rather than playing, and he prefers that. There are still problems, and he still needs full time assistance, but he is doing OK. The school has also decided to get him statemented, so that the assistance and funding is guaranteed for the transfer to secondary school the year after next.

LMB has also found school much better this year. this is totally to do with the change in teachers IMO. I think she was just bored last year - all that rubbish about having low self esteem because she did not push forward with what they were doing in class! Total piffle! This years teacher told me that she is one of the most vociferous and interesting contributers. LMB told me "I am the most popular girl in the whole school" a couple of weeks ago. She goes running in each moring, and when I ask how her day was, usually responds with "fabulous"! She has also, finally started to properly sight read. YAY! Actually, she is quite good at reading now, and has started reading books to LMD:)

LMD is as precocious and manipulative as ever, and has totally captivated her teachers! No worries there:)

Aggie has had a really bad time of things this year. After all the hospital stuff, the docs decided he has to stay off all anti-tnf drugs for a full year. I assume they want to be sure he is free of any infections before re-starting (if they do re-start), so he is just on topical lotions and potions for his skin, and nothing for the arthritis:( As the Arthritis was getting worse so rapidly, we didn't realise how much the drugs were helping - since coming offf he has been really bad in all his joints. We had to sell our nice big 4x4 as he could not get in/out any more, but we got an OK car on mobility. I also bought him a mobility scooter last week, so he could "walk" the kids to school again. They are really expensive if you need one that works outside every day!

there's lots of other stuff, but that is probably enough of an update for now. I am going to try to get back into daily blogging and use this as my diary again:) It is nice to look back on.....