The musings of a juggling mother

Ouch!

2009-11-17T21:21:00.002Z

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!

2009-11-16T21:59:00.002Z

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!

2009-11-12T15:44:00.003Z

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

2009-11-11T20:01:00.002Z

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

2009-11-10T21:05:00.002Z

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

2009-11-09T20:20:00.003Z

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

2009-11-07T19:55:00.002Z

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

2009-11-06T19:21:00.002Z

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

2009-11-05T12:19:00.002Z

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.....

Communication, communiction, communication

2009-07-23T09:45:00.003+01:00

is what it needs....... And apparently something that is completely lacking in the modern world:(

I checked my bank balance online this morning, as I regularly do. I had an unexpected credit in there! It was only showing up as "direct payment" on the summary, and no details will be available on my main statement for a while - so I decided to call the bank to ask where it ahd come from!

After a thorough search of the website, I finally found the number to call, and got through to the call centre, which my bank guarantees is in the UK somewhere, so spoke to a woman that I could understand perfectly for once! I explained what I wanted, and gave her my bank account details, at which point she told me she wouldn't speak to me as i had a business bank account with the same bank and had to go through them. I tried to explain it was a personal query and she refused to let me speak, talking over me until I asked her not to, at which point she put the phone down on me!!!!!!

Well! I was not impressed with that! I had just asked her not to overspeak me! So I phoned right back and asked to speak to a manager to put a formal compliant in. The manager said that as lazy call centre girl had not yet gone through ID checks with me, she couldn't take the complaint! I asked if the complaint would be logged and she said no, there was no way to do that if the ID checks had not been completed on the computer, and they would always assume their employees innocence if there was not taped evidence. When I pointed out that gave leeway for any staff member to spend as long as they liked swearing or saying whatever they wanted, provided they didn't put the ID details into the compute, the manager just gave a verbal shrug, and said, their staff wouldn't do that! yeah right..... I suggested that perhaps their procedures should be updatyed and could she log a formal complaint about that, and she said no, that was nothinhg to do with her!

At whcih point I said that I would be closing my account. So I am now off to town to do so.......

I have now found out where the credit came from - it was from Family Fund. They didn't bother to send me a letter, or email, or phone call to let me know they would be crediting my bank account! In fact, considering I applied in January, and have since called them three times, written three times and emailed five times - and only recieved one letter back form them ever, perhaps I shpouldn't be surprised! As the credit was for an unexpected amount, now I don't know if I am allowed to re-apply next year or not, which is a bit annoying..... but I doubt that I have much hope of getting an answer out of them!

On another note, Mstr A's sports trip was not a great success:( They went to the pool first = Mstr A has never been swimming unaccompanied before, not because his swimming is not good enough, buit a child with no social skills in a crowded public pool is not a good idea! Apparently he got "over-excited" (which I expect means he splashed/shouted/jumped on other kids etc) and was whistled at by the lifeguards a couple of times - which obviously he ignored. A whistle in a swimming pool makes perfect sence to lifeguards (I know - I used to teach them for years), but NOT to an Aspie child. he probably either didn't hear them , or didn't realise it applied to him. Anyway, the lifeguards got annoyed that he ignored them, and eventually threw him out of the pool & he was sent back to school in disgrace:( Fortunately his LSA called the sports centre and explained, and he went back for the afternoon session & did trampolining & badminton, but all in all, not the most sucesful day.

Back to life, back to reality....

2009-07-21T19:40:00.003+01:00

Well, we all went back to our normal lives today - or almost anyway. Work changed their policy saying that unless I was symptomatic I needn't stay away any longer, so i went in today. Which was nice TBH LOL

We sent Mstr A & LMB into school as well - LMB hasn't really been that ill and was happily running around in the rain yesterday, but once she got to school she complianed that she felt sick, so of course, they sent her right home again. Oh well. I guess we'll never convince them to let her back in this week - and school finishes on Friday anyway. her teacher is a bit of a drama queen over any kind of illness anyway. I'm quite looking forward to her getting a new teacher, who will, hopefully, be a bit stricter with the whole class! I was going to send LMD in too, but Aggie decided that it wasn't worth the fight for two days (she breaks up on Thursday) so she gets to stay at home too.......

So poor old Mstr A is the only one in - and his LSA is off sick (although he got another one - I don't know who he stole her from LOL). However, he was awarded the most improved of his class certificate today - and won a trip to the local leisure centre for the whole day tomorrow, so he is delighted. Swimming & trampolining & tennis (hmmmm, he might manage two player games) and field games (not at all sure about that one - but he likes to run around the feild at least!). the award was for improved behaviour and completing work, which I suppose has greatly improved over the past year (this time last year he was suspended.....), but still, in my mind he still has a long way to go. I wonder what criteria the school uses to chose the recipients of the awards - there is only one per class.

I still haven't been made redundant from work - I'm starting to think they're not going to tell us until AFTER the school holidays now grrrr. If they hang on that long I won't want it any more! I'm not sure what Aggie is going to do with the kids for 6 weeks - I'm a bit concerned, judging from the past few days, that he will just leave them to watch TV/play on game boys all day:( I've signed up with Barnados to see if we can get Mstr A on any of their trips & things - there are not many places that can take him now he's getting older:( On the plus side, I've said to CAB that I won't be back until September, so I will have my days off actually with the kids this summer. I've already planned next week - we're off to Paulton Park (fantastic place, especially for youngish kids) and to visit my best man, who after over a decade of trying and some really awful experiences has a new healthy baby boy to coo over:) I haven't seen her for years, so it will be great to catch up.

grounded

2009-07-18T19:58:00.002+01:00

well, we were supposed to be at Berkeley Castle Skirmish this weekend. One of the best multi-group re-enactments in the south of the country:( I'm really annoyed we're missing it tbh. Especially as LMB is barely ill and no-one else ahs shown any symptoms (yet).

Of course, it is quite possible she doesn't have swine flu, and is just a bit under the weather with some summer bug! If the media hadn't been making such a fuss about the wholke thing I would have given her some junior paracetemol & sent her to school yesterday - but just in case it is, we are stuck at home..... The other two are not officially banned from school, but parents of siblings are being lynched at the school gates if they take the siblings in, and tbh, the school probably won't mind not having Mstr A there for the last week.....

Still, it has given a chance to get on with some stuff at home. I now have a nice big bath in my garden to soak my willow in, we have rediscovered the lawn underneath all the brambles, and the den has a new chest of drawers to help keep the kids toys tidy (yeah right!). I am going to try and get a load of stuff down to the tip tomorrow - surely that can't count as breaking quarantine?

Little friend from down the road - who obviously comes from a decidedly dodgy family, but is allowed out to play without several weeks worth of organising - came round today to play with the girls. I sent him back to tell his mum we had SF and he reappeared a few seconds later saying mum said it was ok to play anyway:) so the kids had a good few hours out in the garden too, which was great:)

If we are all still symptom free on Monday I will probably call work & see if I can go back. it seems silly to stay off atm.....

UNCLEAN UNCLEAN!!!

2009-07-17T10:11:00.003+01:00

LMB has swine flu.

Ho hum.

They're giving her tamiflu, which seems a bit unecessary to me. Aggie gets it too as a precaution. the rest of us just get to sit around at home under quarantine. the kids aren't allowed to go to school, I'm not allowed to go to work (they better pay me, it's not my idea to stay at home!).........

bored already......

so long, so much, so little

2009-07-16T15:51:00.003+01:00

yes, it has been a long time since i posted anything, there has been so much going on and so little time or inclination to explain it.......

Aggie's op was sucessful, but then they found another abscess and he needed another op:( The doctors decided that the infections were due to the anti-TNF drugs he has been taking so obviously took him off them. he was in hospital for almost a month in the end. Once he recovered from the ops they started topical treatment for his psoriasis which did bring it down a bit, but as he is not on any drugs to keep it that way, it all came right back as soon as he was discharged:(

Unfortunately, we can now see how much the drugs were helping mask the arthritis as he has been in a lot of pain and having lots of difficulty doing even the simplest tasks. He saw his new Rheumatology consultant yesterday and was told there was no way he was going back on the drug he was on before - they may look at a different one in another few months, when he has been totally drug free for 6 months...... He has been prescribed a standard arthritis drug for now, but even if it does work, it won't be for several weeks, and won't affect his psoriasis at all:(

Mstr A has been difficult recently too. It is the end of term, so the curriculum is all messed up and he doesn't really like all the things that other kids think is fun! With Aggie in pain and Mstr A developing tourettes-type yelling, the boys have been at loggerheads even more than usual...

Work-wise, things are so-so. They are still "going through" the redundancy process. Apparently they are now going to tell us who will be redundant at the end of this month. I am still assuming I am top of the redundancy list;) If not, I am not sure how we are going to get through the summer holidays. It is harder to find places/things for Mstr A to do now he is older. they expect a higher level of independance which he just doesn't have. Unless I can go with him to whatever I make him do, he can't do anything (although his idea of heaven would be to spend the whole six weeks playing on the computer!).

On the plus side, we have made it back to re-enactment (at least the local events) and I have taken up a new craft: basket weaving, which is something I can actually do, and has an end product! LMB has FINALLY learned to read properly, and can be settled down with a book of her own at night time, and LMD is desperate to start school in September and can be disciplined with the threat that she won't be allowed to start if xxx LOL

We finally heard back from CAMHS, who are sending us off on a parenting course in September:) I am not sure how much use it will be for Mstr A, as these courses tend to talk about how to empathise with your child and how to encourage them to eempathise with you. Uh huh, but he is autistic. empathy is pretty much beyond him, and we will never truely understand how he sees the world! Still, professional advice is never to be sneezed at, and I am sure some of it will be useful for him and for the girls. Hopefully it might reduce some of the male dominance fights that are happening with depressing regularity.

I have taken some time off the CAB - I said I will go back in September. The thought of the holidays is stressful enough without leaving Aggie & the kids alone for an extra day each week.

hospital update

2009-04-30T22:27:00.002+01:00

phew, it's been an exhausting time here!

Aggie started his psoriasis treatement in hospital, and it seemed to be working really well, when he started showing signs of a major infection. his tempreture was a bit up when he went in, but we thought it was just the inability of his skin to do it's job properly - after all, he was laready on antibiotics before starting any P treatment! But as the pain got worse, the doctors came & had a look & decided that he had a major muscle infection. They stuck him on loads of anti-biotics, upped his painkillers to serious doses of morphine & decided surgery was the only way to go - the abcess was too big to deal with in any other way.

He was supposed to go down to theatre last thing yesterday, but some idiot probably crashed their car or something & he was bumped down to first thing this morning. As he was all attached to drips, nil by mouth & full of morphine, they couldn't do any P treatment for the past couple of days! fortunately, the op seems to have gone well, and he came round pretty quickly for him, so now they are talking about restarting the coal tar treatment for his P in another couple of days.

but overall, the whole thing has been more stressful & will take longer than anticipated. Ho hum.

The kids are coping quite well - Mstr A is a bit volatile, but fortunately the school is being very good with him. LMB is more emotional than normal, but doesn't seem to be worried at all - she happily accepts that the doctors will make daddy better. LMD thinks the whole thing has been done just to give her a bit more status in her class & superiority over her friends!!!

I've not been getting on with very much really. I am terrible at living alone - very unmotivated *sigh*. Must try to do more.....

2009-04-27T20:14:00.002+01:00

hmmm, well, it's been a long time since I posted - mostly because I haven't had a moment to mhyself really, and also because I haven't felt much like writing down whats been going on here.....

Aggie's psoriasis flare just got worse & worse, until on Tuesday it covered up enough of his skin that it changed and became Psoriatic Exfoliative Erythroderma . So on Wednesday we spent the morning up at A&E, where he was immediately admitted into hospital. Unfortunately, because it needs a specialist derm bed, and we do not have a derm ward in Weston, that means he is in Bristol - which is about an hour's drive away. Visiting hours are 2-3 (kids are at school until 3.10) and 7-8 (kids go to bed at 7pm), so not very helpful!

Of course, with Aggie in hospital, I am stuck for childcare.... I leave for work at 8am & don't get back until gone 6pm, and school is 9am-3.10. even with breakfast club & after school club I was pushing it for the older two, and LMD's nursery does not have spare places for her to attend all day anyway. Plus it closes early on Friday's! and would cost a fortune.

I did get last week sorted by paying professionals & calling in favours, and the weekend by cancelling some things and getting Nanny A to stay overnight to do the 6am start I had on Sunday morning!!! But now I have taken some unpaid leave from work - it would just be too stressful to try to organise it otherwise.

And just to make things a little bit more dificult, I have sprained my ankle:(

still, some good news - the Family Fund people have finally got back to us, and will help us get the garden a bit more Mstr A friendly:) so I'm getting quotes in this week. And Aggie is doing really well in hospital and is looking much better already:)

change of plans

2009-04-09T15:11:00.002+01:00

It was too wet for Glastonbury today, so we went off to @Bristol instead. I think perhaps Mstr A has had too much "input" this week, as he was atrociously behaved:( actually they were all pretty horrible, so we came home early. But we did did get an annual pass, so we can go back again another time....

Aggie's psoriasis & Arthritis are really bad at them moment. He's had a massive flare over the past couple of weeks, and is really suffering:( looking at mobility scooters again.... we waiting on an appointment with the new consultant at the hospital, and expect he will get put on yet another brfand of expensive drug. Hopefully without an inpatient stay first, but I am not so sure.

It's Pesach today, and as my aunt was thoughtful enough to send a load of PAssover books to the kids this year, I have promised to do a seder supper tonight. I am sure it won't be nearly as exiting as they think it is going to be *grin*. But then we can go straight onto Easter on Friday, and get it all out of the way ready for re-enactment on Saturday. Might not be camping over tho - Aggie really needs a bath at least 2x a day at the momet, so tents and wet fields may not be the best idea. We will see.......

This week

2009-04-08T19:52:00.003+01:00

is the school holidays.

We had a lovely weekend doing family things, traipsing round castles and pic-nic'ing in the park:) Monday & Tuesday our wonderful help did all day and looked after bthe girls, one day at the park and the other taking them swimming, leaving Aggie to do some bonding and boy things with Mstr A, which worked out well.

Today has been a getting things done day:) Everyone has had hair cuts, been to the dentist, I've caught up on some paperwork etc.

oh yes, and we took delivery of our new dishwasher. The old one just wasn't cleaning stuff any more, despite all sorts of maintenance and attempts at sorting it ourselves. It was only when I sat and thought about it and realised that it was 8 years old, and had been used at least once a day every day, that I decided it deserved retirement:) Hopefully the new one will do as well!

Tonight I will mostly be trying to sew all the clothes ready for the re-enactment at the weekend. The first one of the season and always a big one. Looking forward to a nice warm sunny DRY season this year......

Tomorrow we're off to Glastonbury for some more family fun - looking at bold stuff, and maybe catch another museum LOL.....

Did you ever think you'd see the day

2009-04-05T20:24:00.002+01:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7983963.stm

finally, the US is looking at it's place in the world from an educated (and not just academically) pair of eyes!

:(

2009-04-05T09:46:00.002+01:00

Why?

2009-03-14T09:02:00.002Z

Apparently, according to the BBC's take on this story, Atheists are calling for 'debaptism" to make it a matter of public record that they are no longer "members" of the church.

why???

I'm pretty sure my name is down on many membership lists of organisations I am no longer a member of, or even interested in, or indeed, able or eleigible to attend any longer! I do not feel the need to ensure that each and every one of them specifies that I have left.

I always worry about atheists who feel the need to prove how much they disbelieve. Like love and hate, this is just two sides of the same coin. It takes a lot of time, effort & emotion to disbelieve in such a strident way - time effort and emotion that we do not put into our disbelief of Zeus or the sock monster or American redneck obsessed aliens. Personally, I think about my childhood religious education pretty much as often as I think about the "gang" I was in when I was in primary school - which is to say never unloess someone brings it up in conversaation.

Rosy cheeked spring

2009-03-10T21:25:00.002Z

All the daffodils have come out along the roadsides - the ride to work is so much nicer now I'm not freezing and it's daylight there AND back:) Biking is not so much fun in the winter.

I like spring - all the joys of and all that. Life is feeling good at the moment. Our cleaner/helper is fantastic - she works really hard and gets loads clean, plus walks LMD to school at lunchtime so Aggie gets to walk them all in the morning - which is good for him and them, although he still tends to collect them in the car. If the weather warms up just a little bit, she can have a bit of a go at the garden too:)

We've booked and paid for our anniversary trip to Rome this May - interest rates are still stupidly low, so we are reaping the benefits of having a high mortgage and no other credit:) My new dining table is due to arrive on Thursday - and we'll all be able to sit together as a family again for meals (we squeeze in at the moment, but it's not very suitable tbh) and the kids will have a decent place to do their craft activities.

And although my work is going to be shedding jobs soon, it probably won't be too many, and may not be me. But if it is, at least I get the summer holidays off:) I sent in my updated CV today though - it can't hurt;-)

LMD has gone and got herself slapped cheek syndrome - she doesn't seem at all bothered, but is pretty much covered in a really red rash. Lucky it is still cold enough to cover up really - she just looks very rosy cheeked:0 Her school is being eminently sensible about it and she was still allowed to attend today! yay!

We've got another evening out tomorrow. We've actually organised it this time and we're off to see Watchmen. Oooh the excitement:) But going out is not staying in. Life is good....

Roll with it

2009-03-06T18:31:00.004Z

Just yesterday I was thinking that life is feeling pretty good again in most ways.

Today I went into work and within an hour had recieved a firm-wide email telling us that (despite their assurances to the contrary just a couple of months ago) we were feeling the bite of the economic downturn, and a "strategic review" of staffing was underway.

18 lawyers were made redundant today, and support staff will be reviewed and redundancies, if necessary, will happen probably in July.

I am not overly optimistic about keeping my job - they say they will look at skill sets & requirements etc, but it seems fairly obvious to me that PT central staff will be the first to go, regardless of how wonderful we are (or otherwise).

Still, I'm actually not that concerned. If I keep the job, that will be great, if I lose it, at least I'll have the summer holidays off:) And I can certainly keep myself busy!! And I've been made redundant before, something else will come up. It's not as though this is my dream career-making job.

Although I think perhaps this is an opportune time to send in an updated CV and remind them of all those wonderful skills I do have:)

Time is fleeting

2009-03-01T18:19:00.004Z

Wow, almost a week since I last posted - so much to do, so little time to do it:)

I had my 1st review at CAB last week - they keep regular tabs on us newbies, and I still have various bits of paperwork & training to complete along the next few months while I move from new to experienced advisor. It all went well. No problems from my PoV or theirs. I only seem to get through 4-5 clients a day, and others seem to manage more, but then again, I do get through 4-5, and write them up, so it's not terrible.

I also, finally, managed to write my first essay for my course this year. I have already decided to postpone it a bit & take the exams in October rather than June, but still, I need to get on with it. Now I do not need to spend all Thursday morning cleaning the house I am hoping to use that time to get on with studying.

We went up to the re-enactment market in Warwickshire yesterday to mooch around, but didn't really need too much stuff - Aggie picked up a couple of small badges to copy while doing his new trade of metal casting, and I bought a straw hat in the optimistic hope that I will need to shade my head from the sun at some point this summer....... But we have finally reached the point where we have most of what we need! Yay. I'm also not too far behind with the sewing this year - with two children & one adult fully kitted out, and only a couple more dresses to make to get everyone totally sorted (Aggie calls his a cote, but it's still a dress LOL). I even managed to sell on a few bit of old stuff. Hurrah. Mstr A is going to try being an apprentice this year, rather than a page, so will be around the living history traders rather than fighting with the soldiers - probably better all round we think!

Reality sucks

2009-02-24T20:17:00.003Z

Aggie had his regular physio appointment today. They decided that his left ankle and hip have got quite a lot worse, and L1-L5 vertebrae are showing more damage too. Instead of going back every six months, he will be having weekly appointments for a while. They have to teach him how to walk symmetrically again, as he is currently putting pressure on his back and the muscles are in spasm - which is why he has been so restless at night - so hopefully I'll be able to get a good nights sleep again soon;-) Fortunately there doesn't seem to be any further damage to his upper back/neck, but thats not a lot of consolation really:( I hate it when he sees the physio - it always makes me have to face reality again. I'm quite good at ignoring reality most of the time:)

Mstr A was in trouble at school again today - the first day back after half term, and he was sent to the head teacher already:( The problem is that once he gets an idea into his mind, it is impossible to persuade him to even consider that it might be wrong - or to accept that he can agree to differ with someone. He will stick to his guns however much trouble it gets him into. I'm not sure what I can do about nthat, or where to turn for advice! After such a good play day during half term, I was working hard at convincing myself that he was managing other people better - but I think it was just that friend L is VERY good with Mstr A, and laid back about being told everything, plus they were doing a rule bound activity where the rules were fixed, so Mstr A couldn't get them wrong!

Reality sucks. I'm going back into my fantasy world:(

Moving along

2009-02-21T09:17:00.002Z

It's been half term this week just gone. Not a particularly busy holiday, but a school holiday nonetheless!

I worked on Monday, and Aggie took Mstr A off to see the colour therapy optician person. She did loads if tests with various things, and ended up agreeing that Mstr A would benefit from blue tints on his glasses - apparently it made a big difference to his reading accuracy! Of course, this means that we have to get him a new pair of glasses (but fortunately they will mostly be covered by the NHS as "reading" glasses), then pay £70 to get them tinted. lets hope he looks after them well!

Then on Tuesday, I took the day off as Mstr A had his first physiotherapy appointment. It all went well, and didn't even hurt him much:) The physio agreed he is particularly stiff for a child, and said that he had a general weakness in his thighs which might be where the gait is cvoming from, but didn't think there was any real cause for concern. So I will try to get him to do more leg work - he loves cycling in the summer, and I promised to try to find a trampolining club for him too. he likes the trampoline, but finds it difficult to think up what to do on the one in the garden, although I am not sure how well he will cope with the discipline of a club. Perhaps he'll do a term or so, and then just practise some routines if I give them to him:)

We had booked a play date on Wednesday, so i took the day off from the CAB as Aggie was a bit concerned about having 5 kids to watch over all day. Fortunately we had invited a brother & sister from school who match up with Mstr A & LMB ages. They arrived at 9am, and the boys immediately went on the Wii while all three girls trotted outside to play in the garden. Apart from when I called them in for food, none of the children were seen again! The boys swapped from the Wii to the DS to the N64, and the girls swapped from the swings, to the trampoline to the playhouse. When mum came to collect at 4pm, neither of them wanted to go home as they hadn't played enough! So that was great, and very easy - next time Aggie can do it on his own:)

Thursday was a family day - we went over to Nanny A's and briefly met up with cousins girl K & boy K - again successfully managing to play together with no tears or blood.... And all the kids played with Nanny A's puppy - LMD even allowed it to climb up on her and lick her face which is amazing considering a few weeks ago she screamed and clambered vertically up my leg if she saw any animal within 50m of her!

I still don't really get the point of pets tho - I'm glad the kids are not scared of animals so much now, but why have them in your house? Smelly, expensive and dirty whotsits imo:) We even managed to get rid of our fish recently - freecycling them & their tank to a very grateful family. So now we are again animal free at home.

I went to work again yesterday - they were pissy enough about me taking Tuesday off! Aggie took the kids to the cinema to see Madagascar 2, and I'm sure bought them tons of sugary rubbish, yet when I came home in the evening & asked what they had done, they told me "nothing", and that they "never" do anything nice! KIDS!!!

Today Aggie is beingt he dutiful son again and sorting out IT issues for his dad, so I'm taking them bowling & to the playground. It's a terrible life being a child!

But best of all, our new cleaner started this week! My house looks all funny - you can see the carpets, and the floors aren't sticky:) (OK, it wasn't often that bad......), and smells of polish and bleach! She works really hard and has got loads done in her couple of hours! I still feel a bit guilty about having a cleaner, but it is keeping two people in jobs (me & her) so I can feel that I am doing my bit to help the recession:~) And it does mean I no longer have any excuse not to get on with all my stuff - I am going to really crack on with my studies now, which have been totally neglected recently, and also try to catch up on a load of first aid stuff that I am behind with.

The Book List

2009-02-17T19:51:00.003Z

Apparently the BBC reckons most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here.

Instructions:
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Add a ‘+’ to the ones you LOVE.
3) Star (*) those you plan on reading.
4) Tally your total at the bottom.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien +
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling +
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee +
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell +
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman +
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott *
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy *
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller *
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien +
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger *
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens *
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy*
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams +
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky*
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy *
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens*
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini *
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres *
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden *
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne +
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell +
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown *
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez*
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving*
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins*
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery *
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy *
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan *
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel *
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons*
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth*
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon*
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon *
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez*
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov*
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt*
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold *
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy*
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding*
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie*
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker +
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson +
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath *
77 Swallow and Amazons - Arthur Ransome +
78 Germinal - Emile Zola*
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray*
80 Possession - AS Byatt*
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell*
83 The Colour Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro*
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert *
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry*
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom*
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks*
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole*
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute*
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas *
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo +

Only 6?! I don't consider myself particularly well-read. I just don't have the time right now. But 6!!!!

My magic eyes

2009-02-12T20:00:00.006Z

remember last time I went to the opticians? He told me I was "special" as my eyes had completely healed from the laser surgery I had years ago:)

Well, I went back to the opticians today - a different one from last time, and he told me that I had "lovely" eyes. Of course, from an opticians point of view that meant that I had good strong veins at the back of my eye, crystal clear lenses and a fluid pressure of 14, which is, apparently, just right! But more interestingly my astigmatism has improved somewhat over the past year or so! So I am one of the few people whose eyes get better as they get older and spend more time on the computer! Weird huh?!

Also talking about eyes, Mstr A is off to try colour therapy on Monday. That's the thing when they give people tinted glasses and it magically cures various things. Of course, only some things, and only some people, but..... When my kids can swim two full lengths of the pool without stopping, I let them have goggles. Mstr A got there a while ago, and said that he can see much better through his blue goggles than without them or even with his glasses. So we looked into it, and there is some evidence it MIGHT help some people with some autistic spectrum disorders. there are not many qualified colour therapy optomitrists in the UK, but fortunately one of them is just a few miles away, and for £28 for the appointment, what can it hurt?

Although we might be going back to her in the not too distant future, as apparently the school are getting LMB checked out for dyslexia, or similar. I'm not convinced myself - whereas I knew Mstr A had issues long before anyone else would admit it (or do anything about it), I don't get that feeling with LMB. She does still write a number of letters and numbers back to front (but she is only 5!), and she is not the most literate of 5 year olds (but she is only 5!), but she can read, and she can spell words out, recognise letters, numbers, shapes, use a computer....... Still, I'm not going to stop them testing her - even if all it does is stop them telling me how she doesn't have much self confidence! What they mean is she doesn't push herself forwards all the time, she doesn't insist on being the one picked first/most, and doesn't vie for attention all the time. But that doesn't mean she lacks self confidence - she happily chats to everyone she meets, she tries new things without batting an eyelid, and goes to new places and makes new friends easily. She agrees with me that she is big, clever, beautiful and brilliant at everything she tries:) she happily shows her friends (and others) how to do things, and regularly performs her "shows" and concert for lucky members of the family! I'm at a bit of a loss as to what else I can do to encourage her self confidence! Or how to explain tot he school that she does have it!

I don't think we'll have the same problem with LMD - she can't bear to let anyone else speak/do anything/get attention if she is there:) She soooooo wants to be at school - she insists on wearing school uniform every now and then to go to nursery. It does look extraordinarily cute:) But I'm sure she's planning just to sneak next door into the reception class when no-one is looking! Although in fact, she's more concerned about trying new things than LMB is - she worries that she won't be able to do it properly! But I don't think the teachers will be telling me she lacks self confidence!

It's half term next week, so it's going to be a busy week. Hopefully the weather will stay dry - it's a shame the snow didn't turn up a couple of weeks later really.

Lost for words

2009-02-11T07:47:00.003Z

From the BBC:

Talk of arson in the town has provoked fury, our correspondent says, with many locals finding incomprehensible the prospect that some of the devastation may have been manmade.

Sorry is the easiest word to say

2009-02-10T22:02:00.003Z

It seems that the bankers have apologised, and that's apparently what the public wanted, so that's all right then. problem solved, everyone happy, and 4 "unemployed" men get to keep their million pound bonus and golden handshakes and sidle off into retirement with clean consciouses.

I am not a great believer in this modern concept that one person must be responsible for all bad things that happen, and that the best solution to any incident is to sack the person at the top, but neither do I believe that saying sorry solves anything.

I don't accept that from my children, and they are all still in primary school! They have to apologise if they hurt others, but they also have to do something to make it up. As a member of the public, I do not feel at all pacified by hearing 4 rich men apologise. Especially as they don't seem to have any idea what they are apologising for>:(

It's snow unusual

2009-02-03T19:00:00.003Z

to have snow in England that it deserves wall to wall coverage, the closure of schools, workplaces, the cancellation of EVERY SINGLE bus in the capital city, and shock and horror accross middle England!

Except it's NOT that unusual!!! Most parts of England get snow most years. Some get it every year, and some get several inches every year. OK 6 inches in 48 hours is a lot in the south - it only happens every 20 years or so, but it does happen!

It's all gone from here now. less than 48 hours and less than 6 inches is hardly the end of the world, or civilisation! I made it to work. I wish I hadn't bothered - apparently no-one expected me there:) (although I doubt they would have paid me if I wasn't there!). I didn't even get time to make a snowman:(

Perhaps I can build one with my grandchildren in 20 years time........

Happy Birthday LMD

2009-01-30T07:38:00.002Z

LMD is 4 today:)

She was very good and waited until 7 to get up. It was on the dot of 7 though, and I had gone out last night....

She's very pleased with her birthday so far - she ripped open all her presents in double quick time (with a little help from LMB), barely stopping to allow me to tell her who they were from, and certainly not long enough to actually listen!

Now she's wandering around the house taking photo's of anything & everything!

Off shopping to spend her birthday money once the big ones are at school.

Up and down

2009-01-23T18:47:00.004Z

I was feeling quite happy today. Everyone at work was moaning about how far away pay pay seemed to be this month (it always is in january), but I've just realised we've spent nearly a year in the black!!!!, I've got the money to pay off this years holiday to Butlins (not exciting, but comparitively cheap, and the kids love it), the interest rates have fallen so far that we actually have a disposable income each month. Bring on the recession;-)

I was working in the Construction Dept. today, which I thought was going to be devastatingly boring, but lucky me, I got the Health & Safety unit, which was quite fanscinating. No really, it was, if you like that kind of thing, which I do LOL!

But then I came home, and heard the news:(

2 babies dead, and 10 others needing surgery. 1 carer killed as she tried to save them, and two more in hospital.

I'm lost for words. but not tears.

Cynical, moi?

2009-01-17T21:34:00.002Z

Israel declares ceasefire in Gaza.

Amazing, just three days before the US president changes, and less than a month before their own general elections. Who's have thought it eh?

But more interestingly, the UN have finally (allbeit a tad late for several thousend Gazan's) decided that maybe Israel were acting a little bit illegally in some aspects of this invasion, and are "investigating"

Magic!

2009-01-15T20:36:00.003Z

It's been a busy week of 1sts for me.

Yesterday was my first day totally on my own at the CAB. It was a busy day, and I saw four clients and survived all of them:) I think I did OK, most went away happy anyway - in fact one even specifically asked if they could see me next time (as she would have to come back in a couple of weeks) - which was nice. I actually feel very relieved that I've done it properly now, and ready to take on whatever comes through the doors next week.

Today I did my first session teaching 1st aid at the kids school. I had half of Mstr A's class, including Mstr A. I was really pleased with how it went. My timings worked out perfectly, and I'm fairly certain they all enjoyed it, and learned something useful. Teacher & kids all thanked me at the end, which was also nice. I used my new magic whiteboard. it was fantastic. I'm very pleased with it. I saw the Dragons Den it was on, and remember being totally smitten with the idea & yelling at the idiot dragon who "couldn't see why anyone would want to use that rather than a proper whiteboard". Obviously he doesn't attend presentations in scout huts, school halls or people's front rooms! All of which are fairly standard for me!

I've got a peads course starting at the weekend. I've re-written my session plan to fit the new manual, which has been written for the new syllabus (which isn't in yet, but why teach something that is going out, when you can teach something that is coming in!). I've also completely revamped my powerpoint presentation, so I hope it goes down well! Had a bit of a technical panic when the light projector I intended to borrow did not exist any more! But have managed to source one to borrow this weekend, and have bought a second hand one for future use, as professional prresentation is becoming more and more important, and if I really want to keep doing this, I'm going to need more than a whiteboard and a few handouts. I really love teaching first aid. Today reminded me again how much. But I really don't like all the networking & marketing that goes along with being self employed:( Ho Hum. I s'pose I'll stick to doing bits and pieces on the side then..... Although, maybe I'll get something out of the school sessions. hmmmmmm.

What a story!

2009-01-11T10:36:00.002Z

It's the birthday of Insulin today - something that has, without doubt, saved millions of lives in it's 87 years, including Aggies:) It's an amazing story:

On January 11, 1922, Leonard Thompson, a 14-year-old diabetic who lay dying at the Toronto General Hospital, was given the first injection of insulin. However, the extract was so impure that Thompson suffered a severe allergic reaction, and further injections were canceled. Over the next 12 days, Collip worked day and night to improve the ox-pancreas extract, and a second dose injected on the 23rd. This was completely successful, not only in not having obvious side-effects, but in completely eliminating the glycosuria sign of diabetes.

Children dying from diabetic keto-acidosis were kept in large wards, often with 50 or more patients in a ward, mostly comatose. Grieving family members were often in attendance, awaiting the (until then, inevitable) death. In one of medicine's more dramatic moments Banting, Best and Collip went from bed to bed, injecting an entire ward with the new purified extract. Before they had reached the last dying child, the first few were awakening from their coma, to the joyous exclamations of their families.

Wow - imagine being one of those parents!

Will I never learn?

2009-01-10T19:41:00.002Z

hmmmm, When I finally made it to Christmas, and saw the end of the fostering course, the NAS EArlybird course and my CAB training,, I thought that I might finally find a bit of time to sort myself out, have some me time occasionally and also to get on with my college course.

But, lets be honest, I'm not really too good at me time:)

Obviously 3 days a week are taken up with work. I have to do at least one day a week at CAB, and am hoping to try to get some phone work in on occasional Thursdays too when I am a bit more practised (we're only open for phone advice on Thursdays). I need at least 1 full day a week for collecge course really, if I've got any hope of getting it all done in time for the exam. The first aid teaching is picking up again a little bit, as the regulations will be changing this October and people are trying to get courses in before they cost even more:) So my weekends are starting to get booked up. Plus Mstr A asked if I could teach him some first aid, and I thought it would be a nice idea to offer it to the school - so I am booked in to teach kids at school for a morning a week most weeks through to the summer. With re-enactment season just round the corner, and the pre-season work already starting, I'm quickly running out of time.......

my week

2009-01-08T18:52:00.004Z

Well, I seem to be getting very lax in posting again:(

Oh well, what's been going on?

I went back to work on Monday, which was particulalrly depressing as I was working for the "secretary eater" in the firm. To my knowledge he has gone through at least 5 secretaries since i started less than a year ago - all of whom have asked to be taken off him after various attempts at negotiation! He's been secretaryless for the past few months, so all of us centrals have had a go with him:) I personally have never had a real run in, but he is hard work. I can't really pinpoint why, and am not sure its his fault poor bloke (although some of it definitely), but his manner just makes you always feel that you haven't done a good enough job.......

Then, without pause I spent Wednesday doing my supervised interviews at the CAB. This meant that I had to get all my work signed off by my tutor (well nearly all - I had missed a couple of modules which I need to catch up during the next few weeks), then actually DO the real advising for whoever turned up that day, while being observed by my tutor to make sure I was safe to be let loose. I had a nice mix of clients actually - one with a housing issue, one with benefits and one with general assistance, and got a lovely report from my tutor, who said i had a "very reassuring manner". Wow! I didn't feel that self assured, but......

So now I am officially allowed to advise clients on my own, and am on the rota for one day each week! Gulp!

As promised to myself, I have finally got my college course out and started it properly. I wrote half an essay today, and will half the other half ready to be sent off this weekend. With nothing other than a book and an essay question to go on, I am not at all convinced it's any good, but that;s the problem with online learning:( I still don't see what I've paid for! i would have thought an email address for a tutor at least! Still, I have made myself a timetable, and am determined to stick to it for this module at least, since I've already paid. Whether i will carry on is another thing, and I am not at all sure atm.

My mother gave us some money for Xmas, and we are going to buy ourselves a nice new table with it. We want a good solid one, with room for all of us to sit at together again (Something we've not been able to do since LMD came out of the highchair) and strong enough for the kids to clamber up on safely and to hold whatever we might throw at it. That sort of things comes in at £500+ new, so we've been checking ebay, and today went off to a local auction to check out quality & prices. I don't think we'll have any problem getting what we want for a decent price. It's just a matter of waiting for the right one to turn up. I can understand how dangerous auctions can be though. Even I was tempted a couple of times (not enough to actually bid any money, obviously), and I am notoriously difficult to get money out of:) There were some surprises - the fullo set of encyclopeadia britannica (no longer availoable in paper form) did not sell, not even for £1, but the full 16 volumes of the Oxford History of Britain (stillaavailable, but pricey), which was VERY tempting, went for over £60! We were hoping to get that for £1, and the old scythe which has to be utterly useless to anyone, but still went for £20...... wierd.

And finally......

Beware of asking a 3 year old questions: Conversation between Aggie & LMD in a restuarant today;

LMD - "I'm drawing a picture of me. 1st you draw a circle, and then you put in the eyes....."
she draws some more random things
Aggie; "whats that you're drawing now?"
LMD, loudly, showing great enthusiasm, "That's my 'gina!"
as I crease up in laughter, "then you draw the legs and the ears and the cheeks"

Back to reality

2009-01-05T20:29:00.003Z

It's been a long holiday season for me. i finished work on 23 Dec and only went back today! I have to admit that i haven't missed it at all, although the constant running around all over the place may have something to do with that:)

We had a nice Christmas day, fairly quiet. We stayed at home for the morning, and the kids got to open all their presents in peace. Santa bought each one of them a calender, a toothbrush, a bath scrubby, a book, a few sweets and a toy. They were over the moon - especially with the bath scrubbies - which were Shaun the Sheep ones:)

Then we packed everyone in the car and went off to Nanny A's for Christmas Lunch, and more pressies:) We were home in time for Dr Who, but I have resolved not to travel anywhere beyond walking distance on Christmas day from now on. Its not fair for the kids to be stuck in the car for hours, and tbh, they all felt sick by the end of the day, and needed to be in their own home! So I'll be doing it again next year:)

My mum came down on boxing day, with yet more presents - so much for my sensible present buying! They all have waaaay too much stuff again now!

We hung on here for the Crazie party, then went up to London for New Year. I briefly saw my sister H, as she was on her way home to Brighton, but missed big brother who was living the high life in the US with his wife (OK, her family are all there, and it was a cold bit of the US, so not my idea of the ideal hols!), and managed to fit in a visit to my dad, as well as the required playtime with cousin G (and sister S), which is the only reason the kids think we go to London. We also saw Mother Goose at Hackney Empire. Last time I went to the Empire was before the renovation, and I have to say they've done a good job of it. And at least it was a proper panto there, unlike the rubbish that seems to be put on everywhere over here at the moment. No Principle Boy, no Panto animal, not even a Dame in some of them! WTF? That's just a camp play, not a panto!

We also accompanied sister S to a New Years Party, and i met up with people that I haven't seen for a decade or so. It was wierd, but nice to see them again. Everyone has grown up! (well, nearly everyone lol). But I sooooo don't miss London:) But I have decided that I am going to make a concerted effort in 2009 (and beyond) to catch up with old friends and find people that i lost track of years ago. I think I had more in common with some of them now than I did then:)

I am not sorry to see the back of 2008. It was a very mixed year for me. The very best thing I can say, was that it wasn't 2007:) But there were some really low points, and few great highs. Roll on the heights of 2009!

Crazie party

2008-12-28T15:17:00.002Z

this evening all the crazies will get together for the annual Xmas bash. We're hosting it this year, so don't even have to worry about the kids:)

We're a strange bunch really, but a good one, and we shall all celebrate the winter holidays with more presents, more food! a little bit of alcohol, and a DVD marathon:)

I got...

2008-12-25T18:33:00.003Z

New docs:

A pretty top (a bit like this):

A chocolate Orange (it's NOT Terry's, it's MINE):

And some money:

And I've still got the Crazie party in a few days :)

How about you?

Christmas is here

2008-12-24T14:15:00.004Z

The real meaning of Christmas - according to my kids anyway.

Aggie just said the stupidest thing ......

"just because they are there does not mean you need to eat them all"

Uh huh.

Happy Chanuka

2008-12-22T20:24:00.003Z

It's all celebrations at the mo innit?

I forgot Chunnuka TBH - will have to buy doughnuts tomorrow now...... But I always loved playing with dreidels when I was a kid - I wonder if I can find any to stick in the kids stockings:) Or would that be wrong do you think?

Happy Solstice

2008-12-21T16:09:00.001Z

It all gets better from now on:)

Done

2008-12-13T22:35:00.002Z

Mstr A's new room is done (well, just the wardrobe to move now) and he is delighted with it:)

The Christmas tree is up & decorated, and the kids are finally satisfied!

The presents are all brought, and nearly all wrapped, and it wasn't too difficult or too expensive this year.

The car has made it through it's MOT for another year - with new batteries & brakes, - all on the credit card, but not as expensive as i thought it sounded.

I have finished my training for the CAB, with just the real, on the job stuff to do now, starting after Xmas.

But despite all that, I feel kind of unfulfilled at the moment......

Ho hum

spam, spam, spam, spam, beans, spam, and spam - hold the beans

2008-12-10T14:51:00.002Z

I've been keeping a real good check on my spam folder - I'm petrified I might miss the real "you're a winner" email again, and they won't bother to phone me this time:)

Can anyone tell me, why I might possibly want to buy so many watches? replica or otherwise - what is it about watches that makes them such a good spamming mail?

Obviously, there are plenty for drugs I don't want too, but I guess I kind of expect those..... but why, and, lets be honest, how, is anyone going to make my penis bigger/longer/harder? Haven't these people heard of targeted marketing? My email address is my name. My name is definitely female - in any language it can be said in as far as I am aware.

Also what is the point of spamming a co.uk address with languages written in different alphabets? I mean, I don't get french or spanish spam, so why so much russian and korean(?). Even if it was fantastic, I wouldn't know!

Finally, while I'm ranting, what's with all this "nasty" headed spams - ie: you look stupid [name] in this video, or "NEWS: [celebrity of your choice] murdered by 6 year old maniac" there is no way I'm going to open anything like that! why would I want to see me looking stupid? Or check out unsolicited news stories on email (even if I were interested)? Surely the idea of spam is to get you to open the email & at least have a look at the virus/con/illegal site. This stuff is all going to be deleted by everyone isn't it? I'm sure I'm not that unusual!

OK, rant over. For now......

BTW does anyone know why it's called spam?

Still doing it myself

2008-12-07T17:11:00.002Z

Now that LMB's room is all finished (well, just the desk to cut to size and fit), and her stuff is pretty much all up there in lovely little storage boxes we bought for her (humph - that room cost us a fortune in the end!), we've started turning her old room into Mstr A's new one.

Actually, he was in that room before - just a few years ago, we moved him out when LMD was born, and so it had originally been decorated for him, in a tasteful blue & silver, with stick big borders to keep it aghe appropriate, we thought we'd never have to do it again. But then when the ceiling leaked last year, we4 got the insurance company to splash for all new docorations, and made it VERY pink for LMB, who was in there then. Mstr A's favourite colour is pink, so I was having a hard time explaining to him why I wanted to paint over it all:) But someone at school must have said something, cos he suddenly decided pink was a girls colour and everyone would laugh if he kept it. I was hoping to paint over the wall paper that was already there, but when we took the fairy border off too much ripped, so £100 spent at B&Q yesterday for new paper.

Between them, Aggie & Mstr A chose a lovely light blue, fairly plain paper. I spent yesterday stripping (oooer) which hurt my rib no end - grrrrr! And today, Aggie put it all up - between watching the first series of Gavin & Stacy:) Now the room looks fab - I always knew it ought to be blue:)

Mstr A will be in there before Xmas. Yay!

A little bit of politics

2008-12-04T12:59:00.002Z

well, it has been a while....

Barack Obama's meeting with Tory leader David Cameron in London earlier this year left the Democratic nominee "distinctly unimpressed", it has been claimed.

According to diplomatic sources Mr Obama, now the president-elect of the United States, emerged from the meeting in July with the words: "What a lightweight."

Mr Obama met Mr Cameron following brief talks with Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in Westminster two days after addressing 200,000 people in Berlin.

According to the Conservatives the "really positive" meeting had seen the two men discuss the "long-term underlying problems" in Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq and the Middle East.

But, according to the New Statesman, it was the conversation that followed in Mr Cameron's Commons office that caused Mr Obama to make the "lightweight remark".

A source told the magazine that Mr Cameron's "anti-European diatribe" had not impressed Mr Obama.

Two days earlier the Democrat had championed internationalism in his Berlin address.
"Partnership and co-operation among nations is not a choice; it is the one way, the only way, to protect our common security and advance our... humanity," he said.

Another reason to like Obama......

The beginning of the end

2008-12-03T19:00:00.002Z

The year is rapidly running towards its close - and I can't believe how fast its gone past - or how much has happened in 2008! This time last year we had only just had confirmation that Aggie would be leaving work, and had no idea what the future held. Mstr A still hadn't been officially diagnosed and was struggling with life in the juniors, and I had just been told that my firm was closing down & I would be out of work soon.

Since then, we have sorted out our financial situation and know where we are each month, Mstr A has been diagnised and we have attended the Early Bird course, given us a much better understanding of what Aspergers is, I've got a new job, started at the CAB and completed the fostering course! Oh yes, and passed my exams, re-qualified as a tutor and bought a motorbike:)

It's been a busy year all in all! This week I have been attending the final course for the CAB training. I've got two more days next week, then a final day at the local bureaux, then in the new year I will start working with "real" clients. First under supervision, but quickly (probably just one day!) on my own. Gulp. It's been a long process, and I'm looking forward to getting into it properly now - terrified, but looking forward to it! The fostering course is also completed - I'm still waiting for a reply to my compliant to the council regarding their decision to pay less than minimum wage to our babysitter, and their "official" suggestion that we should lie to the inland revenue to cover it up for them! - but other than that, we are in the next stage now, which involves home visits, assessments etc, which will take place next year too. No wonder there is a shortage of foster carers - I reckon it will be two full years from when we first applied to when we actually become foster-carers - assuming we make it through the rest of the hoops OK!

But it looks like 2009 will generally be a more settled year than 2008 (I hope) We've pretty much completed the Xmas shopping, party season is just around the corner - and I'll get to wear my pretty new dress that Aggie bought for my birthday. I'm fairly certain my job is safe for as long as I want it to be. So tbh, I'm rather looking forward to this year ending now, and starting anew.

Olympian dreams

2008-11-28T07:18:00.003Z

Here's one in the eye for all those pessimists & moaners about the 2012 Olympics.

The first venue is now complete - finished early & under budget! Obviously, I don't expect the same from all the venues (in fact, I am prety confident most will come in on time but over budget), but I have to admit I am rather baffled by the large number of people who seem to feel the olympics in Britain is a bad thing. How can it possibly be a bad thing? We get much needed new facilities (please explain how come there is no 50m swimming pool in the capital city!!!), and regeneration of a rather horrible part of the city, not to mention the massive rise in tourism that accompanies any olympic venue.

I'm good, me

2008-11-25T18:49:00.002Z

I had my appraisal at work last week. I was a little anxious - I knew I'd seen a number of good evaluation forms from lawyers I'd worked for, but you can never tell if others had been sent in, or what my line managers might say. Also, I have changed my days a couple of times, been slightly militant in staff meetings and taken a lot of days off sick (about 5 in the past 9 months, which is an awfull ot for me). But it went really well, and they seemed more than happy with my work and my place in the firm. I didn't ask for a pay-rise, thought that might be pushing my luck considering everything, but I confidently expect one next time round.

Then at the weekend we went off to the Company of Chivalry's annual banquet, and Aggie & I were both out up a rank to retainer. I got a lovely set of keys to the household, and Aggie got an admonition to obey my orders! How cool is that? And I get to jangle when I walk in my medieval kit now, which is terribly empowering!!!

My rib is finally settling down again now. After the exercise on my birthday it was really painful, and I tried the authentic pain relief of drinking too much alcohol at the banquet, which was incredibly unsuccessfull - it didn't stop the pain at the time, but did make me not care about doing things that made it hurt MUCH more the next day - but after sleeping for 12 hours last night (except for getting up for coughing children!) it seems to be on the mend now.

I went to Court on Monday to observe the housing case worker. It was very interesting, but you do have to wonder at some of the people. Some of them just didn't pay their rent/mortgage, didn't contact the person who was owed the money, didn't stick to previous court orders, and when asked why not, said it was just because they didn't get round to it! then they wondered why they were being evicted! Although most cases were fairly straight forward, and were easily sorted with agreement betwen the parties. I am almost finished my training at the CAB now, just a couple of days left, then a four day intensive course in Cardiff. But I am finally starting to feel that I will be able to do it, and looking forward to properly starting.

I was invited to join 'Think Parents' - a network of parental bloggers by Digital Outlook. No freebies have turned up yet (in the whole 24 hours I've been a memmber), but I'm always up for protot-type testing. I know the big bloggers get freebie laptops and all sorts, but tbh, a cuddly toy every now and then would be nice - so watch this space for honest advertising:) You never know, perhaps my readership will get something out of it too - the last promo I did gave away a prize to the winner.......

Party like it's 1370

2008-11-22T15:32:00.002Z

LMB was diagnosed with an ear infection, started a course of yummy banana flavour medicine last night and has perked up no end today:)

Which means a) she's on the mend so I can leave her and b) she's not infectious so Nanny A can come & babysit. So I am going off gto the banquet tonight:) Aggie has a bad cold so is staying sober & will drive us home, so I am looking forward to a full night of food, friends, festivities & drinking until I fall obver. It's been several years since that happened, and it must be about time for me to get involved in this binge drinking culture we keep being told about:)

Off to find some old clothes & get dressed up now.

Damn

2008-11-21T15:32:00.002Z

Sometimes things happen at the wrong time:(

When we were moving all of LMB's room around last weekend I fell accross the railing of her bed. I winded myself pretty badly, but at the time thought I was probably OK - if I'd done any major damage to internal organs I'd have known about it! It felt pretty bruised across my stomach for a couple of days. But a few days ago I slept on that side, and when I woke up the pain had shifted onto my ribs - then yesterday I squashed it again and now it really hurts. I can't lift my right arm up very high, and I'm fairly certain I actually broke a rib. No point going to hospital now - they'll just give me a lecture on how I should've gone at the time, and that the only thing to do is rest it for 6 weeks. Ho hum.

Poor LMB is very ill - she's got a tempreture of 40*c (103?f) and was sick a couple of times in the night. I can get her temp down to about 39 with drugs etc but still. She's really lethargic and just unwell, poor thing. It is Friday, so when she didn't show any improvement by lunch time, I thought I'd better phone the Dr for an appointment. If she does have an infection or anything we need to get abti-biotics before the weekend! The surgery didn't ahve any appointments left for today (which I believe is illegal) but saqid they would pass the info on to a doctor, who would phone us back & if he felt it necessary, would call us in to see her. As she is 5 years old, running & high tempreture & complaining of a headache and dislike of lights, I reckon that any Dr who doesn't ask to see her is asking to be sued! Personally i think it's viral, but I'd like it checked!

But it's now 3.45pm, and still no phone call>:(*

We are supposed to be going off to our annual re-enactment end of year banquet this weekend. It's a big event, especially as its the groups 20th birthday this year. Awards are given, new rank attained and plenty of alcohol & good food consumed. I was really looking forward to going & enjoying it properly this year.

I think perhaps Sod and his Law may be working overtime round here atm!

*just got a call offering us an appointment for 4.30pm

happy birthday to me

2008-11-20T22:09:00.002Z

It's my birthday - I dumped all the kids with professionals for the day & went shopping in the new cabot circus. I'm not keen on shopping generally - although Aggie enjoys it - but managed a full day today & even came home with a new dress. Now I just need a party to wear it to!

Also saw Quantum of Solace, which was jolly good:) And ate yummy food. and cake. then came home for more cake and alcohol.

Not a bad day all in all

Ramance is dead

2008-11-19T19:22:00.002Z

Today is the 16th anniversary of me & Aggie "getting together" - we had met a few times before, but it was 19 November when we officially started, um, being a couple......

I spent the day at work, obviously.

Every Wednesday for the past 10 weeks has been spent rushing off to the fostering course, but that is now finished, so how are we spending our evening tonight?

well, Aggie has gone down the pub with his mates, & I'm home alone watching shite on the telly:(

I'm not really much of a romantic, but for 15 years we've managed to do something together on 19 November - I suggested a night out at the cinema this year, but........

Hopefully tomorrow will be more fun - we're off to the new shopping quarter in Bristol for my birthday treat.

DIY Day

2008-11-16T19:14:00.003Z

We've spent the whole day getting LMB's new room finished - and hurrah, she is actually in sleeping there tonight! No toys or clothes there yet - I'll have to sort all that out during the week, but Aggie has built a double skinned wall, I have painted 5 coats on the three original walls & ceiling, & glossed the wooden beams, Aggie has papered the new wall, & big bordered the others, dismantled & rebuilt a bed and wardrobe in situ and re-wired the whole top floor of the house (Not necessarily in that order).

Now LMB has a little attic room at the top of the house - next job is to move Mstr A down into her old room (after tidying, decorating etc, and LMD up into his old room, so that the girls share the top floor, and Mstr A has the big room within shouting distance! And the little nursery next to our room will become the spare/foster kids room.

But first a well deserved rest - it's a long way to lug solid wooden furniture up & I'm knackered!

A sad day in the uK

2008-11-13T19:27:00.002Z

In the news today:

The family were "known to the social services, but not considered at risk" - yet two babies were murdered by their own mother.*

Despite 60 visits from various agencies Baby P suffered serious abuse for his whole, short life, and was murdered either by, or under the eyes of his mother and social services did not consider he was at risk.

Shannon Matthews mother was more interested in a ring tone, than whether her "kidnapped" daughter was safe and well after being found following nearly a month missing.

"Good enough parenting" is the byword of British social services. It doesn't have to be good, just good enough. A parent can beat, neglect, and abuse their child, and as long as they co-operate when the social worker tells them they shouldn't, the child, and other children will stay with that parent.

On our fostering course, we have been given plenty of statistics about how much worse children in care do compared to children not in care, both academically, and regarding mental health issues. I asked if anyone had looked at it from the other end - how many children with problems end up in the care system? No-one had stats on that!

They also agreed that as they are trying harder and harder to keep children with their families, they ones that do enter the care system are doing so much older, and with much more severe difficulties, and finding it harder to adjust or settle with foster families.

The belief that blood is always best, and a bad parent is better than no parent, means that children are being left in dangerous circumstances accross the country, No matter how many public enquiries we hold, how many reports are written, until we change that fundemental ethos, I expect to see this happen again, and again, and again.

Of course, foster parents are in massively short supply - possibly because we have been trying to get approved for nearly two years now, and are still waiting for social services to commence the assessment process! or possibly because the qualifications/qualities required to foster now make it impossible for 75% of the population to do it. But then again, there are also long, long waiting lists for adoption......

I don't care what the ECHR says - having a family is NOT a right! It is a priviledge, and a responsibility that should IMHO be regulated - and we should not be scared to remove children as a preventative emasure, rather than as a reactive one!

* this is still breaking news and I do not want to second guess what exactly "known to SS" means - but I wonder if perhaps she had, say, called SS previously saying that she was finding it hard to cope, and was told "there is nothing we can do" - because it seems from my experience at least, that you need to actually hurt a child before they give a damn!

Paranoia & pennies

2008-11-11T20:30:00.003Z

My mother once told me (well, more than once to be honest) that being a parent means going to bed feeling guilty every night.

Which, unfortunately, is true.

She failed to mention that I would suddenly acquire a wholly unprecedented paranoia about anything & everything to do with my kids AND guilt for feeling paranoid!!!

Ever since parents evening where they told me LMB was often unwell in the afternoon, it seems that she has been unwell! She's picked up a virus and been off for the last few days with a bit of a temperature and some sickness. I'm quite sure that she does not have any food intolerances (the great modern malady), but now I'm strting to worry what IS wrong with her. She is skinny as anything, but eats enough (not loads), tired in the afternoons but full of energy & constantly moving most days. I know, in my heart, that I would tell anyone else not to worry. But I worry!

Mstr A picks up his first pair of glasses on Tuesday:( Both me & Aggie were short sighted as children, so this is no great surprise, but I still feel bad about it. He doesn't really need something else to be teased about. We're also waiting for a physio appointment for him, but to help things along he started gymnastics this week. He was the only boy and twice the size of anyone else there, but really enjoyed uit. YAY! I went round with him - although I don't think he really needed me, I think perhaps the coach did:) As gymnastics is one of "my" sports, I was able to help with Mstr A, and others, and will just be a freebie coach for them for the term. Mstr A is even stiffer than Aggie - and he's crippled with arthritis, so we really need to work on that! Gymnastics os a good way to do that. Obviously, we had to start LMB off there as well, as she has been nagging for ages. Ho hum, more money....... and LMD wants to go now too.

Mstr A is also off on a school trip in a couple of weeks - £8 to go and stand in a cave and look at some rocks!!! WTF?

But, on the plus side, I got a £25 "encouragement award" from work for suggesting that having got rid of all their filing cabinets and put in very high shelving units, they may want to invest in some step stools. What a clever idea they said - well Duh! I'm pretty sure we pay someone a salary in the upper tax band to be the Health & Safety bloke on site, but apparently it didn'toccur to him that 4'6 lawyers would stand on their chairs to reach the 8' high shelves! Don't get me wrong, £25 is nice, but really.......

Too busy

2008-11-02T21:48:00.002Z

It's just getting busier and busier at Casa Aginoth. i do have time to sit and think, but not the mental capacity left to think about much by the time that time comes!

Working 3 days a week was definitely the right move, and allowed me to stay in work, which is great, but working 30 miles away, although not far in the grand scheme of things, is still a long way away to go each day - and depressing to consider each evening that i will have to traipse through the rain/sleet/cold in the morning. And I miss daylight now too:(

We're still attending the NAS early bird course on fridays. It's very useful, and giving us tons of ideas - some we already do, but lots we haven't tried before, so we, and the school, are trying to implement some with Mstr A. Which means his routine is being changed fairly regularly, and his behaviour naturally deteriorates on and off. he's got his first CAMHS assesment in a couple of weeks too, which might make things better. or worse. Who knows?

Then on Thursdays I'm still working my way through the CAB advisor training. It's tough going, but I'm positive its the right thing for me to do. There may even be a job in it after a few years:) There's getting to be quite a lot of homework though, and I can only get on the computer during office hours, which is a bit of a problem. ho hum.

I have signed up for the online version of the next part of my Law course. But TBH, I haven't got terribly far with that yet. I usually get panicy after Xmas and work hard then. Hopefully that will kick in again this year:)

We're also still thinking about fostering, so that's another course to fit in each week - this time for both of us.

It's half term at the moment, so the kids are off school. There was a parents evening just before they broke up. Apparently LMB has "low self esteem" because she will do her work perfectly well one-on-one, but just sits back quietly in class and doesn't push herself forard to answer questions. That doesn't mean that she has low self esteem in my book, more that she's lazy:) But we agreed to try and boost her up a bit. *sigh* Mstr A has had a really good term, and has apparently "hardly hidden under the table at all". hmmmmm, not sure that was as reassuring to me as the teacher meant it to be! we've also got to take them both to the doctors, Mstr a to try and get a physio appointment to see if we can try to stop the gait that is developing, and LMB because "she often has a funny tummy in the afternoon" so we need to get her checked for food intolerances! It couldn't possibly be tiredness, or boredom, or the fruit she eats each evening, or even attention seeking. oh no, teacher says take her to the doctor, so off we trot like obedient parents......

We're trying to get the bedrooms sorted out - Aggie has built the wall and sorted the electrics in the attic, and I've been painting it all. We've decided that we're going to really make a push with the DIY round the house and sort the place out a bit. I've also been clearing yet more stuff out & freecycling/chucking it.

Overall, it's just lots of stuff to juggle. something's gonna have to give soon......

Boor-ring!

2008-09-21T08:47:00.002+01:00

Everything is boring for LMD at the memoent. How life can be boring at 3 1/2 is quite beyond me, but her toys are old and boring, school is boring, the toys at school are old and boring, dancing is boring, going to the park is boring, playing in the garden is boring.......

I'm sure she doesn't even know what the word means, but where did she get it from? One thing I can say about my life - I don't have time to complain how bored I am!

climbing out of my hole?

2008-09-19T21:52:00.002+01:00

Life's been pretty awful recently. I don't really want to go into it here, but I've had better days/weeks/months :'(

But I'm feeling that perhaps I'm not a complete failure after this morning.....

we attended the first session of the National Autistic Society Early birds course today. this is a course for parents of 5-7yr old children with ASD's. Mstr A's just turned 8, so is a tad old (although most there were 7/8) but because it took a while to get the diagnosis for various reasons, this was the first course available.

I was a bit worried, cos Aspergers isn't "real" Autism - Mstr A talks, walks, interacts with the world, attends mainstream school, has not got a police record yet..... It's hard to tell how different he is, because he's our eldest - there is little to compare him to. I have been told by family members that "he's not that bad - its very mild Aspergers if it's there at all", which makes me feel a) that I'm being an unecessarily pushy parent by making a fuss about it, and b) being a crap parent because we have many moments when we don't manage as well as I want to. I thought the course would be full of horror stories of blank faced non-verbals, and have no relevance to us.

I've really pissed work off by taking 10 Fridays off to attend, so the whole thing was a bit unnerving. Also, it was held in the chldren's centre, and no money offered for childcare, or specifications regarding bringing younger children with on either the letter, or mentioned when Aggie took LMD to the initial meeting, so we had her with us again today. As we walked in, the leader said that she shouldn't be there! Then proceeded to repeat that a few times during the introduction>:(

So I'm feling slightly smug. LMD behaved perfectly - she drew pictures, read books, slipped quietly around the adults whenever she needed to get something, and generally behaved so perfectly we hardly knew she was there - showing us to be fantastic parents:)

And, as we went through the details of what is Autism/ASD, Mstr A proved to have rather a lot of ASD behaviours - putting him well within the ASD spectrum and nowhere near the very mild edge of it. It appears that we have just been fantastically good at managing him to keep him as "normal" as possible.

Both we and the school assistant there came away with some good ideas - i asked Mstr A about one of the communication things mentioned and have discovered something new already, which hopefully we can work on. And on top of that, the school held their special needs meeting today with all the professionals in the area, and we recieved a phone call this afternoon to book an appointment to start the whole statementing thing off properly, so the school may eventually get some funding to help them provide that assistant they have in his class most of the time anyway:) Obviously the professionals all also agreed that he does need the help, and I'm not just making it up too.

I have also come to the conclusion that i have to stop lieing to myself, forget the career that really isn't happening - mostly because that is not really what I want, it's what i think i ought to want!, and look for a menial job round the corner to home so that I can be available to Aggie & the kids when they need me, without getting stressed out & without putting up with snipy comments from idiot personnel officers in the city.

Now I just need to find said job:)

I've lost that blogging feeling

2008-09-08T19:11:00.001+01:00

Its not helping any more:(

Maybe we'll cybermeet again in the future................

running just as fast as I can

2008-09-02T19:38:00.004+01:00

Its been a busy time recently. the school holidays are (nearly) over. we made it through them without any really major incidents - despite the unbelievably awful weather. The new uniform is all bought, birthday parties are finished - LMB had hers last sunday - she suddenly realised she was a year younger than most of her classmates, but had a great party, with an amazing turn out for an August weekend - and a repectable haul of presents (only one Bratz, and many craft/practical things).

Mstr A discovered off road cycling - going off on an organised session a couple of weeks ago, and dragging Aggie and Sister S's new boyfriend out to the strawberry line over the weekend, which is great:) Perhaps a new (actual) hobby for him? But it will make him more ready to cycle to school each day which will be good for everyone.

I've signed up for the next year of my law course - having scraped the required pass last year as predicted. It was a scrape, but a pass is a pass - and lots of peple I know didn't manage that much, so I'm feeling smug enough. But it does mean that my local collegei s not running the course die to lack of demand, so I have to do an online version. I will have to dig out that motivation from somewhere i s'pose.

The CAB training s also intensifying a bit at them moment - I'm due to finish around January when I will be let loose on the pubkic! Gulp. But there is quite a lot to do before then - and a lot of training days to attend on top of the once per week theory sessions I was expecting. I'm really enoying it, and looking forward to doing the job, but I'm running out of time:(

So just to keep me occupied, I have decided to requalify as a first aid tutor again, and am off on that course for the next couple of days. It was a difficult decision, as I do not run many courses any more, but it's worth keeping the qualification for the few I do run, and to keep up to date myself!

Fortuntely the finances seem to be working out with me only working part time. I can't say we have any spare money, but we are making it through the week covering the mortgage, bills and food, which is pretty much all I can ask for atm. Although I'm still trying to find some way of buying Aggie a mobility scooter thing.... I do have to get on with looking at funding options for that! The kids still manage to make me feel guilty though - asking why I have to go to work and when is it a "mummy day" again:(

At least the re-enactment season is over now (well, one more to go, but it's not a child friendly one). We haven't been to so many this year, partly because we can't afford to go to every one, and partl ybecause the weather has been so bad. I've never knowsn a season like it! But TBH, I'm looking forward to some "free" weekends so that I can try to catch up on all the stuff that hasn't been done for ages - like decorating, cleaning, sorting out kids clothes, spending time together as a family, and, of course, seewing next years kit:)

no more superwoman

2008-08-22T20:28:00.003+01:00

We just got agreement for direct payments to help Aggie out round the house & with the kids for a few hours a week. WHOPEE! When it's all organised that will mean we can have someone in to vacuum the main rooms, take LMD to pre-school at lunch-time, peel potatoes and generally keep the house a little bit up together. I reckon we may even get an occasional evening babysitting otu of it. And all on those nice tax payers money!

I really did feel a weight lift off my shoulders when we got the letter:) It has been the subject of many long discussions recently. I'm not the most houseproud person in the world and will happily find more interesting things to do instead, but even I have a minimum standard, and we were not reaching it. I know Aggie finds it hard to physically do some of it, but it was really getting me down.

So some good did come from all that trauma at the end of last term when Mstr A was suspended:) There is always a silver lining......

But it does mean I can't claim to be superwoman any more, just having to care for Aggie, and Mstr a, look after the other kids, work for my employer, keep my hand in with my self employed work, study, volunteer at the CAB and re-enact, with only some housework required:)

As Time goes by

2008-08-13T19:42:00.021+01:00

Eight years seems to have flown by in the blink of an eye.

Then again, so much has happened since 13 August 2000 that i can't believe it's only been eight years!

how does that work?
13 August 2000

You can't see how tiny he was here - but look at those socks - they are size 0 and came up to his thighs:) I could cradle his head in the palm of my hand and his feet would just about tickle my elbow...

year by year he grew........

In no time at all he was average size for his age, enjoying life as a doted upon only child.

But even when a sister arrived, he stayed cheerful:)

and by the time a second sister arrived, he relished the role of "big brother"

Last year I suddenly realised he had become one of the biggest in his class at school, despite being the youngest!

And now, our family has been trough so many changes in eight years, that I can't even start to list them all! And my perfect little baby has turned into my unique Aspie boy.......

Happy Birthday Mstr A - 8 years old today.

I wonder what the next eight years will bring?

The richest country in the world

2008-07-17T15:55:00.003+01:00

has just released details that it is ranked 42nd in the "development index"

you can read some factoids here, or the full report here but below are some interesting snippets about the civlisation that the whole world is apparently stiving to emulate!

health
The U.S. ranks #24 among the 30 most affluent countries in life expectancy - yet spends more on health care than any other nation.

The U.S. infant mortality rate is on par with that of Croatia, Cuba, Estonia, and Poland;

education
By age three, the children of affluent mothers have vocabularies twice as large as those of the children of low-income mothers.

Twelve percent of Americans lack the literacy skills to fill in a job application or payroll form, read a map or bus schedule, or understand labels on food and drugs.

More than one in five Americans - 22 percent of the population - have “below basic” quantitative skills, making it impossible to balance a checkbook, calculate a tip, or figure out from an advertisement the amount of interest on a loan

wealth
The top 1 percent of U.S. households possesses a full third of America’s wealth.

Households in the top 10 percent of the income distribution hold more than 71 percent of the country’s wealth, while those in the lowest 60 percent possess just 4 percent.

In 1980, the average executive earned forty-two times as much as the average factory worker; today, executives earn some four hundred times what factory workers in their industries earn.

The real value of the minimum wage has decreased by 40 percent in the past forty years.

equality
In every racial/ethnic group, men earn more than their female counterparts.

In 2004, median net worth was $140,800 for whites, and $24,900 for nonwhites.

In 98 countries, new mothers have 14 or more weeks of paid maternity leave. The U.S. has no federally mandated paid maternity leave.

crime

Premature death by homicide is more than five times higher in the U.S. than the OECD average; 68 percent of U.S. homicides in 2006 were committed with a firearm.

In absolute numbers and as a percentage of the population, the U.S. has more prisoners than any other country, including China and Russia.

Silver lining

2008-07-10T16:02:00.003+01:00

Every cloud has one, and I am pretty good at finding it in even the worst thunderclouds.

Mstr A's suspension was a pretty ugly cloud, but it did make me decide to be a bit proactive and get some help. First off, the return to school interview was very good, with a bit more explanation about what actually happened from the school, and no difficulties agreeing the best ways forwards. Now we have that "violent behaviour" tick box ticked, we may even be able to get him properly statemented and apply for some funding for the school to get hi more one-to-one time.

I also spent friday afternoon looking into what help might be available to us. If was a fiarly unfruitful search in that there was a lot of "you may be entitled to..." and "some people can get...", but it did culminate in me contacting social services to see what they could offer.

Sadly, they haven't answered. I mean, it's only been a week since I emailed saying that I didn't now where to turn with a violent son & disabled husband, no money and two younger children to care for...... I've been told that the only way to get an answer is to personally turn up, with kids in tow, and annoy them until they do something about it! I may have to get round to that some time, but I don't feel like it right now tbh!

However, having decided that if we're going to get social services involved in any way, we might as well get them involved in every way, I also contacted the disabilities team about getting a carer's assessment for me. They seemed a bit confused as to whether I cared for an adult or a child, as different teams do the assessments, but today I spoke to a ver sensible woman who agreed I cared for both and therefore either needed a joint assessment or two separate assessments - depending on what the teams liked best. So I am waitng to hear back from them.

I also discovered that I don't have to wait for social services to refer me on to other things, and self referred myself to the local Children's Centre and applied for a family support worker. I don't know what they can offer, but some suport would be welcome:) I think I only qualify for that because of the younger kids, but it may well help Aggie out during the summer holidays.

Finally, although work was not overly impressed by the whole situation, they also did let me have the time, and let me take leave at short notice to attend the meeting at the school. Although I did mention that I was a carer before this, it has made it very official - which will make it easier when I ask for some carers leave later in the year to attend the National Autistic Society's course on managing ASD's. I'm hoping they might let me swap my days for the ten weeks, as carers leave is unpaid, and I need the money. But we'll see.

So now it's just a matter of waiting for everyone to get back to me and see what help they might be able to offer. And see where they suggest we go next....

Hitting home

2008-07-05T22:37:00.002+01:00

Mstr A was suspended from school yesterday. He's not allowed on the school premises until Tuesday morning, which means he is missing the end of term party for his after school club (which he absolutley adores and was really looking forward to), and the school fete today.

Yesterday was not a happy day:(

I don't think he's grasped the severity of suspension, despite the fact that I have tried in every way I can think of to explain it, and terrify him into believing that school is his best option by far....

I was at work. I KNOW that nothing would have been different if I'd been at home. But I was at work. He's 7 years old, suspended from school, and I wasn't even there to talk to the teachers.

I spent the afternoon adding up the sums every way possible. If I leave work we would have to sell the house. Renting a property would be more expensive than paying the mortgage, but welfare benefits only cover rent, so that would be the only way to have a roof over our heads. So I'm staying at work. I'm quite concerned about the summer holidays, but.....

It makes you think

2008-07-01T20:39:00.002+01:00

There was a biker down on the way to work today. It must have happened about 5 minutes before I got there as the ambulance & police were both on the scene already.

I was about 5 minutes late leaving for work today.

Most bike accidents are not the bikers fault.

He was OK, in that he was sitting up and responding to the parmedics, but his bike was write off, and I doubt he'll be working today, or for a few days yet. I've seen him ride - you get to know each other when doing the same journey each day - he rode sensibly, and didn't take risks. Rather like me really......

I'm all for workers rights but

2008-06-11T10:04:00.003+01:00

They want £40,000 BEFORE overtime to drive a bloody lorry?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7447548.stm

That's FOUR TIMES my wages, and I don't have the option of overtime to top it up (theirs is compulsory).

I'm off to get my tanker licence.

Day 1

2008-05-21T18:57:00.002+01:00

well, I think i passed. A good pass on the first exam, and a scrape through on the second. Ho Hum.

Just one more day to go - that is the hardest one though.

And I've got a blister on my finger from spending so man ours writing with a pen, on paper. Who does THAT any more?

I am

2008-05-11T16:09:00.002+01:00

Revising for my exams next Wednesday and Thursday
cleaning the house out
Doing a car boot sale
Re-enacting
Laundry
gardening
tidying
taking the kids to school, dancing, swimming
shopping
starting at the CAB on Thursday
attending 1st session of fostering course on Wenesday
Going to work
Playing with th kids
enjoying the sunshine

NOW EVERYONE STOP BLOODY MOANING that I haven't updated my blog. My life is just continuing. It's very busy, but nothing much is happening at the moment. I'll be back after the exams.....

I am so glad I don't live in London any more

2008-05-02T22:00:00.005+01:00

If the Evening Standard is right and Boris has won. I'm no great fan of Ken the man, but Ken the politician has improved Londoners lives twice now, both times against the will of the ruling politicians. Whereas Boris the man may be funny on TV, Boris the politician is as scary a prospect as possible in today's Britain. Anti-Europe, anti-immigration, anti-welfare state, pro-imperialism, pro-hunting, pro-lbertarianism, i dread to think what his legacy wil be to a city of 14 million people.

I offer, for your opinion, some of Boris' most well know quotes:

The proposed ban on incitement to “religious hatred” make no sense unless it involves a ban on the Koran itself.
Daily Telegraph

Both the minimum wage and the Social Charter would palpably destroy jobs.
Lend Me Your Ears

That is the best case for Bush; that, among other things, he liberated Iraq. It is good enough for me.
Daily Telegraph

I can't remember what my line on drugs is. What's my line on drugs?
"The Genelection Game", Sunday Mirror,

Voting Tory will cause your wife to have bigger breasts and increase your chances of owning a BMW M3.
Said in April 2005 during the general election

And finally, from a man who knows him well....
He may seem like a lovable buffoon but you know he wouldn't hesitate to line you all up against a wall and have you shot.
Jeremy Hardy on Radio 4.

to work or not to work?

2008-05-01T18:06:00.004+01:00

Well, Ive been thinking things through, and have failed miserably to come up with any real answers. But I have put some feelers out and some things in motion which may give me some answers eventually. Or not.

Basically, i am trying to decide what to do about work. Now I only do three days a week, it's OK - I don't much like the commuting, but the actual work is fine, and gives me a break from stuff at home. But, 3 days a week does not bring in much money - I would be better off giving up altogether! And, re-training into a difficult field like law is hard enough at my age anyway, but the chances of getting a part-time job when I am academically qualified are virtually non-existant. No-one is going to give me a training contract part-time when there a literally thousends of younger, dedicated, go-getting graduates applying for each position. And the thought of remaining a secretary for the next 30 years is not that alluring.

Plus, I have to be realistic about my home life. Aggie is doing well at the moment, but his prognosis is, at best, that he will get worse slowly, and at worst, that it will continue to deteriorate as rapidly as he did in the first year of having PA. He does his best (for a man), but barely keeps up with the needed housework & child care at the moment. And if he has a bad day/week/month, pretty much nothing is done. I am going to be needed at home at least for periods of time.

And I am starting to really think through what Mstr A's asbergers is going to mean as he gets older. I have been telling myself that he will eventually learn social skills as he gets older and understands the importance of at least pretending to understand. But, honestly, that is only going to happen many years from now. He will get a lot worse before he gets better. Most people are in their twenties before they really start to understand tolerance and true empathy. Teenagers are notoriously bad at it:-) And mstr A's behaviour is unlikely to change much. 2 year old behaviour in 2 year olds is considered normal, if annoying. 2 year old behaviour in 5 years olds is considered difficult. 2 year old behaviour in 8 year olds is considered inappropriate. 2 year old behaviour in 13 year olds is considered criminal. He is already too strong for Aggie to physically control, and the chances are is physical behaviour will get worse as he gets older and more frustrated. I worry that I am not available for him/the school.

BUT, I'm not a natural "carer". It's not a role I particularly enjoy. I prefer to work outside the home. But find it important to work hard & and act professionally at work. I can not just do the minimum possible & take time off non-stop. It's a dilemma.

We are still looking at fostering, which would give me more to do at home & a bit of money. But I'm not sure it will work out with Aggie & Mstr A.

I am also starting with the CAB in a couple of weeks, so may find that gives enough "out of the home" work.

But in that case, I have to decide what to do about college. There seems little point putting so much time, effort & money into qualifying in an occupation that I will never take up. But then again, I quite like the idea of having it as an option if things work out better.

I have decided, as usual, to just wait and see for now.

I'm still here

2008-04-08T20:50:00.002+01:00

I just don't feel like talking at the moment. too many thoughts in my head and no answers to any of them right now.

I'm still visiting and occasionally commenting on my blogroll's blogs. I do intend to get back to it asap, so watch this space....

Much better

2008-03-20T12:00:00.002Z

I am feeling much better now I'm part time. A two day week this week was great:-) I ws able to collect the kids form school yesterday and check in with Mstr A's teacher, which I haven't been able to do for ages. I now Aggie did, but I wnt to be involved too!

Plus I spent the day getting a load of shopping and stuff sorted out, and still had time to cook supper, have a chat to the kids then get ready and walk to college - which I could sit through without falling asleep:-)

today has been taken up with getting ready for the first re-enactment of the season over the weekend. Snow is forecast, so I've been busy making sure we have every bit of clothing & kit possible, as well as quickly running up new dresses for the girls who have grown too much again! I've still got to make them nice new warm hoods, but hopefully can get tha done tomorrow.

It's the Easter fayre at school today, so I'll have to let them spend money to win back the eggs that I donated to the school last week! Then my mother is coming to visit for a day (probably with more eggs for the kids). I'm not sure what we'll do tomorrow - depends on the weather and what my mother fancies I suppose.

I'm off food sopping now - oh the excitement! But it needs to be done:-)

well, waddya know?

2008-03-13T18:57:00.002Z

I was uneccearily pessimistic. They didn't sack me, and agreed to me dropping down to 3 days a week:-) As of next week I only work Mon, Tue & Fri's. They even offered to keep me full time to the end of the month, which would have gotten me full time pay for the easter break, but I would rather start immediately and feel I'm not taking the piss. Anyway, it means I have Maundy Thursday off and can go to the kids Easter fayre with them, and win a load of easter eggs again. mstr A wouldn't leave until we had won 5 last year (one per person in the family).

The three days a week will be permently as a floater - which means I don't get a desk, boss or department, but go whever I'm needed to cover holidays/sickness/workload on a day by day basis. It's not my preferred way of working, but means I can learn a little bit about lots of areas of law. And I don't have to stress about getting to college on time any more. We have agreed to another probation period, and we'll see how it goes.

60% pay might be problematical - it's less than I was earning when I worked locally, and I still have the travel costs to pay. But we'll see how it goes.

Now all they have to do is make sure there is enough work for me to do - i have been bored for some time on most days there so far. I know I've got to learn all the systems and stuff, but I'm not used to running out of things to do!I'd far rather be working hard than sitting around. If nothing else, it makes the day go faster.

scrounger?

2008-03-10T14:28:00.003Z

I have been off sick today. It's just a cold really - you know the type, the ones that make your head feel like it's stuffed with jelly, and ready to explode, your legs feel like they will collapse under you every time you put any weight on them, and your temperature alternate between hot sweats and cold shivers.... Too ill to mangae a commute in gale force winds and 8 hours of concentration, but not really ill enough to not feel guilty about it:-)

Anyway, it has forced me into making a decision. I don't think it would have been much of a poblem if I wasn't already so run down, and watching Aggie going about his daily chores has made me realise that I am never going to be satisfied with the situation as it is, and trying to do it all is just going to make me miserable. So when I go back to work (probably on Wednesday) I am going to have meeting with my personnel officer and ask if I can drop down to three days a week.

I expect I will lose the job, as I know the company does not like part time support staff (it's OK for lawyers apparently, which is how they got such a good reputation and all the quality mark awards etc). I suppose I could fight it under DDA because Aggie & Mstr A count as disabled, or even under standard employment law because LMB and LMD are under 5 and both of those give me the right to flexible working unless the company can give good business reasons why it would ruin them (which I think they would have difficulty in making a good case for) but it's not really worth it. It's not as though I adore my work, have decades of continous service to maintain or care that it might ruin my "career".

But if I lose this job, I may well have a long wait to find a suitable job locally. There are alot of people who want part time work, and not a lot of jobs available. if I work part time I can not get the same kind of child care funding, so I need to earn more per hour to not make a loss which cuts out most of the jobs that are available. And so the chances are, I will end up being non-employed, scrounging off the government. Does this make me a bad person?

I will be looking after three kids, one not at school yet, and one disabled, and a disabled husband. And we're well down the road of becoming foster parents again (having started 5 years ago, then discovered I was pregnant with LMB, then LMD!), so hopefully will be looking after some other kids in the summer. But I feel that I sould be doing something "proper". I feel that I will be cheating somehow. Rationally it is sensible, but I don't know if I want to be one of the non-working underclass.

But then again, I really don't want to be an absent parent. I had kids with every intention of bringing them up myself, and I've always thought it is horrible for both the kids and the parents whose days consist of beakfast club, followed by school, followed by after school club, followed by bed, with weekends taken up with housework/shopping etc and school holidays just a different type of schooling. I want my kids to grow up doing things with me, and to have memories of being a family! And I want them to be able to bring friends round to play, and to learn different activities, and at them moment that is not possible. Aggie can not physically do the things that I can, and especially with Mstr A, being able to do things too is the only way they will get to do them!

I am going to continue with my studies, and hope for a part time local job, but I know I am not getting any younger, and I can not guarantee I will ever have a career again. And I don't like that in theroy, but in practise, I think I will be much happier. So here's to yet another new phase of my life.......

Super?

2008-03-07T21:37:00.002Z

The other day at work, someone called me superwoman. some rubish about me working full time, studying, bringing up three kids and looking after a disabled husband.... OK, when they put it like that, it sounds pretty impressive:-)

But i don't feel like superwoman. Mostly I feel like I'm not quite doing anything as well as I could/should/want to. I really miss having any quality time with the kids during the week. As nice as it is to have them yell "Mummy Mummy" when I get through the door each evening, and they come running up for a hug, I don't know how long it will last, and I want to be able to have more to do with my kids than a quick hug, ask them about their day and send them to bed. I miss being involved in their day. And they miss it too. All of them have asked when I am going to do something or other again.

But then again, when I'm at work I feel that I'm not really giving it my all - before the kids turned up my career was the major thing in my life, and I happily went above and beyond. Now work is something I do, but it gets in the way of life, and so I do not put in all that extra time and effort that I used to. I work hard at work, and do everything to the best of my ability, and I may even, occsionally work some of my lunch break (I never could get the whole hour for lunch thing), but I arrive 5 mins before start time, and leave the moment I can. In a culture of early starts and late finishes I know that i am not going to progress through the ranks quickly this time round. I suppose it doesn't help that I am not doing a subject i feel particularly bothered about. I put more effort in my last job where I could feel that my effort was worthwhile in the grand scheme of things.....

And of course, as nice as it is when my tutor compliments my essays, i also know that i am not putting in nearly as much studying as I ought to. If i did, I could get that distinction in my exams as well as in my homework, but studying has to fit in around everything else, and I tend to work on the basis that just enough is good enough.

I know the house has never been my top priority, but even so, now I'm working full time and commuting too, there isn't even the time to do the little bit I used to do each day. I have tried to explain to Aggie how to keep a house, but he doesn't seem to have grasped much of it:-) Plus, tbh, there is a fair bit he physically can not do. And that makes me feel bad that I'm not being very fair to him, because I need him to take over much of the household stuff, and I know he can't always do it - but it always needs to be done! So I get annoyed when it's not:-(

Why is life so complicated? Of course, I know the solution - I would really like to drop back down to part time, and in a subject that i feel is worthwhile. And preferably somewhere pretty close to home. But that solution is not available at the moment. Ho hum.

Oh well, here's a funny funny video stolen shaemlessly fro my brother. it made me laugh out loud, so I thought I'd put it here to cheer everyone p after my moan.

Super!

I already knew that!

2008-03-06T06:50:00.002Z

I went off to the hospital on tuesday to see an immunologist about my stupid allergy to cats - when it got to the point that a coat hung on the back of my chair by a cat owner, and bedding in a tent (which is pretty well ventilated!) causing me to spend a frustrating night concentratingon each breath taken in the hope that i would manage the next, Aggie persuaded me to see a doctor. This appointment was the result.

Of course, the immunology department was mostly AIDS related, which made me feel even more of a fraud:-) But the doc was very nice and spent the time to chat to me properly and get a good background. He asked all about my medical background - absolutely no problems of any kind, no major illnesses, conditions or diseases, Im a non-smoker (ex, but nearly 10 years now), I rarely drink, I don't have a childhood history of allergies, neither my parents nor my own house are overly cleaned. Its just not right!!! He checked that it was cats, and I said I was pretty certain. He thought he should do a skin test to be sure, and to check if there was anything else.

So I went next door and let a nrse stick a needle in my arm 8 times! It was only a little nedle, and not comfortable, but not really painful. Then I had to wait 15 minutes. THAT got painful, as my arm turned bright red, with four massive weals. It was REALLY itchy!

Back to doc 15minutes later to be told I'm allergic to cats (I knew that), grasses, house dust and dogs (a little). Discuss de-sensitisation as being completely inappropriate (2 mornigs a week in hospital for 6 months, then one a month for three years - I don't think so) and decide that my best bet is just to avoid cats as much as possible. i knew that too. I get some pretty leaflets to tell me not to work as a vet, cleaner or gardener, and to tell all my friends to kill their cats (well, OK, it didn't actually say that....)

So a whole morning used up to be told what I already knew - stay away from cats, don't sniff dust and take anti-histimines a lot.

Secrets and lies

2008-03-01T17:45:00.002Z

Aggie has gone off to play with his flaky mates in Birmingham this weekend (flaky as in they flake, not as in unreliable), so 've got the weekend at home with the kids.

remember when I was a new SAHM how I kept moaning how I wasn't cut out for domesticity? Now I'm thinking it's been rather nice having qualtytime at home with the kids, and perhaps work isn't all it's cracked up to be. Greener grass again:-)

Anyway, it's been a lovely day. I took LMB to her dancing class, and had a chat to her teacher, both to check on how she was getting on (wonderfully - not balletically, but enjoying herself immensely and improving steadily), and also booked LMD in for next term. They will both be in the same class for one term, then LMB will move up and LMD will stay in the baby class, having settled in. I doubt there will be any trouble there tbh. They also asked if Mstr A would like to come along to their junior show time class - which he would probably love, but as he won't dress up, he can't particpate any any of the actual shows. He likes the idea of singing and dancing and acting, so I will have to have a word with them again and see if they'll accept him as a non-performing attendee.

Then Nanny A came over and we all went swimming. LMB is just struggling 1/2 meter on her own at the moment, and happily practised her "swimming by myself" for ages. She'll be well away in no time at all. The pool had a float session on, and Mstr A discovered the fun of large floats. Now he can swim pretty effectively i have allowed him goggles and there is no stopping him now. I had such fantastic timesin the swimming pool as a child - it was great to see him enjoyig himself there. And fearless LMD played for a bit in the baby pool, but then I put her armbands on and left her to kick around wherever she wanted - which was on and of the large floats, and all around the pool on her own terms, and without letting an adult touch her! We all had such a good time, and they all played so well together that we were in there for nearly 2 ours all together!

Now we're back home and they are all fed Mstr A has been very busy making things ready for tomorrow. He's such a sweetie - he told me that he wanted to buy me a diamond ring for mothers day:-) but instead he has been making a "surprise" ready for me. The surprise includes asking me what I would like best on my bread for breakfast, what drink i like best, if I could help him open the juice bottle (he even came up with the plausible reason that he wanted a drink himself, even though he knows he's not allowed squash out of meal times) and tear off some foil to wrap the surprise in and being told not to come into the kitchen all night. I wonder what it can be:-) It also reminded me that 7 is still terribly young - he is quite convinced that it really will be a surprise when he brings me breakfast in bed in the morning.

Of course, what I'd rall like is a lie-in, but somehow I don't think that is going to happen:-)

My shiny thing

2008-02-29T20:03:00.003Z

I didn't get any armour, what with there not being anything suitable (or of suitable price) available, but I did buy me a nice new shiny sword - well it's for me and Mstr A to share really, but still.....

Now I just have to wait for Aggie to make the pell he's been promising for a year for us to practise on.

Aggie brought himself yet another new box. Even bigger than the last new box he brought last year, which will house is ever growing tools collection. Which means I get his old medium sized box for my sewing kit, and my little box can be used for some gaming counters and such like. it never hurts to teach the kids about gambling early;-)

And of course we spent much money on yet more material to make yet more clothes for our ever growing children! Now to get sewing. Again.

Only a few weeks to go now before the season starts....

update

2008-02-28T19:57:00.003Z

It's been a busy week. I went to battle practise again last Sunday - there were lots more people there this time, both old and new, so we got quite a bit more fighting done. Especially sword fighting, which un fortunately I was not really armoured for (still borrowing Aggie's archers jack and company spare gloves & helmet), and one of the lords got a jolly good hit on my upper arm. It came up almost immediately, and by Monday morning was a massive purple bruise stretching right around my bicep, from elbow almost to my shoulder, and causing quite a lot of pain each time I moved it.

Ho Hum. I'm off shopping at the re-enactment market tomorrow to solve the armour problem. We're taking a few people up with us, so it should be a fun, if expensive day out:-)

I've moved at work, and have spent the week covering a secretary in property litigation, as she's gone swanning off to exotic places on hols. I find property law quite boring, but property litigation was quite interesting. Although, considering i had three lawyers to work for, it was pretty slow most of the week. I am used to a MUCH higher workload off my lawyers. I get that they probabloy can't trust me with anything interesting yet, and that diffrent departments work in different ways, but there just didn't seem to be as much work being done. I'm sure it must be - they obviously run a very profitable business there:-) Today got quite busy though, so perhaps it is just stops and starts. Next week I think i'm in property proper, meh. I don't know though. I'll just see where they send me on monday. I don't think much of this floating role - you can never settle into anything properly.

I'm starting to get into a routine properly now. But it means I'm out at 8am and not home until gone 6pm. As the kids go to bed between 6.30 & 7pm, it doesn't give me much time with them. It's going to take us all a while to get used to it. hopefully we will.

Getting it write :-)

2008-02-22T14:08:00.003Z

As I reach the end of my first full week secretarying, grammer and punctuation have been at the forefront of my mind. I don't know what they teach the yoof of today, but lawyers are right stick in the muds for proper English, so today's post is all about how to write it correctly, stolen shamelessly from http://www.timrylands.com/ but all true.....

1. Verbs HAS to agree with their subjects.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. And don’t start a sentence with a conjunction.
4. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
5. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They’re old hat)
6. Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.
7. Be more or less specific.
8. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.
9. Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
10. No sentence fragments.
11. Contractions aren’t necessary and shouldn’t be used.
12. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
13. Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it’s highly superfluous.
14. One should NEVER generalize.
15. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
16. Don’t use no double negatives.
17. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
18. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
20. The passive voice is to be ignored.
21. Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary. Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas.
22. Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice.
23. Kill all exclamation points!!!
24. Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.
25. Understatement is always the absolute best way to put forth earth shaking ideas.
26. Use the apostrophe in it’s proper place and omit it when its not needed.
27. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”
28. If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a thousand times: Resist hyperbole; not one writer in a million can use it correctly.
29. Puns are for children, not groan readers.
30. Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
31. Even IF a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
32. Who needs rhetorical questions?
33. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
34. Proofread carefully to see if you any words out.

Working girl

2008-02-20T19:22:00.003Z

I feel like all my time has just disappeared now I'm working properly full time. Well, I suppose it has - it's not just that I've lost my early finish, but the commute has added an extra couple of hours on to my day too, so 'm out the house from 8am until gone 6pm each day. Not horendous I know, but a big difference from 8.55-3.05!

Work had been variable so far - as they do not have a permenant place to put me yet, i am working in "support" which means I will help out anyone who needs some help. which is fine, except for the first coupleo f days apparently no-one was feeling under any pressure with work and I had virtually nothing to do! It made the day v e r y long. Today was much better as I picked up quite a few things from various departments, which I mostly sucessfully completed:-) Next week I'm covering holiday in the Agriculture dept (apparently four! people are out - but it's a pretty big team so hopefully there will still be somebody there to elp me do everything as I still don't know how lots of things work), then after that I will be in property for a few months as someone there is off on maternity leave soon, so i doubt the quiet period will last much longer.

Unfortunately, as it is a pretty "old" practise, they are still quite conservative on many things and despite its size and sucecss they do not employ legal execs, so will not assist my college course in any way. I asked if I could leave 15 mins early on Wednesdays to get to college on time and make up the time by having a 15 min shorter lunch break and was told no, which is a bummer. ll just have to be late for class for the next few months, and hope they grasp the idea of flexi-time eventually. With only 12 weeks to go to the end of the course, I don't think it is worth fighting over at the moment!

Hopefully though we will be able to do more interesting things at the weekends and school holidays. Aggie has been doing well with the three of them this week for half term, which is a relief:-) And when I get paid, it should be enough to go to fun places every now and then.

The bike is becoming less and less scary and occasionally quite fun - it would be lots of fun if it wasn't so cold! It's not the most economical of bikes, but I still reckon I'll be paying about 1/4 of what Aggie used to pay for fuel in the car back in the days he commuted. My legs are really achey from all that gripping of big thrusting machinery! Maybe it will tone me up a bit:-)

This weekend is battle practise again, so I expect to ache far more after that! But it will be fun.

Knackered

2008-02-15T20:29:00.002Z

I have been on short days all week, starting at 10am and finishing at 4pm ish as it's been my induction week at the new company. Notonly have they been short days, but tbh, most of the stuff we learned was not that complicated - after all, I am capable of using word-processing, email, internet, audiotyping, spreadsheets, telephones and presentation sofware already. the only new stuff was the house document management system, and learning house styles for the documents and procedures for everything.

So how come I am so absolutely knackered?

Well, obviously apart from the fact that i didn't get much sleep on Sunday night because I was stressed, and commuting is new to me after such a long time, especially on the bike, and that the kids have got me up at least once each night all week, except last night when they managed a grand total of 5 wake-ups between them between midnight and 6am.......

bah.

Anyway, off to london this weekend to see the family - rearranged from next week which is half term, as i have to work now! It's my dads birthday nex week so Ill pop in to see him and thank him properly for the Xmas pressie - i didn't really do so at the time, it was all so unexpected:-) Now I can show him my bike and stuff and say thanks properly. Aggie has the kids at home all next week - which might be interesting.....

Fighting talk

2008-02-10T17:43:00.000Z

Just got back from my first battle practise. Despite having been reenacting for 8 years now, other tha a couple of very basic sparring rounds at my very first few events, i have not had a chance to fight at all - what with being pregnant or looking after young children all the time! But I always quite fancied the idea of wacking people with heavy lumps of metal:-) So now the kids are getting older, and Aggie is no longer fighting at all so can watch over the kids anyway, This year i get to be a combatant.

The group we are in insists that combatants must train prior to the actual reenactment season for safety and team-building reasons. A bill line is nothing unless it can work together as a team and follow commands without hesitation. Plus, a 12 foot pole with a bardbed chunk of metal on the end can do some pretty serious damage if mishandled - even through padding/armour, so it's imporatnt to know how to and how not to use them.

So every other week from Febuary until Easter, we all traipse up to Blaise Castle in Bristol and train. Today was my first session. I think i did OK:-) managed to carry the bill all the way to the top of the hill, stay in line, learn the major commands and advance on an enemy. It was much heavier then it looks when other people use it! And a tad unweildy - especialy with my short girlie arms and unused muscles! But i survived.

here's our bill line at Morimondo, italy, last year - so you can see what I'm talking about.

Then we did some sword fighting practise. I had watched Mstr A practise often enough so at least knew the concept fo the basic fives (head, L arm, r arm, L leg, R leg), but actually doing it was hard work too. those swords are heavy after a few swings - and they're not even half the weight the real things would have been! But after a few practises, I even managed to "kill" a couple of opponants - although I feel they may have being nice to me.

The we moved onto battle practise, a line of bills & swords against nother line of the smae. i died pretty quickly in all of those! But made it through the whole practise with only one major wack on the upper arm (I had borrowed Aggie's archer's padding which is armless - but will need to get my own full set soon i think), and one right in the sturnum which slipped between the buckles of my Jack.

Now I'm pretty achey and tired, but happily so. Hopefully there will be more recruits in two weeks time so we can have a really good fight:-)

Yay me!

2008-02-08T20:12:00.000Z

Gotta job:-)

It all happened rather fast in the end:

Last week i replied to an out of date vacancy on the website of a firm I quite fancy working for. the closing date was 31st December, but I didn't see it until the end of January, so wrote in thinking it was worth a try as it was still on the website! They phoned me on Wednesday and asked me to an interview today. i attended today, and felt it went pretty well. I was pretty confident of being asked back for the second interview. She told me their next induction date was 17th March. I got home about 2.30pm, and she phoned me at 4pm saying they were forgoing the second interview and would like to offer me the job. Could I start on monday?

You bet. this is a fntastic company to work for. Good staff retention, good peer reviews, and IiP'd up to the hilt. I accepted the 20% pay rise offered, plus benefits, and will be starting on monday.

Yippee.

white goods bads

2008-02-07T17:39:00.000Z

I'm not very happy with modern life at the moment.

With three kids and a disabled husband constantly making a mess, I do at least one load of laundry each day, often two if beds have been changed/towels used/potty training failed etc. I need to. If I'm lazy, and miss a day, the baskets overflow, there are not enough clean clothes for the kids to wear to school and it takes days to catch up again. However, because I am lazy, i have worked out a system - i put a load on each night before i go to bed, then when I get up in the morning that load goes into the dryer, and another load goes into the machine.

Last week was no exception, other than when i woke up on Thursday morning my washing machine was not bleeping at me! I looked, and saw that it was still full of water, and wet clothes. the door was still locked, and the machine had just stopped half way through it's cycle. I tried the normal solution of turning it off and on again:-) No luck. there was power, but none of the other buttons worked. My next solution was to complain to Aggie in the hope that he could fix it, but he poked it a few times and suggested that the motherboard had probably gone.

Fortunately, knowing that we are fairly laundry intensive, we had bought a good machine a few years ago, and paid for their "lifetime" cover which the salesman assured us covered parts, labour and appliance replacement for ever - basically meaning that other than deliberate damage, we should never have to buy another machine. So i phoned them up, and gave the details over the phone.

An enineer turned up on Friday, spent approx 30 seconds looking at it, barely touched anything, agreed it was the motherboard and stomped off, saying he would order one.

So we went into the weekend already behind on laundry. It was LMD's birthday party, so my mother, sister and cousin G were staying over. So by Sunday I knew we were not going to make it through until the new part arrived. I went to the laundrette. Fortunately there is one just at the end of my road. At nearly £3 a load, and smaller machines than mine, I did two loads straight off. At a load a day, it will ake me just under two months before I have spent enough to buy a new machine altogether! I didn't pay for their dryers though - I brought it all home wet and did it there.

I phoned on tuesday to find out when the part would arrive. we were told Thursday, so it was another trip to the laundrette yesterday. Wet clothes in the dryer at home.

I woke this morning and went to get LMB some clean school clothes out of the dryer - and guess what! That had broken too - lots of noise but no tumbling going on - and still full of damp clothes! Aggie reckons it is the drive belt which he can fix, when he gets the part!

A different engineer called us today to see of it was OK to come round between 3pm and 5pm to fit the new motherboard. Not really as it was parents evening tonight, but we agreed. Aggie went to parents evening and I stayed at home and waited.

And waited.

Aggie came home. i cooked supper. we sat down. the doorbell rang. At 5.30 the engineer turned up. A nice guy, he came in, looked at it, pulled it out, fitted the new motherboard, and came to tell us that was not really the problem. The otherboard was burned out, but only because the door lock was knackered. We would need a new door lock before it could be used. he will order one and come back when it's available. Oh joy. He expects it will be another 5 days.

I'll be back to the laundrette tomorrow (not sure when as I have an interview smack across the middle of the day, but....). And Aggie is off to try to buy a new drive belt for the dryer. But we might all be dressing in paper suits pretty soon. Kudos to Tomorow's World circa 1975:-)

Pancakes

2008-02-05T18:56:00.000Z

It's pancake day here. The kids have all been reminding me about it for nearly a week, so school must have been doing something or other on it. They have all called it pancake day rather than shrove tuesday, so I wonder what they have been told about it:-) LMB woke me up this morning with the revelation that it had finally come and she "had been waiting ALL YEAR" for this day. poor thing! So, even though they have all undoubtedly stuffed themselves silly on sweet pancakes at school, I still did pancakes at home for supper.

Much to their surprise, the pancakes at home did not have the option of lemon & sugar, honey, or chocolate sauce! instead we introduced them to savoury pancakes and they had an enormous pigout of prawn pancakes, chicken and bacon pancakes and soft cheese pancakes, all with salad and washed down with fresh fruit juice. They were rather impressed:-) Who said pancakes are bad for you?

I did relent and let them have sweet pancakes for dessert - although fruit still featured heavily:-) But we are going to be naughty parents and have our own sweet pancakes, with maple syrup, ice cream and such things later, when impresionable children are all in bed!

Frozen

2008-02-04T21:16:00.000Z

i saw this over at Mary Poppins and it is just so cool I had to share

Happy Birthday LMD

2008-01-30T08:02:00.000Z

3 today!

Three years ago today I was thinking "I can't do this again" while reminding myself that it was possibly a bit late to think that:-)

i did manage it. Although she nearly turned up on the side of the motorway! And I'm so gald I igored all the sage advice from my friends and famly and have my LMD to dote over.

Agencies (of hell)

2008-01-29T18:19:00.000Z

In my quest for work, with a minimal time frame and Christmas in the way of what little time there was, I signed up with a bunch of agencies in the expectation that they might be able to find me something that i hadn't found myself. I didn't really mean to, but when scouring for jobs online, there were quite a few (well, loads) advertised in Bristol on a coupel of known sites, and when I clicked "apply" I was automatically applying through a different agency for each one! I was pretty annoyed tbh, as I had searched agency A and B as they were specialised legal recruiters, and ended up being registered with Agency C through to Z without ever wanting to be!

Anyway, it didn't take long for them to really piss me off. a) because none of them seemed to actually have the jobs they were advertising. b) because they all wanted me to spend at least an hour with them in central Bristol, BEFORE mentioning that they did not actually have said jobs, costing me time and money unecessarily. c) because they were all revoltingly cheerful & enthusiastic about my CV and how it should be easy to get something, while simultaneously saying that they did not have much suitable right now and d) because they then promptly all sent my CV to the same companies, without checking wioth me first if I wanted to work there, or more importantly, had already sent my CV there by myself. Which probably pissed off the companies, and definitely pissed me off, as I am quite capable of sending my own CV out to companies!

Only one actually got me an interview. I'm still waiting on the results of that. I have managed to get three interviews for myself without any professional recruiters involved! Grrrr. Plus, one talked me into doing some temping while I was waiting for a FT post to come up - against my better judgement. then after I had agreed to do it, they mentioned that it wasn't actually legal, but medical "but they need similar skills", even though I had specifically told her I need to work under a lawyer to gain my qualifying experience. But having agreed at 1pm on Friday afternoon, I did not want to back out and let them down. And the money was good, even if it was in the most inaccessable parts of Bristol for me. So off I trot on Monday morning, feeling pretty disgruntled at the 90 minute commute (including getting lost quite a lot). My mood is not lightned by the fact that my mobile starts ringing 30 minutes after I leave and then every 10 minutes for the next hour. I arrive at the venue and spend 10 minute looking for a parking place (having been tld "there's plenty of free parking there") making me a few minutes late. get into reception, pick up the annoying phone message telling me the job has been cancelled! GRrrrrrrrrr. what a waste of my morning!

I've got another interview )mine no- agencies involved) on friday afternoon, so I think i shall not bother with agencies any more. they are just annoying! Plus, what with Mstr A's diagnosis, and LMD's birthday tomorrow, and tons of stuff to do round the house i could do with the time off at the moment.

It did mean I had time to go out for a blast on the bike today. I'm starting to remember how it all works now:-) More thrilling than terrifying this time.

It's NOT a mid-life crises

2008-01-27T16:45:00.000Z

It was a well thought out, sensible decision, made after discussion with Aggie and for all the right reasons. It will open up numerous work opportunities to me, and allow me to still see the kids each evening. It will mean Aggie will still have use of the car every day.

But, tbh, having collected it today, and made it home, I'm not sure whether to be thrilled or terrified:

This is the 2003 Yamaha Fazer. 600cc, 95hp, top speed 135mph.

I am the proud but terrified new owner of one just like it! I haven't ridden for 7 or 8 years or so. And even then, it was an old 400. *gulp*

Finally!

2008-01-25T13:40:00.000Z

At last, we have an official diagnosis of Asbergers syndrome for Mstr A. They had a professionals meeting yesterday, and we were invited to see the paediatrician today, and told that there was a unanious agreement that he was an Aspie.

horaay! I feel very relieved - and a bit guilty that I am happy he has something wrong with him! But mostly pleased. Now we can actually start to officially get extra support for him in all sorts of things. Hopefully the school might get a bit of funding to help them supervise him out of class (they do very well inside the classroom, but playtimes & trips are still a major problem), and we are looking into (mostly) moral support from local groups and organisations.

Now to tell everyone:-)

I wonder if I should re-apply to the local swimming lessons - under DDA legislaion I could now insist on going in with him whatever the idiot teacher thought about it. But then again, whereas I'm all for fighting for your rights when necessary, i don't really see the point as we are doing better with the further away lessons now. It depends how life works out fo me I suppose. Aggie can not go in with him if I get a job too far away, so we'll see what happens.

update

2008-01-11T22:51:00.000Z

Hmm, whats happening around here?

Work is getting pretty catty, as everyone gets more and more desperate to find something else, while still holding onto their post until the last second to get their redundancy (doesn't apply to me, as I've not been there long enough but I'm the first out too....) . 2ic in the Family Dept wins the book on first to get another job - and a really good one at tha, which seems to have really pissed off some of the other staff. ho hum. Water off a ducks back as I said to her - and think of the pound signs rolling round each time they say something stupid.

I've got an interview on Weds for a clinical negligance post which could be interesting. i don't fancy land law, which seems to be the thing that everyone has vacancies for. The interview is for a temp post, but in a big company so possibly wit scope for something to come up if it works well. If not, having the summer holidays off doesn't sound too bad. Otherwise i've had some unecessaril cheerful recruitment people on the phone telling me how great my CVi s - but none of them have produced an interview, never mind a job, so I don't take too much notice of them. Although, tbh, I haven't decided whether I should get another job at the moment or not. on one side, I would like some continuity of work and to rack up my qulifying employment. on the other hand, I am not too happy about Aggie looking after LMD full time. I suppose it will basically be decided by what happens;-)

Mstr A and LMB started swimming lessons again today. LMB started off a bit nervously, but after 5 minutes was well into the whole concept and had a great time. She reveled in the praise from the teacher, and interacted well with the other kids. I reckon she'll go up a class in just one term she did so well. Mstr A has tried swiming lessons a couple of times before rather less sucesfully, so this time I booked him back into the centre I used to work at, which hs smaller classes - although it is further away. I chatted to the teacher first and she seemed quite confident (and knew what Asbergers was, which helps), and she did manage him pretty well. his attention wandered a few times, but he did stay with the class and seemed to learn something, so hopefullly his swimming will start to look a little nicer by the summer:-)

I'm off to London again this weekend to meet up with the siblings. If the trains manage to run in the morning. You'd think rain was unusual in Somerset the way they go on!

We're not flooded here, and it hasn't snowed, much to the kids annoyance!

Time's up (almost)

2008-01-03T19:59:00.001Z

I got my official letter today. The one that told me I'm losing my job. As I suspected, they are not being charitable and I finish on the 23rd January, exactly 364 days from when I started. Just in case I wanted to claim a full year:-) I'm not surprised, but a little annoyed as I specifically went to see the personnel manager (ha ha - he really can not manage his personnell!) before Xmas to ask if they were expecting me to leave when the family department closed in Feb or before, and was told that I would have to go by mid-Feb. Lucky i know how these people's minds work really! Although, it would cost about £400 to keep me on for the extra 21 days. Remembering that a solicitor's chargeable time racks up at £200 per hour, you'd have thought a bit of goodwill was worth 2 hours work. I rather doubt I'll be working incredibly hard for the next 3 weeks:-)

Still, at least I knew pretty much what was coming. Everyone else was pretty upset. Before Xmas, we were told the Family dept would close when the head of department left in mid-february, and everyone else would go when the firm closed in June. The letters given out today gave two unexpecting staff a leaving date of mid-feb and another two the end of March (I had told them that I doubted they would keep them past the end of the financial year, but they seemed disinclined to agree - this was the person who thought that they would pay her redundancy even if she left early, despte the fact that they wouldn't need to. yeah right!).

Oh well, that gives me exactly 20 days to find something else. I had best crack on with my begging letters! Although the 2ic in the department was pretty much offered a job today and said she would like to take me with her, which was nice:-) But i don't think I'll count on it. Plus there is a query over the location atm, so would like some other options. Suffice to say, we won't be spending any of my dad's xmas pressie yet - it may need to cover the mortgage for a while.

Happy 2008

2008-01-01T09:48:00.001Z

It's going to be a good year. I've decided! :-)

I could have done without the BBC pundits telling me that 2008 was going to be the worst year for over a decade for redundancies, and that eveeryone was going to be letting staff go, but no-one wold be taking on. Thanks. I get to be the first statistic of the year then? Or perhaps I can sneak in there before they all realise:-) still, those same pundits have been giving dire warnings about the "credit crunch" and falling house prices for years, without the country seeming to actually turn any of it into actuality at all!

But all in all, I've had a pretty good lead up to 2008. Certainly it's shaping up better than 2007 was at the same point last year! Aggie is finally retired so we can make proper plans as to how we are going to be living in the future. It certainly means I have more options available work-wise, as I am not tied to school times any more. Money wise we will obviously be getting much less in (although more than when he was getting nothing!), but we have paid off almost all our debts except the mortgage, so we can budget what we do have better. As long as i get a job, we should survive! I'm going to have to relaly crack on with looking now the holidays are over.

The festive period has gone rather well really, even considering LMB's bloodied head - which she had near enough fogotten all about by the next morning anyway. I got a rather nice knife from Aggie which I can threaten him with all summer:-) We went off to the Crazie party on Thursday night and I recieved more books to read and a films to watch, and an unexpected gift from Naomi (Old Old Lady of the Hills) which was such a surprise and so doubly nice! I never really expected to make friends in the blogosphere, let alone make a "profit" out of it:-)

Then we spent the long weekend at my mother's in London. The kids were all well behaved. I had plenty of time to catch up with family news. I got called beautiful for the second time in just a few months by one of my mother's friends - which is nice, if a bit weird:-0 And my father decided to give away a small fortune as his Cristmas present to all his kids, wiping out the debt I still owe him from when we bought the car, and giving us enough of a lump sum to pay off our bank loan, and put enough aside to cover any unexpected major purchases that may come up. So when the car started playing up yesterday I just thought, "never mind, we'll have to get that sorted" rather than getting dead stressed about what we were going to do. It was a lovely feeling!

Also, my mother was rather nice to Aggie this weekend. Perhaps, after 15 years, she has finally decided to accept him:-) What is the world coming to? AND, we saw Aggie's brother and his family yesterday, and the chioldren lll played togethyer without problems, or even noise for a couploe of hours! This is amazing because despite the fact that Mstr A and boy cousin K are only a few weeks different in age, they are as bdifferent in temprement and outlook as possible, and previous metings have always ended in tears - from both boys and within minutes usually. Girl cousin K has always loved playing with the girls, but now they are old enough to be played with properly she was able to take them off and keep them occupied the whole time. Cool!

Last night we just stayed in with a couple of friends and drank a lot, played a stupid board game, drank a lot more, and stayed up much to late (well, early) . which was fine, but now it's morning, and the kids all want to do stuff;-( Bah!

The doctor did it.

2007-12-25T21:24:00.000Z

It was all going so well......

The presents were opened. We had made it to Nanny A's without mishap, and with the trifle, lemon merrangue and meat al in one piece and still hot/cold as required. The dinner was cookeed well, on time, and not in ridiculous amounts. The children had even eaten some real food:-)

More presents were opened when the adults were fully stuffed, and Mstr A was quietlplaying with his 20Q, LMB with her new DS and LMD with her bouncing tigger while the adults watched Shek2, Shaun the sheep and half of Nemo. why we watched the kids films is a good question - but we did. LMd was a little sick on all the sweets, but that is par for Xmas when you are 2:-) And i was only a litle.

I had intended to head home at about 5.30 to ensure we were home in time for Dr Who, but Grandad J was off to work just about that time, so we said we'd stay with Nanny A and watch Dr ho with her, then head home late, so the kids could sleep in the car. 6.45pm arrived, and we sent the girls pstairs to watch children's TV, and us older people settled down to the only really important viewing of the day.

Unfortunately, 10 minutes later, the girls reappeared. Beebies finishes at 7pm! Usually this is good. They sing "night night"and everyone goes to bed knowing they are missing nothing important. Today a 7pm finish was bad. Very Bad. "shhhhh. go play in the back room" I shushed quickly, fixated on the Titanic.

Bang. crash. Whinge. cry. cuddle. bang. argue. bang the door again. I watch Kylie break down in tears and suggest they shut up and play upstairs instead. Off they go. back they come. hey bounce in front of the TV a few times. "GO UPSTAIRS" I yell, and they scamper up to Nanny A's bedroom, where I leave them to their own devices and settle back down to the telly. All is well until 8pm. just as kylie is acting all eroic like, and the whole word is about to be destroyed there is an almighty thump and as I leap up in alarm, the first siren wail of real pain.

I get upstairs to find LMB crying her eyes out, while LMD looks on quite contentedly from where she has tucked herself up in bed. Eventually I get out of her that she hit her head on the radiator. It hurts "all over". Unable to confirm exactly how she did it, i calm her down with lots of cuddles, and have a good feel. I find a couple of large lumps, and cuddle hr some more. Finally Dr Who finishes and the others come up to see what happened. We move into the bathroom to give her some calpol, and I spot the blood:-(

We clean her up, and there is a 2cm cut. Quite deep. She must have hit the corner of the radiator. I put my professional head on, and decide there is not need to stitch it and she is showing no signs of concusion, so calpol and cuddles are all that is required. we bundle all the children up and head off home .

Not the finest end to Xmas day. But I blame the doctor for the whole thing. And I still don't know if the Earth surived!

Merry Christmas

2007-12-25T08:11:00.000Z

It's gone quite well so far:-)

Mstr A ws the first awake at 6.30am, but he was content to come and watch some TV in our room until we got the girls up at 7am. They opened their stocking presents properly, with little fighting, actually looking at the presents (and stuffing as much cholcolate in their mouths as possible). We tend to buy useful stockng presents, so they got new toothbrushes (Mstr A had one of these things that plays music through your teeth! and LMB a fairy one), new wash mitts, and a leotard & ballet shoes for LMB, recorder and book for Mstr A and dressing up clothes for LMD. That was plenty to stuff into the rather large stockings we hng up.

Mstr A has spent the past few weeks telling all and sundry that santa isn't real and it's your mum and dad really, but this morning when he came down to see if santa had come, he said he tought he had as he had heard a "thump" on the roof and seen a big shadow walking past LMB's room:-)

Now we have managed to get them all to eat some proper(ish) breakfast, and get dressed with the promise of big presents to come. the pork is in the oven, the desserts are made. We're off to Nanny A's for dinner, so not a lot of work to do. And back in time for Dr who, so opefully not a late night:-)

oh, and Aggie's got another chest infection, so he's on antibiotics again, and ges to be my chauffeur all through the fesive period. shame.