update

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!

Bah Humbug

It's feeling positively Dickensian at the moment.

First, It's bloody freezing! Thick, thick frost everywhere, all day. brrrrrrrr. I know that it is December, and I know that other places are much colder, but last year I got quite used to the dea that Weston should not dip below freezing for more than the occasional 5 minutes. Bring back warm and wet. Global warming is welcome sometimes:-)

Also, There is no heating at work. It didn't come on when fired up last month, and they never got around to fixing it. Now we know why, so obviously it's not going to work all winter. I did make them cough up for a little electric heater for my office, cos I personally won't stand for that kindof behaviour from my employers, but it's not really man enough to heat up the whole ofice from below freezing every day - I was onl yexpecting it to be a "top p" for a couple of weeks! and every time I leave the office - to walk to the photocopier, toilet or front office, I freeze again.

On top of that, I just don't like the run up to Christmas. I like the real thing well enough. But all the preparation is just dull. I don't like decorating the tree/house, I hate wrapping, all the false good cheer drives me nuts and I just don't see hy I should have to spend twice as much time, effort and money to do normal things!

Bah humbug!

Summer Holiday time

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



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



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



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



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



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

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

spit spot pop

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

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

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

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

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

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

"not cocoa pops", chicken pox" I explain

"NO! Cocoa pops" she tells me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Will it never end?

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

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

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

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

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

Stuff

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hacks & birthdays

Well, the media frenzy died down as quickly as it blew up. I'm not suprised. I expect it was partly due to the fact that most of the feedback received probably said that I was an awful mother for allowing my children to do anything unsupervised! Although I know I didn't help by refusing to lumbast the school, and stating that I was very happy with their general attitudes and actions in every interview. I went to see the head teacher on Monday afternoon to explain what was going on, and to apologise that the school had been named - I never gave them the name or permission to use it. Bloody hacks!

It was Aggie's birthday yesterday, so we're having a BBQ this afternoon. Well, we are if it ever stops raining. Nature is getting her own back for such a lovely spring by flooding the country! The rain has also meant we have not had a chance to mow the lawn, weed the veg patch or tidy up very much:-( Oh well, most of our friends know us by now:-)

I've been pretty knackered this week. Well, exhausted might be a better desription to be honest. LMD has taken to waking up each night at about 3am yelling for me. I've stopped going in to her now, because it's just manipulation, but I still wake up! Add in that work has pretty much doubled at work because one of the ther girls has changed roles and is now out of the office most of the time, so I have acquired all her typing work, and it's all been a bit much. Hopefully I'll get used to it. At least I've caught up now, so next week should start to settle into a routine.

It will be nice to spend a weekend at home for once.

A long weekend in the sun

We spent last weekend in Morimondo, just outside Milan, Italy, re-enacting the battle of Caserote (you can see a video a few posts down). it's a great event for us, as we are only contracted to do the battle, and as we are severly restricted on the amount of stuff we can take with, we do not do any living history displays, just laze around in the sun all day until the evening comes round and it is cool enough to fight. Aggie shoots some arrows. I stay behind and watch (and look after the kids) although next year I'm hoing I can shoot too. Mstr A went of to battle for the first time, and was so good that he got to stay up with the gron ups till midnight singing songs round a campfire. I hope he does not repeat any of them at school!

It was a really relaxing time, although the journey home wa a bit of a nightmare. But I have finally recovered enough to post some pictures:

The rank and file ready themselves for drill. Mstr A joins in.

The rich and lordly ready themselves for battle. Mstr A joins in:-)



The girls enjoy their lunch in the shade.

We love the sunshine:-)

The heat takes its toll on LMD. Still, she was up at 5.30am, and didn't go to bed till 9.30pm each day, so it's not surprising really. Sadly, i couldn't join her...

Mstr A practises his sword skills under the watchful eye of his lord.

Daddy readies himself for battle by having a stiff drink:-)

Click on the pictures to enlarge.

Sadly, now we're back in the UK, the weather forcast is single figure tempretures if we are lucky, rain/sleet and freezing winds for this weekend. Not sure if we will make it yet. I am working on Saturday anyway, so we'll have to wait and see......

Weekend work

We were supposed to dig the garden over this weekend and plant all the veggies we've bought in an effort to pretend we're that kind of family. But it rained. ALL WEEKEND! Horrible cold, windy sploshy rain, non-stop for the whole of Friday, Saturday and Sunday. So all we managed was to spend some money buying a couple of little trowels & fork for the kids to help out with next weekend!

But it did mean we got on with some other stuff. We re-furbished our new butter churn, so hopefully it will actually be useable to make butter with this season. I'm going to give it a go during the week hopefully. We picked it up quite cheap a few months ago, but it was a dodgy "show" churn made in India with gaping holes all around it. When we filled it with water to test it's seal, it flooded out at approx 1 pint every 10 seconds! So Aggie sealed it with pitch, which seems to have done the trick. It only lost 2cm of water overnight. Now I have to work out how to make butter - I've had differing advice about using only cream, only milk, a mix of the two..... And I'm a bit concerned about using the modern homogenised milk that Tesco's sells. And you can't even buy unpasteurised from the farms any more:-(

We didn't cut the girls dresses, although we did mean to:-( But I did finally work out how to use the loom and made Mstr A a belt. Except it's too short, so perhaps it'll be for LMD! It's going to take a lot of practise before my weaving looks good though. It's pretty lumpy at the moment:-)

Domesticicity

It was absolutly throwing it down this morning. Floods of rain falling from the sky incessently.

I packd all the children into wellies & raincoats, plastic bags over their backpacks, and let them splash their way to school. I don't have a raincoat.

They were pretty wet by the time we walked the 1/4 mile to school. I was soaked. We dripped in, changed their clothes, waved goodbye and I set off, in the rain, on my bike, to work.

Any part of me that had avoided the rain while walking, immediately got soaked while on the bike.

As I parked the bike at work, the rain stopped. The sun came out. I dripped in to work looking a mess (no change of clothes for me). 5 mins later most of the rest of the staff turned up looking fresh & dry. Grrrrrrrr!

My brain didn't really kick itself into gear today. Work was OK, but everythig just seemed to take a bit of time to understand. O(h well, everyone is alloed an off day.

Tonight I managed to cook supper, clean up the kitchen (well, Nanny A did it properly yesterday, so i try to keep it nice-ish for a few days after her efforts), play with th kids a bit, then settled down to my sewing. Wow, isn't my life exciting?

I made the main body of Mstr A's wool tunic, and the first two panals of Aggies linen one. at least we are not going to be in such a rush this year - i hope:-)

Tomorrow I AM going to do some college homework.

No excuses. It needs to be done.

Brrrrrrrrr!

It's freezing here!

no snow for us - just nasty cold, wet sleet & slushy hailstones, combined with an arctic wind. I'm freezing. It's cold at home, it's cold at work. it's freezing cold on the bike:-(

I don't like the cold:-(

I feel cold even in beautiful British summer sunshine, so now is particularly bad. I always feel extra cold when I'm tired too, so 5am this morning was not my idea of a good time to be getting up with the horrible girls! I'm sitting here with the heating on, under a duvet, with a hot laptop on my lap, and still shivering.

of course, I don't see why th world should stop because of a bit of sleet! Unlike everyone else I still took Mstr A to school on the bikes. if it had been proper snow, we would have walked. Why do parents feel that snow requires them to DRIVE their kids to school in their little roller-skate cars? In what way can that possibl e safer for anyone? especially as they were all parked on the zigzags, across the entrance & over the crossing! Grrrrrrrr!

I also managed to get myself to work & stay all day. Aggie came home at luchtime - in case the traffic got worse! And my line manager didn't make it in at all (although he is ill as well, bless). as one of the other fee-earners in the family Dept does not work Fridays, and the third was off this morning for a hospital appointment, it started as a pretty quiet day. I soon finished up the bits of work that had been left for me, and moved onto the long term project I'd been given (sorting out the paperwork for a major case), and finally started tidying up the offices & re-labeling all the files etc. By 2pm, i'd completely run out of stuff to do:-) I was given another - even bigger - long term project, which I started to look through, then packed up and tided up by 2.45, ready to brave the ride home. At 2.50, all hell broke loose on the big case, and Fee-earner looked really stressed out. As Aggie was already home, i offered to stay on for half an hour to help sort it out. I phoned Aggie and asked him to pick up Mstr A from school - he wasn't happy. Apparently I was interupting his ebaying and it was "very difficult" to leave it with only 15 mins notice! Humph!

He did do it (in the car - obviously), and I stayed on to type up & send out the letters, then cycled home, mollified Mstr A who was hiding in his room after being told he wasn't allowed to play the wii, collected the girls from nursery, cooked supper, put some washing on, and played with the girls on the computer (LMB can use a touch pad - how did she learn to do that? I never taught her!). I informed him it was his turn to put them to bed (we alternate days), which he did - after requesting help because he needed to empty the potty AND read a story, and apparently he couldn't do both?!

I'm going to hide under my duvet & try to keep warm now. I should do some college work. But it's too cold, and I'm too tired:-(

Blow wind, blow...ow....ow...ow!

We've got serious wind issues here again -and no, I am not talking about Aggie (although him too), but about the ridicously strong winds blowing across most of the UK.

It was way too windy to take the kids to school on the bike, so we all trundled off on foot even earlier than usual (well, Me, Mstr A and LMB were on foot. LMD was on me). We got to nursery as it opened then I trotted Mstr A to school in double time so made it with 5 mins to spare:-) There was some luckless child waiting at the gates telling every arrival to go straight to class & not stop and play:-( I know that there are real safety issues in schools about high winds, but it seems such a shame to stop the kids playing outside at all - the wind is just so much fun when you are light enough to actually be blown around.

It was a long walk home into the wind - then I had to go out again as I had forgotten the girls bags in the early morning rush! So when it came time for me to go down to town & sign on, I thought I would save the time & cycle. I'm big enough and heavy enough to weather a bit of weather!

So, off I go, out the gate, onto the road, a gust of wind blows me straight back into the curb at just the wrong angle, the buike goes over with me trapped under it & skidding/being blown 10metres down the road. Fortunately no cars were coming! But one bloody & swollen kneee, one bruised and swollen knee, one scraped elbow, on pair of ripped trousers, and the chain & saddle of my bike:-(

No time to do anyting other than change my trousers & bodge the bike, then ride more carefully down to the jobcentre arriving with 1 minute to spare.

They're running late. I sit and wait for 20 minutes as my knee slowly siezes up, and the blood trickles down my shin. I consider asking for the first aid kit, but as I didn't do it there it's a bit rude, plus I'd probably miss my appointment while getting it sorted, which isn't worth it.

I sign on, have a quick chat about how I am looking for work, honest, then hobble home leaning on the bike for support:-( And I'm starving now as it's an hour past my lunchtime!

I was going to make a shepherds pie for supper, but I don't think I want to now. I'm going to sit and blog with an ice-pack instead:-)