Moving at the speed of life

Someone asked me today what jobs I’d had in my life. The last 20 years have been pretty staid, but when I listed ALL the jobs I’ve ever done, the list was rather more impressive:

Waitress

Shop Assistant

Library Assistant

Croupier

Go Go dancer

Knitwear entrepeneur

Nanny

Au pair

Nurse

And (Father, forgive me) a civil servant.

Which means that we will for 6 weeks be released from the daily “skiving today, are you?” comments every time we step over our front door, to be replaced by the “only 6 weeks till they go back” “summer holidays are too long, aren’t they, they just get bored” and the “god, I wish they were back at school” coments. With few exceptions, and I probably know those people personally.

Oh well, the upside is that we’ve managed to get a place at golf school next week, and the diving clinic the week after. Then guide camp for dd, and then summer activity camp. So actually, a fairly hectic summer. 

Today we finally had a break in the clouds for a few hours, so we planted out all the patio tubs that have been waiting for ages, repotted the house plants, and did a massive pruning job on some sage. Had some baby stuff that I’d freecylced collected, and had a music lesson.

Have faffed around for ages trying to find a nice campsite for the summer, so that I can be relatively nearby summer camp. I know it’s woosy of me, but I just worry about being 500 miles away, and her breaking an arm or something, so I do like to be within a couple of hours. I’m going to be by myself this year though, as dh can’t get leave, so want something with a bit of buzz nearby.

And all of this is desplacement activity, as I’m disappearing under a wave of dust, here!

Dee Dee’s hair came down to her bum till about 8 weeks ago. I have to say it drove me mad, as I was the one constantly having the get the snarls out for her. However, working on the premise of it being her hair, I kept my mouth shut. two months ago she had about 8 ins cut off, though it was still very long. This morning, she comes through and announces that she needed to go to the hairdresser. We managed to find one that would slot her in without an appointment, and she has come out with the most beautiful chin length bob. Apart from the fact I’m £25 lighter (!!!), I’m almost traumatised at how like herself she looks, and how unlike me, suddenly. Absolutely lovely, and growing up fast.

Otherwise, a quiet weekend, with foul weather. I was feeling sad not to be at HE camp, but when I looked at the weather reports, I’ve recovered myself slightly.

The guineas are now fully recovered, so I moved my anxiety from their physical health to their mental health, as I was convinced they were bored. We’ve spent today putting together little trees with treats tied onto the branches, tunnels etc, and they are now pop-corning like mad, which I am assurred is a sign of mental wellbeing and emotional stability, and not that they require counselling

Yesterday we went to out first ever car boot sale. Dee Dee was stung at the first car she stopped at, paying 60pence for a tatty Animal Ark book, but by the end she was in her stride, and managed to get an animal hospital areoplane, hospital, boat, ambulance and not sure what else (two bin bags full anyway), for £4. So much for me clearing things out last week.

She’s been asking if it would be possible to have a tutor recently, so we’ve been exploring that, without much success. The problem is that what she really wants is someone as lovely and unthreatening as her music teacher, but who will help her with English. Everyone we’ve spoken to can’t see past a school-curriculum type approach, which is not really what she wants.

Thankfully all the activities have stopped now for a few weeks, so evenings are our own again, and today we went to the library again, and for the first time EVER was offered the opportunity to order a book we wanted, rather than the usual “growl – no we don’t have that!”. Success:-)

Have spent an exciting (not) two days playing Florence to a sick rodent. GP started peeing blood on Friday, and the vet who examined her thought renal tumour. She’s been having 4 hourly (day and bloody night!) nursing care from me, including syringe feeding and analgesia and antibiotics by injection. Anything of avoid the cost of B+B for her at the vets. Anyway, she’s now passed a kidney stone, and seems much better, so hopefully not a tumour after all.

I went out last night with a friend for a drink and supposedly a meal. Unfortunately the kitchen of the pub we went to was closed. I was keen to just go for a curry, but we’d already bought a bottle a wine, so we drank that, and then didn’t care about eating, so had more wine……I used to be able to do that! Clearly not anymore, and I was thoroughly queasy when I had to drag myself out of bed for the 3am jag, and well hung-over this morning.

Today, I’ve been writing most of the day, cursing at the style sheets in work, which keep de-faulting to something stupid. Bob and Dee Dee got the garden ready for summer. Pool filling as I type, slide and sandpit free-cycled, and TP climbing frame and the kids seat for thebike just about to go on eBay. I felt ridiculously sad to see them all going (the slide has already been collected), but it’s nice to gradually be re-claiming bits of garden. Feels odd though – no swing, no slide, no sandpit for the first time in 10 years. Tempted to treat myself to a barbie and some nice garden furniture, but Bob hates BBQs – he never sees the point of cooking on way when a proper cooker is only 6 feet away, and I do thinkBBQ are def a man’s thing. Well, tbh, most of the cooking in this house is a man’s thing, so I shouldn’t say too much!

Had a wonderful week in Spain. Weather just fantastic – not too hot to move about it, but just perfect. Did very little – lots of nice meals, visits to the water park, walks on the beach, reading trash, chatting. Lovely.

 Since we came home we have:

• Done laundry. My washing machine was finally fixed, so it’s been on non stop, as there was two weeks of washing left at home before we went, plus the week away.
• Fell out with work. Can hardly wait to be fully freelance.
• Collected GPs from their holiday. They look as if they have doubled in size, and they’ve been treated as indoor pets while we’ve been away, so they are going to find it a bit of a culture shock to be back in their (albeit deluxe!), hutch tonight.
• Erected Dee Dee’s new trampoline. The old one had a max weight of 8 stone, and she was actually begining to hit the ground with her feet, so I was worried that she would hurt her ankles. I had 56 emails within an hour of freecycling the old one. The new one is much higher off the ground, and much bouncier, and with a max weight of 25 stone, hopefullt it will do her till she’s fed up with it! I thought it was an excellent price, and went up like a dream.
• Dee Dee was in a swimming gala, and did well, despite lots of vapours beforehand.
• I’ve started a business blog using typepad. It’s not free, but I rather like it, incredibly easy to use, and you can upload photos directly from the PC. URL to follow when Meg has finished working on it, so the design ties in with the web site.
• Today I went swimming for an hour – trying to keep up the good habits of the holiday. Must really learn crawl though. (must learn to swim with face in water). 30 lengths of breaststroke and my pulse was barely elevated, so probably not really contributing that much fitness wise. And as I have a 10 mile power walk in three weeks – a training walk for a marathon later in the year – I really need to get the finger out.
• Braved the local library, as it was time for my bi-annual rant about how crappy it is. Or maybe the librarians just snaffle all the good stuff for themselves

Work tomorrow, so back soon.

So tomorrow we are all off to a villa in Mijas in Spain to celebrate. The kid wanted to look at our wedding photos last night  – no videos or anything in those days – just a thirty-picture album, with all the poses pre-selected and agreed beforehand! Anyway, I hadn’t looked at it for years, and was rather horrified to realise we had been children.  I look about 12, Bob looks about 9. AND we had only known one another about 14 weeks. What the hell had we been thinking of. Anyway, he still drives me mad, I still love him to bits, we still row at least three times a week – more if we are under stress LOL. We’ve survived me climbing the corporate ladder, him doing a part time MBA that nearly broke us 12 years ago, miscarriages, infertility, one very sick kid, five house moves, three redundancies. And lots of fun, love and laughter. He hasn’t aged as well as me (I like to think), but can still run a sub 3.30 marathon, and still can press all my buttons. Love him loads