Moving at the speed of life

Bob took the hideous 70s banisters down when we were decorating, and then we couldn’t find anything off the shelf that would fit, and we weren’t really prepared to go for customised. So he’d sanded all the old ones down to the original wood, and just gave them a lick of clear varnish, and while the style is still naff, they do actually look at lot better. Anyway, I digress. The point was he was putting them back up today, when water fell on his head, and we realised there was WATER COMING OUT OF THE LOFT!!!!! Given we’ve just re-decorated and laid new carpets, this was not good news. We hoped it was just a leaky washer, but it appears we may have to replace the water tank. And I’m f***ed if I know how we will get it up through the hole. The one currently up there is bigger than the hole, so presumably it went in before the ceiling went up. Must check our house insurance. The carpet is currently OK, but the ceiling is going to have to be repainted, as it’s all brown stains, which is still coming through even though water stopped running from the tank, so it must be water which has already leaked. If it doesn’t get any worse, we won’t have to replace the ceiling, but annoying even to think of repainting it again. Tank now drained, and water off at mains, and dd has spent afternoon being plumbers mate, and learning even more colourfull language. She is currently adopting the policy that if she can spell it, she can say it. Unfortunately, most swear words are phonetically regular, meaning dyslexia no use as a barrier.

However, have finally finished my course manual, just need to do my trainer’s notes, but that won’t be so bad. I hope. And tonight, its will be a case of “the peasants have no water? Let them drink wine”

Must get some education on here soon.

I think we may almost have decided on a border terrier. Although we haven’t bought it yet, and the nearest breeder we can find is in Derbyshire, so I’m not holding my breath. Also need to purchase or construct some sort of outdoor puppy palace, to accomodate it on work days.

Yesterday we went to the annual home ed sports day. I think there may have been about a dozen families, and when you consider some of them will have may a round trip of a couple of hundred miles to be there (maybe more -*we* did 100), it’s clear what we are up against. And at least half the families only seemed to have very young (under 5) children.

DD wants to go to MoTB for two weeks next year, so has to raise half the money herself. Today I offered her £15 to do three weeks worth of ironing   – massive pile – and she did it, in about three hours. And while not to my standard, good enough. So very pleased about that, and she has offered to do it every week for £5 on top of her pocket money. Which I think is fair enough, as her pocket money isn’t tied to chores, and doing the family ironing is more than I would expect her to do normally. She DID ask about laying the table, emptying the dishwasher etc, which she does do most days, but I told her I thought those jobs were a reasonable part of living in a family, and there would be nothing extra for them.

She’s wrote a mammoth letter today, and has been doing lots of drawing a reading. The rest of the time she’s been doing hormones.

Today is the day of the flying ants. We had never seen such a thing till we moved here the year dd was born. I arrived home with the pram on one of these hot muggy August days, to find the house covered in the things. I’m a pretty robust sort of person, but I freaked out, managed to unlocked the car which was outside the house, and phoned Bob at work, to insist he came home IMMEDIATELY. Rather more stoic about them now, though they are really unpleasant, and we seem to have millions of them outside. So we are indoor with a hatches battened down, till they get on with their mid air procreation, and sod off for the winter.

DD did some Chemistry this morning, going to have to find her a decent chemistry set though. She seems really sad and lonely at the moment, and Bob and I have been doing our agonising over school thing again. She was crying about wanting to see Pea and Boo in bed last night, and it’s not really ideal that the kids she sees are her friends are 500 miles away. I even suggested she tried school for this year – the last year of primary, then came out again if she wanted, hoping she would at least have made some contacts. She point blank refuses though, and if anything is probably more against the idea of school now than she has ever been. I just hope she doesn’t feel she needs to hang out against it to prove something. I’m really worried about her.

This afternoon, we had a quick trip to IKEA,  as we seem to have no glasses other than wine glasses in the house. Popped into the Science centre to pick up a programme for the year, and played board games for a while when we came back. She is reading now (decided to re-read the entire HP series before she read the last book, so is just finishing off number 5), and I’m looking for a displacement activity for my worry.

Group I did a workshop for at the weekend for free have just contacted me and asked me if I will do them another three, for which they will pay me

New carpets were laid today, and everyone being forced to remove shoes in the storm porch, which will continue till I get bored of it. We are all really sneezy tonight, which I guess is new carpet dust, which enable me to say “see, I *told* you we should have laminate.” I do so like to be proved right. Anyway, it’s a sure sign we’ll now move by Xmas.

DD still peaky, and slept in the caravan this afternoon to avoid the carpet-layers. One of whom had a 6 inch red mohican, which is so *not* the-town-where-we-live. I thought he looked great

Sooty is lovely. Just like a imagined a GP would be, and so unlike Rose, who was always looking for an escapte route, and as she was smooth haired, I always felt she was only a particle of DNA away from being a rat.  This one is just a cuddly bundle of fur. She slept in my kangeroo pocket for a while this morning, leading to mohican man asking me when the baby was due, which I found rather flattering that he thought it was a biological possibility

Decided I just couldn’t watch Martha the GP pining for one more day, so went and bought a new GP: Sooty, the Abyssinian. Just 9 weeks old, and very sweet. Contrary to all my anxieties about it, Martha welcomed her with open paws (although she did mount her a few times, but apparently that’s normal). DD was a bit tearful, as I think she still harbours hopes that Rose may come home. We planned to keep them apart tonight, but they got on so well all day, decided to risk them in the same hutch. Just checked on them, and the baby is sound asleep, with Martha spooned into her, with one paw over her shoulders. Awwwww.

DD slightly better today at last. I’ve worked most of the day, when not supervising GP bonding, and Bob has sanded down the banisters. leaving red dust all over the garden. Although they do look better now. Just need to give them a lick of clear varnish, then we can get them up again.

Schools went back here last week, so already fending off the “enjoying being back to school?” and “what lessons are you teaching her this year questions” Sigh.

It’s rained all day. I made dd get up for a couple of hours this morning, as she’s not been out of bed except to go to the doctors since Monday. She barely made an hour before I had to relent and let her go back to bed. So I’ve worked on a writing project, Bob’s work has phoned roughtly every hour, and that’s it.

House is a tip, and doesn’t seem much point in tackling it as we get our new carpet in the living room and the stairs on Monday, so tomorrow we are going to have to stch other furniture all over the place, and rip old carpets up, releasing all sort of unsavoury horrors into the atmosphere. 

Bob did make me my favourite meal ever of courgette risotto for dinner. Won’t even think of the calories, it was so delicious.

Took dd to GP this morning, and she’s now on one of the wonder antibiotics, since the big standard one did not do very much. He also tried to take a swab, and she vomited on the floor. Lovely. Mind you, when he looked again afterwards (and to be fair, he WAS very stoic about it!), he thought the abcess looked like it had burst, and it certianly looked as if she’s chucked up a load of pus. Sorry, were you eating your dinner?

You know, given that kids health issues, WTF would she have been like without four years of breastfeeding??

Anyway, (fanfare of trumpets!!) two course bookings today, which is fantastic. Bought a lectern off eBay. Hope I don’t get stung for a massive customs payment, but I reckon I colud be charged 40 quid, and even with the postage from the states, would STILL be less than they cost in the UK. Toying with a laser printer. At the moment, I’m getting my manuals done at a print shop, and it’s good because they do the drilling, but thy just don’t do a good collation job, so they need a lot of checking. If I did it at home, dd could join the business, and assemble the manuals, thereby saving for her MotB fund. Headlines: “mum keeps tot off school to work in sweatshop”. The printers themselves are really very reasonable, just trying to work out what toner will cost.

Right, Friday night, so dinner and wine

1. DD has an abscess on her tonsil. Again. We saw the ENT consultant 6 months ago, as she had a hideous time all last year, with I think, about 8 bouts of really nasty tonsillitis. The GP thought she really needed them out (and he did say her hadn’t referred a kid for tonsillectomy for a year, so he obviously didn’t just do it willy nilly. Anyway, the doctor at the hospital (not our favourite paed), said to wait six months. She did have about 2 months at the beginning of the summer when she was OK, but this is her third bout in as many months, and she looks ghastly.

2. My computer is driving me nuts. I get a “can’t display page message”very single time I try a web site. It usually works on the third or 4th reload. I’ve tried all the troubleshooting on the microsoft support pages, and none of them work. The other PCs in the house are fine. I then decided it was an IR thing, and changed to firefox, but still no luck

3. A bloody cat (did I ever mention I hate cats), has started to terrorise the guinea pig by sitting on the top of her run (fortunately it has a lid), and licking it’s lips at her for hours at a time. I keep chasing it, but it just gives me that bloody cat-look, and gets back up. That damn rodent isn’t going to be able to take much more trauma.

4. Bob drank the last glass of wine.

5. DD has just taken the last paracetamol

We’d been planning to go visiting today, then DD woke up with a temperature and a sore throat, so she has spent the day dozing in bed, leaving me free to get on with a range of boring and necessary taks. I had a 17 item list this am, and have cleared it all, with items as diverse as pay my NI, apply for a Makro card, do my filing, and submit claims to Royal Mail for all the eBay items allegedly not delivered. I’ve had to make three refunds in the last month, which seems unusual to me. I suppose you don’t know if mail you aren’t expecting isn’t delivered, but I don’t think I ever find that mail I AM expecting doesn’t come, though everyone else claims the mail is completely unreliable. Nice to see my desk again

Have also updated my business blog. I had thought I’d been very smart, and written three articles to be released at weekly intervals while we were away. Clearly however I didn’t set it up properly, as nothing was posted. Not sure what I did wrong there.

Nearly killed the remaining cavy, as it fell asleep on my lap while I was typing, and I forgot it was there, and stood up…..it seems OK, and it DID land on its feet :blush: Oh, and T bird – they are both boys. We just pretend they are girls, because…., well, dd desperately wanted to call them Rose and Martha. Which is probably why Rose left home, and is possibly now in counselling for gender confusion.  Martha seems a little happier today. We’ve stuffed a used sock of dd’s with straw, and given it that to cuddle, plus put an old t shirt of mine in the hutch with it. This morning it was spooned into the sock, and lying on the t shirt when we went to get her out. So not only does it have gender confusion, it is soon to have species confusion……

Bob has finally agreed we can have a dog. Which means I can no longer blame our lack of dog status on him, and have to consider if *I* really want one. Well, I do want one, I’m just not sure how we’d fit it into our lives. You can vote in the usual place