Good Morning and a Very Merry Christmas.

What, you may ask, am I doing blogging on t'internet on Christmas morning? Well. All is calm and peaceful here - my husband is at work until noon and the children, if you can still call them children are languishing in their beds. He'll probably be back before they surface.
I'm having a cuppa (with the obligatory tot of whisky), have my Christmas socks on and my feet up. Tis the calm before the storm; I'll have to battle with a 14lb turkey shortly, plus all the trimmings so I'm making the best of it and refusing to be stressed at least for the time being. By 1.30 I'll probably be redfaced and the air will be blue as I'll have burnt the carrots and forgotten the cranberry. Wouldn't be Christmas without a bit of swearing!

Enjoy!

Greetings....

I am still here, just not finding the time to blog much. Plus since number2 son went off to uni I've had my computer time seriously curtailed by my other two offspring as we only have one other decent laptop in the house. He'll be back shortly though and the bloke in red may be bringing a new laptop too. Note to self - may need more download allowance :-o.

I've got a well-earned morning off on Saturday so I'll post an Autumn catch-up then.

Laters x

For Harry, My Father In Law.

Do not stand at my grave and weep

I am not there, I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.

I am the diamond glints on snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain.

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning's hush

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circled flight.

I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry

I am not there, I did not die.

Mary Elizabeth Fry

Not your average 16 year old

Emily is 16 today.


And she's not here - she's in Germany on a school History trip. Off they went at stupid o'clock this morning. I pity the staff I really do - just four of them here for a pizza party and the noise level was off the scale. If you flew Heathrow to Munich at around 7 am this morning I do apologise.


We didn't really get what it said on the tin when Emily arrived. For starters I thought she was going to be another boy, and she was supposed to be of average weight. She doesn't know the meaning of the word and weighed in from the off at just shy of 10lbs. And obviously she had some out of the ordinary plumbing and has developed an out of the ordinary attitude to life.


Happy Birthday Em. Enjoy. I know you will.

So a week has gone by and my purse is a little heavier, my washing basket a little less overflowing and the fridge a little fuller. But the house is a little more empty and not quite so insane. I do miss him.

This week's news

We had a trip to cardiology this week (following our cancellation a short time ago) - and all is well. Actually, all is the same which is still good news. Emily has to go back in a couple of weeks for a treadmill test to measure her exercise tolerance (or lack of). This will be interesting. As is the way with many teenage girls, exercise is not very de riguer and she doesn't find getting redfaced and sweaty very appealling. Watch this space!

Another piece of news this week is that the DWP with their usual predictability have turned down our renewal request. I find it a little disconcerting that the same claim that produced an award last time is unsuccessful this time. I wouldn't mind so much if they were bloody consistent.

No2 son (and the no2 only describes the order in which they arrived, I must make this clear) is off to uni tomorrow. Sob. On the plus side my recycling bin will not be full of beer cans and the phone bill might be a little less. Every cloud and all that.

Extraordinary task #345 & Sod's Law

In order to keep on top of the mess that continually rises around me I set myself a couple of extraordinary tasks every week. You know the sort; tidying the linen cupboard (I'd enjoy that but I don't have one), the glory hole (under the stairs, to the uninitiated) and wiping the skirting boards (I don't look down for the rest of the time).

Today's task is the Man Drawer. You've heard of these haven't you? Even households without man in them have a Man Drawer.






Here's ours.

It contains many Useful Things, for example, expired Library Cards - for scraping ice from your windscreen. Mainly though it holds useless items that no-one takes responsibility for throwing away; Pencils (blunt) and pens (mostly with no ink), expired batteries, non working headphones, the 'gifts' from last Christmas's crackers.......ad infinitum.

Every so often I have a good clearout but you know what? The very next day I find that I need that Thing that was in the Man Drawer and I have to rummage through the bin for it and restore it to it's rightful home admidst much raised eyebrows and 'I told you so' from the Man of the House. Sod's Law.