One word? When seven would do…

I’m sorry Joyce, I hope the skiing trip makes up for the lack of blogging 😉

What a bloody rollercoaster this year has been so far. It all feels like a total limbo, we don’t know what’s happening with Rum, or whether actually we’ll end up on Eigg or even on Skye. We don’t know whether our tenants are going to pay this month’s rent (currently they are at £800, which is less than £200 short, although none of that has cleared into our bank account yet), whether they will actually leave at the end of the month like they are supposed to, and just what state the house will be in after they have gone. We have Glastonbury lined up for a couple of weeks but can’t make arrangements after that as we simply don’t know what will happen next so can’t go making commitments to anyone or anywhere else that we may not be able to fulfil. I had a phonecall from the CCCS in the middle of everything else last week to say the money I was expecting to appear from Dad still hadn’t and when I chased it up it turns out the bank account he was planning on taking it from needs Mum’s signature, he wasn’t going to tell her so now he’s decided maybe he won’t do that for us after all and that it would be better just to wait until the house is sold and he’ll pay our CCCS payment each month. Which is very kind but so not what we had in mind and I wish he’d bloody thought to tell me rather than let the CCCS chase me and then me have to ring them back and explain that er actually we were not able to get the money to make settlements after all. And I’ve spent bloody hours and loads of stressy phonecalls setting all that up. So, money worries, no idea where we’ll be in a months time worries, watching Davies and Scarlett struggle with everything going on around them, trying not to say too much to Ady because they he turns into Mr Bleak from Bleakdom, Bleakshire, trying not to think too much about my parents because it made me cry every time I did, loving the hospitality of friends but feeling bad that we were probably not the most fun house guests ever and couldn’t even buy bottles of wine to say thank you. It’s just as well I didn’t have a birthday in the middle of all that to agonise over getting older and feeling or looking my age 😆

On Friday, my birthday, I was presented with home made cards, beautiful watercolour pictures from Davies and Scarlett, carved soap from Davies, Scarlett and Chloe, some bath stuff and chocolates (Ady has a plan for a defered birthday gift once we actually get the rent), a fab cupcake chalk board from the Lovely Laws. We have been talking about going to the Geoffrye Museum for the Farewell to Christmas event there on my birthday for about three years with Michelle so this year we actually did it.

We drove to the tube station at Cockfosters and got the underground in, then walked along to the museum. It was the mildest 6th January I can ever remember (I think I have had more white birthdays than not over the years). We split to do the museum – Michelle and Chloe have been before and wanted to do one of the audio tours, Davies and Scarlett were not so interested in that and we wanted to do the museum just exploring so although we bumped into each other a few times we did our own thing. We really liked it there, I loved the overview to the room introduction where there was loads of information about what you were about to see and it really worked well for Davies and Scarlett to have me read that to them, to chat a bit about it and then walk through and see what we could spot. A couple of times we double backed to look at the room before for some contrast and we particularly loved the Christmas dressing in each room and the differences between different periods. Ady and I really enjoyed the more modern rooms including the 60s, 70s and ‘modern’ 90s versions.

We came out and sat in the garden for a while and I got slightly teary at our whole situation but we were all perked up by the free mulled wine and cake and then Michelle and Chloe joined us. We stood at the fire for a while to warm up and then moved to the band for the main event. It was conducted by a very jolly man who did an excellent job of leading the carols, talking about Epiphany, the museum and the tradition of creating a bean and pea king and queen. I loved the singing, particularly doing the descant for Oh Come All Ye Faithful, despite the rest of our party finding it amusing and embarassing to have attention drawn to us by my singing 😆 😆 It’s my birthday and I’ll sing if I want to! 😉 The kids got commended too for their 12 days of Christmas enthusiasm and the officiator wanted to come into the audience with a roaming mic – I think it was probably for the best it didn’t come off it’s stand, he was clearly as attention seeking as I am and I could see him and I doing karaoke duets together as the crowd drifted away….

We decided fish and chips was in order, washed down with fizz and cherry juice so we called in to pick up fish and chips once we got close to M&M’s. I had a bath, which was gatecrashed literally within minutes of me getting into it by Tarly, although it was just as lovely having a bath with her as it would have been without! Then we watched Summerhill which we’d been talking about earlier in the week and Ady had not seen before. Marcus came home earlier than expected (he’d been out with friends) and everyone else drifted off to bed. Michelle and I watched something about pushy mothers and the cherry juice worked it’s magic on me sending me to bed a couple of hours before Michelle.

Both my parents rung me twice on my birthday. Mum at 10.10am (the time I was born) as she does every year. I’d already talked to Dad and said if she just rang as usual and pretended nothing had happened I would too and she pulled it off. It was slightly stilted but a very good first step. Dad rang in the afternoon to check she had rung. Mum rang again later in the evening, leaving a message to say she loved me and happy birthday. I did ring back but the line was so awful we didn’t really speak. Dad rang again just before midnight having been out for the evening. He said we should go back there on Sunday for our last couple of nights before Glastonbury and I agreed we would if he paved the way with Mum.

Saturday we had a lovely walk at an RSPB reserve with M, M and C. We walked round in various configurations, I spent some time with Davies who had been struggling a little with Scarlett, who then realised Davies was fed up with her and was trying really hard to be close to him but only really succeeding in annoying him more. Sigh. I’m glad they don’t display this sort of sibling stuff more often, I’m crap at dealing with it. We saw a deer, collected some giant pine cones, walked part of the time close to another family who Mich and I watched walk past us and turned to each other and mouthed ‘Home Ed’ at each other 😆 Funny how the radar twitches!

Back at M&M’s we had a lovely last night dinner cooked by Marcus, who has catered for us all week with a sublime selection of food and drink :). We watched a birds eye view wildlife programme which was very good but a bit trippy with the camera work and most of us had fairly early nights.

Today we overslept but got away pretty much on time and drove straight to the beach to meet up with Caz, Bid, Archie and Eliot for a lovely couple of hours walking, playing and sitting on the beach. They brought a stove and made tea and cooked sausages, we all caught up on each others news and just enjoyed being outside, somewhere beautiful talking about plans for the year. We’re going to miss them – I have a suspicion we may end up living close together again yet though…

Back at Mum & Dad’s everyone is on best behaviour. Mum made us tea and coffee when we arrived and cooked dinner refusing any offers of help. In return we were gracious, sat and watched Dancing on Ice and showed enthusiasm and interest in the soap stars and other ‘celebs’ and were chatty and happy and friendly. I think we all know it’s fairly tenuous and not remotely sustainable for long periods but frankly the chances of us ever having to live under one roof for any prolonged time are very slim so fingers crossed this is a situation we can pull off as and when needed.

My face has come up which is good in terms of being able to show the consultant precisely what does happen, bad in terms of not being able to take steroids or antihistimines to reduce it as they would skew the results of the allergy testing on Tuesday. We are all really looking forward to Glastonbury and the idea of having our own space again.

I fully anticipate normal Nic service returning very soon. I am working on my 2011 roundup and I know writing that will definitely restore my usual happy and positive outlook on life 🙂