In which clearly I am pre-menstrual. Yesterday my tolerance for friends, family, pets, the world in general and actually even inanimate objects was fairly low. Today it has further plummeted.
I saw a car sticker yesterday which said ‘tested negative for patience’ and it made me smile. Today it would have made me nod in empathy.
I signed up for the Home School Shoe Box Swap scheme which is one of those ideas which I think is probably excellent in theory and utterly stupid in practise for me as it is simply adding yet another thing to do to an already rather teeteringly full job list. So of course with that firmly bunged down my list of things as something to think about when we get back from Halloween camp I have managed to be paired up with the most enthusiastic swapper ever. On the plus side I think she may well be a great character for fictional writing inspiration 😉 but she is bombarding me with emails and then emailing to check I got her earlier email and then emailing to apologise for emailing me so much and then emailing me to thank me for reassuring her that she is not annoying me by emailing me so much. Clearly I need to match make her with David and Doreen the Thank you neighbours – it would be the perfect international friendship.
Oh and talking of neighbours – Carolyn and Owen our opposite neighbours (they are semi attached to Don and Maureen the retired neighbours on the corner who work as dinner supervisors and bring us cartons of juice and raisins and next door to David and Doreen (and sometimes Jeanette) the Thank you neighbours, who are semi attached to the policeman and the nurse who keep funny hours – he’s friendly, she’s less so and they in turn are next to the newer sexy builder neighbour who is redoing his drive -are you still with me?) who none of the neighbours really know that well. They have his and hers sports cars and both work long hours and have no children and go on lots of holidays and have a cleaner and he supports Chelsea and at least one of them smokes judging by the colour of their nets 😆 Well we think Carolyn and Owen are on holiday this week as Owen’s car hasn’t been there all week but today at about 11am Carolyn’s car alarm started going off and is still going off now. This started as a minor annoyance. It is now probably cause for taking to the car with my Dad’s sledgehammer if he’d not taken it home with him last night when they came round for dinner.
And talking of my parents they really annoyed me last night too, not with anything specific, just by being here really. And they both nagged me about not talking to my Granny lately who had been nagging them about not hearing from me. Because of course she can’t contact me and it’s not as if I’m busy with a life or anything is it.
And talking of busy lives…. you get the picture.
Nic. Not the best company to be in today :-).
So my plan was to do some playroom clearing today as that is a fairly regular once a month activity. I get all PMTy, rant lots about living in a shit tip and how no one ever does anything around here but me (not true!) and set to tipping everything in the playroom onto the floor, clearing a bin bag or so out of it, putting it all back away again and feel much better. But I also wanted to do some baking this morning and I’d said I’d make some playdoh and we’d run out of vegetable oil for the playdoh which meant we had to go out (in the pouring rain, naturally) to get the oil. So by the time everyone was dressed and we’d been out and come back I didn’t have enough time to do both and as I had to make the playdoh – well I didn’t have to but I wanted to – and would be in the kitchen anyway I thought I’d just do the baking. So I made snickerdoodles, which I accidentally put peppermint essence in instead of vanilla (you can’t taste it fortunately, and they do leave your breath minty fresh!) and some flapjacks, which by some fluke didn’t burn or anything and look lovely, although on tasting we’ll probably find that in a comedy twist Ady had refilled the syrup tin with varnish or something and they are actually toxic. Tomorrow’s arrangements to see Chris and Julie have been cancelled so tomorrow is now a free day to do more baking (I’m planning chocolate brownies, chocolate gingerbread, banana cakes and maybe some savoury stuff, perhaps cheese scones?), tidy the playroom if I’m still in the right mood for it and pack up ready to leave Sunday morning for Babs’.
So the children fell out with each other, screamed and shouted – oh how infectious is a grouch, even more so than a smile. I ranted and threatened, you can probably picture it all just reading about it. Lucy and Rebecca came round and Rebecca really happily came in and played while Lucy popped home to drop Richard back so that was a massive step forward. Lucy came back, we had lunch, tidied away the geomags and got out the playdoh. It was a bit sticky – unsurprisingly given how the day was going, but the children all made fairly creative things before we all got bored and suggested a trip to the park. Lucy collected Richard and we had a nice enough half hour or so at the park with reduced whinging (mostly mine I think actually :oops:) before heading back to Lucy’s for tea. The children all disappeared and appeared to be playing nicely, although there were rather too many puddles on the floor and soggy clothes for us to be altogether pleased at the peace :roll:.
We’re home again now, the car alarm is still going off (or is that just the ringing in my ears?), peace is restored with some enforced quiet watching of Discover kids while I rant here and their tea is cooking.
But you know what, it’s Friday, Ady should be home any moment and I’m barely an hour away from opening the wine – things can only get better!
My dysfunctional sibling is driving me mad. I’ve told Hannah to go phone him now (how cowardly is THAT) to try to get the info from him.
Comment by Joyce — 20 October 2006 @ 5:52 pm
Ugh heap of shoite.The car alarm alone would have had me at high stress level.
Hope the weekend will pick you up and turn you round, starting with wine, which I am already drinking here.
Comment by Ali — 20 October 2006 @ 6:17 pm
oh fuckadoodle do, I’m never doing *that* much baking even on a good day! Might manage a coffee cake though, seeing as that was something you didn’t mention 😉
Comment by Sarah — 20 October 2006 @ 6:21 pm
nah, don’t like coffee!
And Sarah – is that really you? 😉
Comment by Nic — 20 October 2006 @ 6:28 pm
Oh no, you can’t have a FFS sort of a day; i’ve spent half the last 24 hours chanting “must be more like Nic” to myself. 😕
Comment by Merry — 20 October 2006 @ 7:09 pm
“Be more like Nic”??? Merry my love, you really *are* in a bad way …. 😉
Bloody world, eh? Can you phone the police or someone about the car?
Comment by Alison — 20 October 2006 @ 7:22 pm
😆 well looks like you managed it today, but maybe not quite what you had in mind! 😉
Comment by Nic — 20 October 2006 @ 7:22 pm
David was going to ring the police – I assume they merely laughed at him. Dunno what they could do really?
Comment by Nic — 20 October 2006 @ 7:24 pm
They just laugh. They won’t come out for domestic alarms. There’s one around here that goes off at the slightest puff of wind. At least with a car alarm, the battery will go flat eventually. (evil cackle)
Comment by Joyce — 20 October 2006 @ 7:33 pm
I think it finally has actually. Which is good because I plan on getting drunk enough that if it was still going at 2am I could well be out there naked, shouting at the car to ‘shurrup’ while still swigging from a bottle.
Comment by Nic — 20 October 2006 @ 7:42 pm
Oh god, i won’t be on my own then. There is still half a bottle of vodka smiling at me. See you tomorrow. Well, not, but you know. Sort of.
Comment by Merry — 20 October 2006 @ 9:06 pm
You could have cancelled our visit if needed. The snickerdoodles were so lovely Richard didn’t eat any dinner! And that little puddle in the bedroom, it was quite huge wasn’t it. I’ve been trying to think of ways to prevent water play. A toss up between glueing the taps or tieing their hands.
Comment by Lucy — 20 October 2006 @ 11:00 pm
Luce, you were our saviour! If we’d not been holding it together to see you guys we might well have killed each other! 😆
Lock on the bathroom door I reckon…
Comment by Nic — 20 October 2006 @ 11:04 pm
I’m coming to play when you get back I miss you!
Comment by Roslyn — 21 October 2006 @ 10:11 pm
I might bring the kids.
Comment by Roslyn — 21 October 2006 @ 10:11 pm
Aye, it’s been too long.
Comment by Nic — 21 October 2006 @ 11:00 pm