The weather’s been pants! Not that I’m a slut or anything, but I’ve had washing on the line for the entire week – YES – the same items. I know – trollop. No sooner has it dried off, than the rain starts again. In that micro second between the clothes drying and the drizzle starting, I’m obviously caught on the phone, or sweeping up Pentley pooh, or cleaning the toilet – all jobs befitting of a Managing Director of my supreme importance! The boat’s reverting to its winter use of water butt, sitting on the drive collecting rain. At least we’ve taken the ‘plug’ out this time. Last winter, we left the bung in and you could almost visibly see the dam rise when we removed it and drained the boat. It pi**ed water for half a day once we took the plug out and everything had a tinge of mould about it – lush!
Work has been fantastic this week. Yes, you heard me right – fantastic! I know it’s Friday, but you’ll have to trust me when I tell you that I haven’t (yet) hit the G&T (o: We’ve been lucky enough to get loads of tracking orders in this week and are feeling marginally pleased with ourselves. I did finish work early today though and ‘left’ the office to go ‘home’ and spend the day doing home duties. After an hour’s excavation, I discovered a carpet in Adam’s room. It was a great day to behold and I’ve taken a photo for the album. Paul did call me back a couple of times, but I refused to make the arduous trek back to work. I was just not in the mood for an hour stuck on the M25 that is the walkway between the kitchen and my desk.
The kids had their usual swimming lesson on Thursday and Paul, Adam and I joined them for a dip. It was reminiscent of the olden days when the family trekked to the public baths for their weekly ablutions. Adam loved it and walked round the shallow shouting to anyone who’d listen, ‘I’m vimming’. They also have a rapid run at the pool where you are whizzed along at a rate of knots, before being spat back out into the main pool. Adam particularly liked this bit and insisted we kept going round and round and round – Adam clung to my neck like a baby Monkey sheltering from a flood; prepared to stand on my nose if it meant he didn’t get wet! Darcie made real progress with her breathing on her freestyle. She has a male teacher this term and he’s the spitting image of Tony – her old swimming teacher from Monks Walk. He doesn’t sing though, thank goodness. I still wake up in a cold sweat some nights, reliving the ‘….. and when they were up, they were up…. And when they were down, they were ***bubble bubble bubble**** with my foot on his head’
Sam meets friends from school at the pool now on a Thursday. Girls! There are a group of them that he gets together with every week. I stupidly asked if they were there for lessons, only to be told, ‘no, Mum, they’re there purely to see me. I’m a chick magnet’. He wanted some of Paul’s deodorant on today before he went to school as the ‘girls like a good smelling guy’. Is it any wonder I’m an alcoholic with a tic? Alan is still here in force. He’s even started getting his own post now!
I got the opportunity to mention Alan to a medical professional this week. On Wednesday, I visited the Doctors for the first time since arriving in Oz. I’d had a pain around my ribs for the previous 48 hours and it was turning into a sharp, stabbing pain that was waking me up at night. Then, on Wednesday, I’d developed a rash (there’s no need to sit further away from your PC – I’m not contagious!). So I put two and two together (coupled with a little Google-self diagnosis), and predicted that I’d got shingles. Convinced I’d pass my masters degree in internet Doctorship, I toddled off to the GP, only to be told that I had the ‘wrong sort of rash for shingles’! How disappointed was I? I couldn’t even be ill properly! Everyone else manages it quite well. I can’t even get the symptoms right for a ‘proper’ medical condition. I returned home quite dejected. Not only was I a fraud, who couldn’t manage an illness of her own, I’d been charged $50 to be told I had the wrong kind of rash! I shall do more homework next time and make sure I have studied images of the symptoms, so I KNOW I am suffering from that illness – just hope I don’t get piles ha ha!
Pentley continues his one-puppy crusade to destroy our home and leave everything with the aroma of pubescent doggy wee and a side order of poo. He’s taken to eating the gravel in the garden now. On the plus side, it makes his ‘stools’ easier to collect and Paul’s thinking of hiring him out to kerbing companies – curved edges a speciality. Anything to help our turnover!
Darcie Dog Breath and Mr Dog Breath - a match made in heaven!
He’s taken a liking to eating pencils and is more partial to a Crayola than Sam – and that IS saying something as Sam loves his Crayolas. He’s getting better, although over dinner last night, we agreed that he only gets a 5/10 currently on the ‘was it a good idea or not scale’. Having said that, Sam only gets a 4 (o:
He's part mountain goat, you know. He gets himself on the windowsill outside Paul's office. I'm training him up to do admin work at the moment. He's good, but tends to eat the petty cash receipts!
The waitress at the restaurant last night was joking that she had all this to look forward to as she didn’t have any kids yet. I just warned her to skip the first born – go straight to number 2 (the recipe has then been ‘tweaked’ for optimum performance and agreeability), and above all, keep the receipt in case you’re not entirely happy and should all else fail, there’s always ebay!
We had a nice Saturday. Sam played his second footie match. We all went to watch this week and were rewarded by being soaked through to the skin in a huge downpour!
Go number 18!
It was good fun to watch though and Sam seems to be really enjoying it. There’s a ‘no train – no game’ rule which means all the boys have to turn up to training on a Tuesday night or they don’t get a match. There’s also loads of fun stuff scheduled for them to do other than footie, like sleep overs, going to a proper Dockers match and a trip to the adventure playground. Sam hasn’t volunteered me to wash the kit this week, so I live to breathe again (it’d be washed on a Sunday and then stuck on the line for a week anyhow (o: ) I’m not good at washing – I washed Pentley’s bed this week as he had experienced a little loose bowl syndrome, and his lovely $90 purple and white fleecy bed is now purple and yucky grey. In my defence, the label said 30 degrees, but what germs would that possibly eradicate? No – boil, boil, boil. Perhaps I should show this blog to the footie manager – they’d never let me near the kit – EVER!! I’m bored – can you tell?
And finally..... they've cracked on with the house again this week. We have base plaster in every room upstairs:
And in a few rooms, we even have top coat, white plaster. It's as smooth as a baby's bum - blooming lovely stuff:
Until next week - be good :o)
