Wednesday

J been off yesterday & today because has lost his voice. Took him to doctor yesterday to get a certificate for school. We had a power cut most of day so house was really quiet - no TV, computer, radio or J talking.

This morning went to coffee morning with J. Year 3 from the junior school were there doing a tour of the church for RE. They let them loose on the drums! The teacher said Hello to J but he couldn't answer. We got given daffodils & Easter eggs. Then I went to see a different doctor who said some of the problems I'm having could be drug side effects & he knows as he's on same drug. Going to come off it & see what happens.

Feel quite tired, think I'll have a sleep.

Another wet Monday

I just hate the clocks going forward. I just wanted to sleep all day today. Weather has been horrible. J is a bit under the weather tonight. Sent him to bed early, really hope he goes to school tomorrow.

At church there is a couple who have a 15 month old girl & they have new born twin boys as well! They' re all adorable but just imagine it. It's the thought of two two year olds & a three year old that makes me shudder. Or two fourteen year olds & a fifteen year old. Yikes!

There was another couple with a new born little girl, they've got a twenty month old girl & a three year old boy as well. It was just babies everywhere on Sunday which was fine because I like babies.

I don't know why it is but people keep coming up & telling me their problems at the moment. Yesterday I heard so many problems that afterwards I couldn't completely remember which was which. Some people's lives are just so sad. It just makes me want to cry.

Last Thursday I led the housegroup & it was really strange everyone just started really sharing deeply. And it really was everyone. A couple of them sent me texts saying how good it was but I didn't do anything, it just sort of happened. Perhaps it was because we were talking about worship.

I have this real problem with my jaw at the moment, it sort of comes out of place when I eat & it hurts. I went to the doctor who said it was Tempero Mandibular Joint Disorder. He said it was because I grind my teeth & the reason I grind them is because I'm stressed. I kept saying I'm not particularly stressed but he wouldn't believe me & said I'm bound to be, just sitting at home all day. (Actually I don't just sit at home all day). Anyway I couldn't believe what he said next - he said I should take up a sport! How could he say that to me! I went home clutching my leaflets on avoiding stress (Tip1: Don't go near doctor) then I sat down & cried.

I've decided I'm going back for a second opinion.

Back to school

On Sunday I went back to school. Literally. J had an art workshop at the school I went to for the sixth form. I hadn't been back there since I was 19 & I had mixed feelings about it because really I wasn't at all happy there.

Anyway after a bit of a long drive we arrived & some it had changed & some of it hadn't. What was a brand new building when I was there had become a bit shabby looking. It just felt really strange being back. I kept expecting one of my teachers to appear round the corner. Sadly on the wall there was an obituary to one of the (nicer) teachers I had known.

The workshop was a life drawing class & the teacher asked for 3 parent volunteers. At this point we realised that apart from one other mum the parents had all headed for the far corner of the room & were keeping their heads down. So the 3 of us were models. We also joined in the drawing & it really was quite fun. The teacher was very good & the children were absorbed the whole time. J really enjoyed it. The modelling was a bit hard as it's quite difficult to stay absolutely still (& does my nose really look like that?). The teacher said that I was a very good example of foreshortening - sitting in the wheelchair my legs appear shorter than they really are.

We took a few photos & smuggled out a school information pack then headed for home.
Somehow having had a good time there with my family made the memories seem less bad.

And if my Biology teacher ever reads this - I've forgiven you.

Update

• Having lilac nails makes me feel like a different person. I don't think the colour really suits me though, I might paint my nails a different colour. Green? Seriously I've always had a secret yearning for green nails, perhaps it'd be better on my toe nails. A nice pearlescent pale green would look ok. Perhaps.
  
• J has a non-uniform day at school today.
• P & I at home having a tidy-up as my friend Naomi is coming for dinner.
• P's Dad has been transferred to the hospital in the town where J's piano teacher lives. They think he has some nerve damage (P's Dad not the piano teacher) which will take a while to get better. He's a bit fed up that they don't have individual televisions in this hospital.
• Mavis actually bruised J's arm when she grabbed it. This creates a difficult situation as P doesn't feel it's fair on J to ask her round here again when J's here & obviously I don't want to risk J getting hurt again but I'd already asked her to come round on her birthday.
• I'm going to have to get on with some tidying. Sigh.
  

Happy Mother's Day?

Mother's Day didn't turn out quite how I thought it would. It started out good - J gave me lovely purse he'd bought me (my old one was literally falling apart) & P brought me breakfast in bed.
P's brother then turned up for a visit. Sunday morning isn't the most convenient time for us but he said he was happy pottering around while we were at church.
Then we went to church where all the ladies were given polyanthus plants by the children. This is a tradition in our church, it is also a tradition that I systematically kill mine by forgetting to water it. The lady next to me decided to bring hers to a more rapid demise by sitting on it! I couldn't help laughing but she saw the funny side as well.
I noticed that Mavis, the elderly lady we bring to church was looking miserable so I went & asked her how she was & she burst into tears. It turned out she'd been told she probably needs a major operation on her spine. I just sat there hugging her & feeling helpless. She was so upset we brought her back home & she cheered up a bit. However she does have a tendency to be a bit rough with children & when J got in a hump over eating his dinner she grabbed his arm & hurt him slightly. At this point J, who'd had a bad morning at Sunday School & is also turning into a teenager, went into a terrible mood. This continued after Mavis had gone & he declared it had been the worst day of his life (this despite P's brother having given him a huge Lego kit). I reflected on the worst day of my life which was an awful lot worse than J's worst day & ended up feeling really quite sad.
Never mind.

Fund raiser

Tonight we were at the Year 6 fund raiser at J's old junior school. I got into a competition with Tim's little sister over 'build a paperclip chain in 30 seconds'. She got 11 then I got 12 then she got 13 then I got 14 then she got 15 then the Year 3 teacher joined in & got 15 then I got 14 then I gave up.

Tim's sister also beat me by 1 on the 'marbles in the flowerpot'.

Not that I'm competitive or anything.

Had a long talk with a couple whose daughter has been offered places both at J's school & a grammar school. Seems like so long ago now that we were in that situation.

Ate 3 cakes & had my nails painted with lilac glitter polish.

A fun evening.

Floods

I have finally found the USB cable for my new mobile that mysteriously went missing so I've been able to download all 219 pictures! I'm going to show you some of them (which stretch back to November) because I think some of them are quite good.

A few weeks ago we had some real proper floods round here. We were coming back from visiting (or rather not visiting as we didn't know the ward had closed again) P's Dad when we found the river had burst its banks. We couldn't get across one bridge because a car had tried & got stuck in the middle. When we went to the next bridge we had to drive through flood water to get across. Scary but pretty!

Driving across the bridge.

This photo & the next two are of what's normally quite a small river!

Chocolate mousse

This was it - my chocolate mousse!

Update

I am still alive, just haven't got round to any blogging lately. Quite a lot has happened recently & I probably can't remember everything. Just a few things that come to mind:

• My brother came for a visit with our Christmas presents & we cooked Christmas dinner & had crackers. It's hard to get the right atmosphere in March though!
• J has been off school sick again, his head of year is being very nice about it but says we have to get a doctor's certificate every time he's off now in case the Welfare Officer questions his absences. I wish it would just stop happening.
• P's dad is still improving, in quite a lot of pain but walking a bit further every day.
• My dad has been ill with something called Polymyalgia Rheumatica which makes him ache all over but he's responding well to treatment.
• Tim, who's J's friend & Becky's son got into local grammar school (one which J loathed). She spent several thousand pounds on having him tutored so it's good that he got in. He's over the moon. She's worried about whether he'll cope with all the work, especially as he's given up doing homework at primary school.
• We went to a quiz night on Saturday & our team won! This wasn't thanks to me. I'm getting quite concerned about my general lack of knowledge & have decided I'm going to learn 3 new facts a day. Even if I did think Helsinki was the capital of Sweden I was the only one to know the name of the heroine of Northanger Abbey. I thought everybody knew that.
• We got a desk for J's bedroom from our local freecycle. Now he's suddenly interested in sorting out his room.
  
• Yesterday I was invited to a birthday lunch for someone from church at a quite posh hotel. The main course was a little bit disappointing to be honest. It was honeyed swede & butternut hotpot. It came in a nice little pot but little was the operative word & it did remind me a bit of babyfood I used to make for J. The dessert though was wonderful - the most amazing chocolate mousse I've ever eaten. It had a giant wedge of mint chocolate with real mint & also a dark chocolate cornflake crisp with it. I'll post a photo some time.
• It's ever so cold here today.