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Wednesday 23 February 2011

Where's the PE bag?

My left foot is really playing me up & my right foot's threatening to do the same so I'm scooting around being a disabled person.

J is currently hunting for his PE bag & P for his hat, both items having disappeared off the face of the earth. I'm pretty confident that if I haul myself off the sofa & go & look I'll find the PE bag at least. Actually I don't mind if the hat gets lost (don't tell him).

Ok, I'm going to look.

Monday 21 February 2011

Digger

On Saturday afternoon I noticed Digger (the hamster) was sleeping in a different part of his nest which was really unusual. When I put his food in his dish he didn't wake up & I realised he was unconscious. He must have had a stroke or something. I got J out of bed & he sat for a while gently stroking Digger & talking to him. When I got up at 6.30 on Sunday Digger was still alive but very, very unwell. I wrapped him up & held him & talked to him & he calmed down. After half an hour he suddenly opened his eyes & seemed to look at me then he died.
Poor J was distraught & shut himself in his room for hours. His friend Tim came round for Digger's burial & that seemed to help J a lot.
It's all been a bit traumatic.

Good time

J said he was in such a good mood because he was looking forward to his friends coming to visit. Aaah, that's really nice.

We had a really good time with our friends, lots of talking & eating, lots & lots of eating actually nearly all cooked by P & it was delicious. J had very good time with the boys as well.


Friday 18 February 2011

Bullying

J has been in a really good mood for the last few days. Strange!

Last night we went to a parent information evening about bullying. It was very interesting. Girls tend to outdo boys at academic subjects & apparently they do at bullying too - they are far nastier & more subtle.

What was interesting was they said we shouldn't expect the children to deal with bad bullying, it has to be an adult who intervenes & brings it to an end. In my day there was no way I'd tell my parents or teachers if someone did something to me at school.

At the end they asked if there were any questions. One woman kept asking questions which showed she obviously had hardly listened to the talk at all (still teachers must be used to that). Another woman said her daughter had been bullied she'd reported it to the school, it had stopped but then started again & now her daughter's refusing to go to school. Someone asked her if she'd told the school it had started again & she said 'No, what's the point cos when you tell them it stops & then just starts again'. She kept going on & on & on & people kept saying 'Why haven't you told the school?' until the teacher said 'Stay behind & we'll sort it out now'.
Another mother said 'Surely with making bullying high profile there's a danger of children falsely accusing each other of bullying?'
Perhaps there is but you have to feel sorry for teachers sometimes.

While we were there J went with Tim & his family to his sister's drama show which he enjoyed.
Today I took J to school, took a detour on the way home to give Becky a lift from dropping off her car for MOT, went to new housegroup where there was a new person who was nice but talked a lot, went to pick up P who had to pick up something for work in another town, on way stopped for lunch, ended up getting stuck in traffic so realised would be really late to pick up J. This happened to be the day he forgot his mobile phone. I had bright idea of texting 3 of his friends whose numbers I had asking them to tell J we were late & to wait. Got following replies:

Friend 1: no reply, presumably phone off.
Friend 2: 'Sorry I don't know what you're talking about'.
Friend 3: 'u r not ur mum'.

Sigh.

Thankfully Friend 2's dad phoned back & sorted out situation & even waited until we arrived over an hour late so J could sit in their car & keep warm. What a nice man!

When we picked up J he said 'Someone did something to me at school today but I'm not telling you what it was or who did it'.

Ok, where will I find this in the Anti-Bullying policy?

Thursday 17 February 2011

Thursday

Well today really is Thursday (see yesterday). Last night I stayed up far too late doing some writing on our old laptop. I encountered a problem when I tried to save it onto a memory stick & just kept getting error messages. I spent a ridiculous amount of time trying different memory sticks & twiddling them & pushing them in & out etc. After going to bed so late I had some really bad nightmares. One of them was I woke up to find someone had put together a huge jigsaw on our bedroom floor while we were asleep. For some reason I knew it wasn't J. So who was it? I had some other scary dreams too but can't remember them.

It was a good thing I had set my mobile to alarm & remind us it's non-uniform day, especially as J was already wearing his uniform. To forget non-uniform day is embarrassing as it looks to everyone like you're too mean to support the charity it's in aid of. Last time J forgot it was especially frustrating as he'd already given the money in.

Had a bit of a panic last night when P went to the cash machine to get money to pay J's piano teacher. He came back clutching the receipt & looking pale - it showed considerably less than we thought we should have. I quickly checked our balance - it was ok. At that point P realised he'd picked up someone else's receipt. Phew!

J's piano teacher is now coming to our house instead of us going on the long journey there which is much, much better.

Our colds are quite a lot better now apart from J coughing quite a lot at times which probably annoys his teachers but if they want good attendance figures...

Wednesday 16 February 2011

Not Thursday but sunny

I woke up this morning & thought it was Thursday. I was quite disappointed to realise it wasn't, I just felt like it being Thursday.

J & I are both getting better so should be ok for Saturday when we've got friends coming whom we haven't seen for ages. If these friends are reading this I wanted to have the house tidier but I haven't been well, that's my excuse ok. We're really looking forward to seeing you anyway.

The sun is streaming through the window at the moment - bliss.

I don't feel like doing anything at the moment. Perhaps I'll turn this off & just sit looking out of the window at the birds.

Talking of birds the blue-tits on our bird feeder are absolute bullies, if any other birds are on there they just drive them off, even the woodpecker. They're beautiful bullies though.

Here I go, time for a nice relax.


Tuesday 15 February 2011

Today

So back to today. My cold is getting better though I still feel quite rough. Drove J to school for first time since last Weds. Cleaner came this morning but not for as long as usual. Weather seems to be getting colder. Wish J had taken his coat.

Chocolate torte

And this is P's chocolate torte which looked a whole lot nicer.

Cheesecake


This is the dessert I had at our postponed Christmas lunch a few weeks ago. I was a bit surprised by the 'winter fruit compote' as to me raspberries aren't really a winter fruit.
Align Centre
Here are the snowflakes J made in his Maths lesson.

Last minute Christmas shopping

This is part of the trip my brother & I made (with snow chains on his car) to take my younger niece to the shop to do her Christmas shopping.

Monday 14 February 2011

Pictures of Wales

As you'll read below I've been at a bit of a loose end & uploading some photos of our trip to Wales at Christmas. Some are from my mobile & some from P's camera, you can probably tell which is which.

Travelling to Wales

Below are some images of our journey to Wales.
And this is the other place we got stuck - we couldn't get up the hill! I'm so grateful to that nice man in the landrover.
This is one of the places we got stuck & has to be rescued!

Our journey continued

Video from hotel

Snowy scene


Going back to our treck to Wales, this was the view from the hotel where we stayed in Shropshire.

Sniff, sniff

On Friday P took me to new housegroup & ended up staying for lunch when he came to pick me up. J went round for pizza after school as it was another friend's birthday. When we picked him up he had a really runny nose & high temperature. He'd hardly eaten anything so must have been ill! He wasn't well most of weekend but went to school today. However he's been generous with his germs so now I've got it. My nose is so sore!
So it's Valentine's Day, P gave me some chocolates & I bought him a new shirt (!) but he's got a huge rush on at work & is now stuck in front of the computer with a pile of papers while I sneeze on the sofa & J plays Super Mario on the wii.

Today I noticed that the cherry trees at J's school are beginning to blossom & here & there crocuses are coming up. It's going to happen - Spring!

Because I'm bored I'm going to try & upload some pictures from my mobile.

Friday 11 February 2011

Leave the computer alone

Have had some trouble logging in today. Realised it's because J when logging into our youtube account changed the password on our Google account which means it's changed to get into my blog too. I wish the men in this family would stop fiddling with the computer. Nearly every time I switch it on something's changed. Just leave it alone!

Had really bad day yesterday, feet excruciatingly painful, hardly able to stand on them, had to send J to school on bus, had to get someone else to take Mavis to doctor, felt bad because in rush to get bus J forgot PE kit,still had to finish article for village magazine as deadline yesterday & type & email Pastoral Care Team minutes & do a load of washing in spite of not feeling well. Pain not quite so bad this morning. Debating whether to go to new house group or not. P can drop me off he says. I'll see.

J showing definite signs of turning into a teenager at the moment. Help!


Monday 7 February 2011

Getting an airing cupboard

This is something good which is happening. P is making doors for the airing cupboard. I've never had a proper airing cupboard before, not since I left home anyway. In our last house the water tank took up nearly the whole cupboard. Come to think of it I can't remember if my parents' last house had an airing cupboard. Actually I think it was downstairs in the kitchen.
Now we've got the underfloor heating in the bathroom & the ventilation system the bathroom is a really good place to dry washing. There won't be so much space once the shower is fitted in though but then I'll have my airing cupboard. Bliss.

It's a bit of a girl thing, ok.

Sad Sunday

Yesterday wasn't a very good day. At church I sat next to a lady whose son & daughter in law have twins & are expecting another baby. At a scan at 18 weeks the baby was found to have part of her heart missing & isn't expected to live long after birth. I can't imagine how you can cope with something like that.

I was talking to the wife of our ex-minister who died recently, she was really pleased with how the services went & is coping amazingly well. We have been asked to write an article about her husband for the village magazine, I said I'd email it to her before I sent it in.

Then had a text from a friend to say their 14 year old daughter was seriously depressed & had disappeared off into the woods. They were desperately concerned & were going to call the police to look for her. After an hour had a text to say she was back home but wouldn't speak at all. This is just so awful, feeling like that at 14. She's such a lovely girl as well & really clever & talented. There are a lot of problems in the family though. P & I were praying about it & I was quite upset while keeping it from J as it's better he doesn't know.

In the evening we took J to a friend's birthday celebration - pizza & cinema. They saw 3 D Gulliver's Travels & all seemed to have a good time.

Horrible illness

On Tuesday went to memorial service for our former minister. It was a lovely service & it really did feel like a celebration of his life. There were loads of people we hadn't seen for years which was really nice but a bit strange too as some people haven't changed at all & some have changed a lot. What I found quite upsetting was there was a middle aged woman in a wheelchair whom I didn't know but afterwards P told me who she was. Nearly 30 years ago, just after P & I first met, I helped at a children's holiday club at the church & there was this 12 year old girl who seemed incredibly mature for her age & was very lively & energetic & friendly as well. Turns out this woman in the wheelchair is her & she's had ME for 5 years. Just so tragic.
It's really weird as at the funeral another of our previous minister's wives was telling me about her 2 grandchildren who have ME & are really, really ill & it's totally messed up their education & is a huge strain on the whole family. Then on Friday I went out for lunch with some of my new housegroup & met a woman whose husband is housebaound with the same illness. When she told me how her daughter had died of cancer as well it just brought tears to my eyes & she said 'Oh, I'm sorry I've upset you,' & then everyone turned to look at me which was really embarrassing. I just muttered something about how I cry easily & the leader hugged me cos she's nice.
I was pretty exhausted & achey after the funeral so had to have a few days rest.
I hate this horrible, horrible illness. I want to be healed & then in some way help all these other people. I wish I could.