Update

Quick update:

• Had great time visiting friends yesterday.
• P's Dad doing well, got out of bed today.
  
• Boys slept well on sleepover.
• Went to coffee morning where someone said he thought I was about 30!
• Someone else asked if I'd thought about how to do the next Easter prayer rooms yet!
  
• Adam came to play this afternoon, he & J very lively. I did a treasure hunt for them then they did one for me.
• I did a load of scanning today.
• I'm exhausted.
  

Half term is here

Why, I wondered this morning, did I make a doctor's appointment so early on the first day of half term when I could have had a lie-in? Because doctor's appointments are sometimes like gold dust is the answer. It was only for a medication review & I spent an hour waiting & thinking what a stressful job being a receptionist must be a a couple of people were distinctly awkward. After that went round Becky's for a cup of tea then went home as Tim's tutor coming. He's in the run-up to his senior school entrance exams (how nice to have all that over with). His little sister who will be doing them next year has also started working for them. She seems a lot more motivated than Tim.
Then I went home & tidied & cleaned the house a lot. There are only 2 people I really want to impress with my tidying. One is Becky & the other is my brother (sibling rivalry never dies). When Becky came back with Tim who is staying for a sleepover she was almost impressed by the clear table but said we need to declutter which is easier said than done because most of the clutter doesn't belong to me. I had been doing quite well with getting rid of stuff then I helped at the bookstall at a charity event & we ended up bringing home 3 big boxes of leftover books.
One thing I have done though is decided that the end of the dining room is 'my area' & if anybody leaves anything in it it's instantly moved, so I have a nice clear area to sit in a comfortable chair with my plants & photos & my pansies just outside the French doors.
P's Dad is still doing well, going to start physio on his legs tomorrow.
Hope boys sleep on sleepover.

Dinner conversation

Part of conversation at dinner last night:

J: 'Is G-I-T a swear word?'
Dad: 'No, it's not a swear word but it's not nice to call somebody a git'.
J: 'My Maths teacher called someone a git'.
Mum (shocked): 'Who did she call a git?'
J: 'The minister for education'.
Mum & Dad: 'Hmmm'.

Good news

Good news! P's Dad turned a corner yesterday & is a lot better. J & I went with P to see him this afternoon & although he still looked ill he's no longer confused & his chest seems a lot better.
P's brother & his wife came down for a brief visit yesterday although she couldn't bring herself to actually go into the ward as she hates hospitals. Actually, just for the record, I don't like hospitals either, despite having worked in several & had quite a lot of experience as a patient. But we have to be very thankful for the medical care we receive in this country.

Nice & sunny today. Good church service with visiting speaker. I was starving at coffee time & ate a custard cream & a bourbon & then got P to get me some peanut M & Ms when he went to get the paper all of which wrecked my diet which has been going really well. Never mind, I'll get back on track tomorrow. Trying to rest a bit today as did lot of tidying yesterday (P & J also helped). House definitely getting tidier.

P making home-made pizza. Yum!

Update

Got phone call from hospital 8.30 last night saying P's Dad not letting nurses near him so P had to go in to help them give him his medicine & wasn't back until after 10.00. He had to go back in first thing this morning. A lot of the time he seems to be in a world of his own, thinking he's back in the army but is occasionally lucid. We're still very concerned about him. We were going to go to Wales during half term but have decided we can't go.

J went back to school today & went on a trip to the zoo. This was for those who attended summer school as a reward for working so hard.

I'm feeling a bit under the weather as if I might be catching J's illness.

Had lovely sunny day here. Did a bit of scanning & a bit of tidying & a bit of sitting looking at my beautiful pansies.

P's Dad update

P's Dad was diagnosed as having severe pneumonia & when we went in on Monday he was desperately ill with drips & tubes everywhere. By the afternoon he had improved somewhat & was on an ordinary ward. He continued to improve Tuesday but yesterday morning a nurse phoned at 6 am & said he was very agitated & unco-operative & they just couldn't cope with him. P went in & got him calmed down & he was a lot better yesterday pm. Today P says he's a bit agitated again & when he went in was refusing to take his medicine. So it's all a bit up & down at the moment.
They said he appears to have lesions on his liver which might be a source of infection but they did another scan yesterday & we haven't had the result yet. So it's just a question of wait & see.
Meanwhile J has been quite unwell & been off school again. I really wish this wouldn't keep happening. He's quite a lot better now & is trying to catch up on some homework.

P's Dad

P's Dad just gone off in an ambulance. He's had a bit of a chest infection & this morning was having a lot of difficulty breathing. Waiting to find out how he is.

Bulb planting

If you are wondering why the last post is in underlined writing I don't know, it just is.

Last Saturday I did too much in garden & got really tired. Today I've done too much in the garden, will I ever learn? With P's help we have planted loads of bulbs. Hope they come up & don't turn into squirrel food.

J not been well again but still went to school yesterday. I was really tired during the week. Yesterday I lay down for a rest at 1 pm & woke up at 4pm.

P been clearing out loft. Says he's going to have model aeroplane workshop up there rather than using kitchen table. Yes!!!

Yummy food

Little brother, if you are reading this, this is the delicious Indian meal you cooked when we were staying with you.

Rollercoaster

Yesterday got home from dropping J off & sat down to plan my long to do list & fell sleep & basically slept nearly all day. Went to bed at night & couldn't sleep as had slept so much during the day. When finally got to sleep had terrible nightmares. Right now feel just want to go to sleep but desperately trying to keep awake.
I'm not showing off or anything but my son got 98% in his Maths assessment which gave him a grade of 6c. Wow. This ability he does not get from his mother. He also got graded at 5b in his writing assessment which for him is brilliant. He got 4c for writing in his SATs in the summer so he's gone up a lot. As a reward for working so hard I took him (or rather he pushed me) to the toy shop while P was in Waitrose yesterday. We bought a Lego kit & as were paying for it I noticed the assistants were trying to assemble a Knex rollercoaster & having a real struggle - bits of Knex everywhere. So J offered to help & calmly sorted it out but it still wouldn't work. Then P came in & together they had a go & got it so the car would go round but it still kept getting stuck at the top. After an hour or so P concluded it was a bad design & the ladies said the manager was coming in today so he could sort it out but they were very relieved that it was assembled. I would suggest you don't buy a Knex rollercoaster for your children or grandchildren for Christmas.

My specialist subject

Quiz went well last night although questions were hard, like 'Which family does the okapi belong to?' I mean, I didn't even know what an okapi was. I managed to answer some questions & the others were quite impressed with me knowing who the wife of Odysseus was and where the Islets of Langerhans are. But this is the really sad thing, you know what my star, totally stunningly impressive answer was? To the question 'What does the washing symbol of a triangle with a cross through it mean?' I was the only one out of the seven of us who knew that it means 'do not bleach'.
So now here I am with a specialist subject of 'doing the washing'. Mastermind here I come.

The seven of us were Becky, 2 of Becky's friends, Becky's friend's son, us & a bloke from church who's never been out with any of us before but seemed to enjoy it.

Halfway through the evening there was a curry from the local takeaway which was seriously yummy: chicken tikka, chicken tikka massala, lamb rhogan gosh which I didn't eat cos I don't like lamb curry, pilau rice, naan bread, salad and popadoms. Then chocolates afterward. You wouldn't have believed that all the women on the table are trying to lose weight and the two men should be trying to lose weight.

Surprisingly after all that food last night I woke up starving this morning, there wasn't much time for breakfast though as we woke up late & had to get ready for church. We had a lovely Harvest service. The church looked beautiful & some of the children put on a play which was brilliant. Several of them sang solos & were so sweet. Then the children carried up food to the front which is going to a children's respite care home.

Came across P & minister having conversation about how P & I are going to do a theology degree & he was saying if we wanted to borrow books just ask him. This was a bit of a surprise as a) not aware P thinking of doing a course as well b) I'm only at stage of thinking that I might perhaps consider thinking about considering perhaps doing it & now someone's offering to lend me the books. I don't think P's really got the time & I'm not sure how many brains I've got left since the Teletubbies took them but you just study as much as you want to at the pace you want to so we could spend the nest 10 years doing just one unit. We'll see.

Sunny day

Lovely sunny day today, just like summer again. Spent lot of time outside trying to clear the bank a bit to plant some more daffodil bulbs. Managed to plant 4! Think I've probably overdone the gardening.
Going to quiz & curry night at J's old junior school.
J's tummy a bit better.
He lost 2 marks in German oral test for stammering a bit even though he knew all the answers!

Yuk!

This was at an 'animal party' J went to & someone is holding a giant snail on their hand! Seriously yuk! J said it felt like putty & what's the big deal?

Update

J been back at school but tummy still painful, this morning he said it was a lot worse but he has 3 assessments today (History, Geography & German) so decided he would go in. Just hope he's alright.

I have been really struggling with feeling low lately but today I feel better. I'll tell you what's made me feel better if it goes on making me feel better.

Can you believe what Parcelforce did yesterday? They left my parcel outside our neighbours house & faked a signature? Should they be called Parcelforge? In fact I think I'll email that & say it to them. This even surpasses ANC who took a parcel back to the depot & didn't bother to tell anyone they couldn't deliver it so our 'next day delivery' ended up taking 12 days.

Some other updates:

• I'm knitting a cardigan.
• I have been tidying up garden a bit & have planted some winter pansies in a container. In all my life I've never had winter pansies before.
• P getting on well with ventilation system.
• J's writing seems to have improved dramatically. Yesterday he came home having written a whole page of a story for English & wanted to carry on with it at home & there wasn't a single bit of moaning or procrastination! We can't get our heads round it really. What we need to get him to realise is, as his teacher wrote on his book 'commas do matter'. She's probably also going to consider that paragraphs do matter.
• People buying Dorothy's house have cleared overgrown bushes & brambles away. Looks a bit like a war-zone now.
• A load of Digger's fur fell out but it's growing back now.
• I'm trying (or perhaps struggling should be the word) to learn a bit of German to help J. (The other night I helped him with his French & got it wrong).
• Yesterday we had a really lovely sunny day, just like summer again.
• Removal van outside Lucy's house this morning, can't believe she's really going.
• Doctor thinks I've got 'boredhousewifeitis'. He suggested I should do something with my brain & said 'You're interested in church stuff why don't you do an on-line theology course?' What I'm thinking is 'Why don't I?' Well apart from time, cost etc why don't I?
  

Flowers

Some flowers P gave me. Aren't they pretty?

Poor J

Poor J hasn't been at all well today. Had bad tummy ache & being crying out with pain. Took J to doctor, locum was there (when she pressed intercom to call us in she accidentally played 'your call is important to us' answerphone message & music over loudspeaker). She said it's probably his glands in his tummy being swollen as he's had sore throat etc, give him nurofen & see how it goes. I hate him having more time off school but he can't go in like this.

He said today he's really ill & he hasn't stayed off school because he was pretending to be sick since year 2!

Blackberries

There have been loads of blackberries this year. I even made a crumble the other night. I think, seeing as it was the first time in years I've made one someone in my family should have been prepared to eat it. ( I ate some, it was delicious).

Plums

We had a good crop of plums this year.

September sky

I love this time of year!

Apple trees

Despised dwellings ie caravans in background.

Our apple tree

Sorry for absence

Sorry, I don't know what's happened to my blogging lately, just a combination of busyness, tiredness, lethaargy & being outside enjoying the sunshine (we did have sunshine for a while, it's raining today). If I've got any readers left at all I'm going to try & get a grip & do a bit at least every few days.

So a quick update:

• School still going well apart from J sometimes getting called 'Ginger Head'.
• J off school sick today, think it's just all the new germs at school.
• We went to new parents evening at school, teachers all seemed nice & actually seemed to genuinely remember him which was impressive. Met one of J's new friends & his family from Pakistan. Lovely family, Dad a research physicist, seems very clever, so does his son.
  
• J helped with open evening last week for prospective pupils & parents. Some appalling bribery going on among teachers: 'If you help with my subject I'll give you 10 school points' 'Ok the French teachers giving 15 points I'll give 20'! J helped with technology, predictably & spent the evening trying to stop the robots falling over.
• J really got into cookery since starting Food Technology. Came home with impressive 'Fruit Fusion' (fruit salad to you & me). On Saturday he made us 'Pizza Toast for tea'.
• Travelling to school not too bad, most days I take him in the morning & he comes home by bus.
• There's a reasonably priced Ironing Service on way to school. Yay!
• P working on ventilation system for house. Getting quite creative about forming his ducts, keeps holding bits of equipment under my nose & saying 'What do you think?' 'Er, very nice dear.'
• Dorothy's house sale going though, the buyer's solicitor just been so slow. Hopefully should exchange this week (they said that last week).
• Church & housegroup going well. Tonight I'm going to pub for farewell for Lucy as she's moving (sob). She's going to come to housegroup for a while as her son will still be in nursery in village for this year but they have bought a house in a village about 30 mile away so she will be finding a new church.
  
• J's piano teacher started coming to give him lessons on Wednesdays which is good as it'll prompt us to have weekly tidy up. I've invited Emily for coffee this Thursday when hopefully the house won't be too bad. Perhaps I should invite somebody every week. Can't believe how well J gets on with piano teacher though I think J needs to grasp that if he & teacher disagree on how a piece should be played teacher is probably right.