Cont'd..............

Another post from the usually very irregular blogger!
What's going on?
Re. last post, cont'd.....

8pm. Izzy..."DAD QUICK, GYPSY'S GOT A MOUSE AND SHE'S GOING TO EAT IT, QUICK DAD, SAVE IT BEFORE IT DIES!!!!!"

Rush out to the utility room where Gypsy has wedged herself behind the freezer, desperately trying to pin down the terrified mouse.
Kev pulls out the freezer. No mouse.
Out come the tumble dryer and washing machine. Still no mouse. Just a few mouse poos.
"It must be under the fridge-freezer!" Out comes the fridge-freezer.
Gypsy pounces on the mouse and goes for a quick sprint around the kitchen, into the dining room and under the sideboard.
Izzy grabs Gypsy, scolds her severely and bans her to the living room.
"Why don't you just let her catch the mouse and take it back outside?" I ask.

"NO THAT'S SO CRUEL, WE HAVE TO SAVE IT!!!!" wails Izzy.

"But that's what cats do, it's natures way Izzy" I tell her but to no avail.....she's on a mouse-saving mission.

The hunt continues. I decide to vacuum up the mouse poo and all the other crap that lurks underneath the utility room appliances.
The seemingly unharmed mouse is eventually found underneath the desk, inside the printer. It's gently set free into the garden where Gypsy was no doubt waiting to reclaim her prey and wondering at our ungrateful reaction towards her gift to us.

2am. Mouse drama long over and everyone fast asleep in bed.
The smoke alarm starts shrieking, waking Kev and I but luckily not the kids.
An investigation finds no smoke, with or without fire.
We slowly doze off to sleep again.

2.30am. Smoke alarm starts again.
Another investigation. No smoke.
Doze off again.

3am. Smoke alarm starts again. Deliberate whether or not to take the batteries out but I'm starting to get a bit paranoid by now. Every room is checked again.
No smoke.
Back to bed.

3.30am. The same all over again.
By now Kev has turned into Mr Angry and pulls smoke alarms from ceilings and swears alot.

4am-ish. Eventually drift off to sleep again.

5.30am. "Brep-bust peese Mammy?"

Nigella, eat your heart out!

Today I am mostly being a domestic goddess.
I got up at the usual time of 6am, not because I wanted to but it's the only option when Carter decides it's getting up time. I'd already spent thirty minutes trying to ignore his little voice pleading with me, "brep-bust peese Mammy?".
Within the hour two kids up, dressed and eating breakfast.
One kid (Izzy) still in bed with an alleged bad tummy.
One husband still in bed, completely oblivious to anything involving kids prior to somewhere around 7.30am.
Two pesky cats fed and watered.
Packed lunches made.
Kev up.
Showered, dressed, hair done and slap on by 8am. Me not Kev
School shoes cleaned by 8.20am. By Kev not me.
Teeth brushed, hair plaited and ribbons tied by 8.25am. Eliza's, not mine.
Eliza off to school at 8.40am. By Kev as I had to stay at home with Izzy who incidently had made a miraculous recovery by 10am.
All the chaos left by breakfast sorted and kitchen clean and tidy (sort of) by 9.15am.
A very long list of christmas cake ingredients weighed, measured, sifted, grated, beaten, chopped, folded, blended and into a very large cake tin, into a warm oven by 10.30 am.
Impressed? Well I was.
I didn't have any brandy so had to use some of Kev's J.D. instead......
Kev has a bit of a thing for Nigella.
I personally think she's a tad on the large side but fair play to me, I did a pretty good impression of her with my domestic triumph this morning.
I am brunette again these days. (Couldn't sustain the blonde persona any longer)
My bum is considerably smaller than hers though.
Mind you after eating plenty of the cake, which I certainly will, my bum may give hers a run for it's money.
A run would do it good, get rid of a few pounds!!!
By 11am. I was sat down in my pinny having a coffee and feeling a bit smug.
By 2.30pm the cake was cooked and it looks fab!......not sure how it will look after the girls have decorated it in a couple of weeks time but it should taste good all the same.
If it doesn't, we will still have the mince pies. My Mum always makes us a couple of dozen at Christmas so no worries there.
It's now 6.25pm, dinner's in the oven waiting for Kev to get home, all the kids are bathed and pyjama'd so I really would have excelled myself if Carter wasn't curled up on my lap, fast asleep as I type this.
What happens now is Carter will wake up in a few hours and think it's morning, not settle down to sleep until way past his 7.15pm usual bed time but still manage to wake up far too early tomorrow morning and hassle me for his breakfast.....................

Give myself a slap.

I feel bad for whinging about Kev going to Canada now.
Two reasons.
It was business not pleasure and he does work so bloody hard.....if he didn't there would be no business. If there were no business there would be no Company. If there were no Company we would have no income. If we had no income we..............you know what I'm trying to say?
The second reason is;
I got to thinking about my Mum.
When I was born in 1967, my Dad was a sergeant in the Army, serving in Aden.
This was one of the two occasions that my Dad was serving away from home for a whole year. He came home to see me very briefly when I was three months old and then returned to Aden. My Mum also had my sister who was five when I was born. My sister was born in Germany where they lived for a bit.
What I'm trying to say is, I really shouldn't bitch about Kev having to work away for the odd week here and there when it really is no big deal.
Having a newborn baby and a five year old to look after while your husband is in another country fighting a war is.
So that's why I feel bad about the whinging.
My Mum never whinges. Never has.
There have been times when it must have been really hard for her during the early years of their marriage. Although Mum did enjoy being a 'forces wife', she has told me of a time that we (Mum, my sister and me) lived in what were called sub-standard quarters and also when she lived in Germany and the horrendous birth of my sister in a military hospital. (Mum was put under general anaesthetic and the baby pulled out with forceps. Amongst other things.)
It all sounds like something out of a novel when she talks about it. Really old fashioned and really hard work.

Now we moan about having to do the washing.
Oh dear. Sorting it into loads and putting it into an automatic washing machine to do the rest.
Women of my Mums' generation would have been delighted to have done that. I remember the old twin-tub we had when I was a kid which seemed like hard work but there was a time when Mum washed all the clothes and bedding etc. by hand and in the sub-standard quarters she had to boil water over a fire!!!! All this with a young child to look after.
Bear in mind, my Mum was only nineteen when she married Dad and twenty when my sister was born.
Apparently the quarters were inspected regularly too, so had to be kept absolutely spick and span at all times. Maybe this is why my Mum still keeps her house immaculate!
So....no more whinging about looking after the kids and doing housework, I promise. Well....I'll try my best anyway!

Any suggestions? (God, I sound dull!)

If only I had taken the career/rest of my life thing a bit more seriously at school.........

I've been having a confidence crisis lately.
In as much as 'what the hell am I going to do when Carter starts school in Sept.2011?'
Yes I know it's quite a way off but you know how it is....once the thought is there it just keeps bugging you until you find the answer.
The thing is, I've been raising kids for very nearly nineteen years so far, with just a brief period of part-time parenting when Rosie and Jake went to live with their father.
During that time I worked as a carer for adults with learning difficulties/mental health issues, so in a way with the job and the parenting it seemed like full-time anyway.....if you know what I mean.
Before Rosie was born - actually up until three weeks before she was born, ( Rosie was made to arrive three weeks before her due date) I worked as a bordereaux assistant/trainee insurance underwriter. Insurance clerk. An odd job for me, calculating household and commercial insurance premiums, considering I am almost phobic about anything mathematical.
A bit worrying really .......but if I had grossly miscalculated any required monthly premiums they would have been discovered, surely?.....
So, before the kids came along I worked in an office, after the first two (born just fourteen months apart) I did care-work but since then all I have done is child rearing which is the most difficult job of all if done well.....which I think I do.
The problem is, having done it for so long, I feel as if my brain couldn't cope with anything different.
A very long time ago, before kids and insurance premiums, I had a couple of part-time jobs.
A shop assistant in a large department store - the name of which begins with an abbreviated girls name and ends with the plural of a kind of meat often used in a sandwich, along with cheese. Hmmm, fine but a bit dull.
A barmaid. Now that was a great job. It was in a bikers pub. Why are there no bikers pubs anymore?...Oh yes, I know, it's because all the real bikers are over forty now so they are all settled down and a bit past going out on the p*** all weekend!
I loved working there. It was in the cellars of an old warehouse at the local city docks. Dark, smokey and perfect for loud, often live music.
Oh and there were lots of long haired bikers drinking there. Perfect for me at nineteen years old. I was in heaven!
I first met Kev there, serving him bottles of Newcastle Brown. He was seeing another girl then. Another girl who was a few years younger than me and very attractive.
I would write something bitchy but I actually really liked her so I can't.
I was a bit jealous of her though as the first time I met Kev I was smitten. Smitten. That's an old fashioned kind of word. Probably the wrong word. It was more like 'I fell in lust'.
Kev with his long hair, wearing a cut-off and riggies (remember them John G?)
That look really 'did it' for me but it's just a dim and distant memory.
Now Kev is a respectable company director with a wife, kids and an mpv. Still has all his bikes though.....and his riggies are probably rotting away up in the loft somewhere!

So.......let's have another look......

THINGS I'VE DONE

• Left school with just four '0' levels worth mentioning. (oh, the shame!)
• Y.T.S.-Artwork assistant. Learned to design and prepare artwork, cut and paste (by hand, not with a computer!)
• Artwork assistant for a printing company. Learned to prepare artwork, use a big camera, dark room etc, preparing plates for printing machines.
• Part-time shop assistant. Dull!!!
• Barmaid. Fab!!!!
• Bordereaux assistant.
• Had some kids.
• Care worker. Had to leave when pregnant with Izzy. An attempted strangulation (by a client, not me) and having tv. sets hurled at you when pregnant is a bit dodgy!
• Had some more kids.

THINGS I WOULD LIKE TO DO BUT CAN'T

• Writer. Only seem to be able to write about myself and/or my family due to my being at home with kids for so long. Write things as they are in my mind which is a bit too hap-hazard and cluttered for books and the like. Grammar not up to scratch, etc, etc...
• Midwife. Would love to do this but my brain is unable to cope with the study needed to qualify.
• Tv. personality/presenter. No good at fake smiles or being really nice to people I don't like. Can't act...didn't even do drama at school.
• Nurse. Poorly people start to annoy me after about ten minutes. The only illness I seem to be able to cope with is mental illness. (Both mine and others)
• Hairdresser. Too old/not trendy enough. Obviously too old as I used the word trendy!
• Counsellor. Too outspoken.
• Chef/Cook. Good cook but my presentation would let me down when under pressure. Meals served up in our house look a bit too abstract if I'm rushing too much!
• Supermodel. Too old, too fat, too short, not photogenic, not pretty enough, can't walk in high heels, etc,etc,etc.

THINGS I COULD DO BUT DON'T WANT TO

• Carer. (for the mentally challenged) Although I sometimes miss some of the old 'clients', I'm not sure I could deal with the stress now. My kids give me enough to stress about!
• Barmaid. Not young/trendy enough.....the alternative being a Bet Lynch/Liz from Coronation Street type of barmaid which I'm not quite old enough for yet!
• School dinner lady. Don't particularly like other peoples kids.
• Shop assistant. Don't particularly like alot of the general public, especially those incapable of saying please and thankyou. I would be sarcastic and get the sack.

Now I realise that it's still three years before I will be able to join the workforce but even then it will have to fit in with school etc. By the time all my children have left school (2022 ish) and I am free to find full-time employment or 'find myself' (whatever that means), I will have been raising kids for THIRTY TWO years and I will be FIFTY FIVE!!!!!!

Bloody hell.

Short straw!

It's dank. It's dull. It's England in November and it's cold.
I don't like cold.
I should live somewhere hot where jumpers and cosy socks aren't necessary. Somewhere I can sit outside in the evening when all the kids are in bed, wearing a t-shirt and flip-flops.
Not just a t-shirt and flip-flops of course. That would be scary. Just not a coat, hat, scarf and gloves......with tissues and chapstick at the ready.
The crisp, frosty mornings are ok but as soon as drizzle arrives on the scene I get cross.
The point is I'm a bit grumpy at the moment (hence all the moaning) because Kev's off to Canada on Saturday and I'm jealous. So I'm showing off a bit.
Ok it's work but that's not the point.
If he's leaving the country for a week to stay in some posh hotel in my book that's a holiday.
Kev will be in Toronto with interesting grown-ups.
I will be in England with the kids and the drizzle. Yeah ok, Canada will be cold too but I bet Canadian drizzle is much nicer than the English kind.
Still, on the positive side, our three youngest were used for the advertising which is being used to promote the product which they (Kev and his business partner) are taking to Canada. Which is nice because of course my children are indeed the loveliest, most photogenic little people in the world (I'm not joking) and it's nice to see them on 3 metre high pop-up stands helping in their Dad's quest to turn us into the family of a self-made millionaire! :)
It's good to have a dream.

Oh no......panic stations.....the estate agent has just 'phoned to ask if people can view the house tomorrow morning and I'm out straight from the school drop-off so now I have to do the pre-viewing tidy-up.
Check Jake hasn't left dirty boxers or lads-mags scattered around his room, Carter hasn't added anymore graffiti to our already rather large gallery or posted toy cars into any available crevice, Eliza has remembered to put her dirty washing in the basket rather than under her bed and Izzy hasn't left several arty/crafty half finished creations all over her bedroom floor.
Oh and move all the recycling containers from outside the door to the garage! (very admirable that we recycle most of our rubbish but it does make the place look like the local tip!)

Fingers crossed we actually get a proceedable buyer this time. I live in hope!