Things I have to do before Friday

I know, I know I'm a last minute Lil, I drive myself insane with it but I seem to only be able to get my arse into gear when faced with the prospect of things going properly scarily wrong.

This is what I have got to do before Friday at 11 am, this is in addition to normal living, working, driving children places, cleaning and all the rest of the things that make up my very rock n roll existence.

Drive into town and pay cheques into bank (they have closed my local branch) because they are utter bar stewards and they have no concept of customer service.
Transfer money so I am not stupidly overdrawn when they take EBD's accommodation money out on Friday. I shall refrain from mentioning that it is the most expensive locker ever as she seems to be spending 3 nights a week there maximum. The rest of the time I am driving to fetch her home and then driving her back again, not to mention feeding her, doing her laundry and her ironing, she causes me far more work and costs me far more money than she did when she lived here.

Pack for TBS and BBD and I to go to the villa, this is the first time I have been on holiday without EBD as she has no half term break, fortunately she hasn't complained more than once every 10 minutes about the unfairness of it all. Childline have now blocked her number though.
Buy 2 bikini's for BBD, and swimming shorts for TBS, this is proving quite a task, everywhere is selling winter stuff.
Buy more adaptor plugs, The Beautiful Parents arrived at the villa yesterday and found all the plugs gone. I despair, you'd think all these little extra touches would be appreciated rather than nicked.
Buy eleventy squillion birthday presents and a cake and pack them in a suitcase and take them to the other side of the world so BBD can't moan about how crap it is to have a birthday when on holiday.

Be a better Mummy, I am apparently not enthusiastic enough in my parenting with my youngest. She feels very hard done by with her 3rd time round experience. I have been found wanting in the following areas...

Not being enthusiastic about making a paper mache volcano for year 9 Geography. In my defense I was not in the slightest bit enthusiastic with either of the older 2's volcanoes either.
Not asking enough questions on open day for the school she will transfer to next September. This is the school I was a teacher at and her older 2 siblings attended. I don't need to ask that many questions, I know the answers already.
Not letting her opt out of a language GCSE so she can do an uncredited beauty course instead in the vocational studies option. Nail painting, for her, would be a hobby, she is not in the slightest bit interested in it as a career and I am loathe to let the brightest of my children waste 3 lessons per week for 2 years on it. It also says that a language GCSE is something some universities insist on. When the teacher in charge sells it to parents as " a fun subject to balance out all the other more dry academic lessons" it does not sell itself to me, a teacher Mummy.
Being a moany Mummy about the state of her bedroom. It looks like Beirut on a bad day or like H and M at 4pm on a Saturday. I despair, it's horrific and I wish I was too bohemian to care but it annoys the bejaysus out of me.
I think that's all that's wrong with my Mummying but it seems to be enough to keep her in a perpetual state of sulkiness with frequent outbreaks of cross shoutiness. It's turned my almost omnipresent Pollyanna ish ness to gin.

I need to write and set post for my Beautiful Baby Daughters birthday because I love her, even though we have only had 8 nice words in a week, I love her with a visceral and ferocious love. I am trying to love the pricklyness away, some days I succeed.

I need to allocate all my families at work to someone else and do a "I'm on holiday, so I really don't care but I know I'll pay for it when I get back" default message. I need to resign so I can start my new job mid November.

I need to do my tax return, employed, self employed and foreign. I hate my tax return and because of the villa I rent out it is classed as foreign income so I need a paper return due October 31st. I hate this, it always hangs over me when I go away for half term. I only earn fourpence and a caramel but it takes fekin ages and I need to do big sums and me no likey.

And then I get to go to my beautiful house for 10 days, where the sun and pink o'clock (rose wine and a bowl of nuts fresh from the farmers market on my lovely terrace watching the sun go down over Father mountain) make me feel like I can stop and relax and actually enjoy doing nothing for a while.

And that will give me the energy to keep going for another little while.