Wednesday 27 October 2010

Back to reality

Hot Boy - "Welcome home Wendy, did you have a good holiday?"

auntiegwen - "Yep thanks, you okay?"

Hot Boy - " I am but I've just peed on my hands" (in a disconcerted voice)

auntiegwen - " Scuse me?" (in a I can't believe I'm hearing this tone)

Hot Boy - "I was having a pee, seen a hair on the end of my knob, tried to take it off, peed on my hand, not happy"

auntiegwen - " Mase, it's only taken you about 20 seconds to give me too much information, I did miss you."

Wednesday 20 October 2010

Another Birthday Blog



It's a scary thought that my youngest child is 14 today. Growing up, becoming less of a child and more of a teenager yet she is and always will be my baby.

The most fiery of all my children, the one with determination and zeal, sometimes means life is less laid back with her in it but it's never ever boring. She just fizzes with energy, talks non stop from morning to night and is always active. She always has a real passion and enthusiasm for things, always has a project on the go and gives it her all.

She is so loving and open to love, the kindest of souls, always looking out to help her friends and taking their worries away. She makes me so proud.

I always say when she sleeps I can still see the baby version of her. I found this photo a few weeks ago and it made me shed a few tears, she is edible in this. I used to go and look at her asleep and my heart would melt. And it still does, my wee tootsy moppet, the last baby of mine, the joy of my heart. Lucy Abigail, mo chridhe, tha gaol agam ort.

Friday 15 October 2010

How remiss of me

Usually every Ocotber I do 10 posts about 10 things, that's as themed and as co-ordinated this blog gets. I'm a very busy woman you know, what with getting old and all.

I forgot.

Mea culpa, another reason why I'm not a blogger that gets offered all the free stuff. There is no cohesion to this blog, the spelling's a bit dodgy and don't even get me started on syntax.

Any hoo, I'm sorry I'm away to The Beautiful House today, the weather there is a bit hit and miss, so pray for some sunshine for me, when I get back I'll maybe make November a bit more interesting.

I will share with you some of my google searches as this week they were quite chuckle worthy.

when did auntie gwen die

erm, I thought I was still alive, OMG, is this Hell?

Someone has to look after my boys

And you thought I could? Have you read my blog? Seen what I've done to my own kids?

stockings middle aged mummy


Not usually, I live in my jammies.

cant have sex a week before fixing coil


I'll take your word for it, no arguments from me.

photos of a woman dribbling on herself


I think not, drool is so very unattractive on a woman.

Tuesday 12 October 2010

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.

Wednesday 6 October 2010

My Day Off

My day started at 6.20am where I got up to ensure The Beautiful Son got up for his paper round. I had to ensure until 6.35am.

I then put a load of laundry in the machine and made coffee and toast.

Next was a nice bit, I had the said coffee and toast back in bed reading horoscopes on the internet, yep still doing that.

I then got Beautiful Baby Daughter up for school. She proffers a trip permission slip and informs me that she has to hand the slip and cheque in that very morning. I spent the next 15 minutes in cross shouty stressville whilst looking for a chequebook. Upon finding it I pledged £34 towards her future educational and career prospects, of course The Clothes Show is educational.

I then emptied the dishwasher, tidied the kitchen, uhmed and arred for a bit about putting the washing outside ( I'm not going to tell you if I did, you'll be wondering all day now, I like to keep you on the edge of your seat with my domestic dramas)

I got showered and dressed and off to my solicitor, where we draft a letter to the ex mr auntiegwens solicitor about the financial end of our marriage. It's not the most pleasant way I ever spend £160 in an hour. And there is never any cake there, I wish she'd give me cake, just once, to make the experience a bit more pleasant. On the plus side, that was the first visit where I didn't cry.

I drive home, buy petrol and forget to buy the polo mints for my car, I don't feed them to the car but I like to have them there, I ignore the funny screechy noise which appears from time to time.

I spent the next 2 hours going over a presentation I am due to give at 2.45pm. I have declined BBD offer of wee twirly bits and animation to make my powerpoint less boring, to her chagrin. I pop my memory stick into the main computer to print off copies of said powerpoint to find a leftover piece of webcam jammed into one slot and find the other slot broken also.

I got a bit stressy at this point.

I then have to drive 30 miles to a conference centre relying on my sat nav, which refuses to accept that I am in fact in my driveway and not at the destination of the last place I used it for. I am now late and I have to drive like a granny as I have 3 points now.

I arrive, do presentation and am very nervous. I make a complete arse of myself and spend the next hour making sure they know I'm an arse and have no doubt about that. I waffle on and find the questions very hard. My voice is all quavery but I don't cry.

I drive home berating myself for being a tit.

I get home and find I have to visit the supermarket urgently as the house appears to have been robbed of all food, fortunately it was eaten by my 2 children and their eleventy hundred friends.

After the supermarket I heat up food and then drive BBD to Girls brigade, it is now 7pm.

I spend the next 2 hours sorting out the house and then at 9pm I go back and collect BBD from Girls Brigade.

Then I got to go to bed.

And that folks was the story of my day off.

Sunday 3 October 2010

In a safe place

I could have scribed another rantie auntie type post, as time marches on I find myself more and more grumpy, I am perfecting my middle aged status to Olympic standard.

I could have given you more on Hot Boy as I saw him yesterday and there were a few comedy gems, not including his attire of shocking pink and I mean PINK skinny jeans. Gifted to him by Nicki, the keyboard player in his band. She felt they were a bit out there for her, a female girl. Of course, if an outfit is too showstopping, who else would you give it to?

I could tell you all about how my office is moving and as well as my normal work we had to pack up an 8 roomed office with 18 years worth of crap and condense everything to fit in a 2 room office. The wee boys the removal firm sent were the most gormless looking pair you've ever clapped eyes on. I wanted to fetch my son to see them and hiss in a passive aggressive whisper - "This is what will happen if you don't get your A levels"

Instead I will tell you the sorry tale of how the auntie got caught speeding. I am a bad auntie, a fast auntie, an now a quite a bit poorer auntie. I have no excuses I should obey the rules and I shall not whine about getting caught and paying the money. It is entirely my own fault and I deserve everything I get.

In my house no one except me can find anything, my ovaries appear to contain a locating device, I am good at finding things, I get plenty practice. I wasn't too concerned about finding the paper part of my driving licence. I thought it would be in one of my safe places. I actually say "I will put this in a safe place", Michael McIntyre's man drawer has nothing on me. I have a house full of safe places.

So I look in the folder that contains the birth certificates and my PIN for the National Board for Nursing (it's always been kept there, probably since I left home for the first time and my only official documentation was my birth certificate and my pin.)

Then I look in my travel folder with the passports as you need both parts to hire a car abroad. I have never driven abroad and have no notion to. But I like to think of myself as a well prepared, windswept and interesting type traveller.

I look in my bedside drawer and the spare bedside drawer where I had a lovely time reading little letters that BBD had sent me and smiling through tears at the baby spellings and the sweetness of it all. Which took the edge of her struntieness this week, she has been very strunty. I also found a card from the ex mrauntiegwen telling me how much he loved me and thanking me for 20 years together and asking for another 40. We'll gloss over that, I think it's best.

I emptied the wicker hamper that was a corporate Christmas goodie from Fortnum and Mason that I use as a coffee table and a receptacle of things I think I might need at some unspecified in the future. I have no idea why I have kept 9 Argos catalogues and old pay slips from 2002, I also have no idea why there was a carrier bag containing all the Christmas cards I received in 2007.

I looked in every drawer in the Welsh dresser in the dining room unearthing some cards from my 40th birthday and 6 old diaries. My God, I did a lot of going to school things with my 3 children, it seemed like every week I was there for a family assembly, a sports day or a parents meeting. No wonder I only worked part time, I wouldn't have been able to fit it in.

Reader, I will not take you on a full looking and finding tour of my safe places in this house, there are many. I have kept a lot of crap over the 10 years I've lived here. Some of it was lovely to see again, other's just bemusing as to why I hadn't got rid of it at the time. I eventually gave up and ordered a new one as per my dear friend Note Bene's suggestion on the book of face.

My ovaries which were formerly top notch locating devices are now a little tired and middle aged. They have caught up with the rest of me.