Totally ready for real life

Scene 1

A mother's bedroom, around 8am, enter stage left a 17 year old child dressed in a bath towel and socks.

17 year old child/EBD - (in a ranty type of a voice) "Whose bloody idea was it to have mornings so feckin early?, what kind of a stupid idea was that?"

Mummy/auntiegwen - (in a soothing kind of a voice) "Aawh sweetie scone, you're not a morning person are you?"

17 year old child/EBD - (still in the ranty voice) "I don't like this game. I can't find my hair brush, my coco pops are too milky and my tea's too hot and I have lessons ALL day"

Mummy/auntiegwen - (still in the soothy voice) " Life's a bitch right enough" actually the tone had progressed to sarcastic then.

Scene 2

A 17 year old child's bedroom around 5.30pm. Child lying on bed wearing fleecy polka dot jammie bottoms, socks (of course) and a t shirt (child had put on jammies on return from school to have afternoon nap as needed to help function as part human but spilled yoghurt down jammie top and had to put t shirt worn to school back on) Enter Mummy stage right, on return from work.

EBD - "What kind of things do I have to do to live on my own at uni?"

AG - "Laundry, ironing, cooking NOT tinned alphabetti spaghetti or toast, shopping NOT for shoes and lip gloss, paying bills, gas, electric, phone, broadband, council tax, water, road tax, insurance, house, car and life, cleaning INCLUDING toilets, dust, hoover, polish, mop, wash dishes, getting to where you need to be BY YOUR OWN SELF, remembering things, buying things before you run out etc etc etc

EBD - "Well, I'm not going to grow up then. I've only looked at real life on the internet and it scares me. I'll just stay here and go to uni like it's school and nothing has to change "

EBD - " Look Mummy, I made a new game..." Child then makes a dinosaur with her fingers, walks it around and makes eating noises with it "num num num" "Look Mummy, I made a Larasaur" and giggles uncontrollably for a bit.

Yep, totally ready to leave home and function independently, totally.

Have you missed me ?

I am back from my first 3 generation holiday ever. No one fell out, no one was cross, there may have been a few mutterings under breaths but everyone tried very hard to keep the peace.

On Friday I was awake for 24 hours (I know, me that loves her bed, I can hardly believe it myself) I flew back into Manchester then drove back to chez auntiegwen before shooting off again to deepest darkest Essex and then into London to see The Manics courtesy of my lovely, lovely friend NB. Click on him for the review of the gig, he didn't mention the fight though, middle aged men behaving badly. The Manics were awesome though and I was slightly sad the didn't sing my favourite song but there's always next time.



So I'm back to real life. My washing machine engineer didn't turn up today. My year 12's were still my year 12's and the smile of the day was the following conversation with a student

Year 12 - Miss you look different
Me - It'll be the suntan
Year 12 - No, that's not it. Have you had your hair cut ?
Me - Nope
Year 12 - Have you dyed it ?
Me - Nope

Year 12 student in triumphant tones

Miss, I know what it is, you've had a boob job, they look well bigger.

Paris

Well, I did come back, I didn't really want to but I did. I absolutely love Paris. Highlights of this trip were many but I really enjoyed using the metro, which I didn't do last time and I loved Abbesses metro station , it's only one of 2 original Guimard Art Noveau metro s that remain so I was really pleased to see it.

I enjoyed wandering round Montmartre, I went to pray in Sacre Couer (lapsed Catholic that I am) and although the Church is really impressive, inside I was left feeling slightly uneasy at the juxtaposition of the sanctity of the church with the requests for money at every turn. Signs reminding you to respect the church by not taking photos and not talking ( which I completely understand) vying for position with signs asking you to donate 10 euros to light a candle and 2 euros for a tealight, donations of 15 euros for masses said and the uneasy spectacle of a gift shop within the church itself, just off the right aisle. I understand that it costs to upkeep the church, but isn't the Catholic Church the richest institution in the world ?

I loved the old style Paris with the beautiful traditional architecture and I was surprised at how much I liked the very modern style at La Defense in west Paris. I could quite happily live there.

So I'm home now and back with a bump, got up at 5 to fly back in time to teach my year 13 s. Went straight to work where a visit from EBD food tech teacher to discuss her lack of progress in handing in course work was awaiting me. After school, lesson prep for tomorrow then home, where I had to take TBS to his electric guitar lesson, assemble a costume for BBD 's book character day and then cook tea and deliver TBS and his maddest mate to rugby training. In between the normal cleaning, laundry, mummy type stuff I do.

Was it only last night The Beautiful Man and I were strolling hand in hand along the Champs -Elysees ?