The 7 days of laundry

My youngest daughter continues to be a source of wonder to me. This is a photo of her bed.

Another view

 Tis fairly grim, is it not? So how can a child that messy be so clean in other ways? I do her laundry, I'm ace at laundry, it is really one of my best skills. And in 1 week, and I repeat for clarity, 1 week,  my child has worn (and I did count and then write it down so I didn't forget)

 11 pairs of pants, 9 pairs of tights, 8 pairs of leggings, 7 pairs of jeans, 7 bras (and you know how sorry I am that it wasn't 6 as I know some of you are singing along to the 12 days of Christmas)7 t shirts, 6 pairs of socks, 4 shirts, 2 dresses....

 and one skirt. 

My argument in days of yore was always that clothes should be hung up or put away like regular humans but as I am afeared of the BBD and even more afeared of the BBD during AS levels, I am just washing whatever is put in the basket, I am fairly certain that most weeks I am re washing clean clothes but as conversations with BBD scare the bejaysus out of me, I am letting dirty laundry get clean. If we have a brief 2 minute exchange of words and there is no eye rolling (her), deep or sharp intakes of breaths (me), slamming of doors (her), tears (either of us) I just count my blessings and go on my merry way. If she passes her a levels and goes to uni, we can tidy up and redecorate

My deep love of Mumsnet

I am always behind the curve, if it's trendy or new or hip, I will find it years after it is trendy/new/hip. I am a late adapter.

So, eleventy million years after it started, I have become addicted to Mumnet. I can spend hours on it, it has boards for everything, all open for the great British public to chip their tuppenyworth in. I have had loads of advice about parenting a troubled teen, dealing with, quite frankly, bat shit crazy ex partners (not mine) and the best Farrow & Ball colours for north facing rooms. I have had squillions of clothes advice, I now know where to buy really cheap shoes and the best jeans. The mumsnet swears by has made me open my purse numerous times. I bloody love it.

Himself now takes me out for a walk every night just to get me away from it, I will clickety finger my way through an evening nae bother at all. So he has now taken to joining in, we do enjoy an "Am I being unreasonable?" of an evening.

Although he's now not allowed near it if he's had a sherbet as when a nice lady asked for good ideas for her husbands 40th birthday present and ON MY ACCOUNT, SO EVERYONE THINKS I'm THE WEIRD ONE. The bold mr auntiegwen replied

"Tie him to a hotel bed and shag him senseless, You're welcome x"

They haven't banned me though, they just chat to me a bit less now.

The beginning of the end

I am finding more and more that I don't want to blog about stuff for fear of upsetting people. The stuff I have going on with my mother is fairly grim and I would like to blog my way through it but I don't want to upset you my dear readers. I have decided to have a separate blog as I work my way through my mother's declining mental state.

I'm not sure if I have enough to keep both blogs going so if I'm not here, you might find me over HERE

Was it worth it?

This week I have the pleasure of my eldest beautiful daughter's company. EBD is off school for the Easter holidays and she's back here with me, tis lovely. She makes me feel I haven't completely failed as a parent.

On Saturday she met up with her 6th form chums, a lot of them she's known since we moved down south in 2000 and it's the kind of friendship where they all meet up and pick up where they've left off. There are about 10 of them, all went to university, all graduated last summer.

Of the 10, she is one of the lucky ones, her degree in primary education is completely relevant to her degree. Her friend Tom also has a job related to his degree, he's performing in LEGOLAND and his degree is in acting. All of her chums have jobs though, some in shops, some in offices, 1 working for the family business. My child is earning more than she would if she was teaching in the UK, she is most definitely earning a good living wage, in this she probably is the luckiest of them all at present.

Her friend has a degree in international politics, he is being employed by a company to go round knocking on doors asking people if they would like a local bus timetable, if they say yes, he fills in a form and returns it to a local council and then a council employee posts the bus timetable to them. As you are middle aged like me, your head will now be exploding at the waste of public money, you like me will have done the "WHY FILL OUT THE FECKIN FORM? ASK AND IF THE ANSWER IS YES, JUST HAND THEM THE FECKIN TIMETABLE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD"

You might have done it without the swearwords and cross shouty shreikery though.

But I doubt it