So it's been a busy month in the madhouse. We've had a lovely holiday, £10 sun newspaper offer, Isle of Wight, thank you very much! Mind you, by the time we'd packed the car (it's like a game of extreme sardines, even with the roof box) packed the children (oh how I wish we could actually do that, in little sealed and sound proofed boxes) driven 3 hours to the ferry, waited an hour to get on the ferry, then an hour actually on the ferry, I think we could have got to Spain and it would have been less stressful! Also, I have to tell you a little story...
A week before our trip, I say to The Husband "our sat nav isn't working, we should probably order another one before we go"
"No no, I've had the sat nav working fine, you just need to jiggle the lead a bit"
"Really? Last time I tried to use it, it wasn't working at all! It'll be a nightmare if we don't have a sat nav"
"It'll be fine, it works fine."
"O.k dear"
So. The morning of our trip comes, we get in the car, and The Husband says to me "If you could just put the postcode in the sat nav"
Hmmm. Guess what. IT WON'T EVEN BLOODY SWITCH ON!! Bloody marvellous. So muggins here is wedged in the back seat, with screaming baby one side and grumpy female child on the other, using my map app on my mobile and manage to get us to Southampton. Upon exiting at the other side, my phone promptly dies (queue another revelation from The Husband, he forgot to pick up my phone charger, as requested) and we are then poodling aimlessly around this Island trying to find our camp site! Eventually we got there, and spent the rest of the trip using a map of the island pulled out of the middle of a magazine. Joy! Other than sat nav gate, though, (which I did not let him forget for the duration of the trip) we really did have a wonderful time. It was lovely to all spend time together, with no computers, school runs, stress, arguments, you know what I mean. We were all very sad to come home. And you'll be pleased to know we now have a lovely shiny new sat nav. We have named her Mindy and I really like her, she's not as patronising as Sindy, our old sat nav.
Now our little jolly holiday is over and done with, my attention has been turned to the biggest stress inducing event of the year for families around the globe. Christmas!! Unless you live under a rock, I'm sure you have been out to the shops or switched your TV on and been reminded that it is fast approaching. I decided at the beginning of last year to bite the bullet and pay £50 a month in to a Christmas savings scheme. I did it for a few years just for a small amount and it worked really well so fingers crossed they don't decide to go bust this year or we'll be screwed! I'm not so worried about the cost of it, as hopefully the money I've been putting away will take care of it, but I do worry about making sure the day is perfect, the kids have fun, the house looks nice (ie clean, tidy, decorated nicely so that it looks Classily Christmassy, and not like the sugar plum fairy threw up in there.) You have to try to make sure you see all your family members at a time where the kids are kind of awake enough to be happy to open presents with an appropriate level of enthusiasm, but not so awake they're bouncing off the walls, or on the flip side, not so tired that they are miserable and liable to throw a tantrum at the mere mention of wrapping paper. On top of that, Bella is insisting that we make a Christmas cake, which, she informs me, you have to make and then wrap it up tight and hide it for a long long time before you can decorate it. I can only assume someone else has been telling her all about it! We're going to have a go at making one, so watch this space!
This leads me to my next topic...organisation. Basically, I have none. Never have been organised, probably never will be. It's like a chronic illness. I know it's a problem, I know life is made harder because of it, but try as I might, this condition just gets the better of me!! Of course we'll be sat there at 3am of the 25th December wrapping presents. Just like at 11pm on any given week when we're tumble drying school t-shirts and making packed lunches while still half asleep. I vow that one day soon I will try to be more organised and get things done. Not this day though. This day is dedicated to tea drinking, Jeremy Kyle (to remind me that my life is really not so bad) and hugging my poorly teething boy. What worries me is that I've passed this affliction on to my oldest offspring, who gets given homework on a monday and can often be found frantically completing it on a friday morning, 10 minutes before we have to leave for school. I can't tell him off when I'm just as bad!!
Now, I just want to clear something up. The word envelope. Why do people call it an "onvelope"?? It's one of my bugbears. We don't go to the zoo to feed the oliphants or eat oggs on toast, hippie types don't travel the world for onlightenment, so why do people put their letters in onvelopes?? Stop it, please, just use a plain old envelope like the rest of us commoners!
On a very final (and quite sad) note, It has been a really tough few weeks for some ladies I am very close to. We have shared all the nitty gritty parts of our lives and have been so close for over a year now, so their sadnesses and hard times also become mine. You know who you are and I'm not going to name names, but know that my love and kisses are all going to you xxx <3 xxx
