Busyknitter

Mr. BK is away for 10 days and I’m at home in charge of the kids. So strangely enough, my social life has burst briefly into life.

 On Friday, I was visited by the Grumpy old Man http://www.asdfriendly.org/blog/grumpyoldman/ and Miss Mac http://www.penandinc.org/. My Mum agreed to babysit for the evening so after a jug or two of Pimms we hit the wild streets of Preston. And errm, had a very nice meal and a couple of drinks in a pub before agreeing at 10.30 that we were all pretty tired and perhaps we should go home now. Meanwhile my Mum was earning extra Grandma points by dealing with an extensively peed on duvet.

On Saturday after my guests had left for a much earned dir romantic weekend in Northumberland, I got to go to a combined housewarming/40th birthday party of an old and dear friend. The house is only round the corner from us so this event happened in phases. First off, S and my Mum went along while T and I stayed at home to have a meltdown. Once we’d more or less recovered from that T and I went along to the party, where the little fella worked his way through an entire plate of party eggs topped off by 5 chocolate caramel slices and then he felt much better. I took T home around 7.30 and put him to bed. And a little while later, Mum came home and took over so I could go back to the party as a grown-up. Did you know that Lidl does a cream liqueur costing about £4 a bottle that is almost indistinguishable from Baileys after a skinful?

 This afternoon the boys and I went to Ainsdale beach just outside Southport. Just look at these photos. All they are missing are the knotted hankies.

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S has been agitating to go back to the Forbidden Corner for almost a whole year now http://www.asdfriendly.org/blog/busyknitter/?p=37Â so today that’s what we did; me, my Mum and the boys

Last time I’d had to take everyone’s word for for it about how “amazing”, “eccentric”, “spooky”, “completely bonkers” the place was. This time I got to see it all for myself. Unlike last year, T was a little trooper and happily trotted around all the underground tunnels with us. He even did the stepping stones (I got a soaking, he got off scot free!). Here’s a couple of photos

 On the way home, me Mum treated us all to some nosh at a very superior pub, with a relaxing ASDfriendly garden. The boys got top quality sausage and chips but I had a plate of scallops and langoustines with samphire (the last of which was a first for me) Here’s the link if you’re ever looking for some grub near Kettlewell. http://www.tennantarms.co.uk/home.html

Read lots and lots of books (have already lined up “Collapse” by Jared Diamond, “The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint” by Brady Ugar and “A short History of Tractors in Ukranian” by Marina Lewycka)

Learn how to do hyperlinks properly with the upgraded blog software so I can put Amazon links in for all those books listed above.Â

Get to the bottom of the ironing pile

Take the boys on a decent trip at least every other day

Sort out the ASDF bank account

Sort out the Tiggers bank account

Write an important policy paper for work (that would be impossible to write while actually at work)

Go to a party (first proper one in about eighteen months)

Go swimming every day

Meet some friends from http://www.asdfriendly.org/board/

Not drink much – I don’t feel like it in the summer so much. Bring on the smoothies!

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It was T’s last day at nursery today.

Mr. BK said his goodbyes yesterday and it was my turn this morning. We arrived at 9am; typical last day of term with kids bringing home made cards and boxes of chocs for the nursery teacher. I presented Mrs E. with her bottle of wine (well, I bet they get genuinely fed up with all that chocolate) and agreed to wait the 15 minutes till T’s LSA arrived. So I hung around on the sidelines while T pootled about. So far so good.

 But when D, the LSA arrived and I presented her with a bottle of bubbly, I started to blub! And I couldn’t stop. And then I set her off. It got worse when she presented me with a beuatiful photo album full of pictures of T at nursery. In the end I had to beat a hasty retreat back to the car to fix my mascara. And I was shaking all the way to work.

 Needless to say, T was oblivious to all this.

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T all ready for the end of term fancy dress party at nursery

Children have so many tricks up their sleeves when it comes to disrupting the normal, pleasant flow of life. Here we are in the middle of July and the weather is perfect. So it’s almost inevitable that T decides to contract some kind of a bug and I have to spend most of the weekend washing sheets, duvets, mattresses and carpets. Repeatedly.

and earnest and all, but some of the stuff in T’s end of year report from nursery just made me chuckle.

 T shows an interest in numbers and counting but has not shown any understanding of the mathematical experiences provided.

He is aware of routines, especially snack time.

Priceless.

 This next week will be T’s last at nursery, because in September, he’s off to his new special school. All the nursery staff but especially his wonderful LSA have looked after him for five terms with patience, love and understanding. And I thank them for that from the bottom of my heart.

I’ve been meaning to blog about ID cards for quite a while. But this Guardian article http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1817436,00.html says everything that I want to about the subject.

 Please read it, even if you aren’t normally interested in politics. It really matters and you need to decide whether you are  willing for this to happen in our country or not.

Well, S is only in Year 7 but the Year 10s at his school are out on work experience at the moment. So he has been pondering what sort of placement he will look for in three years time. The answer? Sailing the Seven Seas on a pirate ship and if that isn’t possible two weeks on an ice-cream van.