That's it!

I'm done!!! I'm off to hide under the bed until 2009 before anything else goes wrong!!!

Rich's Dad was taken to hospital last night with a suspected heart attack. He had a HA about 3 years ago and made a good recovery but this week he's been having 'funny turns'. So yesterday Liz insisted on ringing an ambulance and they took him to Redhill hospital in Surrey. Chest x-rays and blood tests etc were given (all come back clear btw) and they decided to treat as a HA even though they actually suspect its more likely to be Acute Angina or that maybe his stent has moved etc.

Any way, he's home now but damn, he gave us a bit of a scare.. he's a truly lovely man and I have a huge amount of love and respect for him and his wife Liz.. apart from the fact that they both fookin hilarious they're genuinely loving people, towards each other and every one else and the thought of another loss this year just fills me with dread, I don't think I could cope with anymore.

Also add to that the tosspot that knocked over my garden wall last night and it had been a truly harrowing evening.... think I need a bottle of Vodka and some cheesecake under that bed with the dust-bunnies and me....

I would like to...

officially declare the year 2008 over and I propose we now move on to 2009 as soon as possible please, preferably Thursday the 30th October before those buggering trick or treaters arrive and comfortably after my son's 7th Birthday on the 29th for which I have already purchased the much desired red nintendo ds lite and games etc... can't be wasting money now can we??

Anyhoo, its been a really REALLY crappy year and I feel it should now be over and as there is only a few weeks of it left, I am forced to wonder...would anyone really miss it?

I have drawn up a list of pro's and cons to support my idea, hang in there with me... its not complicated.


CON.
anyone who has a birthday between October 30th and Dec 31st would obviously have to forfeit all presents. Sorry.

PRO.
Anyone who has a birthday between now and Dec 31st will officially always be one year younger than they actually are...which is great for 39 yr olds. YAY

PRO.
Halloween would be cancelled.

CON.
I see no 'CON' with the above statement, I hate trick or treaters and I hate going trick or treating. its sucks. end of.

CON.
Christmas would be cancelled.

PRO.
Christmas would be cancelled and we'd all be a lot less skint!!!!

CON.
We'd miss Bonfire Night

PRO.
Fireworks would not be onsale again until next year, thus allowing us all plenty of peaceful nights sleep, which is an instant winner for me cos I hate fireworks.


PRO.
I will not miss dark nights or dark mornings, in fact I think we should hibernate as a species anyway... much nicer and cheaper too.

CON.
Again, I see no 'CON' about the lack of darkness... it can only be a good thing!!


So you see, it is actually a rather good idea. So who's with me on this? feel free to add anymore PRO/CON's you see fit... lol

Get well soon Lou!!!

I'd just like to give a shout out to me old mate Lou 'Stun Beam' Gillard.

Lou and I have been friends for a whole load of years although we lost touch somewhere in the middle for a while, anyway we met up again this year at my Dad's funeral, Lou was kind enough to come and support us even though it had been such a long time since we last saw each other and I appreciated that so much.

She's not very well at the moment, and after an operation and a short spell of 'parole' from the hospital to home she's had to go back in due to a spot of pneumonia.

I'm making light of this cos well....thats just what I do isnt it? but in all seriousness I am worried about her and her lovely hubby Rob and kids (Emily and Xander) and so I would love for any readers I have to send her their good juju vibes and I know you all will.

It could be a while before she's fully recovered and allowed home again and that's going to be very difficult for the kids so I send them love and wish them well and hope that Rob knows if he needs any extra help that we're always available.

Love you lots Lou!!
xx

pfft.... humbug.

Today I be mostly.... unimpressed.

I left my house this morning to take the children to school and it was raining. I do not do rain on 'pfft' kind of days... so this was my first gripe of the day.

Then I left the tumble dryer on whilst I went to Mum's as it was raining and I have 3 kids, dry clothes is a necessity really!! So I sat at Mum's chatting and drinking her coffee, I emerge from her house at nursery kicking out time and discover the sun is shining and its quite warm... and I have probably needlessly burned ridiculous amounts of electricity running my tumble dryer. The electricity people must love me. Twats.

So I pick up my children from school, Heather INSISTS on eating the pear that Mrs Robinson gave her on the way out of the door regardless of the fact that its not quite ripe and I tell her she'll get a belly ache from it. She eats it and half way down the road says her tummy hurts and I should have told her not to eat it!!!

Angelina decides she will only eat cheese today. Cheese sandwich, cheese strings and cheesy crisps, this is what she wants... I of course do not have a single slice of cheese in the house and so we must go to the co op and purchase lots of cheesy bits for lunch, we do so and on the way home she changes her mind and wants Jam instead.

We get home, they take off their coats an wellies at break neck spped cos its fun to dump 2 winter coats and hats and gloves and wellies on top of Mum who is sitting on the stairs to take my own boots off cos I'm bursting for a pee and I am covered in coats and winter paraphernalia now and have to fight my way out of it and put it all away/hang it up without peeing my pants in the hallway.... fun.

I manage it AND I manage to get to the bathroom without losing control of my bladder (which by the way is not easy and you can all sod off with your laughing and come back when you've carried twins that like to jump up and down on your bladder for 8 months and try to ruin your pelvic floor muscles - when you can do that and still manage to get to the bathroom - having held it for at least half an hour whilst waiting outside the school and then going on an impromtu trip to the shops and being buried under a shitload of winter woolies - without peeing yourself or even dribbling a lil bit...yes THEN you can laugh at me!!!) and then I came back downstairs to make said lunch.

I switch on the tv and nothing happens. no tv. so I swear. Then I get told off for swearing.

I turn it off and on again and the Virgin Media box gives me the message that my box is updating and will start shortly and I breathe a sigh of relief.

So.... 40 minutes later I am still waiting for the box to start, I turn it off again and still nothing. Now I'm pissed off, the kids are moaning naturally, its lunchtime, they like to watch Dora whilst they're munching on their carrot sticks - its fun!!! and then there's me and my Gilmore Girls obsession and NOW I'm really angry cos I realise that I'm missing my one joyful 45 minutes of peace that I have a day when I send the children to play whilst I watch my crappy American 'comedy/drama'.

That does it. I pick up the phone and dial 151 which should connect me straight to Virgin Media, only it doesn't. It goes dead. SO I phone my mobile - thats fine it connects straight away - ok... I've paid the bill then haha.
I try the 0800 number and the 0845 number that costs £1 a minute - none of them are working and so I hit the internet and virginmedia.com.

The page opens and I head to the service check page - what a suprise its not working!!!

Ok...I'll email them now whilst I'm so angry and well... it takes 48 hours for a response and anyway, my inbox is knackered cos there's obviously something very wrong happening at Virgin Media today!!!

Kids look like this at the moment ---->

and I'm not feeling much better so out comes the Charlie and Lola dvd and there is quiet once more...

I'm back to pulling my hair out though as the cable box still isn't fixed and Charlie and Lola are on for the 3rd time already....

oopsie..

Well I got tired of playing silly buggers with the washing, all that in and out was making me dizzy (ooer!) so I thought "Arse to it!" and splashed out on a spanking new tumble dryer and do I looooooooooooooooooooove it?? YES I DO!!!!

Scared the crap out of the delivery man though, he brought it round the back of the house on his little trolley and to the conservatory door, well he found a 6ft cardboard cut out of David Tennant staring at him and nearly jumped out of his skin. I almost peed laughing, poor guy was a smidge embarrassed. "I thought your husband was the Doctor for a minute then!!" he said

I wish.... *sigh*

LOL

Bl*ody B*ggery B*llocks!!!!

It's a total conspiracy I tell you!!!!

Laundry day... I HATE laundry day. Every day is laundry day in my house cos of those damn kids and their pesky playing out!!!

Heather is a total "muck magnet", the girl is unbelieveable! It seriously sticks to her... You can get her out of the bath and she's guaranteed to have a black smudge across her cheek by the time she gets downstairs so you can imagine the state of her clothes at the end of the day what with painting and playing out at nursery and then there's all the eating. Breakfast cereal all over the pj's, morning snack and lunch all over her t-shirt by midday and then dinner all over her in the afternoon...I'm giggling as I type this cos its cute and funny but seriously, the laundry really piles up!! add to that the towels that a family of 5 go through and the bedding and coats covered in mud and uniforms and Rich's chef stuff and the washing machine is on at least once a day...

So I really REALLY love it when we have a sunny day, every since the dryer packed up (lots of cold air...doesn't work well for DRYING clothes) the radiators and the airers have really had their work cut out but at least occasionally we have days like we've had this weekend.... lots and lots of sun.

Sun. I love it. dry clothes, warmth ahhhhhhhhh it's lovely. Except I got a little too giddy didn't I??? Decided to wash everything I could find and then couldn't get it all on the line! No matter, think I at about 8pm last night, I'll hang the last load I have out tomorrow morning when I get back from the school run!! I win (for a change) think I. Totally up to date and just the ironing to do! yay me!!! I am still beating Anthea in the domestic goddess stakes!

Or maybe not...I think Anthea may have a hotline to the man that controls the weather and I also think that they are playing a cruel joke on me too.

School run done, bedrooms cleaned and I'm ready. I take my wet washing outside to the washing line and begin the tedious job of pegging out. Its a dull job isn't it? In fact the only fun I have is purposely NOT colour co-ordinating the pegs to the clothes and refusing to use matching coloured pegs (it annoys my sister in law Tracey. hahahah), sad I know but this is my life! So there I am giggling once more as I peg up a towel using a pink peg on one end and a yellow on the other and adding a green to the middle for good measure (she's totally going to kill me when she reads this!!) and talking to myself at the same time cos thats just what I do when I'm in the garden... bugger off with your laughing at me, the plants like it!!! heheh

Anyway, I hang out the last piece and as I am reaching for the last peg a big, fat raindrop lands on the end of my nose.... and then one on my hand... and on my head... and... "YOU F*CKIN B*STARD!" I yell at the top of my voice as the heavens open and I realise my nextdoor neighbour is in her back garden - yes...I would normally be ashamed at this point but f*ck it, she's a mad old bag anyway and I'm now piss wet through and besides, I can hear Linda who lives at the other side of me giggling at me and cursing the weather too as she takes her washing back in so I'm not really feeling the shame of a few swear words right now!
So I take the washing back down and head back inside.

No sooner had I shut the door the bloody black cloud vanished and the sun began to shine again!!! The air in my conservatory was BLUE.

So I left it for 10 minutes and put it back out again. It was out for a couple of hours and almost dry when it got to 2.30pm which all the Mum's will know is the time to make the journey to school to pick up the kids and what does this mean???

Rain. It ALWAYS rains at 3pm, if its going to rain then it does it just as the kids are about to come out of school... just so you're nice and wet, it stops again at about 3.15pm as you're letting yourself back into the house though...no need for rain then you see, well... unless you're like me and you left the washing out whilst you went to pick up the child from school that is.

I managed to send a text message to Rich through the big fat raindrops that were trying to drown my phone as I stood outside the school doors, I believe it said "Rain. Washing. in. now." but I don't think men are ever as fast as they can be when they're bringing in washing. They have no sense of urgency about it bless them.

So the washing was wetter when it came in than when it went out.

Conspiracy it is. Wonder what tomorrow will bring?

:)

and the "arsehole of the month" award goes to....

TESCO!!!

Yes I had me my very own supermarket tantrum this morning!!


Remember this little guy?? Well I do a great impression... especially at the Tesco checkouts at 9.30am when I've had less coffee than I'd like and I have a whole lot to do and very little time to do it in.

One of Jake's football buddies is having a birthday party tomorrow, I asked his mother for an idea on what to get for his birthday... he likes "wrestling" apparently... this does not help me much as I know far more about Barbie than I do wrestling, however I fear that 7 year old boys aren't that keen on Barbie so WWE it shall have to be.

Soooooooooo I need to go somewhere "safe" to shop for this as I'm slightly out of my depth here as Jake's not a big wrestling fan either so its not like he makes me watch it all the time and I know the names of the stars etc soooooo....somewhere safe that I am comfortable in and somewhere that I know the sales assistants will be helpful and friendly and smiling...smiling is very important, there is a distinct lack of coffee-ness in my blood this morning it being 9am and I have only been up a couple of hours which is only about 4/5 cups usually. This particular morning has been a whirlwind of activity and so the morning coffee count currently stood at only 2.

I have this nagging feeling that this could be disastrous and I know myself well... it was.

In I head to Tesco armed with my lil trolley cos let's face it - there is no way I am leaving here with just a wrestling toy, no way in hell so there is little point in sporting a fetching blue basket for my trip around the store.
I find the appropriate aisle... yes, the shoe aisle (of course! I'm a shoe whore, what can I say?) but I am distracted by the pretty pink bargain coats for their Royal Highnesses, the Princesses.. Heather & Angelina! ok so thats 1 trolley and 2 coats so far, Oooh... boys clothes, Jake needs jeans...

1 trolley, 2 pretty pink bargain coats, 1 pair of funky blue jeans and 3 t-shirts for a 7 year old later I find myself amongst the DVD's!!!! I KNOW I'm rubbish but I impulse buy... its fun!! LOL so tonight we're watching "The Notebook" as I missed it on the TV on Sunday night (in favour of Nicolas Cage on the other channel - can't blame a girl for that decision) and it was at the knock down price of £4!! I also purchased another DVD for my niece for Xmas so I shall refrain from naming it incase she's reading.

ok..here we go... in my trolley I now have...
2 pretty pink bargain coats, 1 pair of funky blue jeans and 3 t-shirts for a 7 year old, 2 fantastic DVD movies and a glas salt and pepper pot (impulse I tell ya!!!) annnnnnd some wrapping paper, card etc but no present for the birthday party...

I sigh and head back to the toys... wrestling... wrestling...hmmmm... aha! I find them. ok... I head back to the household and look for something pretty and pink to put stuff in cos I really dont have enough of those kinds of things..shit I am!!

I look at my watch (which is currently in the form of a clock on my mobile phone cos I keep forgetting to put my actual watch on) and realise as its 10.15am I better get a wriggle on. Back to the toys...via a different aisle...heh... Oooh its a bargain aisle and lookee what I see!!! WWE toys!!

£4.94 for a little doll this screams "YAY!" to me so I pick it up and add it to the trolley and head for the checkout giggling to myself at my fabulous shopping skills, if I didn't shop on an impulse tangent I would never have found this doll. I am truly marvellous!

I load up the checkout, the lady starts to scan...she picks up the doll annnnnnd...

"I can't sell you this, its not on the store list. Sorry."

Excuse me? I stare blankly at her and this is when the lack of coffee starts to show. She waits for me to say "ok." and I say nothing. She shifts nervously, puts it to one side and says sorry again. This is when my brain finally kicks into gear, it took awhile, I'm 3 cups of coffee behind - gimme a break!

"Say that again please... what?" say I leaning forward to listen because I KNOW she didn't say that she couldn't sell it to me.

"I'm sorry, its not on the store list, I can't sell it to you,"

"You can't sell it to me?... why not? ... what list? ... eh?" I spit out as I go into meltdown. I need this stupid doll all of a sudden and not just any WWE doll. I want THIS one and I'm having it so she better make this good.

"I can't sell it to you."

"Is it broken? Is it reserved? Has it been recalled? Is it full of crack?" I ask and she shakes her head "Well, its on your shelf and there's a price, so you can sell it to me"

"I'm sorry..." she starts and I go postal. "MANAGER. NOW."
So across comes the till supervisor and she gives me the same tale, calm I am (not)as she takes me across to where the WWE dolls are - £20 for a set of 5, I inform her that I do not want this, I want the little doll she has in her hand and I am having the little doll in her hand for if she cannot find it on her system then this is not my problem. I see the shelf with 8 other dolls all the same and the little price label that has the computer code on it. It is NOT my problem her computer is shite.
and I finish with "Are we in agreement?" and she nods but is sticking to her guns that she cannot sell me this doll.
I hear those words again... "NEXT!" yell I, as loud as I can in the store. Funnily enough people began to look at me, I am not disturbed by this.

"I'm sorry I don't understand" she says.

"I said, 'Next' love, who's next? allow me to make this very clear.... I am not leaving without this stupid doll. I should probably just take the doll anyway because if its not on your computer then you have no record of it and therefore it might as well be mine for free!! But because I'm so honest I want to give you money for it so... now I want to see the manager, not 'a' manager, I want 'THE' manager, now go and get him because I have to pick up my daughters from nursery in half an hour and I will be leaving this store, with that doll before then."

"I can get you a manager" she says, think she was a bit stunned.

"Then hurry up and do so and as a favour to you, I shall stand here and tell everyone who comes to this aisle NOT to buy anything incase they cant get it through the till cos all the codes are messed up. ok?"

and she scuttled off and lo and behold she was able to put it through on a sundries number!!! and I got my doll!! YAY ME.

However, with all the hubub I forgot to go back to the shoe aisle. Bugger.