A short story

Once upon a time, a lovely young couple bought a small terraced house in the middle of a city center street.

It may not have been the best house in the world and it needed a lot of work, but it was affordable.. One of its many redeeming features was it was next to a pub.

This could be a good thing or a bad thing. This couple like the quiet and the good thing about this pub was that it was shit.

This meant that there was alcohol. On tap. Next door! And…. and no. other. customers.

Nothing interfered with the beauty sleep :)  and we got to pop next door for beers on hot afternoons!

All was well.

Until Alex and Eve moved into the ailing pub and gave it CPR and enthusiasm repeatedly for over a year until they suddenly had a very alive, noisy pub. With lots of customers and drinking and shouting and general merry making well into the early hours of week day & weekend evenings …

Bah.

About two months ago a notice went up on the car park gates (the car park/beer garden is between our house and the pub) to say they were applying to extend their licencing hours to accommodate the ban on smoking and provide somewhere external for their customers to drink and smoke until midnight every night.

Apparently their current licencing hours allowed them to have people in the beer garden until 10pm (not something he mentioned last year on the day he agreed to have it cleared by 11pm at the weekend after our complaints about late night noise).

So anyway. We had a hearing at the council and it was decided (within the wisdom of the council ways) that they would be allowed to have people in the garden until 11pm at night and have live accoustic music from midday every day until midnight every night (except for Sundays when it’s 10pm).

We have had constant problems all summer. Loud, pissed people in the garden, intermittent raucous laughter and shouting late at night which disturbs the kids to an extent … but at some points on some evenings, such loud entertainment…  shouting shanty singers/microphoned bands etc. that we constantly have to call and complain and even had to turn our own TV up in our house because we can’t hear it over their music!

And the council agreed with them….?!?!

What is the world coming to?

All because I hadn’t complained to the environmental health and Alex downright lied in the hearing about having offered clearing the garden last year.

Bah and pah.

Grump.

hmmm..

I have another cold.

How is that possible or fair?

I feel shit and sneezy and crap and yukky. I really do have one of those colds that make you feel rubbish. I thought only men got those 

Both girls are already coughing and Rowan has the same runny nose and sneezing I had yesterday, so basically by tomorrow, they’ll be all snotty and we won’t get any sleep for the next two weeks.

If I ever say I want another baby, will someone please hit me?

Oh Bah!

What is this ability I have to predict the future? Or Whatever..

Rowan woke up in the night crying last night that she’d fallen over.

Yes.

Fallen Over.

In bed.

‘Rowan doesn’t wake up.. she sleeps through..’ blah blah blah..

Ella was awake from 2am till 3am. Rowan woke at 4. Ella woke at 5.

I’ll get my coat.

And go somewhere where children can’t read blogs!!

How annoying…

I am struggling with the hormone thing I had put in after Ella was born. It’s interfering with my Weight Watchers in a big. annoying. way.

I keep getting one week where I’m totally normal .. I follow my points and I lose weight. AND THEN three weeks of stable weight. STABLE!!

Even if I’m following the WW religiously … which I am … and those three weeks, I lose nothing and also get a very bloated feeling.. so I’m guessing it must be hormone and water retention related..

.. which quite frankly. Is just annoying.

And here’s where it screws me up.

It’s a bit of a bummer because I have a very results oriented personality.. good results spur me on and poor results demotivate me.

I can’t help it. If I hop on the scales and I’ve lost weight.. I am all hippity hoppity yip de doo and I’m fantastically behaved and continue to lose more.

After five weeks of continuous weight loss.. the first week I had a ’stable’ week.. I persevered and just thought it was a plateau and that maybe I needed to drink more water or something..

The second week… stable weight…. I thought.. ‘hang on.. what’s going on here then..?’

But still my resolve didn’t waiver and I stayed exactly on ‘points’ track.. was exquisitely behaved and did not teeter off the line at any point….

As the plateau progressed into its third week.. I thought.. ‘fuck it’ quite honestly and I seem to recall I had a big fat glass of wine.

Bollocks to it.

Then suddenly … weight dropped off me. I changed nothing but lost 4lbs in one week!

I came to the conclusion that it must be hormonal (for one, I had the obvious sign) and all seemed to be well with the world.

Until this week.

The drop off week of 4lbs was 10 days ago. This week..? I have lost nothing. I put on a 1lb this Monday and it’s now Saturday and all I’ve done is gained another lb.

So being a very results oriented person. I am now struggling to win back my resolve.

I have tried to alter this trait but I’ve found generally that if that trait really is ‘you’ then you can’t really change it with any long standing efficacy.

I can convince myself that I’m unshakable. Unbreakable resolve. Unyielding willpower. BUT when it comes down to it.. if it goes wrong and I honestly can’t see anything I’ve done that deserves the bad result… my will power starts to wain somewhat…

The result of this?

Cheesecake for pudding.

Oh dear.

ps

BN dropped our new digital camera down the stairs and now it rattles. So don’t be expectin’ new Flickr pics from me any time soon.. dearie me….

Nursery Rhymes Times

Rowan’s nursery have turned out to be a little crap.

There’s several things they’re not doing that they said they would and there’s other stuff they’re doing which I don’t think they should be….

Did I or did I not get told when we joined this nursery that they would toilet train her? Are they doing that?

ER NO!

Did I or did I not get told that they would do whatever kind of toilet training we wanted?

Is that happening …? No!

This particular nursery is putting Rowan on a potty persistently, when we have specified on at least 8 occasions that we want her to be put on the toilet.

I don’t care who you are.. that all kinds of irritating!!

Every time BN picks her up from them, he’s told how she’s gone on the potty and every time he gets told that he says that we asked for her to be put on the toilet..

‘Oh well - now we know, we can make sure that happens from now on’ *bangs head against wall*

Eeerrrrrrrrrrr.. ACTUALLY!!! We tell you that every time we leave her here and every time we pick her up!!!

Secondly - there is nits at the nursery..

Not a big deal you say.

They can’t help that you say.

I agree .. nits are unfortunate and inevitable at a nursery…

However..

How come the woman that works for me gets a letter saying that the nursery has nits and I don’t?

I don’t mind if there’s a notice on the front noticeboard .. I don’t care if they hire a plane to do sky writing.. I don’t care if they teach the kids to say it and have them pass on the message..

I don’t have to have a letter!!!

But don’t send some people letters and not others.. Inconsistency just makes me think of what else they’re not consistent about.. what else is there they’re doing for some and not for others?

Thirdly, the woman that works for me got a phone call last week to say that her daughter had been sick and needed to be collected.

When Scotty got there, her 3 year old was sat on her own, in the corner, on the floor, with dried sick around her mouth, without having had a change of clothes and without anyone looking after her.

Scotty also says that her little girl has had marks around her mouth on more than one occasion showing that she’s been drinking from something dirty…

Fourthly.. when we were shown around, one price was quoted and when we received our first bill another one was charged. Scotty says their prices have gone up and that .. yes …. you guessed it… she got a letter!!

So.. what to do..?
I’ve contacted a couple of new nurseries and we’re looking round one next week hopefully..

Do they bank on the fact that lots of people won’t remove their children because they’re either unable to because of work or because I’ll feel bad for depriving her of nursery when she loves it so much..?

But do we take her out while we look or leave her there and wait till we find something new…

Can’t decide.

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just.too.tired.

Urgh.. too tired.

2 year old sick. Baby sick. BN sick. Me sick. All have flu.

Well OK … I’ll reduce the drama slightly.

We all have something that has resulted in two weeks of phlegmy coughs all round, tickly coughs at night, nausea and me not getting much sleep as I wander around in the middle of the night proffering drugs and drinks of water to half unconscious hacking children.

Last night was particularly bad. Ella has decided she can’t remember what 5 in the morning looks like anymore so she’s back to checking on that with a side helping of cuddle-required-in-mum’s-bed-for-half-an-hour.

Medised to wash it all down (My idea )

So all in all.

I’m shattered.

Yawn.

ps. Heard today that boss’s daughters have chicken pox. Hooray.

Let’s hope that makes its merry little way round real soon.

Bah.

More about me. Part one: with no work.

Why are people so shit? I hate people. I hate the fact that I trust people and I fucking hate the fact that people always seem to let you down.

I find myself constantly wondering these questions. This is not the first time this has happened to me and I’m sure it won’t be the last. But I am left with this defiance. This absolute defiance that I should be made to change the way I am just because people. are. shit.

You may want to go and get coffee… stick with me, it may get interesting. It may not though so I accept no responsibility for blogging induced boredom.

It started with my second boyfriend 13 years ago. It was an ‘ok’ relationship but I didn’t really like him like he liked me. It was OK because it was long distance and I didn’t see him more than about 2 days every 2-4 weeks depending on stuff. I realised when he got his summer break from university; he started coming over every day. I remember thinking: I don’t want to see him. I’m bored. He may have picked up on that
I was too chicken to dump him. I was fat and felt I should be grateful for the attention I suppose. It ended because he cheated on me with a girl called Gretchen. I remember laughing with a mate afterwards that maybe he just had a thing for girls with weird names.

Then my third boyfriend. Well third serious boyfriend. There were a few in between but nothing to write home about.

3 was a shit. Just a complete knobhead really - but my confidence was knocked. He was convenient. He lived in my shared house at uni and it meant I could ’see’ someone without them ever being able to get anything past me, so to speak. Of course the relationship was doomed from the very start because

a) I didn’t really like him,

b) I didn’t find him attractive and

c) he was a cock.

He cheated on me too. But I kind of accept some responsibility for that. I pushed and pushed him toward the end. Argued, picked fights and pushed until he was sick of me. Something you think is cowardly. But applaud me please. This was confidence growing. I didn’t have the confidence to reject the first one so I was getting there.
I didn’t really realise it then… but I hadn’t actually wanted to be with him after the first 12 months. We were ‘together’ for 2years and 3 months. So I had taken my time.

So …. I left this relationship with an unhealthy distrust in men. I thought, well then, they must all be shit. Where’s the fun in that? I treated all subsequent men like they were latent cheating maniacs and drove many prospective boyfs away with my attitude and scepticism that they might be the person who could keep in it their trousers.

Then I met Big. He wouldn’t go away. I’m so glad. He was the first person I saw in a long time that I wanted. I pursued him. And pursued. And pursued. He didn’t mind though and…. eventually he gave in. I say gave in, but I think actually we were pursuing each other. Then my true personality took over with wild abandon. All men are shit rah rah rah.
No they aren’t he said. And then he showed me that he wasn’t a shit.

He’s still showing me how all men aren’t shits seven years later. He’s ace.

So - since the age of about 18 I have felt that men were pretty shit (still reserve some judgement for them seeing as I have no shortage of friends who are being shit on from one week to the next). I instantly feel an emotional bind with any woman that’s been cheated on. And I love the woman that gets her own back. I never did. Not really. Except boyf number 3. His life was going pretty shit last time I heard. SO I kind of feel victory there - but that’s another story.

But ….. women. Shit women. I never learn with women.
You think I would - but I just keep going back for more.
And you know what? That’s what kills me. Women are just too damn clever and they get me every time. Even the little ones.

A bit blurry round the edges…

I am very much a believer that really most of the Christmas and NY season is not that interesting if you’re passed the age of about 13 but I do also believe that you usually have one good night.

This is the good night where everything just falls into place. You have good company, good drink, good food, good conversations and generally just good fun. You play a board game or the group just descends into semi-drunken chatter and sillibilliness…

I’m yet to have it this year and I am at the very beginnings of disappointment that it isn’t going to happen. I did particularly enjoy an evening with Merry, BN and Rich about a week ago - oh that’s the other thing - these evenings have to be spontaneous - which is why NYE generally ends up being a bust… but I do require these evenings to include G&G and Rich as well as BN and me obviously. This year has just been a bit skint on the G&G. They have both been really busy and because they’re a bit short of cash they are cramming in the hours making extra….

So all in all I feel a bit blurry round the edges so far..like I’ve enjoyed Chrsitmas without my glasses on or something. I have drunk, eaten and laid around, looked after kids and blogged and ebay’d… now I’m looking for the fun fun.

Does anyone know where it is??