Notes from suburbia

This time last week I found myself in the 'sports megastore' that is Decathlon. Completely ignoring the written instructions issued to me - by the activity centre that The Nine Year Old has now visited - to not spend money on new items,  I found myself spending a serious amount of cash on waterproof clothing and footwear, fleece lined stuff, a backpack and a pull-along suitcase. The reason behind this particular incidence of consumer madness? A lame attempt to ease the worry of the residential school trip that was looming.  Because you see, the thing is this. Us parents.  WE WORRY.  A lot.  Some of us take this to extreme and worry about anything and everything.  I'd like to think that I'm not that extreme but I know that this is mainly me LYING to myself.   I try to play it cool but with little success. By the time I left the Decathlon store I could ha...

    The sun streamed through the tiny gap that sat between the otherwise closed curtains.   With the light of a new day resting upon her slightly parted eyelids, she could no longer deny the reality of the hours that stretched out before her.   What would the day bring with it? She was reticent about fully opening her eyes.   It was almost as if the daylight held a certain kind of power over her that she needed to resist. The hours of the night before had been long and lonely.   Lonely in spite of the warmth of the body that still lay stretched out beside her.     _____________________________________________________________________________   More 100 words - plus the additional four words from the prompt "...the sun streamed through" - over at Julia's Place

Being a parent is great.  Most of the time.  But like other great things, *go ahead, insert your own list of great things*, you can have too much of it.  I'm not talking about those occasions when a soak in a candle-lit scented bubble bath or half a gallon of gin will sort you out.  No, I mean the times when your head is about to explode because you have well and truly had a belly full of being in demand by EVERYONE ALL OF THE TIME!! Usually, what l I need to get over such a gluttonous excess of parenting  is a few hours to myself. And I mean completely to myself.  Not going on a rare and lovely 'date' with The Husband.  or a fabulous catch-up with a good friend.  Just me. On my own.  A chance to clear my head.  To think about no-one else's needs and wants.  No compromising.  No effort to make conversation. No pressure to do anything that isn't exactly what I do...

Recently I was reading an article - apologies that I can't remember what or where it was and yes, I do realise how unhelpful that is - which suggested that we have a choice about being busy.  Busy-ness isn't a condition in which we simply find ourselves to be suffering from but rather we thrust it upon ourselves through the choices we make.  It went further, suggesting that we tend to 'wear' our busy-ness as a 'badge of honour'. This really struck a cord with me.  Until fairly recently, I've often felt proud to consider myself to be a busy person.  A person with lots to do.  A person with so many responsibilities to juggle that I can be left struggling to fit everything in.  It was reassuring to think that with so much to do and so many people to please my life must surely be very full and meaningful and interesting.  Or was the reality more a case of me feeling that I wasn't giving eno...

The clock continued to tick. Seconds became minutes became hours became new days. The days continued to pass.   Light became dark became light became dark again. The Seasons continued to change. Rain poured leaves fell sun warmed new growth.   How could this be? When   I remained as before yet you were gone.  As the world turned.   And shall continue to turn and turn and it is hard to believe that we were we and now I am   me.   With heavy heart still beating on and on inside my chest. The world turns.   And shall continue to turn and turn and I too, will continue.   __________________________________________ This is my offering for this week's 100 Word Challenge for grown ups #Week107 .  Hop on over ...

The Female Parent (aka my  Mum):  "Sheila (recent new acquaintance of the family) thinks you're a very nice person". Me:  "I am a very nice person.  Lot's of people think I'm perfectly charming" (can you tell I've recently been catching up with Downton Abbey?!). The Female Parent:  "What do you mean?" The Male Parent (aka my Dad):  *smirks* Me:  "People generally think I'm ok, some think I'm quite lovely.  It's only you who tends not to". The Male Parent;  *laughs heartily* The Female Parent:  *assumes the look of mild indignance*  but doesn't contest my statement. It's hard to know whether to laugh or cry really....

Here's a question for you:  If indeed you believe there is such a thing as the mid life crisis, would a person know if they were having one"? What are the signs that someone such as my good self - soon to be staring the grand old age of 42 in the face, and contemplating the future - be looking out for?  On typing 'mid life crisis' in to Google, I am presented with these top 5 results: Midlife Crisis Wikipedia Male Midlife Crisis - Live Well - NHS Choices Top 40 Signs of a Midlife Crisis Revealed: Telepgraph, article based on an unreferenced study Midlife Crisis - Depression or normal transition? WebMD What is a midlife crisis? - Divorce Support - About.com The combination of these results would suggest  a number of interesting things.  Firstly, I am too young to be experiencing midlife crisis.  Afterall, according to Wikipedia, 46 is the average age of onset and the good new for...

The Nine Year Old:  "I can do a burp anytime I want. It's easy"

It's been a while. Around six months since I last blogged.  I've missed it.  So I'm gonna start writing again. Simple as. Where did the last six months go?  They were mainly spent (in no particular order): making the conscious decision and effort to be less busy going on holiday seeing friends spending time with family celebrating our second wedding anniversary seeing my Dad being poorly and getting better selling a house trying to regain control of our overgrown allotment thinking about what I really want from life getting my priorities in order wondering if I'm heading for a mid-life crisis (!) continuing with my frustrating battle with chronic sinusitis and daily pain from what is currently being referred to as 'atypical facial pain' seeing The Husband complete the second year of his Radiography Degree seeing The One Year old become The Two Year Old and (finally!) hearing him become more vocal seeing The Nine Year Old become: increasing...

You only get one. You don't get to choose who they are. I'm glad that my Mum is the one I got. _________________________________________________ Happy Mother's Day to my Mum, Joy, and to all you other Mum's out there!

I can see my brover goin to sleep. I can heer musick playin quitly. I can smell delishus cakes bakein in the hot uvan. At home I feel relacxed and peasfull. At home I have my Mum and A***, my Dad and K*** , my brover and a gold fish. I play games and read books. ___________________________________ By The Nine Year Old. ___________________________________ I would like to point out that the penultimate line does not mean that these people and the fish all live together in one house.  Now that, would be a differently poem entirely!!

The prompt for this weeks 100 word challenge is this:-  '...the extreme weather meant...'. Along with these words, and a timely reminder from a friend on Facebook to put out food for our feathered friends in the snowy conditions, I came up with this little story...   Singing for his supper   The extreme weather meant that the tiny bird found himself to be in a bit of a quandary.   His favourite hunting haunts had been adversely affected by the cold white stuff that now surrounded him.    At almost every turn, he found himself face to face with cold wet surfaces that covered up, or frightened away,   the food that was usually so readily available. He had no choice but to sit and wait – curled up as tightly as he could, his brown speckled feathers plumped out, he perched on the tip of a snow covered branch and sang as sweetly as he ever had before...     Find more entries at Julia's Place

... is the prompt for this weeks 100 Word Challenge For Grown Ups - week#73 .   Here is my entry:- He was expecting her.   A gentle push at the already slightly ajar door allowed her to enter in to the hallway silently.    The bitter-sweet aroma of freshly brewed coffee enveloped   her   senses, inviting her further in to the sprawling apartment.    It was as if he knew her already.   Knew how she would respond.   She stepped carefully out of her shoes and slipped off her heavy winter coat before tip-toe-ing along the parquet floor of the corridor that lay before her.   As yet, unwilling to announce her arrival. All the while, the notes from the piano rose in to the air and danced around her head.   ________________________________________________________   It's been a while since i took part in the 100WC.  I've missed it.  I like the challenge of having to stick to a strict word count wi...

Of all the slippers in all the world, what, I wonder, is it about these slippers that screams to The Female Parent (aka my Mum and usually very good present choosing generous woman who is both loved and appreciated) "BUY THESE FOR YOUR DAUGHTER"!!!!! The call seems to be so loud and clear that I have received almost identical pairs of these slippers for at least the last three Christmases. I know it sounds ungrateful. I don't mean to be. Not at all.  But...they are not only lilac, they also come complete with ribbon bows - pink and MORE lilac, topped off with tiny teeny weeny pink and LILAC buttons.  They are fancy.  Some would say, fussy. Now. Don't get me wrong.  The comfort is all there.  Snugly warm feet when encased in said slippers? Check! But they are sooooooooooooo very very very extremely very girly.  And that's just not me.  I admit to liking some prettiness in some things, but mostly when it com...

It's that time of year isn't it.  The time when we are encouraged to make resolutions for improvement over the next twelve months. Whilst I do feel a sense of reflection on the year that has passed and a feeling of another year bringing with it a fresh new chapter, I'm not fully onboard with the "let's get healthy/fit/more intellectual/more skilled/more cultural".  More more more more more!  Unless of course it's less.   Less food. Less alchohol.  Less telly. Less lounging.  Less of the things you enjoy one might say.  I'm all for a sense of regrouping but I'm not ready to resolve that 'less is more' or, 'more is less'.  As it were. I'm not the only one it would seem.  Increasingly, rather than referring  to 'New Year resolutions', which can be perceived as unrealistic and all too often, short lived, there is instead reference to 'intentions', 'goals', 'aims'. I'm not convinced this...

New Years Eve 2012... it all went a bit like this... 10am  - me and The Husband talk about how we may spend this particular New Year's Eve and come up with a BOLD PLAN. 12noon - we collect The (now) Nine Year Old who celebrated his birthday at his Dad's the previous day.  As The Husband and The Nine Year Old share a 30th December birthday we are having small scale belated birthday celebration at home today. 12.30pm - The Nine Year Old opens his birthday presents which include - to The Husbands horror - a Chelsea Football shirt.  The Nine Year Old is delighted and proceeds to put the shirt on and starts tugging at the tags whilst me and The Husband are looking at him trying to decide whether or not the top fits him.  Too late, the tags are off - the top, therefore, it is decided, does indeed fit. 2pm - I decorate the Nine Year Old and The Husbands birthday cakes - one each as The Nine Year Old prefers to keep i...

"I'm at that inbetween stage" ...texted The Husband from upstairs (yes, ridiculous to be texting each other from within the same house, I completely blame modern technology) where he is rearranging our bedroom furniture.  We had been toying with the idea of rearranging our bedroom for some time but that is all it had been, talk.  We had, however, been propelled into action following a recent leaking roof incident that had found me laid in bed with rain dripping on to my nose!! After not being able to locate the point of the leak in our recently re-tiled roof (don't get me started on that...) we had decided to move the bed and wait for the next heavy rainfall to attempt to catch the leak in full flow.  Basically, we plan to avoid the issue. Moving the bed sounds like a relatively simple thing to do doesn't it?  Not if your bedroom is the room in the house that acts as the base for all the stray objects from all of the other rooms in the house that find...

It is Sunday morning and the four of us are squished into the one bed for weekend snuggles.  The Husband has just finished telling us about a dream he had the night before which featured the ER character Peter Benton.  It is unclear as to whether Peter was a doctor in the dream. The Husband:  "And then I had the best dream." Me:  "Which was...?" The Husband "We were jumping all around the living room, bouncing really high on the furniture jumping from one thing to the next." Me:  "...'we'  being?" The Husband (huge daft grin on his face):  "Me and the gorilla." Me:  "You and the gorilla.  Of course."  I turn to The Eight Year Old who raises his eyebrows. The One Year Old looks on bemused.

I don't know if it's because I'm feeling a bit low on energy, and as a result, grumpy (in general, not about anything specifically), but it's making me more than a little annoyed about stuff.  Stuff that would mildly irritate me usually but wouldn't cause me to react in the way I feel the need to right now. For example.  I feel really cross about this... I noticed on twitter, a conversation between two friends.  A man and a woman.  both married.  It was a typical twitter-friends type of conversation between members of the opposite sex with too much time on their hands - lightly flirtatious with a hint of over familiarity - the sort of conversation that social media so readily accommodates between two people who hardly know each other really but consider themselves friends due to their regular contact. The woman made a joke about the man requiring a 'pass' to go out for a drink.  The suggestion of course being th...

The parents (aka my Mum and Dad) are round dropping our two boys home after kindly looking after them for the day.  We've all been sat together chatting and drinking tea for about half an hour. Everything appeared to be normal... The female parent (FP):  "...so yes it's been a really lovely day, a real pleasure" The male parent (MP) (completely out of the blue):  " As we were pulling up the brakes on the car failed". FP: "Where on earth did that come from?" MP:  "I'm just saying, the brakes have gone on the car". Me: "And did you not think to mention that before now?!" MP: "No. Anyway, it's ok, I'll get us home using the handbrake". Me: "...if you were a rally driver maybe rather than a 74 year old man driving his wife home along a busy dual carriage way...". Sometimes I despair.