Skip to main content

phew!

Last week of term so lots of presentations to teachers and goodbyes to those not coming back in September. Got school reports today, no surprises except for the Small(er) One being heartbroken as her class is being split up and she will be parted from her best friend (Quote: "My heart is broken, she is my one true love, sob" - too many Disney movies perchance??)... am filing this one away to deal with later when I have built up adequate emotional reserves.

Firstborn's birthday tomorrow. She insisted on me making 30 fairy cakes all with piped faces and smartie eyes to take in to school for her class; they're not going to win any prizes but it made the girls laugh so I guess I did good. Sweaty stuff though, baking when it's 40C outside and my air conditioning is less than useless.

Book club tonight at mine, thank God I don't have to leave the house. Thought I'd make a cake since I'd already made bloody fairy cakes but obviously my luck ran out with the first batch. Dropped the first cake I made - gah! cue outrageous fit of swearing (so bad the Small(er) One ran out of the room with her hands over her ears, I blame the hormones) - second cake not very good but bugger it, sending Alpha out to buy ice-cream instead.

Anything else? Oh yes, how could I forget? Prepare to give birth in one week and one measly day. Phew. Can't wait to chill out in a nice, quiet hospital room.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Apologies for being incommunicado this week and hope none of you out there are too distraught not to be receiving the usual almost-daily MotV missives. The reason for the silence is that I'm up to my neck, metaphorically-speaking, in research papers for my first grad course assessment. This experience has made me realise how rigorously un-academic I am in my thinking. It has also illuminated how reliant I am on red wine in order to get through endless evenings typing furiously on my laptop, not to mention the fueling of increasingly colorful curses that I feel obliged to aim at the University's online library system which consistently refuses to spit out any of the journals I'm desperate for (I refuse to believe this is 100% due to my technical incompetence...) Oh well, if this is the price one has to pay in order to realize a long-cherished dream then it's not all that bad... No one ever said a mid-life career change would be easy. Wish me luck!

A thought

Perhaps sometimes a gift can be delivered in the guise of a tragedy. It's just a matter of perception, after all. I suspect that the talent lies in looking beyond the surface to what lies beneath and beyond. And, of course, being able to make sense of it all and going on to apply that knowledge to building a productive way forward. Here's hoping.

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to

A friend recently emailed me to say that her big memory of her stay with us last year is that she had a great birthday, one of the few where she didn't 'act like a spoiled grumpy princess'. She tried to give me all the credit but as I explained to her, it was all down to having a fellow female organising the birthday fun rather than leaving it to her partner. Her email got me thinking about birthdays and how very different men and women are in their attitudes to celebrating special occasions. It also had me thinking about my birthday two years ago when I threw a major tantrum in the Carrefour car-park after being told that we were off to do the weekly shop, kids in tow, which was simply the final straw at the end of a very uninspiring day. In contrast, my birthday last year was rather lovely (a morning on my own in a spa with no mobile coverage, pure selfish bliss). This year - in a few short months, eek! - I'll be hitting the grand old age of 38. This will be my las...