And yes, it is only Wednesday. Morning. After a very productive weekend (damson gin, plum wine, 3 loaves of bread), Sunday night was mostly spent listening to Tamsin cry with earache. Cameron sloped off to the spare room but I don’t think any of us got much rest. Irritatingly, the next day she was perky and bright while I moped about waiting for bedtime and wondering whether the day would ever end. One night of proper sleep then the school rang at Tuesday lunchtime for me to go and pick up a very poorly M. White, hot, headache…so I spent last night listening to her breathing, which didn’t sound very good. Occupying one child who wants to lie all sad and cuddled on the sofa at the same time as another who is rapidly developing cabin fever is something of a challenge – and C is away – and I have a stinking cold, did I mention that?

Moan moan whinge whinge.

What am I supposed to do with this? It’s Maggie’s First Ever sports day this afternoon: she’s been looking forward to it and practising for it (and quietly worrying what if I don’t win my race?) for weeks. I need to go. Only Tamsin is poorly on the sofa: sore ear, disgusting runny nose, sporadic vomit (though not for a few hours, touch wood). Cameron is in London, where he doesn’t answer his phone – and realistically, even if he did answer his phone (it is a good job it is not a real emergency), he can’t do much from there.

I think I have to bundle T into the buggy and we have to go to sports day. While hoping she doesn’t have anything wildly contagious and that I am not being horribly irresponsible. This is only going to get worse when there are three of them, isn’t it?

In other news, while I am keen that this blog doesn’t become a “cute things about my kids” thing, I have two things to share. The first, Maggie trying to decide what everybody’s hobbies are* – mine, apparently, are knitting, cooking, gardening, and getting things off high shelves.

The second, and this makes me so proud, is this piece of work she brought home from school yesterday. I assume she did it herself in the writing corner, rather than it being a teacher-supervised activity, as it reads: The monsturus** monster had a willey. The pig had a willey. The pig had a wee and a poo. The Watson had a car***.

*It is rather like being back in Japan, where everybody who remembered their school English inquired “what is your hobby?”

**Good use of adjectives.

***No idea.

I felt like a terrible mother yesterday as we heard the sound of the brass band coming up our road and went out to see Maggie’s rainbow troop (are they a troop?) parading past, followed by lots of her schoolfriends on a float in their pretty posh dresses (“the rose queen”), followed by various other people we know. Fortunately the day was saved by Cameron taking the girls down to the village fete and buying them sweets, but she still wondered why she wasn’t there parading. The reason? We have only lived in the village for 3 years which is not long enough to Just Know what is going on. I was vaguely aware of the rose queen thing, as there was some letter about a rehearsal home from school, and when we watched her making her promise at rainbows there was some vague comment about well it’s the rose queen next weekend and you all know what to do if you are walking with us (?) So if I was any sort of proper mother I should have been more proactive and gone to find out but I honestly had no idea what it was, and certainly no idea that they would walk past our sodding house!

On the bright side: Tamsin was actually physically born in the village which might allow her to tap into the collective mind. Give it a few years and she can tell us what is going on, where and when.

I have zero energy and less enthusiasm. I’m not miserable, nor do I have any weirdy seasonal bluesy thing: I just want to curl up on the sofa with a book, and maybe have a nap. I do not want to shop for food (though I have done so), put it away (though I will, soon), cook, clean or do any of my usual jobs. I don’t much want to do the school run; I certainly don’t want to exercise. I can’t be bothered visiting my allotment and the spring bulbs are still in bags on top of the microwave. The house is gradually getting more and more of a tip (and we’ve a babysitter on Saturday so I must get off my bum before then) and we have no clean socks. I cannot face going out with the old boys tonight: even less so since plan A – walking to the pub with Peter and Mrs Peter – has been put off in favour of plan B – waiting for C to get home from Germany then going down later on my own. People reckon I must go, it will do me good. I expect they are right

Just back in from painting a nice clear cross on the front door. C is in the states all week and he’s poorly too – all the bonus points he gets for combining illness with jetlag and having to work are removed by the lovely peaceful clean-cool-sheets-ness of a hotel. I have a stinking cold and feel very sorry for myself (I have run out of lemsips and am housebound, too); Maggie is not at all well. I picked her up from school yesterday all pale, hot and teary (am slightly miffed as she’d been up coughing a lot the previous nght so I had specifically gone in to say that I thought she was mostly ok but she might not be and if not, they should ring me as soon as and I’d go and get her). She took to her bed and slept from 6 last night – 10 this morning, just waking for extra doses of medicine and drinks of water and cries. She’s been up and down today but was back in bed again by 6 this evening and I honestly can’t see her going back to school tomorrow.

Which is a disaster, as tomorrow evening she has her last ever playdate with her bestfriendinthewholeworldever, who is leaving the country this weekend. We are braced for grief.

Tamsin is perky and bright (it was her turn last week, when she was sick all over me and the bed on two consecutive nights) which is not ideal as I cannot find the energy to do fun toddler stuff. Much cbeebies has been watched today, but I really will have to think of something for tomorrow (even if that involves wrapping her up and shutting her out in the frosty garden for half an hour).

We saw the Mighty Boosh at the weekend: was entertaining but not hilariously laugh-out-loud funny, which was a bit disappointing. Cameron and Maggie enjoyed the Mold panto far more.

• Laundry, ironing
• Pack for long weekend away
• Book tickets for Klimt
• Finish and return manuscript
• Child-wrangle (10 am: one child on sofa with tummyache so bad she thinks she is going to burst, requiring cuddles. Other child with bleeding nose, cause unknown, requiring cuddles.) (11.30: both playing happily and quietly, hoorah) (1.30 driving me nuts clinging to my leg) (2.45 washing kitchen floor???)
  
• Plant lily bulbs and last two tatton plants
• Tidy so we don’t come home to a tip (and I no longer have a cleaner, gah)
• Order detergent
• Sow veg seeds for autumn
• Find book, which I have irritatingly lost with 50 pages left to read
• Go and look at freecycle slide
• Make dinner
• Drive to Scotland

Back Tuesday

Some loafy disasters this week.

I decided to see last night’s “unmissable” match as an opportunity to zip to the allotment – I occasionally do, once the children are in bed, but rarely without feeling some twangs of conscience at leaving the allotment-widower at home (even though I think he quite likes it). Yesterday, as official football-widow myself, no conscience. (And I’d be there again tonight trying at long last to get those very late potatoes in, were it not raining. Gah. Instead I find myself at home, another “unmissable” match on – this one causing much tension and stress – with a pile of ironing and a casserole to make. The joys.)

Left reasonably simple instructions regarding my lovely homemade bread: take it out when the oven beeps.

(You can see where this is going, can’t you.)

(You are right.)

It cooked for 2 hours and I came home to a blackened charcoaly lump smoking gently in the oven.

Today’s loaf stuck fast to its tin. (I prised it off with a pie-slice; only lost a small layer from the bottom crust.) They come in threes, right – so one more mistake then I can get back into making nice bread again.

On a nice note, I spent yesterday afternoon at the Bluebell cottage garden. Sadly camera-less – I have my hands quite full enough thank you with two small children and they have ponds – we had a lovely time admiring the garden then buying plants while the girls ran amok, then to the wildflower meadow where they really could run free. Mostly buttercups at the moment and absolutely glorious: up to M’s waist (T’s head) and what children are supposed to do!

It’s not that I’ve not been thinking about posting, nor that I haven’t had time: life has just been failing to provide anything much to say. Cameron went to Houston last Monday; Katy (and Megan and Evan) came up for a day, which was nice; she went home, it was Good Friday so we stayed in the house and didn’t see a soul. Cleaned a bit. Saturday, mum and dad arrived but it was really too cold for any of our planned activities. We were busy-ish and it was very pleasant, but not very exciting. They left on Tuesday, I’ve cleaned a bit more, we still haven’t seen any body. Have spent the entire day today waiting in for a parcel that will apparently be here before 5.30 (how hard would it be to ring with at least a morning or afternoon estimate). 5.10 now and counting. It has to arrive else tomorrow’s party bags will be quite empty. I got so bored I used an attachment to hoover behind a radiator. We made the all-important cake.

Cameron is due home tomorrow and really does have to make it: being stuck at Gatwick will not do. Fingers crossed.

I was thrilled to read an article in the health section of yesterday’s Observer all about OAS, oral allergy syndrome. For 15-odd years I have been careful about which fruits and nuts I eat raw but been quite dismissive of my weirdness as I’ve never heard of anyone else having the same sort of reaction and being loathe to claim it as an allergy as it doesn’t actually make me fall down blue or anything. Now, when health professionals ask, I’ll be able to answer properly without shuffling my feet and saying erm well I’m a bit weird with fruit.

Trouble with the Observer of course, they asked these new agey “alternative” people about it (though to be fair a couple of sensible people give their ideas too). The alternative woman claims that “in a trial, an OAS patient treated with vitamin c was symptom-free within a month” (my italics). I am absolutely not deficient in vitamin c, citrus fruits being some of the few I can eat uncooked: and if this was all it was down to, surely my symptoms would fluctuate? Which, apart from disappearing when pregnant, they don’t. The private specialist gives me some hope though, as he claims it can be treated by desentitisation immunotherapy, which will become available in the UK in the next few years. The NHS chap just says to avoid raw fruit, which is what I have done for years. It would be lovely not to have to, though!

And now I have a name, I can google it…

Last summer, for Ann’s birthday, we were all booked to have a lovely spa day until Tamsin got chickenpox* and I had to cancel. It’s taken 8 months to rearrange but finally, this Sunday, we went! It was touch and go as I dosed a very sad Tamsin with calpol* on Saturday night, but by Sunday morning she seemed a little more cheery and frankly I needed some time off, so off I went. A spot of lunch; a float about the pool – more chat than swim – steam room, jacuzzi then off for our “treatments”, a lovely facial and a pedicure. Hoorah! I don’t care what Julie Burchill has to say about it, I think being pampered is rather nice from time to time.

Today, I feel achey and shivery, which I very much hope is a manifestation of lack of sleep because I do not have time for a lurgy. Maggie has been back to the doctor with her cough, which is keeping everybody up for hours every night, as the inhaler did absolutely nothing. We now have antibiotics, which are not expected to do anything “but sometimes you are surprised” (I actually very much like this doctor – coughs are just one of those things, aren’t they). Tamsin has a nasty cold and is like one of those revolting toddlers with a green streaming nose that I dislike so much when they belong to other people; she’s refusing to settle at night for hours on end too, and is very thin post-virus. Tempers are starting to fray.

On the bright side, a sunny (but very cold) day today persuaded me to take the girls to the zoo for a quick run and to see Margaret the new baby giraffe. She’s less than 6 foot tall with big eyes and absolutely gorgeous so I am very glad we did. And the elephants were having fun in the pool.

*Is it only my children who are constantly ill?