This is a bit of a long blog, I'd get a cup of tea or coffee first if I was you. And we're not counting the mistakes either - unless you want your throat torn out that is.

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May the Gods give me strength, but not enough strength to do any permanent damage.

I put youngest’s work tee shirts in the washing machine yesterday morning and I told son that when he got up to hang them on the line or at least his bedroom radiator, so they’d be ready for work. What with the crow and everything I forgot all about it until last night when I was getting into bed.

Child was still downstairs watching telly, so I banged on the floor to get him to come to the living room door. Of course, he didn’t understand the signal to start with – he turned the volume down on the telly instead.

So I tried again. This time he came to the foot of the stairs to ask what I wanted. Had he put his tee shirts to dry? Silence. No, he’d forgot – they were still in the washing machine. Bloody typical – it wouldn’t have killed him to hang all of the washing out and I’d only asked him to dry his own tee shirts.

So I told him to get them out straight away and put them on the radiators. I also pointed out that he had work the next day so it would probably be a good idea to come to bed; he’d not want to get up in the morning. And he’s right snitty when he’s tired.

So to this morning – I’m sure that I woke all of our neighbours up trying to get him to get out of bed. Would he get up? Noooo. He does the normal teenager thing. You call them, your voice getting a bit louder every time. They in turn always answer; yes they’re getting up now. Then the little sods turn over and go back to sleep again.

When he eventually managed to find his way out of his room, and that took some doing I can tell you; negotiating everything littered around the floor, he wandered downstairs and - you’ll never believe this - asked me where his work tee shirt was.

Now with that in mind I don’t suppose it will come as a surprise to everyone when I tell you that it was still in the washing machine wringing wet. Btw, it’s now 8.30 a.m. and we both need to be at work for 9 a.m.

So we had a discussion. A parent and child discussion; which any parent will tell you is in line with world war 3.

The battle lines were drawn.

Camp One: He was going to wear the tee shirt to work, even through it was soaking wet. It would dry during the day, he said.

Camp two: He bloody well wasn’t wearing it to work - I might be a terrible mother and housewife but even I have certain standards, be they very low ones. He’d just have to wear a normal tee shirt and keep his sweatshirt on all day.

Negotiations took place.

Read what you will into that statement, it all depends if you’ve read books on how children behave or whether you’ve had first hand experience. Shame really that children have never shown an interest in reading childcare manuals – life would be so much simpler if they had.

If you have teenagers I’m sure you can picture the scene exactly, if not read on. You can’t reason with a seventeen year old; it’s like trying to reason with the wind, and the older they get the worse they are. As they are adults (I use that word very loosely) you make the stupid assumption that you can talk to them; adult to adult. And you know you should remain calm and not shout, honestly you do – but you can’t help it. They flick a switch deep inside you and you morph into a screaming banshee.

And then they sneer. No one sneers like a teenager – all logical argument is thrown out of the window with the simple statement: ‘I don’t care’. And they don’t either, they really don’t care. They aren’t at all upset by any of it, unlike yourself – the person that suffered childbirth for this wonderful caring individual.

Anyway at 8.45 a.m. this morning I’d the iron in my hand trying to iron dry son’s tee shirt. He was bloody lucky I didn’t batter him over the head with said iron when he moaned at me that he was going to be late. I dropped him off at work about 9.15 a.m. and got to work myself about half past.

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The crow has now found a new home, thank the gods – I don’t need another teenager in my life. I found someone through a friend of a friend in the end, there isn’t a lot of help around for orphaned birds. Never mind, the bird is now being looked after and when I spoke to the gentleman this morning the crow had just enjoyed breakfast and was off to the outside aviary for a spot of sunshine. Lucky crow.