*Missing pumpkin picture*

I’ve not got around to carving it I’m afraid – I’d just given my dad his tea last night when Tracy rang and I ended up going over there. She wants me to design the Order of Service booklets for the funeral and what with one thing and another we ended up chatting away for hours. Sometimes it’s a skill knowing when to just listen and throw in the occasional comment, last night she needed to talk.

And of course I ended up sorting her computer out, yet again. I’ve never known a woman like her. This time the email had stopped working – about two months ago to be precise, she just hadn’t said anything. So we sat and chatted as I eventually found a way of changing the password, the original password wasn’t being accepted. When I did log on via explorer I found out what the problem was and why Outlook Express has been saying sod off to her. 13,572 emails just sat there, most of them spam – God alone knows what she’s been up to, but it took me nearly three hours to delete all of them. Freeserve/Wanadoo/Orange didn’t like it and kept freezing up on me. I could only delete a couple of hundred in any one go.

Within seconds of walking back through the door at home at just turned 9pm, my dad was demanding and I do mean demanding; ‘please’ never comes into it, that I dress his leg – he’d been waiting all night for me. I told him that I’d just put my tea on and then I’d do it. Not good enough I’m afraid – I didn’t want to do anything for him anymore; I was only interested in helping other people (such as Tracy) - and that was the root of all this, I'd spent time with her and he wanted something doing and had had to wait.

I’m afraid this has been building up for weeks now and it ended in one God almighty argument, one that for once I wasn’t backing down from. So he informed me of the following:

1. To Fuck Off, he didn’t need my help anyway.
2. He’ll leave and go into a home, where he would get looked after and everything would be done for him – I needn’t bother then.
3. I’ll come home one day and he'll have killed himself, then I’d be sorry.
4. I don’t do anything for him.
5. He’s very ill and I only care about my job. I should come out of work and take him to the doctors, he shouldn’t have to drive himself.
6. I only want him for his money (a throw back to when Himself broke his shoulder earlier this year and he paid the mortgage to help out with the loss of earnings during the month.
7. I only care about those people on the computer - I shouldn’t go on it at night. I think more of them than I do him.
8. I go out every weekend and leave him on his own.

Actually the list went on a lot more than just that – all about what an awful daughter I was and how I didn’t bother with him, how very selfish I am. I’m afraid I’d really had enough; for once I fired both guns back at him and told him that I wasn’t married to him, I wasn’t a doormat to be walked over, I wasn’t his personal servant – my mother didn’t have me to ensure that they would received round the clock care 24 hours a day/ day in day out. If he had decided to have a child for just that reason he was in for a big surprise. I was fed up with working all day, and coming back to his demands, sulks and tantrums when I refused to jump immediately to his orders on what needed to be done. I recognised that his health wasn’t at its best, but a lot of people were a lot worst off and still didn’t expect their children to jump instantly to their every whim. I’m afraid I may have been very blunt and hurtful but I’ve had enough of him trying to control my life and make it as unpleasant as possible and now he knows it. Oh boy, does he know it.

Things settled down eventually and once again he apologised – but I’m not standing for it anymore. I’m sick to the eye teeth with the emotional blackmail, he knows what to say to me to make me feel I’m not keeping my promise to my mum to watch over him. If I’ve let her down, then tough – I’m entitled to a life too and so is my husband, who very wisely just stood in the door way and let me vent my spleen last night. Although I honestly don’t think my mum wanted me to give up everything and focus on looking after my dad – she’d tell me that he’d always been like that and that I had the right to do my own things – he is more than capable of helping himself more than he does. The trouble is he’s on his own most of the day and he refuses to do anything about it – I did agreed that I’d spend half an hour every evening just talking to him, and I’ll keep to that. As I do things for him I’m in and out constantly, but that apparently doesn’t count. But I won’t be stopping going out with my husband over the weekend, it’s the only time we have together without interruptions and I won’t stand for him trying to tell me what I can and can’t do, it's none of his business – although I think that at least has died a death for a time.

I’m back! I won’t ask if anyone missed me, I learnt my lesson the last time. The answer was no just in case you’re wondering.

Nice weekend, other than a passing car flicking a stone onto the windscreen and chipping it – scared us half to death with the noise it made. Although not quite as bad as what happened to Pooks on Friday – someone drove into the back of her car on the way to the airport, which didn’t do her back a lot of good. But she enjoyed 'Wicked', it was...er...wicked?

And you'll understand why going on holiday in England isn’t top of my list of things to do when you see the photos - it persisted down the whole weekend. Not that it made any difference or spoilt it for us; the power of positive thought and several alcoholic drinks sorted us out. We were away from home, together, just the two of us. Who cared if we were soaked to the skin and freezing cold - just had to think of ways to warm up again *grin*.

With hindsight we probably should have gone some where a bit closer – too much travelling involved, 300 odd mile round trip. We didn’t bother visiting Cheddar Gorge in the end but managed two National Trust properties instead.

Dunster Castle

Tyntesfield

Which we will be visiting again as we didn't get to see all of the gardens or the chapel. It's an amazing place. Gothic in style and full of unusual Victorian nic nacs - including a rack of different types of riding crops, about twenty in all *even bigger grin*.

We also managed to visit Lynmouth & Minehead as well as exploring Ilfracombe, oh and we passed through Hele too!

All in all a nice couple of days away.

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Youngest has informed me that he is too old to carve a pumpkin this year - so it's looks like I'm on my own. Well I am not too old and will be doing just that after work today - there are an awful lot of signs in windows around the village making it clear that trick & treaters are not welcome. The pumpkin is a way of showing the kids that they are welcome to call at our house - or at least that is my excuse! Bit sad in a way; both my kids are now grown up and just not interested any more in Halloween or Christmas, come to that - but on a plus side that means no competition this year, so my pumpkin automatically wins & I get the Thorntons chocolate!

After reading yesterday’s comments again, it suddenly dawned on me that two other people doubt my ability to make pastry. Cheeky sods – they’ll not be getting an apple pie either.

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It’s been a bit up in the air as to whether we’d actually go away this weekend, but I’ve been bullied into booking a room – which I only did half an hour ago - 11.00 p.m.

My friend Tracy’s dad died very suddenly Thursday night from a massive heart attack and I didn’t want to leave her; Himself fully understood and didn’t push it. Which may seem strange as it's not my family that suffered the loss, but she’s like a sister and we’ve been through so much together – she helped look after my mum, she sat with me whilst mum was dying. When things go wrong, even if we’ve not seen each other for weeks, we instantly turn to each other. My friends are the siblings I've never had, I couldn't even begin to explain what they mean to me and I worry and fret about all of them at different times.

Unfortunately I was out at work’s Halloween party and she couldn’t get hold of me until a lot later – its sod’s law that the one night I go out she needs me. She’d left the house in a rush without her mobile, so didn’t have our mobile numbers and my dad didn’t hear the phone; he has his telly up really loud. By the time we’d visited her mum and brother and had then gone to see her, it was turned two in the morning when we got into bed. I spent time today with her and her mum, and she made it very clear that there was nothing I could do to help over the weekend – she would be very upset if I didn’t go away as planned. She also knows a lot about my family and just why I need to get away on occasions.

Himself wanted originally to go to Blackpool to see the illuminations – I personally didn’t fancy that. Nothing against Blackpool, but I didn’t fancy the hustle and bustle of the crowds or the noise. So we’re off to Ilfracombe, Devon, instead and we are spending our anniversary night here - this time I booked a room with a double bed; not catching me out on that one again. It’s amazing how many places are fully booked, especially this late in the season - I had a hell of a game finding somewhere that wasn't going to cost £150 for the night.

We thought we’d visit Cheddar Gorge on the way down and I’m looking to see what National Trust properties are down that way and still open – may just squeeze a visit in.

I’m getting a divorce!

Tony at work gave me a bag of cooking apples yesterday and I left them on the kitchen work surface when I came home. Himself spotted them and asked what they were for. Yes, you're right, nosey sod.

So I told him that as I’m on holiday Friday I thought I’d have a go at making an apple pie. At that point the cheeky sod bursted out laughing. And I mean genuine laughter, not just a chuckle. When he eventually stopped - the glare eventually registered - I asked him what was so funny. He replied that he’d been married to me for nearly 23 years now and I’d never made him an apple pie in all of that time, did I even know how to make pastry?

You see, that is why I don’t bake; it's not what you'd call encouragment. To add insult to injury Eldest and Fiancée turned up at that point in the proceedings and father and child had a lengthy discussion about what cakes etc, they could actually remember me baking. Not a lot as it happens – child said he was convinced that I bullied him into enjoying cooking just so I had a get out of jail free card when the school had a fete that required a donation. The only thing that he did remember was my chocolate cake – which he used to love and his mouth still watered at the very thought of it. Shame they only ever appeared once in a blue moon.

You know, that has got to be in line with the malteser bake that Pooks used to try and bribe the SO & I with - basically just a figment of your imagination.

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When we moved house we packed a load of stuff in boxes and stored them in the shed at the top of the garden, it was only meant to be a temporary measure but you know what it’s like; years later and they are still there. Himself stated last weekend that he wanted his shed back to do activities in. See, dirty minds the lot of you, I meant woodwork - try and deny that another thought crossed your mind.

Anyway we started sorting through the piles of stuff – Eldest is going to do a car boot sale so we sorted into what he could sell, what needed to go to the tip and what we wanted to keep. Himself found it at the bottom of a box, totally forgotten about – he threw it in the pile for the tip, but thankfully it caught my eye and the memories came flooding back....

My mum was a Brownie Guider, as most of you already know. Back in the 70’s one of the best fund raisers was a Jumble Sale. The Brownies and Guides used to get together to organise it and then share the proceeds; the money usually went towards capitation fees (a sort of tax charged yearly for each child in the pack and paid to Brownie HQ).

Some Brownie packs used to ask the parents to pay this but mum was against that – she said that some families in the village couldn’t afford it and that the girls would stop attending, especially those with more than one child. She always felt that no one should be excluded and no parent should ever have to go cap in hand just so their child could attend Brownies.

Looking back, I know that money was always tight when I was growing up but I never went without. I’m sure now that my mum did on many occasions, and I know that she worked long hours to ensure that I had the childhood she wanted me to have. I never took what I had for granted and I never asked for things - so I must have been partly aware even back then, but I had a happy childhood with good memories. A lot better than some of my well off friends and I never went without.

The Jumble Sale could be a bit of a cattle market when the doors opened – everyone rushing in and pushing and shoving for the best bargins. There was the ‘Best Clothes’ stall – everything there had a higher price tag on. The main jumble tables; sorted into women’s, men’s and children’s clothes and the household table - then came the toys and games table and on the end, the books.

The adults manned the main tables - you really needed eyes in the back of your head for that. Even through each item was only a few pence, people used to load up their arms and walk away without paying if possible. The Guides and Brownies used to do the teas and coffees and help with the quieter table, such as the toys and book.

I remember on this occasion that I ended up helping to sell the books – after a while I got a bit bored and started to look through what was for sale. I picked up books at random and flicked though the pages until I eventually settled on a rather tatty paperback. No one seemed keen on buying the books any more – other than the initial rush for the Mills & Boons I’d not sold a thing for over ten minutes so I sat on the chair and started to read.

It was an hour later and everyone had started to pack up when I decided that I wanted that book – I just had to finish reading it. I asked if I could have it and as everything left went to the rag and bone man I was told yes.

I remember being unable to put the book down – for the first time in my life I was enthralled with what was going to happen on the next page and then the page after that. I fell in love with the characters and lost myself as the story opened up before my very eyes. I finished reading the book early the next day and then started it again at a more leisurely pace, finding things in it that I’d missed in my initial rush to get to the end - I'll even admit to shedding a few tears as I read.

Up until that point I'd only ever read comics or children's books, mostly interested in finding out what happened via the pictures - no real interest in the written word unless it was absolutely necessary. I didn't have a problem reading, I just couldn't see any pleasure in it.

I must have been about nine years old at the time and a fair bit of what I read I didn’t fully understand. But the author of that book taught me a valuable lesson - that reading could be pure pleasure and not a chore. It opened up a whole new world to me and made me appreciate the power behind the written world; after that I explored my library and found that there was a lot more on offer to me than just children's books. I think that reading that book was a turning point in my life; it made me want to read, and from that I developed a love of literature.

The book by the way, was Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights and although I’ve read it many times since it still manages to captivate me.

Hallelujah! I appear to have found my sense of humour again. I tidied up my desk at work and there it was under a pile of paperwork; I must learn to keep a better eye on it. Joking apart, last five days have not been good for me, what with one thing and another – mainly to do with Father or youngest child. That and bad, guilty, thoughts in response to the emotional blackmail I’m on the receiving end of. There have been several times during the last few days that I’ve seriously considered becoming a hermit. There was a cave dwelling for sale not too long ago; it would have done me nicely. Thank God I’ve a very special husband and good friends. Scally once again got most of the woe is me and thankfully, although she’s sympathetic and full of good advice, she doesn’t allow me to wallow for too long in self pity – You see, I can’t handle the guilt of feeling sorry for myself either. Others have it a lot worse than me.

So, we’ll just brush over what’s been going on and start from this morning instead.

We had a fatality during the night – one of the fishes passed away at work. Small pause to wipe tear from eye. I’ve been saying since Friday that it wasn’t very well – and I don’t care how much they take the piss at work, I know when one of my fish isn’t long for this world. Certain people have accused it of dying out of desperation – I may have checked it a fair few times on Monday.

Anyway, formal funeral arrangements were put in place (flushed down the loo) and I then spent half an hour cleaning the tank. Of course when you lose a fish there is only one thing you can do – raid the petty cash tin and buy yourself four more to replace it. Along with new plants, fish food, some more stones for the bottom of the tank and some brine shrimps (for the fishy wake of course!). It was one of the large goldfish that died, so Craig brought two replacement baby goldfish and two grey ones as well. We’ve had one grey one for years now – called Arthur, so we thought it was about time he had a couple of mates.

Wedding anniversary this weekend – whether we’ll be going away for a couple of days is still unsure. Himself is adamant that we will be going away and that’s the end of it – everyone else can look after themselves and God help them if they are selfish enough to think otherwise – he’s in that sort of mood. I'm afraid he's had his fill of it all as well, and although he's got the patience of a saint – his halo has slipped. I’m not so sure we'll be going anywhere myself – if I’m going to be put through the mill before hand, it will spoil the whole experience for me. Time will tell.

Didn’t get the chance yesterday to blog, and to be honest didn’t feel like it last night either – so went out for a quiet drive in the car with Himself instead. Still wrestling with my inner guilt due to some of the thoughts I’ve been having of late and to be honest, as I’m no where near getting them straight in my own head as of yet, there is no way I’m at the point of committing them to paper. Writing my feelings down has always been a really good way of helping me sort things out but even mentioning the fact sends my guilt meter off the scale at the moment.

I’ve always said that if you care to pass me a stick I’d do a much better job at beating myself than anyone else ever could. Definitely not a good frame of mind at the moment and struggling to maintain my sense of humour. Humour will no doubt win out in the end; it’s the one thing that no one has ever been able to fully prise out my death grip hold.


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So belated Happy Birthday for yesterday to Kristy, hope you enjoyed your day.

Pooks is ill at the moment – she’s got the sniffles / a cold / the Flu! Didn’t stop her jumping up and down and running round like a mad thing when the tickets for Wicked arrived through, did it? But have to point out that it is really quiet where she works since she lost her voice.

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The saga of the house spiders continued last night, there was one in the bath. Now I know you’re all going to say that there is nothing unusual in that. Lots of people have spiders in their bath - they come up the plug hole. But you know me, I just have to be different.

I ran myself a really deep bath, added a very generous dollop of bubble bath as I was after a touch of luxury, found my book and settled down to half an hour soaking without anyone interrupting me at all. I had even got Himself on guard in the bedroom to ensure this happened. Of course, ten minutes lying on the bed and he was snoring his head off – but the thought was there.

The water was that hot that it took me a few minutes to get in and lie down. It was wonderful; I picked up my book and started to read. After five minutes I was vaguely aware of something dropping in front of me, but didn’t take too much notice as I was reading at the time.

You know when you get that instinctive feeling that something is not quite right with your world? Well I turned the page on my book and in the process just happened to glance in front of me….

At a fecking big spider fighting its way towards me across the bubbles.

I have never got out of a bath so quickly in all of my life,and it must have been years since I screamed that loudly. I’m pretty sure that Himself hasn’t gone from fast asleep to fully wide awake, off the bed and running to the bathroom that quickly either.

We did lose sight of the spider for a few moments, it had been the parting of the waves when I exited the bath. But it turned up again after we searched - nearly drown – so I scooped it out with a beaker and chucked it out of the window. I’ll be honest here; I didn’t undertake CPR so it may not have survived the experience anyway.

The Bastard must have been on the ceiling and I didn’t notice it. Sends shivers down the spine – just think, it could have actually landed on me – then the whole street would have heard me scream. BTW, Mr Bravery thought it was absolutely hysterical, so that’s another monster he’s failed to save me from. I doubt he’d have thought it quite so funny if he’d have been with me in the bath at the time.

Busy day today, having delegated arranging the in-house three day First Aid Course to one of my team we get to see if he’s forgotten anything. I can’t say I’m brimming over with confidence – I briefed him and he wrote down everything that needed to be covered. But every time I’ve asked a question over the past two weeks, he’s answered with ‘I was just about to do that….’, when it’s blatantly obvious that he wasn’t. I’ve rocketed him twice over it but I’ve still come in this morning to find the room not fully set up. So it looks like he’s in for a wake up call when he eventually gets here.

This is when I really miss Dilys; I could pass jobs over to her, tell her what I wanted and then just forget it. I’ve spent the best part of the last week chasing this – almost to the point it would have been quicker and easier to just do it myself.

And this afternoon we have our Leadership & Management Self Assessment meeting, thankfully this is the last of them – I’m still trying to find the time to write up the Finance & Admin one. Horrible job. But on a plus side, I know that we have home made Chocolate Fudge cake for our meeting. Very sad that that is the highlight of my day.

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Laughter highlight from yesterday.

I sent Dave down to install acrobat reader on the computers the clients use – after about an hour he still wasn’t back. I mentioned this fact in passing to Craig, who said that he must be having a few problems. Yeah, Shame, *snigger*, caring lot that we are.

The computers downstairs are the bane of our lives – the staff are always moaning about them. Basically the clients mess with the settings and it’s then up to either Craig, I or now Dave to put them right again. We view the job as a kind of curse - the passing on type of curse. I passed it on to Craig and now Dave has joined us, the job has been passed on to him. Baptism of fire, sort of stuff.

About ten minutes after that comment the receptionist rang up to say she could hear banging and what sounded like someone shouting, but she couldn't locate where it was coming from. Strange.

Upon investigation, we tracked the disturbance to the downstairs computer room which was locked. It only took a few seconds to work out that Dave was incarcerated in the room inside the computer room and had no means of getting out. It took a few minutes to track down the keys and work out that Carol had gone in earlier and locked the doors leaving him trapped inside listening to his ipod. He hadn’t heard her lock up and she admitted that she didn’t check to see if the room was empty. The numpty hadn’t turned the lights on and had been sat in the dark.

I'm sure we'd have gone looking for him eventually.

Himself called me to the window yesterday evening to look at the cat – it was obvious that she'd caught something but at the same time she wasn’t keen on getting too close to it. She kept jumping backwards when whatever it was moved. She then went back again and tapped it with her paw. So we went outside for a closer look……

Some witch appears to have lost her familiar.

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Cat was in our bad books this morning for a totally different reason - she brought a fully grown adult rat in through the window during the night and this time it wasn’t me who’d got up and opened the window.

Now I don’t mind the mice etc, but rats? I draw the line at rats. Pet rats are fine - wild ones are nasty, horrible things. Himself was no use what-so-ever either, he hates them more than me (by that I'm not implying that Himself hates me, just rats, although I’m sure I annoy him at times). The cat obviously couldn’t understand what the fuss was all about and let it go to tell us we didn’t need to be scared, it was only a rat. The rat tried to get away.

You know, I’d have said it would have been nigh on impossible for two 40+ year olds to jump simultaneously vertically two foot up in the air and land on the bed in two seconds flat – but we managed it. It was amazing we didn't break the bed.

The cat looked at us for a second and then, thank God, caught the rat again just as it was going under the bed. And it squealed. Yes, I’m sure you’d say rats can’t squeal – but I beg to differ; they can and this one did. It was horrible.

The cat shot off down the stairs and I started shouting at Himself to do something about it – he in turn assured me he wasn’t going anywhere the bloody thing. The cat brought it in, she could bloody well kill it or take it out again.

Which left me stomping around the bedroom trying to find some clothes to put on – no way was I going near any rat in the nude. At the same time I was also casting aspirations on Himself’s bravery - so much for the mighty hunter - as he in turn made it quite clear he wasn’t the Pied Piper of Hamelin and he didn’t care that it was his fault the window was open.

I went downstairs, switched the light on and stuck my head cautiously around
door. The cat was sat looking under the book case, as soon as she saw me she got up and went into the kitchen – doing her ‘I’m a clever girl, feed me’ meow. Was she in for a surprised; I booted her back into the front room and shut the kitchen door. She wasn’t getting a thing until she caught that bloody big rat.

She wandered over to the sofa and jumped up on to the arm - she then sat there washing herself. And that has got to be the cat equivalent of ‘fuck you’.

Himself – from the safety of the upstairs landing – shouted down to ask if it was dead yet. I shall gloss over the next bit; you honestly don’t want to know what I said back. For a start you’d be shocked at just how many swear words I managed to get out with in the space of two minutes. And he still refused to come downstairs and help me – he has a rat phobia. Yeah, right, he’s not the only one!

In the end I went and got one of my dad’s walking sticks and the waste paper basket – the plan being to block off all around the book case with books and just leave two small gaps. One for the stick and one for the rat to run out from under the book case and into the basket. The cat, by the way, had now gone to sleep and Himself was still at the top of the stairs shouting down suggestions – I feel I showed great restraint when I didn’t issue any suggestion back again.

I pushed the stick underneath from the side and keeping the bin firmly pressed against the front of bookcase wiggled it around a bit. I made contact with the rat and then jump another two foot in the air. The rat stayed put – this wasn’t going according to plan.

Taking a deep breath, I tried again. I could feel the rat with the stick; it was soft and squidgy. After a few seconds it dawn on me that as I poked it, it wasn’t actually moving and there was obviously a really good reason for that – it was dead.

Mr Bravery Himself turned up at that point – well, let’s just say he had suck his head around the door. I was in the process of manoeuvring the dead body into the basket to take outside when he pipes up to be careful, it might just be pretending to be dead. Well it was a bloody good actor, that’s all I can say – it was on its side with its tongue hanging out of its mouth. I dumped it and the bin in the dustbin and left the stick outside – I shall have to clean that later. I then went and had a shower, I felt dirty, and Himself, true to form, went back to sleep.

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Feckenham Scarecrow Weekend Pictures

We had one of our double glazing windows broken last night – we’re not really sure how it happened but hazarding a guess I thought it must have been kids with a catapult. We were watching the rugby at the time and the noise fair scared the life out of us.

Himself shot outside but no one was around even through he had a good look and he didn’t hear anyone running away either. He drove around the village afterwards to see if he could spot any kids but the place was deserted.

Luckily it only broke the one pane of glass; the stone was lodged between the two panes – the glass is toughened so I can’t see that you’d break it by throwing alone.

Next door neighbour heard it too and came out to see what it was, so that indicates how loud a noise it made. He wondered if it had been thrown up off the tyre of a passing car or bus, I couldn’t see it myself – but Simon at work said exactly the same thing today. He said if a vehicle tyre had caught the side of the stone, it could have shot out at tremendous force and that would also explain why we didn’t see anyone running away.

But it leaves you with an uneasy feeling and I didn’t settle at all well last night. It wasn’t helped by the fact I’d had a run in with my dad. He’d been in one of those moods all weekend and I’d said to Himself when we went out Saturday afternoon for a couple of hours, that he wasn’t happy we weren’t staying in to look after him as he wasn’t very well and had decided to go to bed. I won’t tell you want Himself said to that at the time – red rag to a bull.

He came in to the front room when I’d just sat down to watch the rugby match and wanted me to check his tablets – he’d dropped them and wanted them put back in the container - he has a special box that I can put a weeks worth of tablets in. I told him I’d do it during the half time break as he only had his night time ones left and he doesn’t take them until turned 10 p.m.

That wasn’t good enough – he exploded like a bottle of pop; I didn’t want to do anything for him any more - it was all too much trouble for me. Take into account at this point that I’d only just finished changing his bedding on this bed. And all this was really due to the fact that I’d gone out Saturday & Sunday afternoon, when obviously I should have been at home looking after him. I wouldn’t mind so much if he didn’t cry wolf so often. What really upsets me is when he so ill he can hardly speak to me but the minute this friend rings him, he’s on the phone laughing and joking.

Himself bits his tongue normally, for my sake as much as anything as I get so upset – but this time I suppose it was just too much for him. He told my dad a few home truths including that moving into the house and building the granddad flat on the side was the worse move we’d ever made. We were by far happier living in our flat and what he really wanted to do was put the house up for sale and move away.

I looked after my mum for years and never once begrudged the time I spent caring for her, both day and night. For a start she never moaned and she never expected me to do anything – my dad is just the opposition. She’d ask for help when she needed it but never demand, and she always encouraged me to get out and about. She recognised that I had the right to a life of my own and made it very clear that she didn't have a child so that there would be someone to look after them in their old age. In fairness my dad had always been like he is now, it’s not as if he’s undergone a personality change – he’s always been one of life’s grumpy old men. But back then at least I could get away from it, back to the flat – I wasn’t living with it 24/7, day in day out.

Himself insists that we go out over the weekend, we both work full time and we need time together, just the two of us. You know, I don’t think I’ve ever come back from a trip and had my dad ask if I’ve had a nice time – I usually come back to a ‘I’ve not been at all well’ – ‘and you left me alone all by myself’ is unsaid but hangs in the air. Yes, he doesn’t have the best of health, but I do look after him and unlike a lot of elderly people he has his daughter on call 24 hours a day.

The problem for me is I always end up feeling guilty. I even feel guilty just writing these feelings down. I looked after my mum so I should look after my dad too and not moan about it. I suppose if I’m truly honest I feel resentful that I can’t just lead my own life without having to fit it around someone else and what time I do get is usually hard fought for. He did come in a bit later and apologise for what he'd said.

++++

We went to another Scarecrow event yesterday, so more photo's tomorrow....

It’s just drawn on me tonight that I’ve been blogging for over a year now. I know I can talk for England but...what the bloody hell have I found to waffle on about for that amount of time?

Before anyone comes up with a witty reply - I’ll just point out that a fair few of you have been reading my waffle for that amount of time too.

++++

It was like a scene from Goldilocks and the Three Bears at our house last night. Child woke me up when he came to bed at just turned 1 a.m. to tell me that someone was sleeping in his bed and they were still there!

Unfortunately, for him at least, it wasn’t some blonde bombshell - he wouldn’t have minded that. No, it was an eight legged fiend that was making eyes at him. He’d pulled the duvet back to find a spider fast asleep in his bed. We seem to have more than our fair share of visitors of late too. They are what I class as field spiders - big, black, ugly things - the size of dinner plates. Yes, OK, slight exaggeration but only very slight I can assure you. They really are enormous.

He then wanted me to get up and remove it – apparently arachnids don’t have squatters rights. If I didn’t get rid of it he was going to have to squidge it and then the bed would have to be changed as he refused to sleep with bits of manky spider.

To be honest it was rather on the large side – I wasn’t that keen on going near it myself. The only person in our family not afraid of spiders is the eldest - my mum wasn’t frightened of them either and she taught him as a small child to pick them up and take them outside – he was always under the impress that Incy Wincy was lost and looking for his drainpipe.

Apparently she did try and teach me the same trick when I was young, but even back then I was having nothing what-so-ever to do with them. Youngest didn't mind them as a child either; it's just since he's grown up that they put the fear of God in to him. Eldest of course has now left home and I don’t think he’d have been too happy if we’d have rung him at that time in the morning.

As Child didn't like my idea of him sleeping downstairs on the sofa it was obviously going to be a job for Super Mummy with her magic glass and old birthday card. Child of course stayed by the door, just in case he needed to run – no, not to help me if I was attacked; just to ensure a quick get away down the stairs.

After gearing myself up – a few one handed press up (yeah right) – I very, very, slowly walked over to the bed, glass at the ready. My Gods, what a big ugly bastard it was too.

Had I got it yet? Child asked. He wanted to go to bed, he was tired, could I stop messing about. Now I’ve never smacked my kids but there have been times when I’ve really wanted to. I started to turn around to tell him I was tired too; especially as he had woken me up when I’d been fast asleep, when out of the corner of my eye I saw the bloody spider run across the bed.

I screamed like a woman - which you have to expect, as I am one – and ran to the door. Child by this time is half way down the stairs and we’d woken Himself up in the process. He wanted to know why we were playing stupid buggers at turned one o'clock in the morning. Small discussion ensued and Himself threatened to kill the bloody thing if we don't stop messing around. Please note that although he offered help of sorts – Himself never actually got out of bed. A few minutes later you could hear him snoring again.

So being the brave one, I crept slowly back over to the bed. The spider now looked as if it was thinking about getting back under the duvet - must have wanted to go back to sleep too. Taking a deep breath I rammed the glass over the top of it and scooted away from the bed. You can’t be too careful, I may have missed and the thing could have gone for my throat.

I peered over and saw that I’d scored a direct it – the monster was trapped. Round one to Super Mummy. I started to push the birthday card underneath the glass and the horrible thing lifted its front legs up and waved them at me. I got the impression that it was giving me the ‘V’ sign to tell you the truth. Telling child to open the window I managed to lift glass, card and spider off the bed.

But Child was no were to be seen. Apparently he wasn’t coming anywhere near me whilst I was carrying that thing. So I ended up flipping the glass over so the spider couldn’t get out and opened the window myself. On closer inspection I can tell you now that the spider really was an ugly bastard - it wasn't going to win any beauty contests. I chucked it out of the window, it could go and find its own drainpipe.

Child then made me check the whole bedroom in case there were any more lurking about – I couldn’t find any so he happily went to bed. I then lay awake for the next hour listening to Himself snoring wondering if there were any spiders in our room.

+++++

We went for a walk around Croome Park again today, very pretty and a bit misty now autumn has arrived.

It’s only 9.30am and I feel as if I’ve done a day’s work already.

It stated around 5.00am when Himself’s mobile began issuing the warning bleep that the battery was nearly flat. I nudged him to turn it off. No, he said, it would be all right, he had to get up shortly. Well thank you very much, so the occasional timely bleep that I found myself waiting for didn’t bother him only me. After the third bleep I got out of bed and turned it off myself.

Now this did bother him – Himself sets the alarm on his mobile, even though we’ve an alarm clock that is also set to wake him up. He likes the fact that his mobile has a snooze button that he can hit, oh about 4 or 5 times before he gets up. So he sets the mobile alarm for about half an hour before he's due to get up. No, I've not the foggiest idea why he has to do this either - madness, pure madness.

This morning I’m afraid he got to hear a few home truths about how he was waking me up two hours before it was necessary and I got a few home truths back in return as to how the tap, tap, tap of the keyboard stops him sleeping at night. I countered that one by saying that when he actually got around to putting a door on the computer room he’d not hear it.

Basically we had a full blown argument by whispering - looking back on it now; it was quite comical.

By 5.45am Himself has informed me how moody I am in the morning because I go to bed too late at night and I’ve told him how selfish he is making sure that he always wakes me up just because he has to get up. For a start he could turn the lamp on by the side of his bed instead of the main light.

At that point Himself goes downstairs and I pull the duvet over my head.

Five minutes later he’s back again to inform me that the dog has been sick and he doesn’t have time to clean it up – I’d made him late for work with my arguing. To give him his due he doesn’t normally rise to an argument, no matter how hard I try – it's usually me that starts it. I know, I know - that has really surprised you - you just can't imagine me arguing at all. *cough* Have you any idea how bloody annoying it is when you’re in the mood for a bloody good shouting match and your opponent just won't respond? He's so bloody laid back, my husband, that he's horizontal.

To cut to the chase I got up, cleaned up - making sure he knew I was a martyr and eventually kissed him goodbye. The swine does it to me every time. Whenever we’ve had words and I’m still gunning for him he insists that before he leaves we kiss and make up. We can still be at the point where we both disagree with each other and we‘ll talk about it again later, it could still get heated again, but he refuses to carry the argument on all day when we’re not together – or go to bed on an argument for that matter. What’s the point? We’d both be upset or angry, which just eats away at you and a little thing suddenly gets blown out of all portion. This way, 9 times out of 10, it never gets mentioned again. May be that’s why we’re still married after all these years. I don’t suppose it would work for everyone, but it works for us.

It was Scally’s fault.

Yes it was. Well, it was obviously not my fault at any rate.

We had heavy rain here yesterday, so unusual for England. Youngest child didn’t want to ride his moped to work so asked me to take him in the car instead. Being a good mummy (or a sucker for a very sorrowful pair of brown eyes, if you prefer) I did just that.

The traffic around here is still a nightmare and yesterday, due to the weather, it was even more chaotic than usual. I only just managed to get child to work on time; I think I hit every traffic jam going. Child told me he finished work at five and would wait just outside the main gate for me. No problem says I, just remember what the traffic is like at the moment so you may have to wait a bit.

Move forward in time – I was a little bit bored yesterday, not really in the mood to work. I blame PMT myself (I can’t as yet think of a way of blaming Scally for that, but give me time I’m working on it). I was obviously hormonal – which in turn does affect your level of concentration. If I had done any work yesterday afternoon I would, without a doubt, have made loads of mistakes. Which in turn would have lead to me having to re-do it all again at a later date. So obviously the safest, cost effective thing to do was to talk to Scally instead. That way I wouldn’t have to waste time later this week correcting mistakes; I could just concentrate on knocking tasks off my ‘to do list’ instead. I hope you’re keeping up with this. I put such a lot of effort into coming up with these excuses; I would hate you to not appreciate the skill levels involved.

Now I can honestly say, hand on heart, that I do not IM whilst at work. I do have messenger install on my machine but I never use it…..except for yesterday afternoon that is. When I got into a conversation with Scally. See what I mean? Fancy encouraging me like that.

Anyway it did pass a few hours by and as it got to around 5.15 I thought I really ought to be getting home now. The tea doesn’t cook itself after all. So I closed down my computer, but the dishwasher on and fed the fish. Time to go home.

I then made a dash for the car, it was pouring down outside. Even running the few yards to the car meant I ended up very wet. I opened the door quickly and got in out (shake it all about – sorry I’m in one of those moods today) of the rain, spent a few minutes finding a channel on the radio with decent music on to listen too and started to drive home – must have been around 5.30 by then. Well it was around that time, at any rate, that I remembered child was waiting for me to pick him up.

By the time I got there the poor thing was doing a bloody good impersonation of a drown rat; I don’t think he had a dry piece of clothing on him. He did look very sad for himself. He knew I said I was going to be a bit late, but he didn't think it was going to take me nearly an hour. I then did what most mothers would have done – I blamed my late arrival on the amount of traffic. Obviously we know it was all Scally’s fault, but no point in the child thinking she was out to get him.

Funnily enough this morning, although it was still raining, he decided that he’d go to work on his bike.

++++

Just received text from Pooks:

"Aaaarrgh!"

Oh. Dear. Is anyone going past starbucks?

The best laid plans and all that. This weekend I was going to wander around the countryside taking photos of the arrival of autumn. What I in fact ended up doing was looking after my dad who unfortunately passed a kidney stone.

Very, very, painful and physically very sick too. Due to the sickness he was unable to get any relief from the pain killers he was taking as he couldn’t keep them down long enough for them to have any effect, so in the end I rang the Primary Care Unit, which around here has taken over from your doctor’s surgery at the weekend.

They had three doctors on call for the whole of Kidderminster, Stourport and surrounding areas. They were willing to send a doctor out to see dad but the wait would be around the two to three hour mark. If I took him in to the PCU he could see someone in an hour. So we plumped for that option.

We arrived and booked in, the place was really busy but dad went through straight away. A man sat opposite me then started to moan at the receptionist – the grandmother had some sort of bite on her leg and it had formed a red swollen water type blister. He apparently didn’t take too kindly to having to wait two hours to see someone, especially as my dad had just walked through the door and gone straight in and started making his feelings on the subject known to everyone in general.

Now you know what I’m like when I’m not well – I’m your basic evil bitch to put it bluntly. The mild mannered Sue is still in there somewhere, no doubt hiding hoping for normality to return asap. I didn’t say anything to start with – the receptionist pointed out to him that my dad had rang up for an appointment, where as they had just turned up. She’d booked them in to see the doctor but other people were booked in before them. Obviously that didn't make a difference as far as he was concerned.

They’d been sat here waiting for nearly half an hour now, the doctor should have seen them, why should he (indicating the door my dad had walked through) just walk in and get seen, he should have waited the same as everyone else. She should have slotted grandmother in between appointments.

The receptionist didn’t get chance to answer this time – I got there first:

He'd gone straight in as I had rang up for an appointment an hour ago, he’d done his waiting for the doctor at home in intense pain (the man was now looking embarrassed – it’s one thing mouthing off in general; he obviously wasn’t expecting me to answer him back). Did he walk in to the doctor’s surgery and expect to be seen straight away? No, he knew he’d need an appointment and would have rang up first. So why did he think it was any different now? (by this time his whole family are giving him killer looks). What gave him the right to just jump in front of everyone?

He then apologised to me – it’s wasn’t me he was getting at but the fact that there wasn’t enough doctors on call. Yeah, right - and don't you just hate it when someone you don't know calls you 'love'? I then pointed out that if he genuinely had concerns over the health system in operation he should put pen to paper and write to his MP (bet he doesn't know who his MP is), not sit here being down right rude to the receptionist who was only trying to do her job or rude to the world in general for that matter. Everyone sat there had been given an appointment, a lot of them were in pain (little girl sat crying quietly on her mother lap, obviously with earache), all wanted to be seem as quickly as possible but understood that they were in a queue and were waiting their turn.

His wife then pipes up that I should take no notice of him, he was always talking crap; they were going to wait their turn the same as the rest - the last bit is said as she glares at him. The man by this time is trying to sink into the back of his seat and the receptionist is grinning like mad at me.

My dad came out at that point and we went home. The injection did stop him being sick but didn’t have any effect on the pain. So two hours later I rang back up and got him another appointment. This time Himself took my dad to PCU. The receptionist was still the same one from earlier; she told my dad to take a seat and rang through to the doctor, who called him straight through.

She then went on to tell Himself how nice it was that someone had stuck up for her, as she would have loved to have been able to tell the man a few home truths regarding his manners, but wasn’t allowed to.

Himself is now of the opinion that I probably shouldn't be let out by myself when I'm in one of those moods - according to him it could have turned nasty. Too bloody right it could - I could have thump the chap! Although I don't think that was what he was getting at.

I just didn’t get round to blogging yesterday. My cold just got worse and started to affect my chest. Unfortunately I didn’t have my inhalers with me; I don’t use them very often. I changed handbags and didn’t move them over and the others were on the bedside cabinet.

I tried to cough up a lung at work yesterday morning but failed miserably – the lengths we women go to just to lose some weight. After driving everyone nuts with my barking I decided that it might just be a good idea to visit the doctors. The tight band constricting my chest was a clue, along with the green gluey stuff that I eventually managed to get past my throat. At times like that I’m grateful for Kleenex – ordinary tissues just aren’t up to it. If you’re not careful one blow and you’ve a shredded bit of paper and a handful of snot. You just can’t cut cost on the important things.

I’m going to have a bit of a moan now – Oh, for heavens sake, don’t roll your eyes like that, you should be used to it. I don’t go to the doctors very often, just (and here’s a clue, Mrs Receptionist) when I’m ill. So having the mini Hitler on the end of the phone interrogating me as to whether it was urgent and basically wanting to know the insides and outsides of a paper bag didn’t go down too well. And I bloody well refuse to discuss my illness with some jumped up snotty nosed cow on a power ride. It’s private; I’ve told her I’m ill, so I’m damned sure I’m not telling her what’s wrong with me. Although as I kept coughing during our conversation – at one point I was coughing that much that even started to gag - it wouldn’t have taken a rocket scientist to have come up with the answer...

…. After a friendly chinwag with the receptionist I eventually got my emergency appointment.

I must have spent more time on the telephone trying to get the appointment than I did face to face with the doctor. I was in and out so bloody fast I hardly had time to flash my bra at him. But he did confirm my suspicions, I have a chest infection. It’s OK, I don’t expect sympathy – I know better than that. You’re not likely to care *cough* how ill I am as you’re all too busy after all. I mean, you’ve not even had time to send me feedback on those two stories yet – No, Sommer, I’m not including you or Margaret in that subtle hint. But yes to everyone else; I am still wittering on about it.

Anyway, I collected the antibiotics from the chemist and I tried going home to bed. Within a minute of walking through the door my dad wanted me to look at the dressing on his leg and the cat demanded to be fed. Am I the only one who feeds the cat in our house? Neither of them asked me how I was or what I was doing home during the day.

I eventually made it to bed but it just made me cough even more lying down, so I got up again. I moped around for a bit. You know what it’s like when you feel like crap but don’t know what to do with yourself? Being ill is boring so I did what most people would do, I went back into work – even sitting through a departmental self assessment is slightly less boring than being ill in bed with no one to look after you. And I may just as well be ill at work as at home, at least at work Craig makes me drinking chocolate and feels sorry for me.

I did think about taking the day off today, but then remembered the car had to go for its MOT. Eldest drove me back to work early this morning – all of the roads have been dug up around here and its traffic chaos. Half an hour to drive just two miles. I now need to find some sucker who will agree to drive me back to the garage tonight as I’m fairly sure I’ll not manage to walk it without keeling over in the process.

And believe me that wouldn’t be a good thing, I don’t want to get found out for a start. Himself was making muttering noises about me going to the doctors this morning as I didn't appear to be getting any better. You see, I haven’t actually told him I’ve already been or that I’m on antibiotics. He’d only end up asking really stupid questions, such as ‘if you went to the doctors, why the hell did you go back into work if you were ill’ and I didn’t feel up to it to be honest.

Then he'd have insisted that I didn’t go in today either, which would have made life difficult with the car. I was just thinking of him, really. He'd have taken time off work to take it instead of me, so I decided that if I stretched the truth just a tad I could say I went to the doctors today instead. I obviously couldn’t go home afterwards as I’ve no car and I’ve then got the rest of the weekend to recovery. It’s hardly twisting the truth by much, now is it?

My cold seems to be getting worse. It’s not that I’ve a runny nose as such, I could cope with that – it’s that horrible snotty thing when it keeps going down the back of your throat. Yuck! And it’s making me cough all of the time, including all through the night which is keeping everyone awake. We’ve all got that zombie look about us. The worrying thing is, when that has happened in the past, it’s ended up affecting my chest. And let’s be honest here – there enough chest to affect.

Being tired is making me irritable too – I’m well aware of the fact so I’m consciously biting my tongue. Literally at one point, so that will no doubt end in an ulcer.

The cat is in my bad books too. Whenever I did manage to drop off to sleep last night she kept waking me up. So she loves me, but does she have to insist on keep proving the fact. It’s a big enough bed for her to sleep between us, but oh no, that isn’t good enough. She has to lie on my back, my arm or my chest and when that failed and I kept pushing her away, she resorted to sleeping on my pillow. It was like trying to sleep with a pneumatic drill right by your ear. And she just doesn’t take the hint. Even when you’re so pissed off, grumpy, with a headache and really tired that you’ve thrown her off the bed – ten minutes later she’s back again.

I know what you’re thinking – why not take her downstairs and shut the door. Did that. The constant scratching on the door and meowing was nearly as bad as the purring in my ear. Her own form of Chinese water torture. I gave very serious thought to chucking her outside and if it hadn’t been pouring down with rain and I wasn’t an animal lover; I’d have done just that. She eventually gave in and went to sleep – half an hour before the alarm went off that is.

It’s OK for her, she went back to bed after breakfast this morning. I wonder if people will assume I’m mad if I keep popping home to wake her up?

++++

Eldest is struggled with his nice self at the moment. His best friend, the Best Man, now can’t make the wedding. He’s had the chance of back packing around the world with some other friends and has decided to go. Son is obviously pleased for him but at the same time a little bit disappointed that he’s not going to be there for him on his big day and can't work it that he ends up in Rhodes at that time. They’ve been friends since they met at playgroup and he’s obviously upset. Every one we’ve suggested to take his place, he doesn’t want. He’s told his dad that he wants him to be Best Man now. Apparently if the Bride’s father traditionally gives her away, then his Dad can kind of give him away too. He’s always been there for him and he’s never let him down (see Nice Self just can’t help it). And I can write the Best Man’s speech for him. Yes, aren’t I the lucky one? Never mind, I’m sure it will work itself out in the end.

Friday night shopping wasn’t so bad – I found the new Terry Pratchett novel for sale. I knew it was due out soon, I hadn’t realised just how soon. Christmas friend visited and I shared what was left of my bottle of wine - I'd brought myself a nice bottle of wine to celebrate the payrise I'd been given on Friday and rather enjoyed the drinking of it before she turned up. I was a little merry, to say the least and she only got one glass from the bottle. How the worm has turned!

Saturday afternoon was spent walking around Belbroughton taking pictures of the Scarecrows – this year’s theme was James Bond 007.
We had lunch in one of the local pubs, which was nice but I started to get a sickly headache so didn’t eat all of it. No, it wasn't a hangover, we’ve had a head cold doing its rounds at work and I, being the generous sort, brought it home for the weekend.

I came home and watched the Rugby - I've still not got my head fully around that game. As far as I can tell it involves running with the ball and a lot of men jumping on top of you - such fun!

Most of Sunday was spent in bed, not with Himself - but a box of tissues and my book, other than a half an hour uploading photos and answering e-mails that is.

Today I’ve had to take the dogs to Bev’s for their haircuts, wash, blow dry and manicure. Due to road works it took half an hour to travel a couple of miles. It’s also Payroll day and I’m still feeling far from on form – I’d have taken the day off if possible. Never mind – no point in being a martyr and not letting everyone know, now is there?



Remember I said last week that the role of Office Manager is a diverse one? Well I had a new job added to my list. This time it was ‘can you look at this lad’s back? I think he may have Chicken Pocks’. See? Get all the good jobs, me. And yes, I had to agree although I’d have said shingles myself. So looks like there another epidemic doing the rounds in this area. Poor kid, he was in a fair bit of pain with it as well.