NotSheep

We aimed to leave the house by 9 o’clock this morning - or rather, I aimed to do so; nobody else seemed to have any intention of being out before lunchtime. We walked out the door at 9.33.

Why would we leave the house so early? (The schoolies can stop laughing - it’s early for us.) Well, several children needed haircuts. There’s a barber-shop in town where the guy does a good job reasonably cheaply, so that’s where we go (unless I do it myself). The only problem is that he takes his time - which is not a bad thing, I suppose, but he takes half an hour per customer. It doesn’t seem to matter how old his customer is, or how much hair he has - it’s always half an hour. And he doesn’t make appointments - it’s first-come, first-served. So if there are three other customers waiting when you arrive, you can assume you’ll be leaving the barber’s chair at some point between two and two-and-a-half hours in the future. If you manage to get there first thing in the morning, the odds of being the first or second customer are good, so it takes less time.

I was going to leave Barney there with Jack, because Jack was the shaggiest child, and also because he cut off a hank of his own hair a week ago. But when I thought about the whole waiting-for-them thing, I decided to leave George, Freddy and Jack there, with dire warnings about best behaviour ringing in their ears (the last time I left them there, they were asked to wait outside the shop because they were messing about so much). And I took Barney, Toby and Louie with me to do some errands.

I got a parking space just across the road from the bank, and reversed into it - and noticed lots of smoke moving upwards past the driver’s door… There were no warning lights on, it had been driving fine, no odd noises etc. I opened the bonnet/hood and all looked fine there (as if I’d know if something looked wrong, but anyway). So I went to the bank, and when I came back, everything still seemed fine. The car started without any more smoke, and I drove off, intending to find someone who could tell me whether this was a get-it-serviced-soon situation or a get-it-towed-now one.

I did one errand before returning to collect Jack from the barber, and asked the barber if he knew of a mechanic. He recommended his own - just a couple of miles away. Jack’s hair wasn’t finished yet, so I headed to the mechanic without him. The mechanic looked around and under my car, tested the brakes, had a look at the engine, made some noises…and announced that he reckoned I’d collected a plastic bag. The smoke had been the remnants of the plastic bag burning off. Bring on the plastic-bags tax, I say. It would make more sense than penalising larger families with higher road-tax anyway.

Back for Jack, leaving George and Freddy to continue their best-barber-shop-behaviour, and the rest of us went to the library. George and Freddy walked to the library to meet up with us - the first time they’ve been unsupervised in town. We spent a pleasant hour in the library despite Toby falling face-first onto the corner of a table, and despite the return of the grumpy-knickers librarian I’ve written about before. Today as I browsed holding Louie, she picked up the sock that had fallen off his foot onto the floor and said “You lost this” with a disapproving look. And when we were getting our books issued (by another librarian) she came over and asked if she could help. I handed her the book that Toby was borrowing, and she issued it with a “oh for heaven’s sake” look. I do think she’d be happier if nobody came into the library at all. I heard about another even worse librarian this week who’d closed the library because the computers weren’t working, and when told by a family that they were there for the books, said they could come in but she wouldn’t turn the lights on because it would only attract more people

(Before anyone thinks I’m down on librarians - I’m not! Most of ours are great - and I used to be one myself, so I know there’s a wide range of people in the business!)

While we were there, Toby was wandering around; I asked what he was doing and he replied in an off-hand tone, “Just looking for a book.” Uhuh.

What else happened this week…oh, I had an extremely spendy cup of tea. It wasn’t very costly to start with - what’s the cost of a single teabag anyway? - but when it leapt out of my hands and all over my laptop keyboard, it suddenly became quite a lot more expensive. I did hope the laptop might recover once it was taken apart and dried out - in my experience Toshiba laptops take quite a bit of abuse before they give up - but the keyboard was a goner. I was lucky enough to find a small local company specialising in laptop repairs and so my laptop went to visit them on Wednesday while we all went to visit friends. I hadn’t realised how beat-up my old keyboard was until I saw it next to the new one and realised that once upon a time it, too, had had keys with textured surfaces. They’re all flat and shiny now!

We’d a Beavers parents meeting on Tuesday - the other Leaders weren’t sure if I was coming back, but I might as well, because it’s not worth coming home between leaving Jack off and picking him up. As expected, I’ve been asked to do the programming again this year. Beavers starts again on Tuesday, so this weekend will find me scouring websites for activity ideas.

Freddy and George went to ju-jitsu on Monday; George had a meltdown on his return because he was the last one out of the car and managed to get himself locked in. I thought maybe he didn’t realise that the driver’s door opens from the inside even if it’s locked, but he told me he didn’t even know if the other doors were locked or not He thought he’d be there all night - even though he knew that Scratchy would be going out again later to collect Barney from Air Cadets

Scouts and Cubs and St John Ambulance Cadets were all back this week too. By yesterday, there were lots of tired grumpy children - they’ve got too used to lazing about over the summer. I think we were all ready for the summer break in activities, but I also think the boys are very ready to return to them now. It’ll be easier once they’ve been back into the usual routine for a week or two - I hope.